So due to the Christmas rush, I never really got to report back from The Beguiling’s signing with Svetlana Chmakova, creator of Dramacon, and Faith Erin Hicks, creator of Zombies Calling. It was held on Wednesday December 19th from 4pm-6pm, and it went great! The event marked a Toronto home-coming for Faith, and so friends from across her school and professional career came out to say hi (and apologise for pulling her pigtails in school), but a number of eager fans came by to get their complete runs of Dramacon signed as well. In this battle, I’d have to say that it was a double-K.O.! Both cartoonists are wonderful and incredibly talented, and it was a busy (and fun) day at the store.
And there are pictures!
The Sunday before the signing, Toronto was buried under a pretty impressive snowfall. In the window that’s an original painting from Jeff Lemire’s Tales From Essex County: Ghost Stories. I was a bit worried about the roads and the parking for our out-of-town guests, but everyone ended up arriving safe and sound.
The signing was really well attended, with maybe 40 people filing through over the course of 2 hours or so. Here Faith inscribes a copy of her book for a fan, and Svetlana checks out the newest volume of her work.
Svetlana signs and sketches for a young dude who loves The Dramacon.
So much talent sits at this table…
After the signing, we invited Svetlana and Faith out for a bite to eat and a meet-and-greet with some local Toronto creators and friends. Svetlana got Shanghaied on the way in and ended up doing a 30 minute interview for a documentary on comics airing on The Independent Film Channel next year, so we had to start drinking without her. Here we see one of Faith’s very tired friends, Faith Erin Hicks, Eric Kim (Love As A Foreign Language), and Beguiling employee Derek.
Svetlana finally made her entrance, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Several martinis later the gang gets together for a group shot before heading home. In addition to our previous photos are Ray Fawkes (Apocalipstix, Mnemovore), Jim Zubkavich (Makeshift Miracle), Kayla from The Beguiling, and Svet’s friend K.
Thanks again to the totally-awesome Svetlana Chmakova and Faith Erin Hicks for doing a signing at the store! We had a great time, sold a ton of books, and made it very difficult for folks to do their Christmas shopping for a few hours, which is kind of hilarious. You can check out another report on the signing at Jason Truong’s Blog.
You can buy Dramacon Vol 1-3 and Zombies Calling from The Beguiling’s website, as well as better book and comic stores everywhere, and check out Faith’s Homepage and Svetlana’s Homepage, as well as the Slave Labor Graphics and Tokyopop websites.
– Christopher
It would have been so cool to have been there! Instead, I’m down here in Florida. Where I’ve just written a review of Zombies Calling for Voice of Youth Advocates, a professional journal for librarians and educators who work with teens (very positive review, I’ve given it the highest rating I’ve ever given to any book in 14 years – which is how long my column has run in VOYA). The review won’t see print until the beginning of April, so I hope SLG will keep the faith (sorry) and keep the book in print! I also love Dramacon, just read the 3rd volume (OMG!). Dramacon is already in an online graphic novel core collection database I have worked on for library reference publisher HW Wilson – it’s a subscription database for libraries. Zombies Calling went into the November update to the database.
Kat- Thanks for commenting! I’m glad you’re on board with both of the books, we really like them ourselves although I had thought that ZC was maybe a bit much for the under-13 crowd… Where did you place it? Dramacon is another interesting series in that the second and third volumes fit nicely in the 13+ range, but the attempted rape in the first volume really pushes the intensity up…? Anyway, I’d love to hear your take some time…