Sequential: Canadian Comics News & Culture

The C-List: International Long Weekend Blues

2009-07-03T03:06:00.001-04:00

Item: Skim, Country Nurse nominated for Harvey Awards in the Best Graphic Album category. As well, Lar deSouza and Ryan Sohmer, creators of the webcomic Least I Could Do, were nominated in several categories. (In an interesting post, Tom Spurgeon makes a plea for getting rid of the Harveys).

Item: Jeet Heer on nostalgia in comics.

Item: Tom Spurgeon has a thorough obituary for U.S. cartoonist B.M. Duncan. Duncan's art was a highlight of Weirdo magazine in the 1980s and was a radical, humane talent.

Item: Captain Canuck co-creator Richard Comely is interviewed by the K-W Record's Kevin Swayze.

Item: Brad Mackay reviews Tatsumi's Drfiting Life bio.

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

Shuster Awards Kids Nominations

2009-07-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

The nominees in the "Comics for Kids" category of the Joe Shuster Awards have been announced. The nominees were selected by a jury of teachers. The winner will be announced in September.

Clayton Hanmer, CTON's Super A-Maze-ing Year of Crazy Comics! (OwlKids)

Susan Hughes and Willow Dawson, No Girls Allowed (Kids Can Press)

Karl Kerschl and Serge Lapointe (with Amy Wolfram, USA), Teen Titans: Year One (DC Comics)

Liam O'Donnell and Michael Deas, Ramp Rats – A Graphic Guide Adventure (Orca Publishing)

Paul Roux, Ariane et Nicolas Tome 5: Les tours de Babel (Editions Les 400 Coups)

Chad Solomon (with Christopher Meyer, USA), The Adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws Vol. 2: The Voyageurs (Little Spirit Bear Productions)

Kean Soo, Jellaby Book 1 (Hyperion)

Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston, Emiko Superstar (DC/Minx)
Emiko cover comp

I'm Crazy wins Xeric Grant

2009-07-02T14:02:00.003-04:00

The Xeric Grants were announced this week and Toronto cartoonist Adam Bourret was one of the recipients for his serialized webcomic I'm Crazy, "an auto-biographical graphic novel, dealing with, among other things: histories, secrets, obsessive compulsive disorder, drugs, gay romance, hallucinations and insanity." Congratulations Adam!

The Xerics are made possible by Peter Laird, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They are awarded several times a year and go towards the cost of self-publishing a graphic novel or comic. Past Canadian winners of the Xeric include Essex County creator Jeff Lemire.

New Books: The Nobody by Jeff Lemire

2009-07-02T02:51:00.001-04:00

The Nobody
by Jeff Lemire.
DC/Vertigo
b+w, hardcover, 144 pages
US$19.99
ISBN 9781401220808

As Jeff Lemire notes on his blog, "Due to a mix up The Nobody will ship a week late and will now be in bookstores July 7 and Comic Book Stores July 8. I will however be signing at Comics And More at Danforth and Greenwood (steps from the Greenwood subway stop) in Toronto THURDSAY JULY 2, between 4-6 and I will have advance copies of THE NOBODY for sale a week early! I will also have a limited edition Nobody print, free for anyone who wants one and some other freebies, original artwork etc."

From the publisher:

The tiny, isolated fishing village of Large Mouth never saw much excitement — until the arrival of the stranger, that is. Wrapped from head to toe in bandages and wearing weird goggles, he quietly took up residence in the sleepy town's motel. Driven by curiosity, the townfolk quickly learn the tragic story of his past, and of the terrible accident that left him horribly disfigured. Eventually, the town embraces the stranger as one of their own — but do his bandages hide more than just scars?

Inspired by H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, THE NOBODY explores themes of identity, fear and paranoia in a small community from up-and-coming alternative comics creator and Xeric Award-winner Jeff Lemire (The Essex County Trilogy) in a special two-color story that'll have you guessing until the very end.

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-01T00:01:00.000-04:00

Happy Canada Day from Sequential!

The above image is the front cover of Mike Friedrich's Quack #3, a comic book published in 1977 (the year punk broke and the year of the Queen's silver jubilee). The Beavers was a short-lived newspaper strip by Dave Sim (of Cerebus fame). The cover of Quack was drawn by Sim with inks by Steve Leialoha.

To learn more about the genesis of The Beavers, check out issues of the new Cerebus Archive (issue #2 is on stands now), which retraces the early career of Sim.

