Labels: blogosphere, comics history, links

Labels: C-List, links

We just launched the brand new Montreal Comic-Con website - www.montrealcomiccon.com. Please feel free to send us your comments and/or suggestions about it. Any comments and/or suggestions regarding the event itself are also welcomed.

See you in September!

Oscar, Elizabeth and Alex :)

We've just launched the mini-site for Sword of My Mouth, making the first two issues (and commentary from me and Shannon) available for subscribers and people who've pre-ordered the graphic novel. It's the first third (48 pages) of the book so far, and we'll be adding a chapter every other month until we launch the complete graphic novel edition at next year's Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

One of the things we did differently with this book was research, and so I'll take this opportunity to write a bit about that...

Labels: conventions, links, Montreal, new books, Ontario, publishing, Quebec, Toronto, webcomics

Labels: British Columbia, C-List, comic jams, conventions, international, interviews, links, new books, Ontario, publishing, Quebec, social ink, Toronto, Vancouver, webcomics

Labels: C-List, links

"Yoshihiro Tatsumi, a Japanese manga pioneer, attempts to transform the solitary life of the cartoonist into an outsized adventure story."

Labels: C-List, international, links

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: C-List, international, links

Labels: C-List, comic strips, comics history, graphic novels, links

Labels: conventions, events, events links, festivals, international, links, mocca

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: awards, C-List, events, graphic novels, international, links, tcaf, TCAF09, Toronto

Labels: blogosphere, C-List, comics in libraries, events, graphic novels, links, tcaf, TCAF09, Toronto, webcomics

Labels: awards, C-List, comics in libraries, events, graphic novels, links, tcaf, TCAF09, Toronto

Labels: awards, C-List, comics in libraries, conventions, events, graphic novels, links, tcaf, TCAF09, Toronto

Labels: C-List, links, Ontario, tcaf, TCAF09, Toronto

Labels: C-List, links, movies, publishing, U.S. superhero franchises

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"the company sent retailers across the country about 4,000 copies of a promotional comic book it created, called The Literates. The comic features the exploits of bookselling superheroes Spine and Paige, who endeavour – in the first issue, at any rate – to convince a reader to purchase American author Christopher Moore's Fool. [...] The eight-page pamphlet has the look and feel of a real comic, and it comes in a protective plastic sleeve with cardboard backing, just like at a real comic book store."

"prosaically called Canadian Booksellers Association Summer Conference 2009, will be held June 20-21 in a hotel on Toronto's downtown waterfront. Billed as "stronger, smarter, shorter and sweeter" than BookExpo, it promises a potpourri of events and opportunities - professional development sessions, an awards ceremony, panel discussions with publishing executives, author presentations, previews of marketing, promotion and advertising plans."

Labels: C-List, conventions, events, festivals, links, new books, publishing, reviews

Labels: C-List, links

Labels: blogosphere, C-List, cartoon reportage, interviews, links

• A blast from the past: Canadian animator, superhero creator, and comic book artist blogs about the golden age of Nelvana and "classical" animation in Canada. As you can see from the Sequential playlist up top, we feel that the Nelvana Rock N' Rule movie was a seminal moment in Canadian culture and punk rock. (this is an old link, but worth checking out)

• Internet sensation, Wright Award nominee, and damn fine cartoonist Kate Beaton is profiled in Maclean's Magazine. Sample excerpt: Beaton herself is defensive of this territory, bristling in fact at the suggestion that CanCon could possibly be dull. "Our history is the march of thousands of people across a continent trying to make a life for themselves," she replies. "How can it be boring?"

• Speaking of the Wright Awards (full disclosure: your humble blogger is one of the organizers of said event), Canada's literary news magazine Quill and Quire has some choice quotes from trophy designer Seth and director Brad Mackay. Quote: Mackay will be handing the job over to actor Don McKellar. "I wanted to step it up a bit this year," (...) Mackay will also be trying to increase the ceremony's entertainment quotient, acknowledging that the awards show could be "really boring"... (Chris Butcher also comments on the nominees here.)

• Not comics but sorta comics? dept: Some people from the Degrassi tv show (which was turned into a series of bestselling graphic novels by J. Torres and Ramon Perez) are involved in a stage production about the adult lives of characters from the U.S. comic strip Peanuts: "Dog Sees God" explores what might have happened to the Peanuts kids once they grow up and enter high school (the play has not been authorized by the Charles M. Schulz estate).

