The Cultural Magpie

The Batman - by Jasper Jubenvill

2012-01-30T13:53:00.000-05:00

Back when comics were really, really cool

2011-12-09T13:25:00.000-05:00

A Brooklyn gang member poses in front of a rack of comic books, c. 1959 (courtesy Retronaut)

Lace them up

2011-12-02T11:35:00.000-05:00

I could post season-specific NFB films every day for a year probably. (The Rink, Gilles Carle, 1962.)

Another look at 'Now You're Logging'

2011-11-29T10:10:00.000-05:00

After too many years, I have finally got around to writing an appreciation of Now You're Logging, a great long-gone graphic novel by the B.C. outdoorsman-turned-cartoonist Bus Griffiths. The essay (with art) is now up at The Comics Journal.

As I say in the piece, this book has haunted me -- in a good way -- for the better part of a decade, ever since Seth and Peter Birkemoe first told me about it. To describe it as being "out-of-print" seems like a half-measure: this book has been neglected. Among the first verifiable graphic novels in Canada (it started as a serial in a Canadian Whites comic during the Second World War), Now You're Logging is a wonderful hand-made gem of a comic that surprises and charms the reader on every other page.

Griffiths was a self-taught artist, which is often a disaster when it comes to constructing good comics --but in this case his lack of formal experience resulted in a refreshing, innovative approach to the medium. His goal here was to create an accurate document of logging in the 1930s, before machines, when men climbed hundreds of feet in the air to lop down trees. His sheer devotion to this should be enough to make this book a classic, at least in Canada where its set. Heck, I'd be happy even if folks in British Columbia showed this book some love. But it's not the case: it's simply fallen off the edge of cultural relevance. For years now its publisher Harbour Books has maintained a Now You're Logging page on its website, despite the fact that the book is out of print. Good luck finding an affordable copy online.

You've got to wonder what Griffiths would think about his life's work being allowed to fall out-of-print for so damn long.

Grey Cup highlights (circa 1967)

2011-11-28T10:18:00.000-05:00

Grey Cup, 1967, Ottawa. (Courtesy of Seth.)

Remembering Alvin

2011-11-22T09:47:00.001-05:00

R.I.P. Alvin Schwartz. I plan on writing a proper remembrance of writer Alvin Schwartz soon, but in the interim I penned the above obituary for Sequential. As you'll see, Alvin was a creative force who spent his life making things or reading things. I sought him ought a couple of summers back when I read in a local paper that the Golden Age writer who created Bizarro lived an hours' drive from me.

I felt like a 16-year-old again. Bizarro Superman melted my brain when I was a kid, in part because the idea was so great (a mirror-image of old granite-jawed Supes) but also because it made you think. I mean, what was the opposite of Superman? A square planet called Htrae? I guess. But after reading a few stories my brain started to hurt. And I wasn't the only one. Chester Brown once told me that in Grade 8 he lent his buddy a pile of Bizarro comics and after he finished reading the last one he threw up. The mental strain of all that backwardness was just too much for his young mind to handle.

Anyways, I'll leave you with a portrait of Bizarro done by Toronto cartoonist John Martz a couple of years back for the Doug Wright Awards fundraising auction:

Review of 'The Death-Ray' in The Globe and Mail

2011-11-21T09:45:00.000-05:00

Like you, I love me some Daniel Clowes. In the past decade or so the creator of the epochal alt-comics series Eightball has rightfully scaled to the summit (or close to it anyway) of literary comics, where he has proceeded to produce some of the medium's most thought-provoking works of art. Whether it's Mister Wonderful, Wilson, Ice Haven or Ghost World, the Clowes seems to have genuine insight into the human soul.

He even knows how to write good super-hero stories, as evidenced by his latest book The Death-Ray, which I reviewed this weekend for The Globe and Mail.

And I agree whole-heartedly with that headline. If this book isn't the last word on superhero comics for you I'll eat my cape.

How Nipper took Addis Ababa

2011-10-28T06:41:00.004-04:00

If there's one thing I learned from my 10 or so days in Ethiopia it's that time has no meaning and generosity no bounds. Case in point: last Saturday Fatuma Ahmed Ali, a Ethiopian parliamentarian and the first lady of the Afar state, took me shopping in Addis Ababa after hearing me stress-out over the purchases I had to make (including for my wife whose birthday coincided with my return home). So, when Saturday morning rolled around she rolled up in her car with her charming nephew and niece and we headed out to the markets of Addis.

The gang's all here

The joke here is that Fatuma told one of my colleagues that she'd have me back in 15 minutes; an impossible feat in a city like Addis. Minutes into the ride she asked me if I had eaten lunch. When I said Yes, she asked if I wanted to eat a second lunch - she was not joking. As I quickly learned, the Afar are very generous; more generous than an Italian/Jewish grandmother. Their need to please is ever-present and boundless. After insisting that I was not hungry, we drove about 20 minutes to a market somewhere in town (preceded by lots of dead-ends and sharp turns).

Video:

Once we were there we hopped out and Fatuma quickly made a bee-line to a clothing store where she proceeded to pick out silk scarves for my wife, my mother and my mother-in-law -- and anyone else who might need a gift. Then we moved on to dresses (for my daughter) and a traditional Ethiopian suit for my son. Some trinkets followed - and some shirts, and some souvenirs. When I pulled out my wallet to pay, her driver and accountant jumped between Fatuma and myself as if I was brandishing a gun. They take their generosity very seriously here.

After an hour or two of shopping we were driving again -- i assumed back to the hotel. It was not to be. Instead we ended up at an Italian restaurant for lunch (of course). I chose a safe menu option: spicy tuna pasta.

Our driver went for some tibs (beef), also good.

But the kids, being smart and fearless, ordered some pizza. They ignored my please to stop as I tried to snap a photo.

This little guy Hoovered down most of the pizza, so I figured I'd ask him to show off his belly.

Full of "za"

In fact, they were so nuts about pizza that I let them play a "Pizza Maker" game on my iPod that my kids are crazy for.Fun stuff.

At some point Fatuma disappeared to conduct some business, so I burned time by handing the camera over to the kids.


I know. I am so cool.

So, I'm done right? Of course not. We returned to the market where more goods were acquired (this time for my fellow Canadians in Ethiopia) then we hit a jewelry store where she helped me pick out earrings and a necklace for my wife. (I was successful in paying for this one).

A couple of stops later (more shopping) and we finally rolled into the hotel at around 5:30 p.m., where she deposited me on a couch in the lobby. I felt like I had been subject to the most benevolent kidnapping ever, one in which my captor fed me like a prince and lavished goods on me. Anyways, even though I understood her extreme generosity I felt bad about it. But what could I do? I couldn't give her money, right? That's crass.

Then I remembered that I had brought a copy of one of Doug Wright's Nipper collections with me. Fatuma was talking about a library she was building back home in an Afar school she established (and we had visited) so I zipped up to my room and got the book. Famously, Doug Wright drew his classic Canadian strip without the benefit of words, so language wasn't going to be an issue. She seemed very pleased by the gift, but not as much as her nephew who grabbed it and was well and fully absorbed in the 1960s antics of Nipper and his family.

I swear, I think he may have liked this better than the pizza. And why not? Nipper's devilish antics have rung true with my kids and many others some 40 years after they first appeared, after all a kid is a kid, right? Anyways, it was a genuine thrill to see this Ethiopian kid, who knew maybe 10 words of English, devour this book. Here's to the global power of comics!!

That's a Nipper look if I ever saw one

The Macchiato Diaries

2011-10-22T12:41:00.000-04:00

So, for those who may not know I’ve been in Ethiopia for more than a week now on an (what exactly can I call it?) assignment/fact-finding mission/humanitarian junket. The basics: a few weeks ago I was offered a trip here by a Canadian charitable organization to see and hear the issues facing the Afar people, an indigenous group of nomadic Ethiopians who have existed in the Horn of Africa for more than 2,000 years.

So, last Friday I flew with a group of Canadians (which included two Afar-Canadians) to Addis Ababa and then drove 10 hours north to a remote Afar town called Samara. Lots of eye-opening surprises there like, who knew BlackBerry reached all the way out here? Or that a small truck stop called the Erta Ale –café could make such a good espresso?

Anyways, I’m currently back in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s sweaty, sweet capital city, and I can report that the coffee obsession continues. I’ve never consumed so much: it’s intoxicating and ever-present. Since the city is predominantly Muslim (or Orthodox Christian) you don’t meet over alcohol. Instead, coffee is the go-to ritual. Which makes sense, since it was discovered here.

A very cool man on Churchill Street

So, this morning we headed out from our hotel, which serves a very good macchiato (a single costs the equivalent of 33 cents Canadian) and walked to Tomoca one of the city’s best coffee shops.

A brilliant little spot off of the thruway of Churchill Street, it’s a pleasant throwback to the coffee shops of Italy (which didn't do much pleasant here during the Second World War). Men stand around (no seats) and sip their coffee as they read papers and check their iPhones. Founded in 1953, the dance they make you go through is fantastic. You buy a coffee at the front (again, too cheap) and they give you a hard, square plastic tag that you bring to the bar at the back.

The front cash at Tomoca

The weighing scales for fresh beans, and the awesome lion logo at the back

You give it to the woman there and tell her what you want. I had already had three machiatos, so we got espressos instead. Then the barista works his magic and you enjoy the results. Mine was deep, dark and sweet. You almost didn’t require sugar. Almost.

Yes - that is a moosehead on the wall above the espresso bar.

My fellow traveller-in-coffee, Warren Creates

No over-priced cookies, fresh smoothies or CDs in sight. Just this sweet, black fluid.

Sip....Ahhhh....

Anyways, that seems to be one of the dominant themes of my trip so far. It's like I’m like Hunter S. Thompson, but fueled to distraction by caffeine. Enjoy the pictures. Tomorrow: Nipper takes Addis!

Kid Koala profile in Mcgill Alumni magazine

2011-10-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

My piece on Montreal-based DJ and cartoonist Kid Koala is now up on the McGill University Alumni magazine website. I was a big fan of his music, say mid-90s, but had lost track of him so this was a great opportunity to play catch up.

Like most of us, he's done some growing up: he's married now with a three-year-old daughter. His music and art have matured a lot as well, with his new book and CD Space Cadet, turning out to be a real gem. Thoughtful and moving, it's been on steady rotation in my office and living room. He's touring it right now, so go check it out!

NOTE: Tomorrow I leave for an 11-day trip/work assignment in Ethiopia. Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for itinerant updates and pictures from the savannah. Wish me luck!

CBC TV spotlights Drawn and Quarterly comics

2011-10-07T11:04:00.001-04:00

Every now and then life allows me to do some fun things. Like the Doug Wright Awards, which writer-director-actor Don McKellar has helped out with the past couple of years. This summer Don asked me to lend a hand with finding some comics that he could incorporate into a new TV series he was directing in Ottawa (my hometown). The show, Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays, is about an anxiety ridden young man and his relationship with his therapist, who also has his own neuroses. So far, it is very funny and charming.

Part of a recent episode deals with Michael having a gal over to his apartment, which is decorated with many geeky accoutrements, including posters for alt-comics. Spotlighted in the episode are Yoshihiro Tatsumi's Black Blizzard and Joe Ollmann's Mid-Life.

The episode may contain the only joke I have ever seen that is built upon a knowledge of the comics of Tastumi.

(Many thanks to Drawn and Quarterly for securing the permission to use these.)

When Ira Glass met Wolverine and Nightcrawler

2011-08-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

There is certainly no shortage of improbable crossovers in superhero comics. But this bit of cross-promotion between Marvel and NPR's program This American Life may rank near the top of the list:

This is a limited-edition print that TAL is currently selling on their website. The art is taken from a recent X-Men comic featuring art from Michael Allred. At some point the story features Wolverine and Nightcrawler on a road trip, during which they tune in to a broadcast of This American Life. That word balloon features host Ira Glass doing his familar intro:

The theme this week? Corporate Synergy!

'The corporation badly needs to be shamed into doing the right thing", Seth on the Marvel boycott

2011-08-10T11:44:00.000-04:00

Over at his Mystery Hoard blog, Bryan Munn has posted an original essay from Seth about the simmering Marvel Boycott that Steve Bissette launched last week. It all comes down to a recent court decision that dismissed a suit by Jack Kirby's heirs that was seeking to get copyright on some of the characters and concepts that he created for Marvel in the 1960s.

These include The Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, The X-Men and Captain America. (That's a great list -- and I didn't even include Devil Dinosaur in there.) Marvel, which is owned by Disney, refused to even consider the fact that Kirby --- the inexhaustible engine behind most of their most enduring "properties" --- might be deserving of more than what he got during his time working for the company.

Bissette is calling for a boycott of all Marvel products, including comics and any of the movies that are currently running rampant in a multiplex near you. Seth chimes in on this, and supports the fledgling movement 100 percent; even saying that he'll never work for the company until they gives Kirby his due:

I am certainly in favour of it. I hope it catches fire and spreads. The corporation badly needs to be shamed into doing the right thing.

Admittedly, it's a pretty symbolic gesture on my part. I cannot even recall the last item I purchased from the corporation (maybe a Marvel Masterworks volume or something of that sort), nor have I ever worked for them. I certainly won't work for them in the future either until something is done to right this wrong.

Seth admits this is a largely symbolic gesture on his part, as he's never worked for Marvel, but symbolic or not --- it's still significant.

He also makes a suggestion for Marvel Maniacs: spend your dough on back issues of classic Marvel comics. That way you support the classic comics, but avoid giving your cash to a greedy corporation.

Sounds good to me: count me in.

New 'Nipper' collection to be released next week

2011-08-03T19:12:00.000-04:00

As covered on The Doug Wright Awards blog and The Comics Reporter, a new Nipper book is imminent from Drawn and Quarterly. Nipper: 1965-1966 is the latest in an ongoing series of classic newspaper strip reprints from Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright. (Here's a preview.)

As with Nipper: 1963-1964 Seth is handling the design chores on this puppy (the image above does not do the cover justice; it actually has a nice, comforting sheen to it) and I am providing the introduction. These intros are in some way more challenging to write that the wide-open essay I did for The Collected Doug Wright Volume One in that there's an economy of space operating here. The essay was around 10,000 words; this is more like 700 words and change.

As a result, I'm kind of forced to concentrate on one single facet of the subject (Doug Wright), which as anyone who's read my Volume One essay knows, I'm not a big fan of. What can i say? After years of writing 500-1,000 word newspaper articles I tend to relish the chance to go deep. But, I have so much to say about Wright at this point that I welcome any opportunity to write about him.