Summer Reading: Dylan Horrocks

2009-06-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

We are deeply honoured to kick off our Summer Reading List Survey with cartoonist and writer Dylan Horrocks, creator of one of my favourite graphic novels of all time.

My thanks to Dylan for being the first to through the gate!

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Dylan Horrocks's Summer Reading List

OK, so my name is Dylan Horrocks, and I wrote and drew the graphic novel Hicksville, which is being reissued in a new edition in 2010 by Drawn & Quarterly, and also the comic books Pickle (Black Eye) and Atlas (Drawn & Quarterly). I've also written various things for DC Comics, but at the moment, I'm trying to finish a couple of new books, which I'm serialising online, at hicksvillecomics.com

Y'know, it's actually winter down here in New Zealand right now, but I tend to read more when it's rainy and horrible outside anyway. So here's my 2009 winter reading...

These days, I don't read many comics, and very few novels. I'm more a non-fiction guy, as a rule. But every now and then, I manage a novel or two, so let's get those out of the way first:

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami was on my reading pile for ages but I'm very glad I finally picked it up. It read more like a dream than a straight-forward story, which is one reason it slipped past my fiction-allergy and into my subconscious. It's strangely beautiful, almost meditatively slow, and very haunting. Highly recommended. I'll probably try some more Murakami - but not straight away (I don't want to hit my fiction-tolerance limit too quickly).

Paper Towns by John Green. A friend who writes teenage fiction (Anna McKenzie, whose The Sea-Wreck Stranger was one of the few novels I really enjoyed last year) recommended Green's Looking for Alaska when I saw her last. But the library was out of that, so I tried this instead. I'm glad I did, because it made me laugh out loud numerous times, and also hit some satisfyingly strong emotional chords. My wife reads a lot of teenage fiction, and says it's partly because it tends to have a moral dimension that's lacking in a lot of current adult writing. That's 'moral' rather than 'moralising' - i.e. it feels as though the author feels a responsibility to take their readers on a journey that's heartfelt and honest, respecting both their intelligence and their emotions. In contrast to just writing a yarn that will sell and make the author seem cool or smart. I don't know if that makes much sense to you, but it works for me. By the way, Paper Towns also serves as a nice introduction to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, which I've only ever read bits of before, but which I now want to read properly. Onto the reading pile it goes...

OK, so that's got the fiction out of the way. What else have I been reading?

The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World by David Abram is what I'm currently immersed in. I guess it's an example of 'deep green' philosophy, but I'm not reading it for the polemic so much as Abram's mind-bending take on how language and perception tie us into the rest of nature in profound ways. If I were looking for a convincing argument, this might not satisfy, but as an extremely lyrical exploration of being and seeing and listening and speaking (and, for that matter, writing), this totally hits the spot. I know I'll be thinking about this book for the rest of my life. Which is, of course, exactly what I want from a book!

The Mind at Night: the New Science of How and Why We Dream by Andrea Rock provided exactly what I wanted: a wide-ranging introduction to past and current scientific understandings of the process of dreaming. It's popular science, so it's readable and anecdotal, but there's enough solid crunch to fascinate and spark further reading. I quite suddenly got interested in dreams a few months ago, as a different way of looking at how stories work, and after trying a few books on the subject, this is the one I stuck with.

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit. This is one of those books that ostensibly focuses on a small detail of history (Muybridge's 19th century photography) and uses it as a lens through which to explore all kinds of complex and important things. You've probably seen Muybridge's famous sequential high speed photographs of everything from galloping horses to naked people walking (they are, after all, popular with comics theory wonks), but did you know that the man who funded the series in the first place was the notorious railroad baron Leland Stanford? By weaving Muybridge and Stanford's stories across the cultural, social and environmental landscapes of the American West, Solnit finds plenty of resonance and insight into the shadowy ghosts of American history, the rise of modern corporate industry (corrupt as it is), the genocidal oppression of Native Americans, and our changing sense of space and time. This last is what will stay with me longest, I think; the extent to which the industrial revolution, railroads, photography and film transformed our relationship to place and the passing of time is one of Solnit's central themes, and it's powerful stuff.

