Wet t-shirt party in Montreal!!

That probably wasn't the intention of the good folks at Drawn and Quarterly when they planned the grand opening of their new bookstore in Montreal's suddenly-hip Mile End neighbourhood for last Friday. But then the skies opened up Old Testament-style, and dumped 10 centimetres (plus) in a few shirt hours. The result? Lots of young, cool people in soaked vintage t-shirts.

We (the wife and I) drove through the deluge from Ottawa -- my shirt was so-so cool, but not vintage -- only to get stuck in comically stereotypical Montreal traffic. I say comic, because at one point we looked around at four or five highway on/off ramps and it looked exactly like an old cartoon - with all the cars bumper to bumper.

Despite the rain and the gridlock, it was definitely worth the trip. The store is as you would imagine, if you like comics the way D+Q makes them -- lots of nice wood and brick, with glass display cases housing pieces from someone's great collection of comics-related ephemera (wild guess: Tom Devlin). Add to that a soggy Marc Bell sighting and an appearance from everyone's favourite former-cartoonist Julie Doucet, and you have a trip worth taking.

I took some pics to prove it to you all.

Seth's art:



Barney Google puppet, patches and Sparky the horse pull toy:


Self explanatory:
Same goes here:


Marc Bell (just off frame left) and Julie Doucet (middle, facing front):


I have to confess to a moment of nerdom. When publisher Andy Brown pointed out Julie in the room I fumbled with my camera like someone (well, 99 percent of the population) would if someone said to the them "Look, it's Angelina Jolie!!"

Anyway - if you enjoyed these, there are more (25) photos here.

- B.