Plus, this period in Wright's life was actually pivotal personally and artistically. Here's a brief excerpt:

By 1965 Doug Wright was in an artistic and creative sweet spot. Mid-way into his 32-year run on Nipper, he was a heavyweight in the cartooning establishment: his strip was appearing in dozens of newspapers across Canada and the U.S. and he had fame to spare. It’s fair to say that his name was the most recognizable in Canadian cartooning at the time. But Wright was not content.

Privately he was bristling to start fresh, to pull up stakes and exit Montreal. His journal from 1964 captures his mindset: “Dreaming of being summoned by the Hall Syndicate or Hank Ketcham. Nice to dream anyway! Would like to live halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago. In that old Middle West. CHRIST! Imagine getting away from everything that irritates me around here!”

You can read my full introduction in the book, which is scheduled to hit shelves August 10th.

You've come a long way Jacky Boy!

2011-06-01T15:38:00.000-04:00

With Canada's Parliament set to resume Thursday, I thought it only fitting that I post this great photo of the country's new Leader of the Official Opposition from 1984:

Yes, that is indeed Jumping Jack Layton some 27 years ago back when he was a mere Alderman in Toronto. Judging from this photo -- which is pulled from Unofficial Portraits a book collecting self-portraits done by politicians -- I think I finally understand what Quebeckers see in him. The defiant stance, the cocky attitude the disturbingly form-fitting GWGs. Yikes!

Anyways, congrats Jackie boy! Enjoy your first day in your new position.

Farewell Toronto, "City of comics"!!

2011-05-08T21:42:00.002-04:00

'Paying For It' review in The Globe and Mail (plus a bit of back-story)

2011-05-01T14:58:00.001-04:00

My review of Chester Brown's contentious new book, Paying For It, ran in The Globe and Mail Saturday. Even though the book just hit shelves, there have already been some great reviews of it including Sean Rogers over at The Walrus and Tom Spurgeon's at The Comics Reporter.

As I was writing mine, it dawned on me that I had helped draft a letter to Chester years ago to express outrage over a storyline in his comic series Yummy Fur that dealt with pornography. I thought the comparison of my outrage and what is sure to be current reader outrage kind of made sense. After I filed my review I dug up my old issues of YF and found the one that included the letter I remembered writing; it was issue #24 (featuring my favourite stand-alone Brown story "The Little Man").

To my surprise, the letter I recall writing with my girlfriend at the time bore no evidence of my involvement. In fact, my name was nowhere to be found.

Pretty embarrassing, especially since I had just openly admitted in a national newspaper to writing this letter -- when I could have just blamed it all on my girlfriend and walked away Scot-free. But the truth is, I distinctly remember writing this letter with Joanna -- i even remember the insane Christmas card we wrote it in (there was a feather on it). I think at some point we must have decided the message would hold more weight if it came from a woman. Go figure.

Still, these words pretty well sum up my proto-feminist point-of-view at the time. What can I say? It was the early 90s and I was a university student. Sigh.

Anyway, there's the truth of the whole sort-of sordid matter for you.

Nipper gets a regal re-do

2011-04-25T17:55:00.001-04:00

It's been a long time coming. The Doug Wright Awards finally have a new website which launched Saturday night. The old site served us valiantly for a long time --- okay, too long, really --- and we've been talking about relaunching it for a couple of years now. But it was only when Diana Tamblyn came along last summer and politely (she's very nice) suggested an overhaul that we started talking it seriously.

You may not know this, but in addition to being a talented cartoonist Diana is also a dab hand at web design which she brought to bear on our sorry old site. There are still a few pages to tweak/update, which we'll get too in the coming weeks, but overall we are all very pleased in how it turned out.

Seth even re-designed our trusty logo for the occasion, which you can see all over the site. Check it out and let us know what you think (click on the image below top see it in context). We plan on using the blog to roll out news on a more timely basis; we had previously been using Twitter and Facebook for updates, but often had no home for these on the old site.

Hail to the King!: Nipper's regal re-do, courtesy of Seth

Getting dressed by Seth

2011-04-14T13:10:00.001-04:00

Contrary to what you may believe, my involvement in The Doug Wright Awards is not all parties, showgirls and celebrity hobnobbing. Most of the time it's a lot of grunt work, anxiety and stress. Which is okay; after all, no one was exactly begging me to start up a Canadian comics awards back in 2004. So I can't/shouldn't gripe, right?

Still, it can be a lot of work sometimes. Then there are times when it seems to all pay off; like today when I received an unexpected package in the mail from Seth (the "Creative Director" of the Awards).

As you probably know Seth designed a lot for us over the years, starting with our distinctive awards to a set of buttons and even a t-shirt. So it shouldn't have surprised me when I opened the package and found this:

According to the note included in the package, this is the official Doug Wright Awards club jacket to be worn by the organizations director (me) on the night of the awards ceremony. The plaid tie came with. Talk about spiffy! The image on the breast pocket is an embroidered version of our new logo which will debut on our new website in the coming weeks):

You know, the last time I was told how to dress I was about 10-years-old. But somehow, I'm willing to make an exception in this case. Thanks Seth!

A lost monument to a comic strip of the past

2011-04-12T21:11:00.004-04:00

I suppose I should have saved this post for Canada Day, but the guys over at Sequential compiled a thoroughly satisfying post today about Canadian cartoonist landmarks that roused me from my lazy blogger tendencies. Is there anything more satisfying than a statue or structure to a once-great comics character? They serve as permanent reminders of the profile these characters once enjoyed, even long after their cultural gravitas has waned. Just think of Chief Wahoo (who is based on the 1940s comic strip character Big Chief Wahoo) or,my personal favourite, Hamilton Tiger Cats mascot/booster Pigskin Pete who is the direct descendant of Jimmy Frise's boisterous Birdseye Center character Pigskin Peters.

All of this got me thinking about a great lost monument to Birdseye Center, made by Frise's replacement on the strip, Doug Wright. On top of being a master artist, Wright was also an obsessive model-maker. During the research for The Collected Doug Wright Volume 1 I heard stories of his model plane, cars and trucks -- all made from scratch in his spare time. So it only made sense that after inheriting the popular strip from Frise, he would eventually turn his model making to the strip's fictional namesake.

At some point in the 1950s, Wright turned his obsession to Frise's great creation and built a scale model of Birdseye Center (which had become known as Juniper Junction due to copyright issues). The model (seen below) featured "Noazark" (a sightseeing ship/tourist trap), a dock building and a structure that looks to be the town hall.

For comparison's sake, here's a Juniper Junction strip as drawn by Wright depicting the sink-prone "Noazark".

I was lent the picture by Phyllis Wright, Doug's widow, who told me that he passed the model on to a neighbourhood teen after the strip came to an end in the late 1960s. That was very kind of him, if a bit foolhardy. The teen eventually grew up and grew tired on the model and threw it out years later. Egads, that shattered a little piece of my soul! But at least Wright was smart enough to take this picture, which remains the last evidence of a great comics -- if little-seen -- monument to Canadian comics history.

John Porcellino gets animated

2011-03-21T21:41:00.000-04:00

"The Next Day" is the latest project from Canadian multimedia upstart Pop Sandbox, the guys behind last year's graphic novel (and soon to be documentary) Kenk. That project was fortunate enough to have as its subject matter a highly controversial bike-thief/convict/urban legend, Igor Kenk, which helped it generate a truck-load of publicity.

Their latest project tackles the somewhat weightier (and perhaps harder-to-sell) subject matter of suicide. What really caught my attention about The Next Day graphic novel is that it will feature art by John Porcellino, the legendary minimalist cartoonist behind King-Cat Comics (which have been collected as King-Cat Classix, Map of My Heart, Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man and Perfect Example). The book itself looks great, with Porcellino's simple line-work paired nicely with the first-person accounts of depression and attempted suicide. (Here's an excerpt.)

But what really perked up my ears was a trailer I just saw for an "interactive documentary" that Porcellino has apparently worked on, that expands on the subject matter in the book. It's a blissful, haunting little clip that brings John's art to life perfectly:

The Next Day - Trailer from Pop Sandbox on Vimeo.

Looks great, no? I want to say this is the first time his art has been animated, but that just seems wrong. Surely this can't be the first time?

Michael DeForge gets animated

2011-02-10T20:54:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is with animation lately, but I've been stumbling over some odd stuff in the past week or so. Like this disturbo bit of animation from Toronto tour-de-force cartoonist Michael DeForge. Set to an old Elvis track, I think the characters in this have something to do with Wet Cough, his fine 2010 mini-comic. I can't get enough of this guy:

Michael is doing something special for this year's Doug Wright Awards that I can't really reveal yet --but I am really excited about.

Batman Anime circa 1960 (plus "Batboy and Rubin")

2011-02-02T18:39:00.001-05:00

No other title can really describe this inspired bit of animation from the under-appreciated kids' cartoon Batman: The Brave and the Bold. What other big-budget show would have the gumption to: 1) introduce Bat-Mite as a recurring character and 2) then use him as a way of exploring different incarnations of Batman?

In this case, that means they made an animated version of "Bat-Boy and Rubin", the classic Mad magazine parody written by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder, and -- AND -- an animated version of Jiro Kurwata's 1960s Japanese manga interpretation of the Caped Crusader (which features his Lord Death Man villain character).

It's pretty remarkable, and a lot of fun to watch (while it lasts) on YouTube:

The many (weird) faces of Curt Swan's Superman

2011-01-30T22:38:00.005-05:00

If you know me at all, you know I like my superhero comics old and boring. As in Wayne Boring, Kurt Schaffenberger or, best of all, Curt Swan. Thanks to those Blue Ribbon cheapo reprints of old DC comics that were around in the 1970s, these guys defined Superman for me, as he should be: lantern-jawed, broad-chested and incapable of expressing human emotion.

There was something about the 1950s-era Superman of Swan that was almost right. Just-about-perfect, yet somehow charmingly stilted. So imagine how pleased I was as I was flipping through this behemoth of a book called DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle and came a cross this wonderfully odd two-page spread of what looks to be character studies (or maybe an artists' guide?) of Kal-El by Mister Curt Swan himself:

What a great find, right? More than two dozen head shots of Supes in various states of awkwrad emotional distress. But, like any good 1950s Superman artist, some of the emotions are hard to parse.

Take this one for instance:

Is the Last Son of Krypton shocked here? Surprised? Without a story or word balloons, the mind struggles to pin it down, right?

Then there's this pair:

Is that a knowing jovial wink, or something more -- ewww -- flirty? GROSS! And what's he doing on the right?? I odn;t even want to think about what's happening off frame....

But my fave head shots of the bunch has to be this trio:

I know that first look! That's the unmistakable look of someone who's just eaten at a Taco Bell, Number Two could be a whole host of things, but it looks to me like the Man of Steel's heart is getting just a little crushed (Jimmy Olsen probably got a real job in a better city). Then there's that last one, which is probably supposed to be Supes soaking up the life-giving rays of Earth's yellow sun. Yes.

Er.....

Best not to ponder this one too much. I imagine Swan didn't, so you shouldn't either.

What was my point again? Yes, Curt Swan is the Greatest Superman Artist Of All Time, Period; in part because his art was just slightly off. He was 90 percent there most of the time, but there were plenty of times that Big Blue just looked kind of odd. Which is a better batting percentage of most artists these days, who seem to have two or three standard expressions. Maybe this was intentional! Perhaps Swan figured that Superman was an alien, and would therefore never be fully at ease with humans. Thus, the weird expressions. (It coulda happened!)

Whoever your favourite Superman artist is you owe it to yourself to give this book a look. It takes 75 years of DC Comics history and spends a few pages on each exploring the important characters, events and creators that marked that particular period. (It starts with New Fun #1 in February 1935.) As it suggests in the intro, flip to the year you were 13 and read those pages first -- since this is supposedly the age that most kids get into superheroes.

It's a hell of a lot of fun -- and worth a look.

David Collier covers The New Yorker

2011-01-26T21:44:00.001-05:00

Never let anyone say David Collier isn't up for a challenge.

Apparently cheesed-off at criticism that his cover design for his just-released graphic novel Chimo was lacking, the great Hamilton cartoonist worked up his own cover design for The New Yorker and submitted it to the magazine's 2011 Eustace Tilley contest. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed:

The design is great, the art is controlled and precise, and the details (like the puck replacing the butterfly) really make it sing. The whole thing seems fitting for the subject matter; the Rangers (who have a reputation for being an over-priced, under-performing team) would naturally have a fop like Tilley on their team, plus it allows Collier to draw something that manages to have one foot in Canada and the U.S. The only thing I can't figure out is who the coach in the background is supposed to be:

Dave provides a bit of commentary about his unique take on the iconic Rea Irvin character on The New Yorker website.

Justin Green has a blog??

2011-01-25T20:34:00.002-05:00

Hey -- Justin Green has a blog! The man behind the pioneering psycho-confessional comic Binky Brown Meets the Virgin Mary and The Sign Game (one of my favourite comics of all time) unveiled a blog a couple of weeks ago. And while he's yet to write anything he has posted what appear to be new strips, which, let's face it, kind of speak for themselves.

What are you waiting for? Go check it out already!

Reluctant stars of the comix universe

2011-01-22T13:26:00.000-05:00

The Books section in today's Globe and Mail includes three reviews I wrote about new works from Seth, Chris Ware and Julie Doucet. You can find it here.

I had strong feelings about all of these books, but I was most conflicted about Doucet's latest. Like the die-hard fans I mention in the lead, I snap up anything she produces, and I'm always ashamed at myself for being a little disappointed with the results. Her art is great -- no doubt about that -- but her decade-plus abstention from comics makes her work hard to assess.

It's as if she gets as close to making comics as possible, without actually making comics, and the result always seems to suffer somehow. I respect her decision to part part artistically with comics in favour of other creative pursuits, but why put out a book titled My New New York Diary (a spin on her best-selling graphic novel, My New York Diary) if you aren't prepared to engage with comics or cartooning in some way? Even if you're unwilling to make actual comics, why can't you discuss that break with comics -- and your choice to make an illustrated book?

The end result of her creative reluctance is a book that feels half-hearted; which is something I never thought I'd say about Doucet, one of the most fearless artists of her day.