American Nerd: the Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent and The Elfish Gene: Dungeons and Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe both explore similar territory, and both use autobiography to do it. Nugent, however, is more journalistic in his approach, and at times his book feels like a collection of interesting articles. The best passages, for me anyway, were the intensely personal sections at the beginning and end. Barrowcliffe became a D&D nerd in 1970s England, and his account of the frequently destructive effect this had on his teenage years is compelling and frequently uncomfortable. His writing style occasionally grated with me, but in the end that seemed only appropriate, as the snide defensiveness that sometimes seeped into his narrative voice demonstrated only too well how uncomfortable he still is about the boy he once was. It's a fascinating book in part because it feels unresolved and unrefined; its flaws are the visible scars of a complex ambivalence seething just below the surface. And as a fellow D&D nerd (who first got into the game just a few years after Barrowcliffe), I found plenty to chortle and cringe about.

Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super-Heroes and Make-Believe Violence by Gerard Jones and Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson are books which set out to change your mind. Johnson wants to dispel the myth that pop culture is getting worse and dumbing us down - so he already had me pretty much on his side. Even so, there was plenty in there to get me thinking about new ideas, and I especially enjoyed his discussion of video games, and the increasing complexity of modern TV. Jones, on the other hand, had some work to do - he's trying to persuade us that violent entertainment is often a very positive thing for kids and young people. I went into this book as someone who felt very uncomfortable with the role of glamorised and eroticised violence in commercial entertainment; not least in comic books, including some of the superhero comics I'd written for DC. But I've always found Jones' non-fiction writing to be intelligent, subtle and nuanced (his 'Men of Tomorrow' is one of my favourite accounts of the early American comic book industry, and also one of my favourite books about the rise of modern American capitalism), so I was willing to hear him out. I'm happy to say, it was well worth the read. It's a very earnest book and sometimes gets a little repetitive, but it's also very persuasive. By the end of it, Jones had considerably deepened and complicated my thoughts on entertainment violence, instilling in me a new respect for the ways children and teenagers (and, I suppose, all of us) can use that imaginary violence in all kinds of healthy ways. If I had read this before writing for DC, I think I'd have done it very differently. I especially recommend both these books to anyone out there with kids who play first person shooters, enjoy action movies or have a fascination with slasher flicks. Jones' message is an important one: relax and take a deep breath. And then, without judging or panicking, take the time to find out what your kids actually like about this stuff. You might be pleasantly surprised...

Lastly, I went on one of my semi-regular war and atrocity reading sprees last year, and found some amazing books in the process. Best among them were Chris Hedges' War is a Force That Gives us Meaning' and Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke: the Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. Both are impassioned and personal, lyrical and horrifying. And whether you agree with the authors' conclusions or not, both are extraordinary works of art that can't help but enrich your understanding of the darkest shadows of the human condition. I can't recommend them highly enough. Hedges' book, particularly, has the kind of searing life-changing intensity you will never forget, and I challenge anyone to come away from it unmoved.

OK, I'll stop there. As you can probably tell, when I'm trying to find something to read, I usually want something that will rock my world and leave permanent impressions on my brain. One of life's greatest pleasures is feeling your whole sense of self and the world around you changing from page to page; maybe that's why I so quickly get annoyed with most novels, because so few achieve that. Murakami did, and over the past decade or so War and Peace (Tolstoy), Lolita (Nabokov) and Heart of Darkness (Conrad) have too. But most of my all-time favourite books are non-fiction (Gitta Sereny's Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, Tom Engelhardt's The End of Victory Culture: Cold war America and the Disillusioning of a Generation, Dan Baum's Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, Sallie Tisdale's Talk Dirty to Me: an Intimate Philosophy of Sex and many more), and more often than not, that's where I get the greatest pleasure and satisfaction.

Which is kind of weird, given that fiction is what I write...

New Interviews with Canadian Comics People

2009-06-30T01:36:00.002-04:00

At The Fabler Blog

Check out the new series of interviews with comics creators and businesspeople over at The Fabler Blog, part of Calgary's Zensoft Studios interesting new project thefabler.com, a social networking comunity for Comics Creators.

So far blogger Kevin de Vlaming

has nabbed interviews with -

Jeff Lemire

(Essex County)

Fiona Staples

(Secret History of the Authority:Hawksmoor)

Troy Little
(Chiaroscuro)

Jay Bardyla
(owner of Happy Harbor Comics)
Gareth Gaudin
(of Legends Comic and Books
in Victoria BC, & The Magic Teeth Dailies)

And more, here.