• R.I.P. Carol Phillips. The Winnipeg editor was responsible for the lesbian magazine Swerve, gave space to queer comic strips.

• Svetlana Chmakova's Dramacon manga is being offered through Uclick at the Apple Store. Is this the first paper Canadian graphic novel to be available electronically for hand-held devices? Quote: "We're making Dramacon 1.1 free because it gives us a chance to show off our panel-by-panel reading format with a very popular book from our lineup," said Uclick CEO Douglas Edwards. "The Uclick comic apps offer the slickest and most intuitive comics reading experience on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and we offer the widest variety of titles and genres on the Apple devices.

• Click here to read more on Canadian wrestler/actor James Preston Rogers latest bid to play Thor in Kenneth Branagh's movie production of the Marvel superhero created by Jack Kirby. Rogers' bid for the arian ubermensch role has resulted in a viral campaign (which I guess you're reading part of). According to the National Post, Rogers likens his experience as a bouncer to the thunder god's exile to Midgard as a lame physician.

• Silver Snail is having its annual MARCH BREAK SALE from Monday March
  16th to Sunday March 22nd ... each day is a different sale, one day might be
  20% off action figures, the next might be 20% off books/comics. To
  find out the daily sales, call the store number, 416-593-0889

• International: The Globe and Mail covers the upcoming publication of a collection of S & M illustrations purported to be by Superman co-creator Joe Shuster. Although Shuster was a U.S. citizen living in Cleveland when he first illustrated Jerry Siegel's vision of the Man of Steel, he is often referred to as Canadian because he lived in Toronto until he was 10. This book of pornographic images from the 1950s is edited by U.S. designer Craig Yoe and features images from a series of paperback pulp novels called "Nights of Horror". Although several sources have disputed the authorship of the drawings, attributing them rather to members of Shuster's studio, the book is still very intriguing, especially if it proves that Joe Shuster was a pornographer, making explicit the link between sex and superheroes that has existed as a theme of the genre from the very beginning. (Caveat: the article labels as a "myth" that Shuster was screwed by National Periodicals aka DC aka Warner Brothers out of millions of dollars for Superman. This is no myth. It really happened.)

• Speaking of Joe Shuster: at the Shuster Awards blog, an interview with Oshawa Ontario comics retailer Tim Simms of World's Collide. Simms really likes Thor comics. The blog also offers the first link I've seen to the Obama tribute by Dave Sim (see top image).

• The Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists has an excerpt from a new book by BC policart Adrian Raeside, who recently made a trip to Antarctica.

• Cartoons about Bill Bennett: The B.C. politico W.A.C. Bennett is featured in a new exhibit at the Kelowna Museum. Images by great Canadian cartoonists like Sid Barron, Len Borris and (the still with us) Roy Peterson are featured in the exhibit, which runs to April 28th.

• Bryan Lee O'Malley ran a contest on his blog inviting people to stage their own photos of scenes from the Scott Pilgrim books. Here are the winners.

• Going the recent DC "After Watchmen" campaign to promote their backlist one better, GQ recommends some comics not published by Warner Brothers, including books by Seth and Guy Delisle. I almost wrote "thumbs down for including Mike Allred's Madman" but when you think about it, Madman is almost better than Watchmen because of its honesty.

Labels: C-List, links, Thor

BEFORE YOU START
"Someone wrote in another Xeric testimonial that you should not attempt self-publishing and all of this business unless you have no choice. This is really true. It's a tonne of work, there's no money in it, and trying to put comic books out there for public consumption is another full-time job on top of doing the actual (creative) work. I have tried to get rid of my bookish compunctions from every possible angle. I went to art school to learn how to make stuff to put into books. I talked emptily about potential book projects for years. I took a course in book publishing so I could make other peoples' books. I've read a million books looking for one that hasn't been written or illustrated yet. And yet all of this has still brought me here."

Labels: blogosphere, how-to, links, Ontario, tools of the trade, Toronto

• Sheridan students need donations to help print their annual art book, which usually has some comics.

• British Beano artist turned Canadian resident David Parsons teaches cartooning class for the kids on during March Break

• Darwin Lee, a painter, cartoonist and graphic designer/illustrator, has died in Chilliwack, BC, age 65.

• At the Walrus blog, Sean Rogers provides a corrective to Watchmania, a well-argued list of comics that are critical of superheroes.