Art Spiegelman rewind

2011-01-20T12:32:00.001-05:00

This is a pretty great find. Recently Montreal cartoonist Rick Trembles was combing through a stack of old CARtoons magazines he nabbed from a flea market and spotted a winning submission to an art contest from an "Art Spiegelman" from "Rego Park, New York."

For the uninitiated, CARtoons was (is?) an "automotive humour" magazine dedicated to car culture and goofy cartoons about said car culture. Like many kids, I read it compulsively from age 13 to 16.

According to Trembles, the issue in question is from November 1963, which, if this is the same Spiegelman (Maus, Raw), would have placed him at 15-years-old --- the perfect target market for CARtoons. I'm not in a position to confirm or deny this, but if it's true this is a great curiousity from the early career of a master cartoonist -- and a stellar score by Trembles. That's a detail from the image below; click here for a full view.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-21T09:19:00.000-05:00

Tintin + Burroughs + Burns = ????

2010-12-18T09:41:00.001-05:00

As big a fan as I am of Charles Burns (I sought and bought every comic book issue of Black Hole as they were published), I really struggled at first with his new book, X'ed Out. The premise -- Tintin meets William S. Burrough's Interzone -- is irresistible to me. But I gotta admit; the new book was impenetrable to me on first read.

One thing was the full-colour, something Burns hasn't done since a one-shot, one-off of his "Blood Club" story. The other issue was the sheer brevity of the book; at around 50 pages I was crying for more by the end. After a re-read and some pondering, I realised what Burns was up to. I discuss "cracking the code" of X'ed Out in today's Globe and Mail Books section:

...Burns isn’t satisfied with simply emulating the look and feel of a classic Tintin. With X’ed Out, it’s as if he’s trying to replicate the emotional experience of reading such work as well; an experience that is defined by the anticipation and frustration one feels with a staggered publishing schedule.

Obsessed with 'Obsessed With'

2010-12-12T20:38:00.000-05:00

My previous post (the first in what seems like a light-year) got me thinking about stocking-stuffers for the book-obsessed weirdoes in your life. And that got me to thinking about these Obsessed With… books by Chronicle—in my mind, the grand-daddy of quirk-rich, off-beat mainstream publishing—that boast a bumper crop of good old-fashioned nerdiness.

If I have a single weakness, it’s for the sweet pop-culture of my younger days. And a goodly part of this brain candy is comprised of Star Wars and superheroes. I know – the twin titans of dork culture; but I can’t help it. Between you and me, I blame it all on my kids (7 and 4) who have been in the thrall of Batman, Superman, The Flash and the Skywalker family for a couple of years now.

So it was with joy that I opened up one of those great cardboard mailers the other day to find copies of Obsessed With Star Wars and Obsessed With Marvel. Packed with hundreds of questions about comics and Star Wars eclectica, these books fairly drilled into the nerdy spinal cord of my shame-filled soul. They even have a little doo-dad that allows you to choose a question, and have the answer pop right up – saving all of the annoying time of flipping to the back of the book for the answer; or flipping the book upside down and spilling your whiskey on your lap.

The point here, is that as entertaining as these books are I would feel too nerdly to buy them myselves – especially when I own a pile/stack of great comics and graphic novels waiting to be read. But, if someone were to buy one of these for me (or ship them to me) I would be absolved of any guilt and dive right in. So, thank you Chronicle books, from the bottom of my pop-culture heart.

A Potatoe in your stocking

2010-12-07T16:32:00.000-05:00

Last year The Globe and Mail became the target of a heap of online scorn after they published their Globe 100, a curated list of the best books reviewed in their pages in the 2009 calendar year. The issue? They chose only three comics work, Asterios Polyp, R. Crumb's The Books of Genesis Illustrated and Logicomix -- none of which was Canadian. This in a year that featured major release by Seth (George Sprott) and a massive reprinting of one of the country's greatest cartoonists.

I think we're all pleased that this time around their choices comics-wise were a bit more inspired, considering they included the Doug Wright Award-winning Hot Potatoe by London, Ontario's Marc Bell. A stranger more inspired choice out of the past 12 months I cannot think of at the moment. Can you imagine the stunned look on your Great Aunt Lou's face when she cracks this beautiful chunk of weirdness out from under the Festivus pole this year? Thank you Martin and crew! Well done.

The bastardized Family Circus cartoon above is pulled from Marc's site.

A rare peek into McGill University's indy comics history

2010-10-02T22:24:00.005-04:00

Last year I wrote a piece for McGill University's alumni magazine, McGill News, about graduates who had gone on to success in comics. Unfortunately, two of those interviews didn't survive the final cut; Canadians Mark Shainblum and Jordan Raphael. In the process of doing a much (much) needed update of my website this past month, I realized that I needed to rectify this. I have done so there, and now here (below).

Shainblum's story is classic punk-rock comics; start a comics company with no money or experience, while living in your parent's house. Of course he flamed out, but in the process he founded Matrix Comics and introduced the world to Bernie Mireault via The Jam and Mackenzie Queen. He also talks about the genesis of his own series, Northguard.

Raphael's story is equally intriguing. Now a L.A.-based lawyer, Raphael is better known as the Mark Zuckerberg of alt-comic, thanks to his work behind the scenes at The Comics Reporter and The Comics Journal, not to mention his co-authoring of Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book with Tom Spurgeon (as good a read out there about the towering and divisive comics legend).

Here he also discusses his role in Newbies Eclectica, McGill's little-known and short-lived alt-comics anthology (featuring early work by Mireault, Rich Tomasso and Al Columbia) that would have made William Shatner proud. Hope you enjoy the read - and let me know what you think.

Mark Shainblum (Dip Ed '91)

The comics book contributions of McGill graduates are not limited to just contemporary efforts, in fact, they stretch back some 25 years to the independent comix boom of the 1980s. That's when 24-year-old Mark Shainblum founded Matrix Comics, which would publish seminal alternative Canadian comics like MacKenzie Queen and The Jam, along with his own unique take on Canadian superhero mythology, Northguard.

Operating out of his parent's basement in a Montreal suburb, Shainblum's company thrived in a time when small-press publishers were selling thousands of copies of their largely black-and-white comics, and giving Marvel and DC a run for their money in the process.

Now 46, Shainblum has a full-time job (in McGill's Communications Department) but still finds time to write comics and science fiction in his spare time. He took a little time out recently to reflect on his experiences as a comics creator and publisher.

Looking back on it, Matrix was a remarkable Canadian success story for its time. You started it from nothing and ended up being the toast of the independent comics world for a while—addressing huge crowds at conventions hob-nobbing with cartoonists. What was your inspiration?

MS: Dave Sim [of Cerebus] and Wendy and Richard Pini, who did Elfquest, they were my model going into this. This was the heyday of independent comics. It was the internet before the internet in that everybody who had a couple of thousand dollars was publishing comics.

The 80s were certainly fertile ground for independent comics. Everyone from the Hernandez Brothers to Dave Sim and Chester Brown were putting out ground-breaking work in self-published form. In Canada, Bernie Mireault was considered an indy star. How did you end up publishing his work?

MS: We ran into Bernie in Ottawa at a comic convention (he later told me he was looking for me because he had heard that I was publishing comics). He had these comics and I loved them and agreed to publish them. We did his first series MacKenzie Queen and later The Jam, which started out as a backup feature in Northguard.

I have to say of all the things I've done, the thing that I'm the proudest of is being the first person to have published Bernie Mireault.

Of course, you also published Northguard, a revisionist take on the patriotic superhero that you created with artist Gabriel Morrissette. What was your inspiration behind that?

MS: At the time I was reading a lot of British comics, like 2000 A.D., which had stuff in it like Alan Moore's Miracleman which was dealing with superheroes in a totally different way. I think there were only a couple of copies of that comic in Montreal at the time, but I managed to hunt them down.

Northguard is regarded as a highlight in the history of Canadian superheroes, which stretches back to the Second World War when the home-grown comics dubbed "The Canadian Whites" debuted. Were you aware of this history going when you were developing your characters?

MS: Yes. I was very consciously working in the shadow of those comics. The first comic I published was called New Triumph, which was a reference to a comic by Adrian Dingle [The creator of Nelvana of the Northern Lights which ran in Triumph-Adventure Comics]. I was very influenced by his style.

Like many indy comic companies at the time, I'm thinking of Sim's Aardvark-Vanheim and Aircel, Matrix experienced huge growth for a number of years before going bust due to an overheated market and rising material costs. Do you have any regrets?

MS: I look back on it with great fondness, but also frustration. In one way it was like a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movie—you know, 'Hey guys! Let's make some comics!' In some ways I really miss it, but it wasn’t sustainable. I was always more interested in the creative side and not enough in the business side of things.

They were very heady times. In some ways, I think [it was] an undervalued time in North American pop culture history.

Jordan Raphael (BA'97)

Born and raised in Toronto, Jordan Raphael is a patented over-achiever. At McGill, he was an honour roll student with a joint honours degree in English and Mathematics, which he followed up with an MA in journalism from the University of Southern California, and then topped off with a law degree.

Yet, ever since the age of six abiding passion has been comics. It's clear that they've informed many of his life choices, including; the founding of Newbies Eclectica while he was an undergrad at McGill; his employment at The Comics Journal; his co-authoring of Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book; and his co-founding of The Comics Reporter, the go-to website for smart comics news and criticism.

Now 34 and working at a law firm in Los Angeles, we caught up with Raphael to discuss how comics changed his life.

So what's your earliest memory of comic books?

JR: In 1981 a friend of my father's bought out the inventory of a comic shop that was going out of business and he just dropped off a huge box of comics—it must have had like 600 comics in there. What was nice is that they were all wrecked; they were all these old, random comics. There was no order to them at all. So you could pick up one and it'd be Spectacular Spider-Man #76 and the next issue would be some terrible Charlton comic, and then Man-Thing #14. There was no rhyme or reason. It was just a mix. I just read and re-read and re-read those comics. And eventually I started buying comics and worked in a comics store in Toronto.

I was surprised to find out about your role in a critical period of comics history at McGill, mainly your founding of Newbies Eclectica via a student group called the Graphics Cartel. What can you tell me about that?

JR: It was an anthology, and honestly, I'm just not very good at choosing names. I just came up with a stupid one—it was terrible. There could have been better ones.

So you formed a club, called the Graphics Cartel, whose 'activity' was publishing comics? Is that how you pulled this off?

JR: Every semester the student government would pony up some money for student clubs, a thousand or $1,500, and that would pay the printing bill. It was actually an interesting experience, because I got to learn about printing and how to deal with printers. The first time I had no idea what you did, I just sent him a bunch of pages, and he said 'Well, you know you might get a better result if you make the proofs yourself.' So we ended up getting more and more professional.

By the end of it, I had a little bit of a—I don’t want to use the word, 'scam'— going. But basically what we would do is publish say two or three thousand copies and we'd just drop at different places on campus, like the way you would with the university paper. By the end of it we had a pretty high quality publication, and we'd drop them for free and keep maybe a thousand copies to sell off campus. So, we made a bit of money too.

Looking back at it, you pulled off quite a coup. During its seven issues you featured contributions from everyone from Rich Tomasso and Bernie Mireault to Al Columbia and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

JR: Sure. And Roberto, frankly, is the most successful of all the comics-related folks who came out of McGill.

I remember, one of the big thrills some of the artists would get is, they would be at someone's apartment and they'd go use their bathrooms and there'd be a copy of Newbies Eclectica next to the toilet. And they though that was, like, the coolest compliment.

So, how did you get involved in Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter?

JR: I had just started law school [and] I had been talking to Tom and he was looking for something to do. So we decided a site would be a good idea to get him out there and give him a platform. Frankly, I think he's one if the best writers about comics out there.

I set it up for him, and now I just kind of maintain it for him. I take of all his business and he just writes.

So, you used to be a journalist. How do you think we should wrap this up?

JR: I guess you could wrap it up by saying that right now I'm a lawyer, so I'm not deeply involved in comics anymore. But all those comics are still back in my parent's house in Toronto—including 1,500 issues of Newbies Eclectica. Every time I go back they remind me about it.

Tubby soothes the savage boy

2010-09-08T19:06:00.003-04:00

My sick day today was made more bearable by a delivery from the good folks at D+Q. In it was the first volume of collected Tubby stories in their ongoing John Stanley Library series, most of which I have more of a connection with than Lulu -- I suppose because of the 'boy' thing. Anyways, I trotted the book out to the dinner table and to my surprise my boy (4) asked to be excused, plucked the book from my hands, hunkered down on the couch and started to flip through it. I think it was the first story (about Tubby's mustache) that hooked him here:

And he was still at it, days later.

Seeing that he begins school next week, this is all very encouraging. That you D+Q (and J. Stanley) for providing momentary distraction for a restless boy.

Sneak peek at the new graphic novel from 'Hamilton's Harvey Pekar'

2010-09-02T13:40:00.004-04:00

Hey, I didn't coin that-- some record company exec did -- but I can't help but fully endorse (steal) it. I've long considered David Collier a national and regional treasure; quirky, eccentric, smart and funny, his early comics are true gems and were partly responsible for helping break my lingering fascination with mainstream comics (Ah, Vertigo -- you were a great old lass...). Meeting Dave at Word on the Street in Toronto many years ago was really thrilling, and I'm always pleased to bump into him semi-regularily, the last being at May's Doug Wright Awards.

Around that time I was handed a copy of his latest work-in-progress; a graphic novel that deals with his experiences re-enlisting in the Canadian Forces some 20 years after he left. I'm happy to say that it's classic Collier, winding through an at-times awkward experience with many amusing asides. Like the one below -- ha ha, what a card!

Anyways, Dave has given me permission to run a three-page "exclusive" (is it? I guess it is..) preview of his Spring 2001 book from Conundrum Press, Chimo (the name of the navy ship he is assigned to as part of the Canadian Forces Artists Program). I hope you were as jazzed as I was. Click to enlarge...but I'm guessing you knew that already.

David Collier Sells Out

2010-08-24T22:09:00.002-04:00

Hey all - OK, Mom - Guess what? Hamilton, Ontario's own Hero-of-Comics David Collier dropped me a line to let me know that he's SOLD OUT! That's right, after years of living the life as the bluest of blue- collar cartoonists, Dave has cashed in his "street cred" to collaborate with Canadian indie-rocker Luke Doucet.

Collier has penned a comic based on Doucet's lyrics that will be included in his upcoming CD, Steel City Trawler. The comic and the CD appear to be about the steel city itself, Hamilton. One can only hope that Pigskin Peters/Pete makes a cameo at some point.