Summer Reading List

2009-06-29T13:00:00.002-04:00

The Second Annual Summer Reading Survey

Following on the success of last year, Sequential would like to run a feature on your Summer Reading List.

Please email us with your list. Tell us a bit about yourself (weblinks, current projects) and provide a list of books you have recently read and a list of books you would like to read this Summer. Please be as brief or as long-winded as you'd like.

Responses will be run on Sequential in their entirety over the Summer.

Again in point form, The Survey
1. Name/occupation (contact info/website/publisher's website).
2. What is your latest project (ie, what are you hyping)?
3. A list of books you have recently read or are planning to read. They don't have to be comic books. (In fact, we would almost prefer they weren't, you know, to show how erudite and worldly comics fans are, and stuff.) Any number of books is fine. Please feel free to comment (ie, Why are you reading these books? What did you think?).
4. Any upcoming events/upcoming publications? What is your next project?

The C-List: Summer News Blues

2009-06-29T02:15:00.001-04:00

Lots of links to catch up on:

Item: Policart and Order of Canada member Roy Peterson was feted by his West Coast brethren recently, having been fired by the Vancouver Sun after 47 years. In attendance were several other cartoonists (3rd item).

Item: Palookaville-mania continues. Seth hints at the contents of the upcoming newly-formatted Palookaville hardcover periodical.

Item: A Marmaduke movie? Those of you who may not be aware that the famous Great Dane is still appearing in the funnies may be very surprised to learn there is a movie in the works. It's being shot in B.C. and the cast is proving problematic.

Item: I totally missed this, but popular Halifax comics blogger Rachelle Goguen has changed the format of her Living Between Wednesdays blog and since April has been leading a team of bloggers at a new website.

Item: The National Post cover the Captain Canuck rerelease.

An argument for Blood

2009-06-28T21:59:00.003-04:00

Ok, so the headline is a bit hyperbolic, but it amused me.

This is pretty cool, Matt sent this to me while I was in NY an moronically i failed to post it then, dope. Sorry 'bout that.

This features some interesting pencil art, no inking and a lot of texture by Mike Shoyket. [link?]

Working on promoting Captain Blood, a novel adaptation I wrote for SLG, we were faced with the now-familiar quandry of how to encourage individual retailers to order the book rather than hoping to see it on shelves. Rather than get into the whole issue here, I refer you to the comic below -- rewritten and relettered pages from the original Captain Blood #1 -- that illustrate the whole situation in brilliant 1700s action!
Art by Mike Shoyket, lettering by David Hedgecock.

For my tardiness I claim exhaustion and a mild travelers high. Looked good right off but i only just read it all the way through now. Spoiler/Warning, "Big Publisher Beach" not cast in such a kind light here, I take it as satire myself but if you disagree perhapses you will mention this at your local comic shop and ask them what they think after showing them?

Enjoy!

And, there's a trailer too of course... :)

Captain Blood Trailer from SLG Publishing on Vimeo.

Wizard Buys Toronto Paradise Con

2009-06-25T10:56:00.007-04:00

This appears to be fairly big news.

The Paradise Comicon has been lagging in second place behind Hobbystar's giant Fanexpo for awhile now and suffered a blow when Kevin Boyd migrated some time back.

Paradise Comics owner Peter Dixon has now sold the convention off to Wizard's Gareb Shamus, according to a press release posted here. No dollar amount has been indicated.
[thanks to Dirk Deppey for the heads up!]

It is unclear whether the new Canadian addition to the Wizard publishing and convention empire will add to the apparently moribund company's bottom line or whether, as Tom Spurgeon suggests, it is a sideways move for Wizard-owner Shamus.

Reportedly, the Paradise con has had a hard time ever turning a profit, and was cancelled this year due to scheduling problems.

A problem, as Kevin Boyd notes on Jason Truong's blog, that may continue to plague the re branded con.

The next show is planned for 2010 with founder Peter Dixon still on board in some capacity to maintain the con's traditionally much more relaxed atmosphere according to The Beat, which is good news probably to many of the creators and dealers who've appreciated that distinction between the Conventions.

Updated: 6|29|09 20:14pm

Live Chat with Seth on CBC Today

2009-06-25T04:09:00.003-04:00

Graphic Novel month continues at the Canada Reads CBC Book Club. Host Hannah Sung (you remember her from the New Music) has been interviewing folks like crazy for their top 10 graphic novel recommendations. The other day it was Sean Jordan at Toronto's Silver Snail. Today is Peter from the Beguiling. Peter's #1 rec, George Sprott by Seth, leads to a live online chat today with Seth at 2pm ET. Full details here. Many people may be unaware that Seth actually can use a computer --here's your chance to quiz him about megahertz and facebook and stuff like that.