• In a trio of posts, the critic Jeet Heer makes a few points about the Watchmen comic: Heer trashes New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane's misapprehension of comics as art form, then gives the nod to Carter Scholz's 20-year-old critique of Watchmen's crappiness, but then links to Frank Santoro's defense of the book, which basically says that you have to be a true believer (ie, superhero lover) to "get" how radical Alan Moore's comic is.

• For good measure, I'll add this link of a history of the Watchmen, illustrated by Steve Murray for the National Post.

• The Shuster Awards blog features an interview with Terrace, B.C. comics retailer Gerry Matson of Comic Encounters.

• Laurier prof writes book about comics, is "totally looking forward" to Watchmen movie.

• The same writer conducts a retailer roundtable with several Canadian comic book shops.

• IDW to reprint Captain Canuck in hardcover format.

• Seth is interviewed at Toro magazine --the same magazine that partly serialized his still-unfinished graphic novel a few years ago (a message to the wise: track down those rare back issues!).

• Young cartoonist Sara Mayhew speaks at tech conference.

• Quill and Quire examines the jury for the upcoming Wright Awards (full disclosure: I am a Wright Awards organizer)

Labels: C-List, links

• The Shuster Awards have announced a new prize, The Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishing. The award is named for Day (1951-1982) is perhaps best known as an inker on Marvel's Master of Kung Fu in the 70s and as an early mentor to Dave Sim. He was also a pioneer self-publisher and zine publisher, specializing in horror, sci-fi and other genre material.

• Matt Forsythe blogs about the cover design to his Ojingogo graphic novel.

• Not too many cartoonists from the Great White North ever reach a level of success where large toy companies start making action figures of their creations. This small club now includes Jay Stephens.

• It's a Canada Goose! It's an Avro Arrow! It's ..... Superloonie. ATB Financial, a stock broker, has released a superhero comic designed to help people contribute to an RRSP at tax time.

• Jiving Jeet Heer, the wisest of Canadian comics critics, is interviewed about classic comic strips and Canadian comics culture at CBR's Robot 6 column.

Labels: awards, C-List, cartoon reportage, links

• Lynn Johnston tries a kids book.

• At the Shusters blog: Calgary retailer Another Dimension interviewed;

• Toronto Comics Arts Festival adds 13 more guests (for a total of 120), including Kate Beaton and Ho Che Anderson.

• Stuart and Kathryn Immonen are interviewed at Newsarama.

• Toronto comic shop The Beguiling on approved list of suppliers for Ontario schools.

• At the Globe and Mail, copyright lawyer Grace Westcott discusses the Google bookscanning legal decision ("Google is a behemoth, and the Google Settlement, if approved, will make it the behemoth of the book. It sits astride the textual murmurings of the world. Will the restraints of the Book Registry be enough to keep it from abusing such a position, or will they be like the ropes of the Lilliputians around the sleeping Gulliver?")

• Webcomics wunderkind Ryan Sohmer interviewed at CBR.

• The Inkstuds podcast interviews Vancouver underground legend George Metzger. (that's his comic up top)

Labels: C-List, links, undergrounds

• Canwest Global, the multinational media company run by the Asper family and publisher of the National Post, continues to have financial trouble.

• Conservative columnist Robert Fulford writes about the "newspaper deathwatch" hysteria.

• Chris Butcher catches the news that Diamond will no longer carry or distribute over 1000 manga volumes published by U.S.-based VIZ. For those not in the know, VIZ is essentially the publisher of the bestselling comics in Canada, even though the de-listed volumes may not be the bestselling comics currently (if ever).

• Speaking of which, the Beat discusses the Diamond bestsellers for January, featuring backlist titles.

• Win Darwyn Cooke stuff. Mail-in a postcard for a chance at rare publications, posters, etc.

• Seaguy sneak-peak: Cameron Stewart pencils for the upcoming Grant Morrison series. The latest installment of Stewart's Sin Titulo webcomic is now online.

• Chip Zdarsky writes a heartfelt valentine to comic books. "Sniff!" It's goddam beautiful!

• The McGill daily profiles Diane Obomsawin, whose Kaspar Hauser graphic novel has just been published by Drawn and Quarterly.

• A profile of Marni Stanley's university comics class at Vancouver Island University.

• Canadian sex columnist salivates over homosexual superheroes.

• Does the Canadian media and education system not do enough to promote Canadian books? Cormorant Books publisher Mark Cote argues this is the case in an essay for the Globe.

• Let's hear it for the Guelph Pen Club! Click to see the drunken scrawls of local cartoonists including Nick Craine and Jay Stephens.

Labels: C-List, links