Of course, I joke about Dave selling out -- but it is always exciting to see new work from the man and heartening to see it push its way into other media such as this. (Does anyone else remember his weekly strip in the National Post? Is there a better use of Canada Council grants than a collection of the best of those strips? Chris? Peggy? Tom??? Andy???)

Anyways, here's a short promo video for the CD that features art from Dave and an interview with The Man Himself. Enjoy!

Reason #356

2010-08-06T10:18:00.001-04:00

Why I love old Jimmy Olsen comics:

New Doug Wright Annuals at D+Q

2010-06-24T14:23:00.004-04:00

Well, since Chris Oliveros has officially made public Drawn and Quarterly's plans for their Doug Wright property I figure I can now talk about over here as well. The first book to debut (this September) will be Nipper: 1963-1964 and will pick up directly where The Collected Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist left off. Each book will collect two-years worth of strips and will feature Seth's able design work (see below for a non-final draft of the cover).

A preview of the book is over here.

I also contributed a brief introduction which serves to set the scene a bit for this fertile period in the Canadian cartoonist's career. The beauty of this new format is that it echoes the previous publishing history of Wright's work, mainly two cheap (but very popular) collections of his Nipper material that appeared in the 1960s and 70s. The landscape layout of the book is even the same. The difference this time around is that the D+Q books will be high-quality - just the way Wright intended them to appear - and they will contain dozens of strips republished for the first time ever.

The other bonus is the cover illustration of Nipper motoring away in his "Hot Rod." As a kid I was obsessed with this go-kart and was inspred to build several of my own for local parades etc. None ever looked as cool as Nipper's though.

And fans of the Bed Red Book, fret not. Seth, Chris and I are fully committed to publishing Volume Two a few years down the road. Be patient!

The most frightening paper doll ever?

2010-06-11T14:39:00.000-04:00

Ask anyone who appreciates fine books and they'll tell you: Dover Books are a great niche publisher. Specializing in reprints (this is how I first discovered a run of Little Orphan Annie strips decades back) and clever uses of public domain material, the company has carved out an impressive if unlikely market for themselves.

One of the most interesting aspects of their catalogue is their selection of paper doll books. In fact, according to their website they are "The #1 publisher of paper dolls." Why? "Because our low-priced books are irresistible for paper doll enthusiasts of all ages." Agreed. I've bought several of these for my daughter and she loves them -- especially this one.

But I have to draw the line (and scratch my head) over their latest release, Classic TV Moms Paper Dolls by Tom Tierney, the modern king of paper doll illustration.

I mean, it looks cool enough (with the exception of Peg Bundy I suppose) and when you start flipping through it it satisfies expectations. There's Laura Petrir from The Dick Van Dyke Show, Harriet Nelson from The Ozzie and Harriet Show and then there's page 15:

That's correct. That's Roseanne Barr as Roseanne, the flinty-but-funny working class Mom from 1990s TV hit Roseanne. And yes, she's in lingerie. (This is a dress-up toy after all.) But what was Tom thinking on this one? Dressing up (and down) Mary Tyler Moore circa 1962 I can get the appeal of; but Roseanne Barr? What little girl would even knwo who she was? And if they did, why on earth would they ever want to dress her up? I guess ( = pray) this could be a massive prank, but if it isn't I think Dover needs to fire an editor or two unless they want "The Tom Arnold Coloring Book" on their Spring release schedule.

Best single page of a crummy comic I bought recently

2010-05-26T09:59:00.001-04:00

From Unknown Worlds #39 (ACG Comics) Spring 1965:

The handsomest Doug Wright Awards ever

2010-05-09T21:20:00.006-04:00

am proud -- damn proud! -- to say that I survived TCAF, and The Doug Wright Awards, in one piece this year*. (* more or less.) I've downloaded all of my Wright Awards pics, which will become a longer post later when i get my equilibrium back, but for now I thought I'd share this post-ceremony shot of our host Peter Outerbridge posing with the original art Seth did for this year's Best Book video tribute:

(An aside: I love how that Nipper pin looks on his lapel. Way better than my 20-year-old MEC backpack)

You can watch mini-Peter come to life in our Best Book video, which was written and produced by the awesome guys at Smiley Guy Studios (yay Denny!):

As for the DWAs, I think it was great this year. The feedback was encouraging; one attendee told me it was "touching, classy and well-executed" while a few Quebec audience members said it was the best comics' awards ceremony they had ever attended.

Everything chugged along nicely, the winners were gracious and Marc Bell's trophy fit him perfectly. More later! I am going to go catch up on Lost....

A world-class blabbermouth

2010-05-09T21:09:00.002-04:00

No - this is not a confessional post. This weekend's Globe and Mail featured my review of Wilson, Dan Clowes's new graphic novel, and that's a snippet from it. The short version? I like it,and you should too.

The review (with what looks to be a Ghost-World era photo) is here. Please read it and tell me what you think.

A short Clowes story before I pass out from exhaustion. Clowes was in Toronto this weekend as the special guest at TCAF (aka the Toronto Comic Arts Festival). I attended his talk with the eloquent and well-prepared Mark Medley, during which the cartoonist talked about his dislike of reading reviews of his work. There was a brief discussion of Harry Naybors, Clowes' obnoxious Comic Critic character, which appears in issues of Eightball and later in his book Ice Haven.

The next day I saw that my review was in The Globe and immediately dreaded that i was to be Naybor-fied. Anyways, I bumped into Clowes at The Doug Wright Awards later that night and he made a point of saying he really liked the review and appreciated my take on the book.

Yes -- I know this sounds like Harry Naybors' wet-dream, but it was, in a weekend of great moments, the best one by far.

Swipe File: Special Spiegelman Edition

2010-04-05T10:57:00.002-04:00

One of the best things about the once-great but now mediocre Comics Journal, was their monthly Swipe File column in which they exposed de facto comics plagiarism -- a practice that was, in fact, quite common among superhero cartoonists. Regardless of this, it was always fun and eye-opening to witness the inspiration behind some of your favourite comics, while visualizing a coffee-addicted cartoonist cribbing from an old pulp novel in an effort to meet deadline.

This all came to mind thanks to this still photo in the New York Times, which I saw yesterday. It's taken from a London play called Enron that's debuting on Broadway later this week. The play is about the financial disaster that was Enron, the once-great and greatly-troubled American energy company. Is it just me, or does it look like someone in set design was a big fan of Maus?:

I mean, these two mouse-men are dead-ringers for Vladek and crew, don't you think?

I hereby proclaim this a stone-cold swipe!

Chet's new poster

2010-03-31T13:55:00.001-04:00

Not sure how I missed this, but Chester Brown has contributed the artwork for the poster for a new film by CBC Radio personality (and actor, musician, director) Sook-Yin Lee called Year of the Carnivore. And it's pretty great:

Personally, I think Chester's style would have been better suited to the previous SYL-vehicle Shortbus, but what do I know about marketing films?

The Qs and the As

2010-02-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

Dave Howard, of Torontoist's new comics blog, interviewed me about comics, awards, Canadians and Doug Wright (the awards and the Collected) and has posted the results. Unlike me, Dave is a very smart and thoughtful guy and this interview follows in the footsteps of ones with fellow writer and Wright Awards co-conspirator Jeet Heer and blogger/Beguiling/TCAF Grand Wizard, Chris Butcher.

What can I say? I'm proud to appear in such sterling company -- keep it coming Dave!

Stalking Snoopy (part one of an ongoing project)

2010-02-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

The anxious mind and me

2010-01-22T10:22:00.002-05:00

It may come as a surprise to people who know me, but I am a very anxious guy. Always have been, since I was a toddler, but I think I've learned to cope with it over the years. Still, I'm the person who is up at night thanks to a revolving door of worry: Is my daughter going to do okay in Grade 1? Is my son's cough more than just a cough? Will I meet that deadline at work? Am I writing enough freelance articles? Am I worrying too much? (That last one always makes me laugh.)

I try my best to talk myself out of these worry cycles, but I've just come to accept that there are days (or weeks) where I'll lose sleep and fret the night away. I've never really given this much thought until I picked up a recent issue of the New York Times Magazine and spied the cover story by Robin Marants Henig called "Understanding the Anxious Mind."

Henig's lenghty yet thoroughly engaging article explores the research done into the neuorological and biological roots of people with "high-reactive temperaments"; essentially those who have over-active amygdalas, the tiny part of the brain that oversees our reaction to fear and novelty.

There's so much in this piece that rings true for me, but the section about the purpose of high-anxiety was pretty swell:

In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities. Kagan has observed that the high-reactives in his sample tend to avoid the traditional hazards of adolescence. Because they are more restrained than their wilder peers, he says, high-reactive kids are less likely to experiment with drugs, to get pregnant or to drive recklessly. They grow up to be the Felix Ungers of the world, he says, clearing a safe, neat path for the Oscar Madisons.

People with a high-reactive temperament — as long as it doesn’t show itself as a clinical disorder — are generally conscientious and almost obsessively well-prepared. Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes.

That is 100% me, btw. He continues:

An anxious temperament might serve a more exalted function too. “Our culture has this illusion that anxiety is toxic,” Kagan said. But without inner-directed people who prefer solitude, where would we get the writers and artists and scientists and computer programmers who make society hum? Kagan likes to point out that T. S. Eliot suffered from anxiety, and that biographies indicate that he was a typical high-reactive baby. “That line ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’ — he couldn’t have written that without feeling the tension and dysphoria he did,” Kagan said.

If you have any of these characteristics, or live with someone who does, i strongly recommend that you read the piece all the way through. That's right: don't skip over anything, or skim it -- all the way through!!!

George Feyer's Stamp Book

2009-12-04T10:49:00.009-05:00

George Feyer ranks among the greatest obscure cartoonists in North America. A WWII Hungarian refugee to Canada who brokered his passage (and survival) across the Atlantic by forging his own passport, Feyer quickly became the rarest of rare birds - a celebrity cartoonist.

A fixture in newspapers (Feyer's Fair), magazines (Maclean's) and TV (he was all over the CBC, on kid's and adult shows) Feyer was a force to be reckoned with. Possessing a quick-draw style, he lampooned everything and everyone (including his adopted country) and became a fixture in the literary world, socializing with the likes of Pierre Berton and Lister Sinclair.

By the mid-1960s he had grown frustrated with the limitations he saw holding him back in Canada, so fled Toronto for New York City (where he befriended young writer Woody Allen and comedian Lenny Bruce). Later still, he up and moved to Los Angeles where he planed on getting into movies. That would never happen unfortunately, as he became deluded and killed himself in 1967 in an apartment festooned with his creatively intense - and intensely creative - drawings. (Here's Sinclair's poignant eulogy to Feyer.)

In his short but bright career, Feyer blazed a wide swath of material from books to a line of ceramic crafts (!?) much of it lost to time. So you can imagine how pleased I was to find this great book, George Feyer's Stamp Book, online recently. The gimmick with this is simple and very well-executed: Feyer took postage stamps from around the world and drew silent gag cartoons around them.

Even the back cover bears the mrak of Feyer, who thought of a clever way of communicating the publisher's name:

I've thumbed through this book often since I got it and each time I'm happy I did. So simple, yet so sublime, it's cartooning at it's finest. (I'll put more scans up soon. Just doing these kind of killed me, given that the binding is so cheap the pages were coming loose. But it's worth it if his work gets into a few more heads.)

Diving 101 - way up north

2009-10-10T16:42:00.005-04:00

Last Fall, I traveled to the Inuit village of Puvirnituq in Nunavik for a five-day course on how to scuba dive. The unlikely tale can be found in today's Globe and Mail Travel section.

So, a cartoonist walks into a comic shop...

2009-10-08T22:00:00.003-04:00

I snapped this photo at Ottawa's local Silver Snail comic shop. It was done by ex-pat Canadian comic fan and scholar Candice Chung, who did this before she flew off to Europe to finish her master's thesis. Ideally, you'd be familiar with both Joe Matt's work, and the Snail's staff to get this; but either way it's pretty great.
The guy in the final panel is Kin Jee, the long-time manager of the store. Ha ha! See? Now it's hilarious, right?

Me this Sunday

2009-09-23T14:26:00.011-04:00

Okay - enough with the hype posts already! But seriously, have you ever yearned to listen to Brad Mackay talk? How about watching him sign your copy of The Collected Doug Wright? Well, if you're in Toronto this Sunday, you're in luck brother!

Well, he'll (okay I'll) be in Hogtown this weekend for the amazing (and free) The Word on the Street; a day-long orgy of books and authors that is not to be missed. I'll be signing copies of the CDW at Drawn and Quarterly's booth at 1:00 p.m.

Then, I'll be part of a panel discussion called "Oh, Canada! Surveying the Landscape of Canadian Comics" which is kicking off at 3:00 p.m. at the Comics and Graphic Novels Tent run by the guys at TCAF. Bryan Munn, and Max Douglas will be moderating the chat and Kevin Boyd (of the Shuster Awards) will be sitting next to me, likely still drunk from the night before.

Hope to see you there.

Ink Studded

2009-09-23T14:16:00.003-04:00

Robin 'Dirty Bird' McConnell rang me up last week to discuss Doug Wright, comics and Canada for his radio show Inkstuds. I think it was actually a lucid chat, with very few Ahhhs or Uhmms from yours truly.

And there's a special bonus for anyone brave enough to click on the link: Part of a rare interview that Wright did in the 1970s for a Mohawk College TV show. Go listen already!

Blabitty, blabitty, Brad

2009-09-16T16:35:00.006-04:00

Mr. Nigel Beale, a very nice man with an unquenchable thirst for books, sat down with me a few weeks ago to chat about comics, graphic novels ansd Doug Wright. Thanks to a generous glass of scotch, I can't quite recall what I said -- and since I can't stand listening to myself, you'll to take my word for it when I say this is a podcast worth listening to.

While you're at it, you should explore the rest of his site as well. He has a cornucopia of images of old and rare books taht is sure to make you drool.

'The Collected Doug Wright' as educational tool

2009-09-09T20:55:00.006-04:00

Apologies in advance for the back-to-back cute-kids posts, but this one was too good to pass up. Drawn and Quarterly has some swell pics up of Joe Ollmann's (maybe 6-year-old?) son absorbed in The Collected Doug Wright Vol. One. It doesn't get any better than that (except perhaps hearing from Bob Rae that he had his copy of the book proudly displayed on his coffee table. That was kind of cool too.)