New Directors Announced and Creditors of Quebecor approve printing giant's reorganization plan

2009-06-24T11:04:00.002-04:00

By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 6/23/2009 5:44:00 AM

Creditors of Quebecor in both the U.S. and Canada have approved the printing giant's reorganization plan, clearing the way for the company to emerge from bankruptcy in mid-July. The company reported that 86% of creditors in the U.S. approved the plan while 96% of Canadian creditors supported the plan. A joint confirmation hearing on the U.S. plan and the Canadian plan is scheduled for June 30 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Barring any last minute issues, Quebecor anticipates consummating both plans next month. More on PW site here --->

New Books: Rex Libris 2

2009-06-24T01:15:00.001-04:00

Rex Libris Vol. 2: Book Of Monsters
by James Turner
SLG Publishing
US$17.95

Montreal Comic Jam

2009-06-23T18:00:00.000-04:00

Once a month, nearly every month! Tous les mois, ou presque!

An evening of good-humoured drawing, conversation and, incidentally, a wee bit of drinking.

Bring your artistic weapons of choice, be it wits or brushes. Both, ideally.

Venez dessiner, discuter, prendre un verre et libErer vos Energies crEatrices en notre compagnie. Aiguisez-bien vos crayons et votre esprit, on vous attend!

Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 7:30pm
L'Escalier
552, Ste-Catherine E
Montreal, QC

theMMCJgroup
BLOG

The C-List: International Edition

2009-06-23T01:04:00.000-04:00

Since the C in C-List is supposed to reference Canadian content as well as the perceived generally third-rate nature of Canadian cartooning news vis the rest of the world, I feel kind of weird making this partially international round-up of weblinks a regular C-list post. However, since the C-List is where this stuff usually gets dumped, I'm sticking with the format.

Item: The Musee de la bande dessinee opens in Angouleme, France.

Item: Inkstuds features a podcast documentary about comics as a medium and includes interviews with Jeet Heer and others. (go listen while you read the rest of this.)

Item: Speaking of Mr. Heer, you can read him on Chris Oliveros' achievement in creating and sustaining D+Q for 20 years, with words by Coach House Press' Stan Bevington.

Item: The first review I've seen of Darwyn Cooke's Parker crime novel adaptation.

Item: Iranian-Canadian political cartoonist Nik Kowsar is emerging as one of the most in-touch commentators on recent events in Iran, both in the mainstream media, and through his blog and cartoons.

Item: George Sprott in NOW.

Item: The great Mexican cartoonist Rius is 75 Years Old!

Item: The 7th issue of the international sketch magazine Le Sketch is now out, featuring illustrator Craig Atkinson's "sketches of people that might exist, but probably don't, mysterious diagrams and imaginary buildings".

Item: Chester Brown's Louis Riel graphic novel makes the top ten of the Toronto Star international list of best/most important books of the decade so far.

New Books: The Collected Captain Canuck, Vol 1

2009-06-22T06:00:00.002-04:00

Captain Canuck Vol. 1
Written by Richard Comely, art by George Freeman, Jean-Claude St.Aubin
152 Pages
$24.99
Full-colour hardcover
IDW Publishing
June 2009

An archival edition of the seminal 1970s superhero comic book series featuring art by the underrated yet fondly-remembered George Freeman. Erroneously credited as "Canada’s first superhero" by re-publisher IDW, the first volume features issues #4-10 of the original series published by Comely Comics (widely available in bargain bins for decades).

Hugues Labiano @ chez Planete BD

2009-06-20T03:04:00.003-04:00

Singing with Hugues Labiano
Saturday, July 4, 2009
2:00pm - 4:00pm
Planete BD
3883 St-Denis
Montreal, QC

Facebook event page
and found a clip about the work too...

This Weekend: Vancouver Comics Jam

2009-06-19T10:59:00.000-04:00

Ed Brisson writes:

When: Saturday, June 20, 2009 at 8pm-1am
Where: Clubhouse Japanese Restaurant, 255 West 2nd Avenue, Vancouver, BC

After a two month break, we're back.

A couple quick notes:

The Clubhouse has asked if we could do some Clubhouse related jam strips this time out. I'm happy to oblige the request. Not sure what a Clubhouse related strip would look like, but am more than happy to find out.

Secondly, the kind folks at Mongrel Media have given me a few passes to an advance screening of Moon (June 24th, 7pm). I have an extremely limited number of these 2 person passes and will be giving them out on a first come, first served basis at the jam. Please only take a pass if you know that you'll be able to make the screening. For the sake of being completely fair, I won't be holding passes for anyone -- you want them, you have to get them from me at the jam.

Moon synopsis and trailer here: http://www.mongrelmedia.com/theatrical/info.cgi?id=1649 .

As usual, I’ve reserved the upstairs room at the Clubhouse Japanese Restaurant for the Jam.

If you’re drawing with markers that bleed through paper, be sure to either bring a drawing surface or place extra sheets of paper under the paper you’re drawing on.

Crosspost as you see fit.

See you there!

Ed

TCAF Goes Annual!

2009-06-19T10:50:00.006-04:00

In an email wrap-up, Toronto Comic Art Festival director and co-founder Chris Butcher has confirmed the rumors and announced that the festival will now be an annual event!

The next TCAF is less than a year away now, scheduled for early May 2010 in the same location as the 2009 show!

Quote:beguiling.com

"That's right, the next Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be held Saturday May 8th and Sunday May 9th, 2010, at the Toronto Reference Library. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. And yes, we know that's Mother's Day. All of the cool moms read comics.

What, so soon, you ask? Following up on feedback from our partners, our guests, our staff, and attendees, we've decided to build on the incredible momentum of having a new home and incredibly supportive presenting sponsor in Toronto Public Library, and produce our first annual show. This is something of an experiment for us, and I can't say for sure that we're "going annual" with the event, but we feel that a 2010 event is the best course of action to ensure that TCAF stays a fun, vital, and prominent festival both within the city of Toronto and in the larger comics community. That's around the corner so we'll be running a tight ship, and further details about TCAF 2010 (including exhibitor application & information) will be released later this summer."

Canadian Bestsellers: Summer Solstice Edition

2009-06-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

compiled/edited by B. Munn

Our second truncated list for the Summer Time. Normally, I compile a list of Top 30 overall and Top 30 by Canadian creators bestselling comic books. I just don't have the time lately, so I've decided to offer an infrequent, shorter version of the weekly list. If you are still jonesin' for a mainstream bestseller list, the Globe and Mail offered a list of graphic novels this past week that included all the usual suspects (Buffy, Wolverine, Naruto).

The bestselling graphic novels and comics collections in Canada, courtesy of BookManager. The full list by BookManager is available, with some work, here. The list is compiled by BookManager based on sales through over 400 independent bookstores, including several comic book stores and the D+Q store. Sales through most comic shops and larger retailers like Chapters-Indigo are not reflected in this list. For balance, you might want to try the Amazon.ca and Chapters-Indigo lists. (The other day, George Sprott was #10 on amazon.ca). See here for our previous list.

Canadian Content: You have to wade through an awful lot of translated Japanese manga, U.S. superhero fantasies, and collected editions of Sherman's Lagoon to come up with a list of 30 bestselling books created by Canadians. In total, BookManager lists over 4000 graphic novels, trades, and strip collections, the vast majority of which are not by Canadians. This list does not include books that are only illustrated but not written/created-by Canadians.

Sequential's All-Canadian Top 20 from BookManager

1. (1) Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist, Doug Wright (D+Q)
2. (5) Skim, Mariko Tamaki/Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood)
3. (10) Home Sweat Home, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
4. (2) Louis Riel, Chester Brown (D+Q)
5. (6) Big Foot, Graham Roumieu (Plume)
6. (4) George Sprott, Seth (D+Q)
7. (7) Scott Pilgrim 5, Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
8. (13) Senior's Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
9. (-) Milk Teeth, Julie Morstad (D+Q)
10. (3) Plain Janes, Castelucci/Rugg (Minx/DC)
-----
11. (-) Essex County 3, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
12. (11) The Burma Chronicles, Guy Delisle (D+Q)
13. (9) Nightschool 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Yen)
14. (12) Ojingogo, Matt Forsythe (D+Q)
15. (8) the great hopeful someday, Elizabeth Belliveau (Conundrum)
16. (14) Scott Pilgrim 3, Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
17. (-) Pohadky, Marek Colek Pat Shewchuck (D+Q)
18. (-) Papercut Heart, Ian Sullivan Cant (Conundrum)
19. (-) Never Wink at a Worried Woman, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
20. (-) Baloney, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)

(last week's rank in parentheses)
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Please feel free to comment or email about these lists.