It's funny, because my daughter (5) did the same thing Joe Jr. here did when i got my copy of CDW in the mail. There's something about the colours and the lack of words that makes it a magnet for little kids. In fact, Seth and I got a fan letter from a retired school teacher earlier this summer that verified/quantified this appeal. I include the letter below as evidence of Wright's unheralded educational benefits:

This is actually a really good idea. Any teachers out there willing to give this a whirl in their classroom, please let me know the results.

Going prehistoric

2009-09-08T23:02:00.005-04:00

Here are some pics from a recent visit to the iconic, must-see Prehistoric World in Morrisburg, Ontario.

Mazzucchelli's graphic novel masterpiece

2009-08-29T11:34:00.003-04:00

I reviewed David Mazzucchelli's new (and very fine) GN, Asterios Polyp, in today's Globe and Mail. If you haven't read it yet, you really should. I'm usually pretty hesitant to fuel a book's hype, especially when it's going at full steam; but in this case AP lives up to its hype.

Not-So-Wacky Packages

2009-08-10T11:31:00.003-04:00

Growing up in the 70s/80s, I was a HUGE fan of Wacky Packages; so much so that I even drew a few of my own and mailed them to Topps. Still waiting on that one. My appreciation was only enhanced years later when I learned that Art Speigelman (of Maus fame) concieved of the series for Topps and did the art for many of the original product spoofs. So, i was rummaging around the internet this weekend for an uncut sheet of the original WP series stickers, and I found this terribly unfortunate puzzle (these were printed on the back of the sticker cards, and you'd have to collect them to complete the image):

I vaguely remember this - and it seemed utterly normal 20 years ago to mock other cultures. That "ah-so" gets me; do the Japanese even say anything resembling this?

Best Thank You note, evah!!!

2009-08-07T10:46:00.012-04:00

One of the best things about being the director of The Doug Wright Awards is discovering new comics and new cartoonists. One of my favourite discoveries from this past year's awards was Maids of the Mist by the talented Toronto cartoonist/tattoo artist/puppeteer Caitlin Black. I was literally handed this self-published comic the day of our nomination meeting, and it blew me away so much that I instantly added it to my short list.

The story follows two wayward teenagers (Misty and Leppard) as they endure another tourist-plagued summer in their hometwon of Niagara ("Nigraw") Falls. Anyways, the book made the Best Emerging Talent list at this May's DWAs, and Caitlin was so genuinely appreciative it made my heart melt. She was so appreciative, she sent this awesome hand-customized postcard as thanks:

(That's Leppard and Misty, as drawn by Caitlin, affixed to the front.)

The kicker? The backside has a hand-written thank you note from Misty and Leppard themselves. So kewl!

Plus, she included a Niagara Fall souvenir pen! Caitlin rawks!!!

Rilly's really spiffy new site

2009-07-21T15:53:00.003-04:00

My favourite Canadian cartoonist/policy analyst Ethan Rilly, has just unveiled a new website, Popehats.ca. Built using only "fimo and a buck knife" (it actually looks kind of pretty) the site exists primarily to promote his fine new comic Pope Hats #1 (which was nominated for a Doug Wright Award in it's earlier, self-published incarnation).

I really liked that earlier version, and I'm happy to see that he has re-drawn it and re-published it in a spiffy new format. As Seth has already commented, the story is breezy and deceptively casual in its depiction of real life. Plus there's a charming ghost in it.

If you like Dan Clowes, Seth, Adrain Tomine (or good comics) you should put $4 aside and buy a copy for yourself.

A life inside a life inside a life

2009-06-29T09:24:00.010-04:00

I wrote a review of A Drifting Life -- Yoshihiro Tatsumi's epic, sprawling manga memoir -- for the Globe and Mail's Books section, which appeared over the weekend.

Like a lot of people I've talked with, this book was a peculiar read at first. It came on a crest of huge expectations, thanks to the fact that it arrived after three excellent (and handsome) volumes of Tatsumi's classic gegika; volumes designed and edited by cartoonist Adrian Tomine, and published by Drawn and Quarterly.

This massive memoir (also pubilshed by D+Q) promised a behind-the-scenes look at Tatsumi's emergence as a cartoonist, and the reasons behind the genesis of the ground-breaking, and grim, gegika medium (short comics stories that took on adult themes, including abortion, murder, prostitution and adultery.) Yet, Tatsumi made a couple of stylistic choices that I found challenging initially. First, he named his protagonist "Katsumi," a strange choice (a one-letter difference from his own name) that seems to imply that he's fictionalized some of the details in his tale. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

As he explained during his appearance at TCAF, Tatsumi was simply following the Japanese tradition of the "I-novel"; a genre of autobiographical manga that sees the cartoonist’s name changed as a courtesy to those depicted in the book who are still alive.

The other thing I found curious was the tone of the book, which is modelled on the classic manga tradition (ie. broadly expressed emotions, wide-eyed characters). It took me about 350 pages before it dawned on me that Tatsumi had made this choice deliberately. His story deals with his love affair with manga, so it only made sense that it should be told in a similar fashion. Well, that's my theory anyway.

Anyways, go read the piece and let me know if you agree with me. I'll leave you with a quote from Chris Ware that i used in the review that made me laugh:

“Being a cartoonist is sort of like being a businessman doodling all day. You're not an action painter throwing paint around or going out into the world; you're just sitting pathetically at this table, staring down in a kind of feedback loop.”

If all reviews were like this, I'd be a happy man

2009-04-14T11:58:00.004-04:00

The CBC's always great Arts website has a feature up now on The Collected Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist that is fairly mind-blowing. The writer (Martin Morrow) really nails most the themes/ideas that we discussed as we were working on the this volume. Plus, there are more than a dozen images from the book and many great quotes from Seth about classic-era cartooning and Wright's significance.

(This is an enlarged Wright drawing that was embellished by Seth.)

It's definitely worth a gander.

Oh - and you can buy the book online here. Or wait a few months, and buy it here and then get is signed after this.

A challenger to the KE7 crown?

2009-03-11T12:32:00.007-04:00

Think Kramer's Ergot #7 is big? Of course you do.The latest edition of the revered alt-comics anthology has been wow-ing fans and annoying wives everywhere since it was released to much acclaim last fall, thanks to its its All-Star lineup (Seth, Adrian Tomine, Dan Clowes et al.) and it's gi-normous physical size.

But, yo! What's that on the horizon --a challenger to KE7's crown? And it's Canadian????

Maybe. Simply titled RED, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas's book of "Haida manga" (a term that the B.C. visual artist coined a couple of years ago) measures in at a jaw-dropping six feet by 14 feet! Or, 6.6 square meters for you Metric nuts. (That's a shot of it above.)

That's about 5 times larger than KE7; which weighs in at a paltry 16 x 21 inches (take that Harkham!) According to Yahgulanaas's publisher's site, RED is slated for publication this fall but I can't parse out what kind of print run they're planning. It kind of sounds like it's a one-shot gallery piece.

Regardless, they're billing it as "one of the world's largest comic books" which sounds about right to me. Seriously, though, you should check out Yahgulanaas's work; here, here and over here. He's a really talented guy, who has managed to merge native imagery and the comics form in a way that seems entirely natural.

I can't believe it's taken me so long to discover him.

Offspring of famous cartoonists (#1 in a series of one)

2009-02-27T11:37:00.007-05:00

There's a great photo-gallery up now on Wired that explores the unsettling lives of comic store clerks. I say unsettling because the piece features Q&As with the mostly-male clerks and photos that peer into their private nerd lairs. It ends up provoking the same reaction i get when i look at Diane Arbus photos; growing curiousity that eventually gets wrapped up in creeping uneasiness. For the most part I feel really bad for these guys, completely immersed as they are in a man-child state of Alex Ross comics and over-priced action figures.

But then, part way through, we get this great little interview with Olive Panter, the 18-year-old daughter of alt-comix Buddha Gary Panter.

Not only is it refreshing to see someone from a comic shop that doesn't worship at the temple of Marvel/DC, but she has some pretty funny things to say about; Alt-comics:

"I love Johnny Ryan and I always have. But it's getting pretty repetitive these days. Less anal rape."

about working in a comic shop:

"I started when I was 14 and quit and returned and quit and returned and quit and returned. My dad got me into it. He works at the School of Visual Arts and it's nearby and Mark, the owner, really liked his comics. I started on Sundays bagging books and now I come and don't do anything."

and, about her clientele:

"On a Wednesday, a regular customer came and bought a ton of comics as per usual. Then the next day he came in he was completely scab-covered and bruised on his face. We were like, "Dude, what happened to you? Are you okay?" Turns out he started falling down on a escalator while holding his comics and rather than protecting his face he protected his comics. But they still got a little bent, so the next day he came back and re-bought them."

So, good for her. And for Gary. He seems to have raised a killer kid. (Now, is it too much to ask that she starts making comics?)

- B.

Batman as jazz

2009-01-27T11:58:00.007-05:00

For years I've kicked at the theory that comics and jazz represent America's only unique, indigenous art forms. This point was made back in the 1970s, and has been repeated and rebutted countless times since along the lines of "Comics appeared in Europe years before they turned up on North American shores!" and "The roots of jazz are in Africa, not New Orleans!" etc. et al into boring infinitude. I know. Because I was a part of many of these conversations.

Yet, no matter how many times I talked about it with my comics-savvy colleagues (just imagine these conversations, for a moment) I always walked away with a different idea: That comic books and jazz have more in common than we give them credit for.

My jazzbo father Dad would probably wretch, but I finally got around to writing about it on the Globe and Mail's new Books site. My essay is called "Batman and jazz," and doubles as a sort-of book review of the sensational Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan.

Please buy it! And read my piece! And if you feel the need, rip me one!

Best DISH Network deals offer you distant network package with permanently at&t dish network customer service. Read more about difference between cable and satellite TV DISH Network specials.

25 Great Things About Being A Comics Fan

2009-01-11T23:58:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of Tom Spurgeon, Mr. Comics Reporter, a great little list every comics fan should read. It'll make you feel a little less nerdy when you step out the door in the morning. Highlights include:

"#2. You'll have a better vocabulary than the people you know that only read prose and you'll have a better eye for visual language than the people you know that only look at art. ...

#6. You'll have the best conversations at parties with the widest range of people while quickly learning how to duck the truly dreary conversations at parties with that one narrow range of people. ...

#11. From now on, every garage sale, flea market and library sale is hope. ... and,

# 16. At first you'll like all the comics. Then you'll get a little bit older and like only a few of them. Then you'll get a little older than that, and you get to like all the comics again."

More, here.

Pre-order, like, now

2008-12-29T12:45:00.004-05:00

Order now,order often. The Collected Doug Wright: Volume One: Canada's Master Cartoonist. Or not. I'm just saying - it'll be out soon.
- B.

Awards process is ‘imperfect’’ and ‘imprecise’ say GG jurists

2008-11-14T17:03:00.004-05:00

It’s a few days after a letter of protest from Chester Brown and Seth landed in the email boxes of the Canada Council for the Arts. Unfortunately since then, they haven’t had much of substance to say about the Skim debacle.

The last I heard (via Quill and Quire’s blog) the Canada Council’s Melanie Rutledge—head of Writing and Publishing—had rejected the idea of adding Jillian Tamaki’s name to Skim’s nomination, saying: “The horse has kind of left the barn, unfortunately, and we’re not really in a position to simply stop and re-do things.”

I’m not quite sure what she’s talking about, since no “re-do” is required: just a simple matter of bending the rules a little to add Jillian’s name on the citation alongside her cousin’s, Mariko. Rutledge’s reaction seems kind of pat and toothless, and smacks of the kind of bureaucracy that we have come to expect from faceless government departments not the august, artist-friendly Canada Council. (Their motto being "Supporting Canadian Creativity.")

Her reaction is doubly puzzling when you consider the thoughts of the jury members, who seem to agree that the GG process is flawed and in need of an overhaul.

Kevin Major and Teresa Toten, two-thirds of the jury for Children’s Literature – Text (the category Skim is nominated under), seem to agree that the situation Jillian finds herself in is a symptom of the fact that the GG’s long-standing categories are outdated. Toten, a Toronto-based author, told me this morning that she thinks the process is “imperfect and imprecise” and that the events of this past week have been “a learning opportunity, for me and the Council.”

Admittedly not well-acquainted with comics and graphic novels before she was asked to be a GG judge earlier this year, she stressed that she thought Skim was “a stunning piece of work” and expressed regret that one of it’s creators was feeling snubbed by their decision.

“I get it now,” she added. “I don’t think I got it before, but I get it now.”

As Toten (and others) have pointed out, the GGs operate under a set of categories that seem to have been created without the medium of comics in mind. Skim, thanks to its young-adult orientation, was submitted for consideration in two categories: “Children’s Literature – text” (Mariko Tamaki) and “Children’s Literature – illustration” (Jillian Tamaki).

I’m sure if they had a flux capacitor and a DeLorean handy, the staff in charge of applying for awards at Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press (the book’s publishers) would fly back in time in an instant and undo what I see as the initial, grave miscalculation. By submitting to these outdated categories, they kind of guaranteed that either Mariko or Jillian would be snubbed. Maybe they thought a comic didn’t have a chance anyway, and decided to hedge their bets by pretending that Skim was an illustrated kid’s book?

Anyways, I also talked with Major via email in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Also an author, he was very forthcoming about what he thought was wrong. When asked where he thought the fault lied, he said:

"The book was submitted within the present classification system and guidelines, which the publisher was well aware of. We were asked to consider the word text only, and could really do no more than that in submitting our shortlist. I would say there has been an awareness among juries (past and present) that it is an imperfect system, for picture books as well as graphic novels, since in both cases the two elements (words and images) work in unison. However, that debate has been on-going for years (at least back to the 1970s), long before graphic novels were in the mix. As have other debates about the system, of judging YA [young adult] fiction in the same category as books for 5-year-olds, as an example."

And, a little later on:

“In the case of SKIM, the artwork of many of them conveys parts of the story that the words alone do not. In my opinion the drawings in the best picture books, as those in graphic novels, do not simply illustrate text, but are equal in their contribution to the telling of the story…SKIM is indeed a wonderful book, with two contributors of equal merit.”

While both jury members sympathize with Jillian’s predicament—and acknowledge the arguments made in the open letter—they stopped short of saying her name short be added to the nomination. Considering how much they liked Skim, and the crucial role that Jillian’s art plays in it, not formally acknowledging—even at this late point in the process—seems like losing on a technicality.

Major did however close out his email with this small light of hope:

“No doubt this matter will be raised at the next GG awards meeting of the Council. Maybe it is time to rethink the classification system. If the protest is loud and long against what is in place now, then the Council would have no choice but to rethink it.”

So, speak up comics fans! Blog your heart out or contact the Canada Council now! Vote early, vote often!

Comics' big guns take aim at the Governor General's Literary Awards

2008-11-12T15:25:00.013-05:00

So, i've heard some rumblings from my comics pals in the past few weeks about this, so it's nice to see that someone finally had the gumption to put pen to virtual paper.

Below is an open letter sent (like an hour ago) to the Canada Council for the Arts (which administers the Governor General Literary Awards) that takes issue with their puzzling decision to omit cartoonist Jillian Tamaki from the GG nomination for her book Skim (her cousin, Mariko Tamaki, wrote the book).

This is especially galling since it marks the first time a graphic novel has ever nabbed a nomination in the prestigious awards, and yet the cartoonist is unable to share the glory (not to mention the $25,000 prize it offers). Part of the blame here can be placed on the seemingly obsolete categories at the GGs - Skim is honoured in the "Children's Book - Text" section - but, still. The three members of the jury for the category should have expressed concern about this when they voted for the book. The official nomination summary clearly identifies Skim as a "graphic novel" (an "audacious and original" one at that) yet it makes zero mention of Jillian's contribution, which simply cannot be understated. Anyone who has read the book realizes that her art is an integral part of the story-telling. If you don't believe me, check out this six-page excerpt.

And if you don't believe your eyes, consider the New York Times. In it's recent review of Skim it said:

The black and white pictures by Jillian Tamaki, Mariko's cousin, create a nuanced, three-dimensional portrait of Skim, conveying a great deal of information often without the help of the text. The book's most striking use of purely visual communication occurs in a lush and lovely double-page tableau of Skim and Ms. Archer exchanging a kiss in the woods that leaves the reader (and maybe even the participants) wondering who kissed whom. In another sequence, Skim and Ms. Archer sip tea without ever making eye contact, the pictures and minimal text communicating the uncomfortable emotional charge in the room and the two characters' difficulty in knowing what to say to each other.

and:

Tamaki's palette often becomes noticeably darker or lighter to signal a change in mood. Various night scenes communicate Skim's depression, her unhappy moon-face isolated in fields of inky black, streetlights casting long, lonely shadows. In contrast, Tamaki sets the outdoor memorial service for the dead boyfriend on a frozen winter field, the participants drawn in lightly, almost as if they're ghosts, the snowy backdrop and blank white balloons (shown caught on bare winter trees) conveying absence and emptiness.

Anyway, Jillian briefly blogged about her feelings but otherwise that's been the extent of the commentary on this. Which makes this letter all the more sweet. Seth and Chester Brown wrote it and a Who's Who of comics cognescenti signed on in support, including Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine, Dan Clowes, Lynda Barry, Joe Ollman, and hey - me too! Ha ha.

Anyways, read em and weep. (Take that Michaëlle Jean!)

- B.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARDS

November 12, 2008

As individuals involved in the art form of comics and graphic novels, we are glad to see that a graphic novel has made the short-list for this year's Governor General's Literary Awards. SKIM (by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki) is a wonderful book and deserves the attention. But we're troubled by the fact that only one of its co-creators is receiving credit for the creation of the book's text. We understand that an award-category exists for illustration, but to have nominated Jillian in that category would not have rectified the problem. Indeed, that would have highlighted how our medium is misunderstood.

We're guessing that the jury who read SKIM saw it as an illustrated novel. It's not; it's a graphic novel. In illustrated novels, the words carry the burden of telling the story, and the illustrations serve as a form of visual reinforcement. But in graphic novels, the words and pictures BOTH tell the story, and there are often sequences (sometimes whole graphic novels) where the images alone convey the narrative. The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text. Try to imagine evaluating SKIM if you couldn't see the drawings. Jillian's contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration: she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was.

In an October 21st article for the CBC website, one of your jurors, Teresa Toten, was interviewed: "Toten praised SKIM for using the graphic novel format to tell a sophisticated story about what life is like for teenaged girls. The work is remarkable in part because of how the words and pictures both contribute to the literary quality, she said." And that is the point of this letter. "[T]he words and pictures both contribute to [SKIM's] literary quality".
A new category does not need to be created to properly address the graphic novel. In fact, it is best to see graphic novels appear in literary awards only when they deserve to compete equally against prose on their literary merit alone.

In writing this letter, we don't mean to slight Mariko. One of the reasons this collaboration works so well is because she understood how to write for this medium. But we feel that as things now stand, Jillian is being slighted. We want both of the enormously talented creators of this book to be honoured together for their achievement.

Yours,

Chester Brown (Author of Louis Riel)
Seth (Author of It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken)

NAMES IN SUPPORT OF THIS LETTER

Lynda Barry (Author of What It Is)
Peter Birkemoe (Owner of The Beguiling)
Dan Clowes (Author of Ghost World)
David Collier (Author of The Frank Ritza Papers)
Julie Doucet (Author of 365 Days)
Brad Mackay (Director of The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning)
Chris Oliveros (Publisher of Drawn and Quarterly)
Joe Ollmann (Author of This Will All End in Tears)
Bryan Lee O'Malley (author of Scott Pilgrim)
Michel Rabagliati (Author of Paul Moves Out)
Art Spiegelman (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus)
Adrian Tomine (Author of Shortcomings)
Chris Ware (Author of Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth)

UPDATE: In a news piece on CBC.ca, the Canada Council responds to this letter via Melanie Rutledge, head of writing and publishing.

"We'll certainly take the suggestions in the letter under advisement."

"We do take the feedback very seriously. At this point, it is too late for us to make any changes this year: the finalists have been announced. In terms of making the change now — for the 2008 edition of the awards it's a little late in the game to do that."

"But as I said, we take the feedback very seriously. We welcome it. And when we're planning for next year, we'll certainly take it under consideration."

This is interesting, but I'm still curious what the jury members themselves (Michael Kusugak of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Kevin Major of St. John's NFLD. or Teresa Toten of Toronto) think. Sure would be good if there were any journalists out there with a bit of spare time on their hands.....

At last, the truth can be told

2008-11-03T09:11:00.002-05:00

If memory serves, this was one of the possibilities floated out by me and my buddies back in the summer of '77. (courtesy The Onion): "Burned Lower Half Of Mort's Face Revealed In 'Bazooka Joe' Stunner""

"Bazooka Joe has always been about mankind's search for meaning in a world marked by pain," said staff artist Martin Shore, who claimed that the idea for Mort first came to Gelman after he watched entire villages burn to the ground in the Philippines. "Sure, the sight of Mort's charred and blackened jaw may shock some of our readers, but maybe they should be shocked. Maybe it's time they woke up and realized the true, unrelenting nightmare that is our very existence."

Added Shore, "If they don't like it, they can buy another fruit-flavored gum."

RIP Rudy Ray (aka: Dolemite, the Avenging Disco Godfather et al.)

2008-10-21T12:47:00.000-04:00

First, it was Mr.Blackwell. Now comes news that another pop culture icon my fast receding youth ( I turn 40 next month) has passed. I just heard that the great Rudy Ray Moore is now the late, great Rudy Ray Moore. The man behind such improbably durable movies as Dolemite, Petey Wheatstraw the Devil's Son-In-Law and Avenging Disco Godfather (my gateway drug to his bizarro oeuvre), Moore was a singular creation of the 1970s.

Equal parts sex symbol, stand-up comedian, MC, auteur, aspiring actor, anti-drug crusader and African American agitator, it's a good bet that Rudy Ray's movies seemed as strange to black audiences as they did to white. Riding the polyester coattails of Melvin Van Peebles breakout 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song, Moore unabashedly embraced the "Blaxploitation" genre like no other before or since.

While the producers behind such blockbuster studio films as Shaft strove duplicate someof the seriousness of Pebbles' success, Moore would have none of it. He took the basic Angry Black Man premise of the genre and exploded it in a mash-up of soft-core pornography, profanity, slapstick comedy and badly choreographed kung-fu. As you can expect, this manna to my 17-year-old self. (He also made albums!)

I first came across RRM's films in the late 1980s in a Jumbo Video in my hometown of Ottawa. Having already digested the entire Shaft (including the under-rated Shaft in Africa) and Superfly series, my friend Glenn Sheskay and I were aching for a new fix. That's when we discovered the "Super Action" racks at the local video superstore. I'm not sure how - or why - they came into possession of them, but they had every Rudy Ray Moore film ever made. I vividly remember watching Avenging Disco Godfather for the first time. I completely lost my shit: The movie's combination of goof ball comedy, rudimentary rapping and brutal violence (racist cops and hoodlums are killed without mercy) melted my brain and moved my heart.

We tried our best to spread the word about Moore's legacy, but our friends were likely worn out with the results of our increasingly strange cultural excavations (or they were too busy doing dope and having sex. Losers!). More than a decade later I was shocked to witness a renaissance of sorts for Mr. Moore; one that culminated in me meeting the man at a showcase of his work in Montreal in 1999. He was in full on Dolemite mode, telling off-colour sex jokes in front of a crowd of university kids (many of whom left in disgust) while trying to hawk flimsy back-scratchers with his logo on them (he had hired a flunkie to actually walk around the theater to sell them!) I only wish he had been selling this great onesie at the time:

It was a moment of affirmation -- at least for me -- to see the 71-year-old Moore up there, using his moment in the sun to hype his latest film. A showman to the end.

Sure wish i would have bought one of those back-scratchers though.......

Done and gone, like dinner

2008-10-16T13:29:00.001-04:00

Yes, I have been horribly remiss in keeping up this blog. But I have a good reason, really. It's all Doug Wright's fault, see. First, it was the 2008 Doug Wright Awards, which I am the director of and the host. When I wasn't doing that, I was busy finishing up my part of the upcoming book The Collected Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist.

The first volume of this retrospective look at the artist's life is due to hit shelves next Spring, and for much of the past year (longer if you include the months of research) most of my free time and holidays have been consumed with writing what I hope is the definitive take on Wright's life and art. Anyway, I'm happy to report that the final book is being sent to the printer later today. This piece of art from a 1950s Christmas card kind of sums up how i feel right about now:

It's been a long process, and an eye-opener for me in terms of the publishing process. It's a laborious, back-breaking job getting a 200-page plus book in shape and I'm glad it's not my . I mean, how can any right-thinking person (ie. Chris Oliveros) feel like they can do Seth's amazing design justice, not to mention Wright himself?

Luckily, he is the right man for the job. I've seen a layout for the book, and what can I say: it's eye-popping. Seth has outdone himself, with a classy (duh!) design that both honours Wright's work and frames it in a way I think newer readers will embrace. So, here's to Doug, and hopefully the beginning of a mini-renaissance for his work. (below is a sample strip that kind of sums up what was so great about the strip: that combination of anger, frustration and, well, love.)

All hail Pigskin Peters!!!

2008-08-11T22:06:00.000-04:00

So, for those of you who were unable to attend Friday's Doug Wright Awards at the Toronto Reference Library, one of the standouts of the evening was the unveiling of our latest award category; the Pigskin Peters Annual Award for Nominally Narrative Canadian Cartooning (P.P.A.A.N.N.C.C.) or, as I like to call it (because my every breath is precious) the Pigskin Peters Award.

The great Canadian cartoonist Seth devised and designed the award itself, which honours the best in non-traditional or experimental Canadian comics. As the audience heard, the award itself is a derby hat (or bowler depending on your take on these) that is based on the hat worn by the great Canadian comic strip character Pigskin Peters. Yes, that Pigskin Peters. He of the seminal Canadian comic strip Birdseye Center which was drawn from about 1920 until 1948 by Jimmy Frise (and, for 20 years after his death, by none other than Doug Wright himself).

Anyways - Julie Morstad won the inaugural P.P.A.A.N.N.C.C. for her fine, dark little book Milk Teeth and will soon be receiving a trim derby hat fit to her head. But, Seth being Seth, there's much more to it than that.

The award comes with a custom-made pin featuring Mr. Peters himself:

As well, it comes packed in a box decorated with custom stickers:

Which, once opened, features a Birdseye Center strip inside that gives the owner an idea of what kind of a guy Peters was:

And I didn't even get to talk about the plaque which features a chrome peg that you can use to display the hat for all to see. I probably went a little overboard in my appreciation of Seth's work on this at the event itself, but goddamn! That man never misses a detail!

When he suggested the award last year, I was personally a little puzzled by it. But when I saw the final result, I was instantly won over. Here's a full set of pics for the curious.

(Ceremony pics, and party pics to come!)

Later - Brad M.

A real keeper: Dick wallpaper

2008-06-21T21:34:00.000-04:00

The first in a series of posts from Heritage Signature Auction #807, a catalog from a comics and pop culture auction that took place at the San Diego Comic Con in July 2003.

Behold, Harlan Ellison's "provenance" statement for a roll of Dick Tracy wallpaper! (Wimbledon Green, eat your heart out!)

Will the real Iron Man please stand up?

2008-06-02T17:17:00.000-04:00

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I think I missed out on an opportunity for blockbuster blog post a few weeks back. Even after going to see the Robert Downey Jr.-fuelled Iron Man last month and witnessing the ample coverage of its out-of-the-gate success, I completely blanked on the fact that nearly three years ago to the day I had written a piece about the original Iron Man; the Canadian Iron Man no less.

Back in the spring of 2005 I was working at the CBC in Toronto and was going through one of my periodic love affairs with superheroes (it's OK; my wife is totally cool with it). This time my affections were focussed on the "Canadian Whites," a series of short-lived but highly popular superhero comics that existed during the Second World War. Among the better known characters of this era were Johnny Canuck and Nelvana of the Northern Lights (who I discovered, preceded Wonder Woman as the first female superhero by a few months.)

Printed in black and white and often on cheap paper, the comics had a rough charm about them — a charm only amplified by their names: the Polka-Dot Pirate, Freelance, Canada Jack, Stuffy Bugs and Senorita Marquita.

Anyway, as obscure as the Whites were it dawned on me that no one had actually confirmed who the first real "made in Canada" superhero was. (Though, if you believed these guys you'd think otherwise.) So, with a bit of sleuthing I managed to find out that the first true Canadian superhero was …. Iron Man. Seriously.