New Books: Taddle Creek, Summer 2009

2009-06-15T06:31:00.001-04:00

Taddle Creek
Summer Number 2009
(Issue 22)

Taddle Creek, the Toronto-centric, bi-annual literary magazine, has gone from comics-freindly to comics-crazy and published a full-colour, "floppy"-style comic book as its latest issue. The best comics anthology I've seen this year, the mag is anchored by a stunning stand-out history of the Atomic Bomb by Michael Cho. Cho has been a regular contributor and cover artist for the mag and won a Silver National Magazine Award in 2007 for one of his comic stories. You can see a preview of the J.Bone piece from the current issue here.

From the publisher: "... thirty-six pages of all-new, full-colour comics by J. Bone, Michael Cho, Dave Lapp, Steven Charles Manale, Fiona Smyth, and Zach Worton, with a wraparound cover by Steve Wilson.

Best of all, the issue is the size of a regular comic, allowing it to fit in a comic bag so you can rush right home and file the issue in your longbox, unread, to ensure its future value."

The C-List: Mania Rebound

2009-06-12T11:31:00.002-04:00

And we are back with more cross-country and international comics mania!

Item: Jeet Heer writes about Hall of Fame cartoonist Jimmy Frise. This piece was originally written for the Sequential print edition but due to a muffed deadline on my part was left out. It's really an excellent article and you should go read it.

Item: Speaking of Hall of Famers, the Doug Wright backlash begins: Andrew Wheeler trashes Nipper, and Kevin Boyd of the Shusters blog makes a case for renaming the new Doug Wright book.

Item: On the international front, Kent Worcester looks at the growth in comics acceptance in universities.

Item: Cartoonist Nick Craine is the latest graphic novelist to be hired to class up an otherwise pictureless Canadian prose novel.

Item: Inkstuds' Robin McConnell reviews Dater's Dozen by Melaina.

Item: Quillblog reports on the BookCamp that "replaced" Book Expo Canada.

Item: The Beguiling, European comics publisher?

Item: Seth talks George Sprott to Time Out Chicago ("Boring Can Be Interesting"). Seth also created a book bag for the Strand bookstore in New York (above).

MoCCA 2009 - Hot in many ways

2009-06-11T14:42:00.006-04:00

So MoCCA 2009 was last weekend, i just got back from NY and i'm still getting back into my routine.

I planed on doing a lot more reporting myself but in the end not so much. I did snag a video of one panel that was pretty good - Making Good Comics in a New Era - and made a short overview clip from the little bit of footage i took at the show - it was insanely big, hot, and packed with books and i kind of short circuited and forgot to keep shooting after the first hour of day two.

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The Beat links are many, those here.
MoCCA '09: How can something so cool be so hot?
MoCCA memories
MoCCA: Photo parade

Also found this via Heidi, the audio for the Gary Panter and Raymond Sohn panel.

Hung out a lot with the Indy Spiner Rack guys at the show, i don't mince words when i say you could not meet a nicer couple of guys! I owe them for the suport and for putting me up for a few hours when i missed my Train! Man, what a day that was. Some epic exhaustion.

They Reported on the event this year, had a talk with MoCCA board member Fred Van Lente who does a great job answering some tough questions!

So my final word is I had a great time. The heat messed me up and made it hard to think strait sometimes. But it was great to see friendly faces and there were soooo MANNY comics to look at. Saw increadable abstract stuff by Andrei Molotiu and had a great encounter with Bob Fingerman, one of my favorite Comix creators from when I was a punk kid. Made a few new freinds and amused myself when I spaced out and unwittingly stole a book from Brian Wood - made up for it by swapping for it, hope he liked what he got.

I didn't want to have to carry too much back with me but managed to snag a nice selection for the collection. If i find the time i'll try to do a bit of a quick list with stars or something - have a few books now backed up to read soon.

Rover out.

Q&A with Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki CBC Book Club 2PM EST June 11

2009-06-10T21:18:00.003-04:00

Sign up for the event
reminder to catch it live
here on the CBC web site.

And you can listen later in the archives here after it's posted.

www.jilliantamaki.com
www.marikotamaki.com