Created by Vancouver artist and animator Vernon Miller, Iron Man debuted in Better Comics No. 1 in March 1941. Any description I could muster will pale next to a simple image. Like this one from Better Comics No.2 with Iron Man in full fighting form:

Pretty great huh?

White's Iron Man (which preceded Marvel's by a couple of decades) was the sole survivor of a destroyed civilization who lived and brooded underwater, surfacing occasionally to help out a couple of trouble magnets named Ted and Jean.

After countless hours of independent research I wrote a short pithy piece about Canada's Iron Man for the CBC Arts Online site, which all things considered was a perfect match. Looking back on this fine hero, it kills me the amount of blind adulation nationalistic comic fans heap on characters with little to no Canadian connection. Meanwhile, perfectly thought out home-grown characters are left to moulder in neglect. I mean, Canada's Iron Man was ahead of the curve; part Submariner (he preceded Namor) and part Tony Stark.

Nothing against the US of A's Iron Man, but he's never exactly been a heavy hitter. Apart from his changing costume, he just seemed like Donald Trump or Gordon Gekko in armour.

I just wish I was on the ball! As is, I feel like i was either three weeks too late or three years to early. I guess it's Better late than never.

(ps: I urge anyone curious about the Canadian Whites to visit Golden Age Canadian Comics Books. I have no idea who's responsible for this site, but it's the first I've ever seen to offer full scans of these rare books. A true gem!)

The C-word

2008-01-25T12:06:00.000-05:00

According to toady's National Post, being "Canadian" has taken on a whole new meaning in the southern United States:

In the U.S. south, is Canadian a new racial slur?

- B.

An investigation of investigative comics

2008-01-15T09:44:00.000-05:00

I wrote a feature piece on the surprisingly old - to me anyways -medium of investigative comics (or "comix reportage" as one publisher recently dubbed it) in the new issue of THIS magazine. This is the first time I've written for the awkwardly-named proudly-socialist publication, so I wasn't sure what to expect (requests to include more quotes from Naomi Klein maybe?). But I'm happy to say it was a pleasurable doctrine-free experience; they're a swell bunch of folks.

Anyway, here' s a link to the piece. And here's a snippet, starting with the words of noted comics journalist Joe Sacco:

“The great thing about comics is that they’re so loose and so little had been done with the form that I didn’t feel like there were any footsteps that I had to follow,” [Joe Sacco] says. “Comics then, and maybe even now, were like untrampled grass and you could walk across it in any direction you wanted. It’s one of those mediums that’s so open to interpretation.”

Sacco is by no means the only cartoonist to take advantage of this creative freedom. Though he’s credited with giving comics journalism its name, many other cartoonists have worked in a similar vein, including Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman (founders of the socialist comics magazine World War 3 Illustrated), British cartoonist and anti-capitalist Sue Coe (an alumni of the groundbreaking “commix” anthology RAW), Canadian Guy Delisle (with Pyongyang, Shenzhen and his forthcoming book about Burma), and even the likes of Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith and Leonard Rifas, the rabble-rousing leftist cartoonist who created Corporate Crime Comics during the 1970s.

But to many comics historians, including Jeet Heer and cartoonist Art Spiegelman, the roots of today’s comics journalists can be traced nearly 150 years further back, to the American Civil War. When the war began in 1861, newspaper and magazine editors were hungry for images to run alongside their coverage of the divisive confrontation. Unfortunately, nascent photographic technology wasn’t advanced enough to allow photographers to capture battles, says Heer.

“During all of the 19th century wars, like the Crimean War and the Civil War, the main defining images weren’t photographs of the battlefield, but from illustrators who were sent out there,” he says from Regina. “There are photographs of the Civil War, but they’re always after the battles because the cameras required exposures of five to 10 minutes.”

One of the most enjoyable things of doing a wide-ranging piece like this is you get to do some real digging and can occasionally come across some really neat stuff. In this case, it was journalistic work done by Harvey Kurtzman, original editor of Mad magazine, architect behind Little Annie Fanny and all-around comics innovator. They couldn't include any of these 1950's gems in the THIS piece due to copyright issues, but here's a sample of the Jimmy Cagney profile he did.

Anyone interested in the other journalistic comics Kurtzman did should check this out. It's beautiful stuff.

All things said, I'm pretty happy with this piece of writing. My only regret? The picture I sent them for the contributors page (too surly) and my bio, which is about 200 words longer than anyone else's. I didn't know - i swear!

Later - B.

Dave Cooper's big piece

2007-12-04T20:37:00.003-05:00

When I was preparing to move back to Ottawa a little over a year ago I harboured deep, sincere fears that I was leaving behind not only family and close friends, but any and all inklings of original artistic thought. Then I went back for a visit in September and bore horrible witness to the second annual Nuit Blanche festival, after which I realised my fears were completely unfounded. (Oy! And I thought Toronto was hurting for cash?)

Anyways, this thought struck me again after paying a visit to the latest work by long-time Ottawa artist Dave Cooper, who in a former life was a well-known alternative cartoonist. The work in question (which was being previewed at a local gallery before it headed to a show of its own in L.A. early next year) is called The Underbrush Octych and features Dave's luscious-slash-lascivious ladies in, "full bloom" shall we say.

Anyways, the truly interesting thing here was the construction of the work, which is 18 feet long and made up of eight individual paintings. They're hung on a custom-made track which allows the painting to be rearranged left to right and right to left, ad infinitum in a kind of loop, without the overall image losing it's flow. Here's my attempt at a shot of the entire piece:

According to the owner of the gallery (he might have just been an employee) Cooper had started the painting in an effort to produce a series of smaller more affordable pieces. Then, the idea just kind of got away from him, and the series became part of a larger whole, which will now sell as such come February 2008. (Gee, i really hope he was the owner and knew what he was talking about.)

So as I was trying to convince the gallery guy to let me take some photos of this grand thing, the artiste himself showed up and I struck up a conversation. We had met years ago, via a mutual friend so we quickly caught up and I asked his approval to snap some photos and, uh, here we are. Me writing a blog post and you reading it. Isn't life strange?

So, make with the enjoyment the photos already!

There are some more shots over at Flickr for your viewing pleasure.

*BONUS FACT* I looked up the term "octych" and I don't think it actually exists outside of some role-playing game from the 80s. Which of course makes me appreciate the artistic process behind it even more. Not to mention the artist himself:

*EXTRA BONUS FACT* They apparently pulled out all the stops for the opening, trotting out a couple of fulsome gals with latex gloves to rearrange the art every 15 minutes as per a customized clock made by Cooper. You can see videos of this oddly R. Crumb like happening here, here and here.

You can also see the various stages of this work, from sketch to canvas, right here, courtesy of Cooper.

- B.

How can you set up DIRECTV satellite dishes or tv hd satellite receivers?

Delusional movie review

2007-12-02T22:03:00.000-05:00

I caught the Coen brothers new movie, No Country For Old Men, on the weekend and rather enjoyed it. You - yeah you - should go see it. (But be prepared for a little head scratching at the end though.)

As engaging as the film was I kept making connections to the comic books in my head. I'm probably just delusional, but the main character, a contract killer called Anton Chigurh (played icily by Javier Bardem) looked as if he had stepped out of a comic by Gilbert Hernandez. Not the earlier Love and Rockets stuff, but the more recent works. I mean, you be the judge:

The other thing that hit me was Chigurh's habit of flipping a coin and asking his victims to choose a side in exchange for their lives. Again, sound familiar?:

Just saying is all.

Seals of approval

2007-11-27T20:42:00.001-05:00

When a bunch of miscreants and ne'er-do-wells (including myself) started up The Doug Wright Awards early in 2005 one of the first things we did was devise a wish list of all the things we imagined for the awards, ranging from bookmarks to tie pins to t-shirts.

Not surprisingly, one of those miscreants, Seth, has been instrumental in seeing the best of those ideas to fruition, designing our trophy, our Hall of Fame logo and for 2007, our Hall of Fame medals. Now, I'm happy to report that one of the suggestions I made during that first meeting back in January 2005 has finally been realised; stickers for the winning Doug Wright Award books:

Designed by Seth and generously sponsored by Drawn and Quarterly Books, these puppies should be showing up in your favourite book store just in time for the holiday shopping season. I think they are an honourable chapter in a long and distinguished history of award stickers, stretching back to the estimable Caldecott Medal sticker which graces the best in children's books.

Here's Joe Ollmann's 2007 Best Book winner, This Will All End in Tears, wearing one of our new stickers:

Anyways - i think they look great, and I can't wait to stumble upon one for the first time in an honest-to-goodness bookstore. More pictures of the sticker are over at my Flickr page.

Six Degrees of Barney Google

2007-10-28T21:23:00.003-04:00

So, you may have heard the news that Vincent DeDomenico Sr., the American pasta industry icon who was instrumental in creating Rice-A-Roni, died a couple of weeks back (well, a week Thursday if Wikipedia is to be believed). His death sparked plenty of media coverage, much of which included trivia about the man's most famous creation - aka "The San Francisco Treat."

Like many Canadians, I've never eaten the stuff but was surprised to find out that a) it's made of rice and tiny bits of pasta (whelp!) and, b) that the most popular recipe using Rice-A-Roni is something called Beef Porcupine Balls, a 1960s favourite that is allegedly "a clever twist on traditional meatballs" (blurgh!) Luckily my memories of the stuff have nothing to do with its actual taste.

I distinctly remember it being promoted at the tail end of The Price Is Right, and being a rabid fan of Wacky Packages as a kid, I fondly recall this 'biting' satire of it:

(Ha ha. "Chokin Flavor." That should be "Chicken Flavor.")

Anyway, I have a point here. The thing everyone else remembers about Rice-A-Roni is its infectious goddamn jingle: "Rice, A-Roni, The San Francisco Treat." You know what I'm talking about.

Created in 1961, the success of this jingle is indisputable. I mean, I'm familiar with it and the product it represents even though for decades I was never able to actually buy it off the shelf. Which leads me to my All-Time favourite bit of Rice-A-Roni trivia: that catchy ditty owes much - if not all - of it's infectiousness to a 1923 song about none other that Barney Google, the classic comic strip character. Created by the great Billy DeBeck, Google was a knee-high, banjo-eyed, potato-nosed sportsman (description courtesy of Time magazine) who spent much of his time trying to convince his recalcitrant horse, Spark Plug, to win a race.

Barney Google made De Beck famous and staggeringly rich, thanks in part to some wildly popular merchandise. The song, written by Billy Rose and Con Conrad, sold more than a million copies thanks to its hummable tune and a peppy chorus, "Barney Google, and his goo-goo-googly eyes". It's so catchy that you can picture yourself bouncing down the street to it (just like an early black-and-white cartoon character.)

So catchy, that when Vincent DeDomenico hired some some writers to pen a jingle for his creation they simply borrowed the tune from "Barney Google". Lazy, but brilliant.

Being that i grew up to be a crazy comic fan, the connection threw me for a loop. It's even stranger when you consider i attended the opening of Drawn and Quarterly's bookstore last week in which someone had put on display a bunch of Barney Google paraphernalia.

I was thinking of including an MP3 of the song right about here, but then I found this YouTube clip of a guy playing an original 78 of the song on his Victrola (surprisingly, there are a bunch of clips like this.) Being that I recently splurged on one of these myself, I figured I’d show him some support – I mean, the clip has only been viewed 122 times! Show him some love people, and play it loud!! And think of poor Barney while you're at it!

- B.

Time warner dvrs and cable television guide will let you watch Cartoon Network online free on your smart phone.

Wet t-shirt party in Montreal!!

2007-10-22T22:44:00.000-04:00

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.

Personal confession time

2007-08-26T14:05:00.000-04:00

A colleague recently told me that a sure fire way to attract attention to a blog is to write confessional posts. Well, my time has come.

One of my longstanding passions in life is reserved for chip trucks ... not the food itself, which I can take or leave (mostly leave) but the art painted on their sides. I recently returned to live in Ottawa, Ontario and was reminded of the itinerant, rolling beauty of this unique form of street art.

The picture below is just one of the dozens of chip trucks throughout my fair city. Luckily I had my camera with me. Why "TnT" fries anyway? Who chose the name? And why would you transpose those next to Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street? After you see enough of these, you stop asking questions and just revel in the absurdity.

Am i the only one who shares this obsession?

- B.

One on one w/ Lynn Johnston

2007-08-26T10:29:00.000-04:00

My interview with the soon-to-retire Lynn Johnston, creator of For Better or For Worse, is now up on CBC Arts Online:

Eager to retire from the daily grind of cartooning (yet apparently reluctant to give up her strip’s valuable newspaper real estate), Johnston has devised an unorthodox plan. After completing her current storyline in September or October, she will stop telling the continuing story of the extended Patterson family and begin running a mix of older strips and occasional newly drawn panels that will help reintroduce old storylines. No matter what the strip’s many fans think about this compromise, one thing is for certain: in a few weeks, the 28-year saga of the most famous Canadian family in the funny pages will come to an end.

More here.

Black superhero hype

2007-04-02T22:23:00.000-04:00

So, over the past two weeks I've been trying to keep track of the feedback from my Toronto Star piece about black superheroes and so far it's been a wild ride. There's been some head scratching (mostly from fanboys) and praise (from Reginald Hudlin and other black writers/artists)...and most strangely of all, interest from the mainstream media. In this case two calls from AM talk radio deejays in the United States.

One was a fella named Allan Loudell, from a station in Delaware called WDEL. I thought I knew where Delaware was on a map, then I Google Mapped it - and I'm still not sure. I know one thing: it's very small. Anyway, Allan was a pleasant guy and you can listen to my live (i stress live) interview here: http://www.wdel.com/features/0320mackay.mp3. Try and ignore my uhms and ahhhhs.

The other guy was a slightly more acerbic deejay from a station in Baltimore, Maryland. The oddest thing about this interview was that the show's producer quizzed me about Doug Wright during the lead up to the spot. Apparently he grew up in upper New York state and read the Star Weekly during the 1960s and 70s - Wright's strip migrated there after he moved out of Montreal around 1967. The guy was very excited about the book project - and i'm sincerely hoping there's at least 1,000 people like him who are willing to fork out the dough when it hist the shelves.

About Black Superheroes

2007-03-18T19:24:00.000-04:00

A feature story I wrote about the comic industry's troubles with black superheroes appeared in The Toronto Star today, complete with some swell art and a clever illo (http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/193167.) I'm always happy to write about comics in a mainstream publication - it keeps my mind limber, and hopefully forces a wider audience to take the medium a bit more seriously. That said, sometimes things happen with big publications that bug me a bit.

First, they billed me as a "visual-arts" writer - not a biggie I suppose. But they also tweaked my lead and cut about 400 words of what i thought was very good exposition.

The sum effect was, i feel, that my story lost a bit of the personality and humour that I pride myself in.

Anyways, I'm going to post the original version of the piece below and any interested readers can decide for themselves which one they prefer..... maybe I'm just being a sensitive writer (poor baby!) So far, the feedback has been positive, including reaction from Reginald Hudlin, and several black cartoonists.

I dunno - you decide. - B.

The Whitewashed World of The Superhero

By Brad Mackay

Just in case you missed it, allow me to be the bearer of bad news: the superhero comics that you once knew (and perhaps loved) are in trouble. Notwithstanding Hollywood’s recent infatuation with big-budget superhero movies, for much of the past 30 years the monthly comic book adventures of Spider-Man, Batman and their kind have been suffering from shrinking readerships and slumping sales. For example, during the heyday of the late 1970s a bestseller from DC or Marvel Comics could expect to sell in excess of 300,000 copies – these days a similar title would be fortunate to move more than 50,000. And for an industry famous for tales packed full of muscles and melodrama, the situation has prompted an unusual amount of soul searching. The would-be villains are many: some have blamed the sales slide on cultural upstarts, like video games, manga and the ever-present Internet. Others point to the increased popularity of bookstore-friendly graphic novels, sales of which have recently surpassed traditional comics. But there are those who have begun to ask more complex questions, like how characters that are 40, or even 70, years old can remain relevant in an increasingly diverse society. This raises one of the oldest and most uncomfortable truths about the superhero genre: its surprising dearth of non-white heroes, particularly black ones.

Take Marvel Comics, home to such super-powered luminaries as Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine and the Fantastic Four. For more than 40 years the New York-based company has modelled itself as the more progressive half of a superhero industry dyad, the other half being DC Comics. But under closer inspection, Marvel’s catalogue tells a different story. According to their own figures the Marvel universe contains more than 5,000 characters, yet even a generous count reveals only 100 or so of these are black – less than two percent of their fictional population. This pales in comparison to the nearly 14 percent that the U.S. Census says makes up American society at present (the number is more like 12 if you expand the numbers to include all of North America).
The rest of the mainstream industry doesn’t fair much better. Of the 300 comics published monthly by Marvel, DC and a clutch of other companies, only a half-dozen or so titles feature a black hero in a starring role, which is considered the mark of success in comic book circles. And according to the industry website Icv2.com none of these titles - which include Black Panther, Blade and Spawn - sell well enough to regularly crack the Top 50, which on most months is a realm reserved for an all-star (and all-white) cast of heroes like Spider-Man, Superman and Captain America. Like it or not, for those working in the estimated $400-million mainstream comic business the homogeneity of heroes is becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Just ask Reginald Hudlin. The writer and director behind such films like House Party and Boomerang, and producer of TV shows like Everybody Hates Chris, has been frustrated for decades by what he sees as the gross under-representation of black heroes in comics. A comic fan since he was kid (he stills owns more than 30,000) and the current writer behind Marvel’s Black Panther title, Hudlin is perplexed how one of the oldest and most ‘pop’ of all popular cultures could remain so whitewashed. “In every other medium the most successful concept or product is black. Whether it’s music, movies, TV shows: out of the top ten, four of them are black,” he says from his office at Black Entertainment Television, where he is an executive. “Who are the biggest movie stars? Jamie Foxx, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy. Only in comics are blacks so underrepresented. Somehow, in this medium people are so out of touch with popular culture that they don’t understand that black culture is popular culture.”
Indeed, over the past two decades while the pop culture factories were busy making and successfully marketing TV shows, music and movies catering to a black audience, the superhero industry was more or less idle. According to Hudlin, the only hope for the industry’s continued survival is to reach out to a wider audience, black, white and otherwise, who have come to expect to see the world around them reflected in the media the consume.

“Listen [black characters] are important, not just for black readers but for white readers too,” he says. That’s why “It’s no surprise that the most struggling medium of them all, comic books, is the one that has the hardest time embracing black culture…It’s like Spider-Man, is The Beatles. Now the Beatles are classic – I love the Beatles. But if you're a record company and all you have is The Beatles, that’s bad. Where are your Alicia Keyes, your 50 Cents, your Kanye Wests? There’s nothing else? There’s this huge public culture going on that they are blissfully unaware of.”

To understand how this came to be a brief history lesson is in order. This one starts in the summer of 1938. That’s when a fledgling company called National Allied Publications (later to become DC Comics) published the first issue of Action Comics, featuring a rejected newspaper strip about a super-strong bully that could leap “an eight of a mile”. That character was, of course, Superman. Co-created by Toronto-born Joe Shuster, he served as a bolt of creative energy in a young medium populated by lacklustre adventure stories. This success of this ur-superhero spawned a cast of similar DC characters, from Batman and Wonder Woman to the Green Lantern and The Flash. By the 1940s superhero comics were a certified pop phenomenon, with single issues of Superman selling one million copies and dozens of companies sprouting up to cash in. In this Golden Age, the first black comic book characters mirrored the society of the day - simpleminded sidekicks with names like Sunny Boy Sam and Whitewash Jones. Even Will Eisner’s The Spirit, now considered a classic of the medium, had Ebony White – a thick-lipped man-child who played sidekick to the heroic white title character.
One of the companies that emerged during the initial superhero book boom was Timely Comics. It unveiled its initial heroes, the Human Torch and The Submariner, in 1939’s Marvel Comics #1. Timely would eventually take its name from that comic, rebranding itself Marvel Comics in the early 1960s not long before the appearance of another epochal comic title, Fantastic Four #1. Written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, the November 1961 debut of the super-powered team launched a second Silver Age of superhero comics, one in which heroes were flawed; often spending as much time fretting as fighting. From this formula came a series of new superheroes and super-anti-heroes, like Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil and Iron Man, who caught on with a new generation looking for a change. But as society continued to progress, comics began to fall into a rut – relying on the same old characters, the majority white, that initially proved so popular.

One reason, says Regina-based cultural historian Jeet Heer, why the superhero set seems so retrograde. “Comics in the last 30 years have been heavily vested in catering to nostalgia for a fan base,” Heer said via email. “That is to say, the audience for superhero comics has gotten smaller, older and more intense over the last three decades.”
As a result, most successful superhero comics continue to have roots in either the Golden Age or the Silver Age. “As it happens, both these time periods were really pre-Civil Rights (or at the very cusp of the civil rights movement) so the comics done in the past didn't really address multicultural or black issues, and the ones being done now that hearken back to the past don't deal with these issues either.”
“In this sense superhero comics are very different than movies, or music or television, or any other living art form. That is to say, if you turn on the radio you might hear a few golden oldies but you'll also hear a lot of contemporary music. If you go to the movies you'll get the occasional re-make, but also fresh plots and certainly fresh actors. But [mainstream] comics are still dominated by characters from 1939 or 1961.”

If this is the case, who’s to blame for the constant re-hash? Is it the readers, who steadfastly reject innovation or any deviation from the norm or the industry, who slavishly feed the fanboy inclinations of their audience?

In their defence, the mainstream companies have endeavoured to inject a little diversity into their books over the years – although some would argue the results have been less than super. Marvel was the first out of the blocks in the mid-1960s when, inspired by the Civil Right movement in the U.S., they unveiled several visible black heroes to their universe. Among the first were Black Panther, the tribal leader of a fictional African country, and Black Goliath, a ghetto-raised scientist who gains the power to grow 15 feet in a freak lab accident. The Panther, as imagined by comics innovator Jack Kirby, was a sophisticated, dignified hero; in effect the Sidney Poitier of comics who would go on to inspire new stories for decades after. Goliath was destined to a career as a second-stringer, and boasted a super-adjective that set an embarrassing trend for “labelling” black comic characters (Black Manta, Black Maria, the Black Racer and, ahem, The Black Musketeers, step right up). DC didn’t really get into the game until the 1970s, when the industry began to take their inspiration from blaxploitation films. Memorably, in 1972 they introduced John Stewart an architect who becomes an emergency replacement for the Green Lantern of the day, Hal Jordan. By resisting an initial suggestion to name him Isaiah Washington (a stereotypic slave name) artist Neal Adams struck a rare early blow for diversity at DC. Another arrived later that same year, when Marvel introduced Luke Cage (aka Power Man) the first black superhero to get his own eponymous title. It would also prove to be the longest-lasting, running an admirable 125 issues.

Black Lightning, DC’s first comic to feature a black hero, debuted five years later – and his creator, Tony Isabella, probably deserves even greater thanks. He’s responsible for talking his editors down from theor original plan for the character: according to Isabella he was initially supposed to be the Black Bomber, a tortured and racist white Vietnam veteran who transformed into a black crime-fighter at night. During his waking hours the character struggled with issues of self-hatred. Oh – and his costume looked like a basketball player’s uniform. Sadly, the reworked character didn’t fare much better: Black Lightning lasted a mere 11 issues.

The track record of ensuing black superheroes is dominated by disappointment and/or dismal failure. There were spectacular flops, like DC’s multi-racial “Planet DC” line to Spike Lee’s best-forgotten “Comics With Spike” line. Even the DC-distributed Milestone Comics, a much-hyped mid-1990s venture, withered after a handful of years.
The mainstream comic industry’s pitiable, and even outright embarrassing, track record on diversity comes as no surprise to retailers like Peter Birkemoe.
“Everything that these companies do is in complete isolation from true market forces. They are not now, nor have they been for thirty years part of the mass-media,” says the owner of Toronto’s most discerning comic shop, The Beguiling. “Companies run by fans with comics drawn by fans rarely think of catering to anyone but themselves, which unfortunately means comics aimed primarily at adult men who still want to read comics featuring characters suited to children's entertainment.”

Trying to incorporate aspects of the real world – like racial diversity - into superhero comics is like someone “writing a Berenstain Bears novel for adults” Birkemoe adds.
Yet, if they’re truly unable to recruit younger readers superhero comics are destined to whither and possibly die within a generation or two. It’s entirely possible that our grandchildren will only know of Spider-Man or Batman through various other iterations, like Hollywood, cartoons, or video games.

Leopold Campbell, a 34-year-old vice-principal and die-hard superhero fan, has an easy solution: write better stories. Campbell, who has been reading comics since he was “a working class black kid” in Toronto, says comic fans of all colours get hooked on them for one reason, the addictive nature of serialized storylines – many of which take years to resolve and involve complex plots. Most black comics, on the other hand “are insulting to the intelligence,” he says. “The problem is black characters always have to be protest characters…They’re always arguing about something or they’re always angry, and it always has to do with race. So they're fixed within one specific subject.”

The worst recent example of this was Steel, a 1994 Superman spin-off that featured a black engineer-turned-superhero. “The stories were insulting. [Here’s] this guy that’s supposed to be highly intelligent and makes weapons for the military, and he’s fighting people in the ghetto. It just made no sense.” This is especially frustrating for Campbell who runs a book club for boys (many of whom are black) at Toronto’s Fisherville Junior High School.
“The black students are very much intrigued by the black characters, they want the black heroes. They feel a sense pride and they relate to them…but it’s the story that will keep them coming back and often the problem is the stories aren’t great. They’d rather go out and buy a hip hop CD than go buy a bunch of comics.”

If anyone is going to take the black superhero out of the ghetto, it just might be Marvel’s Executive Editor Axel Alonso. A veteran of both Marvel and DC’s Vertigo imprint, Alonso has championed several of Marvel’s most controversial projects over the past few years, including a 2003 miniseries that re-imagined the 1950s western hero Rawhide Kid as a leather-clad gay cowboy, and the 2004 series Truth: Red, White and Black, which recounted the untold story of the first Captain America, an African American who endured brutal tests that echoed the Tuskegee experiments of the 1930s. Both series were praised by many outside the comic industry, yet Marvel weathered intense – and often racially charged - criticism from fans.
“The comic book industry is a little bit like the music industry before hip hop,” Alonso says. “When hip hop broke it was embraced almost 100 percent by a black and Latino audience and it took quite a while for it to get the inroads that it did to a white audience. There were some quantum leaps in the music industry as hip hop found its footing and arguably supplanted rock as the cultural mainstream - within comics we haven’t had that kind of thing yet.”
To help get them there, in 2005 Marvel mounted a high-profile launch of a title starring their marquee black hero, the Black Panther.

Written by Reginald Hudlin, drawn by A-List artist John Romita Jr. and edited by Alonso, the series debuted in February - Black History Month - and sold well enough to land at the #27 spot on the monthly bestseller list (above comics featuring the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man). But in the two years since, sales have dropped 50 percent and Hudlin has been the target of venomous criticism. One early scene that depicted Black Panther beating Captain America in a fight provoked online critics to accuse him of “shameless race-card playing” and “promoting an exaggerated super negro”. It got so bad this fall that the website Comic Book Resources temporarily suspended all discussion of the comic on its message boards citing an “unacceptable level of vitriol”.

“I won’t lie,” says Alonso. “This is a title that we need to fight to keep alive. I mean, I’ve yet to see a writer take more hits from the right people than Reggie.”
He adds that Marvel is committed to keeping the book alive, even if it means ignoring low sales figures. “If we can’t have the Black Panther as a major player in the Marvel Universe then we’re not doing our job. This isn’t affirmative action – it’s just the facts. This is a character that we feel has legs, and if it takes an extra commitment to making that be the case – then so be it.”
This past summer DC Comics unveiled its own diversification gambit that it hopes will win fans over. As part of a larger shake-up of its fictional universe it introduced radical reboots of some of its stock superheroes, including an African American version of Firestorm, a Hispanic Blue Beetle and a new Batwoman, resurrected as a gay socialite. It’s also announced a new series for Black Lightning that they say will re-imagine the characters troubled origin.

It’s not much, but if it convinces even a few kids to put down their PSP or step away from their computer long enough to get lost in a good old-fashioned four-colour power fantasy, than there may be hope for superhero comics after all. “I like to think,” says Alonso. “that there’ll always be a place in our universe where a kid can look and see reflected in the mirror an idealized form of themselves.”