Never Safe For Work
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Jeff Lemire and Jose Villarrubia are tricking out a totally weird looking ongoing series for Vertigo. This is: amazing. First issue is only a buck too.
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http://pulphope.blogspot.com/2009/03/smile.html – big art! leads to cool stuff!
– Chris
TCAF 2009 Poster Image by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Design by Chip Zdarsky
Final full-size poster (with less text) available April, 2009
(Just realized I never posted this here, and I was really happy with how it turned out, so… Thanks to Mal & Chip)
– Chris
The Beguiling and The Toronto Comic Arts Festival are once again proud to partner with Toronto Public Library for Keep Toronto Reading Month, a month-long celebration of reading and library services. For more on Keep Toronto Reading, please visit http://www.keeptorontoreading.ca.
Graphically Speaking: Webcomics!
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
@ North York Central Library
http://www.keeptorontoreading.ca/events/graphically-speaking
Ever wondered how to publish your comics online? Top Toronto graphic novelists discuss web comics, from developing an idea to publishing and distribution.
Featuring:
• Kate Beaton (History Comics)
• Willow Dawson (100 Mile House)
• Emily Horne (A Softer World)
• Brian McLachlan (The Princess Planet)
• Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics)
• Moderated by Christopher Butcher (Comics212.net, The Beguiling)
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Graphically Speaking for Kids
Saturday, April 25, 2009 2:00pm – 3:30pm
North York Central Library, Room 1
http://www.keeptorontoreading.ca/events/ktr-for-kids/graphically-speaking-for-kids
Julie Faulkner from Udon Entertainment (Street Fighter comics) leads a workshop where kids learn the basics of creating comics. For kids ages 9 to 12. To register, call 416-395-5630 – or drop in on the day of.
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Anime Bash: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Saturday, April 18, 2009 2:00pm – 5:00pm
North York Central Library, Auditorium
http://www.keeptorontoreading.ca/events/books-art-and-fashion/anime-bash
Come in costume and cosplay with other fans. World-class costume designer Jacqueline M. Ward gives tips to designing jaw-dropping costumes. Then catch a screening of acclaimed anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Film synopsis:
When 17-year-old Makoto Konno gains the ability to “leap” backwards through time, she immediately sets about improving her grades and preventing personal mishaps. However, she soon realises that changing the past isn’t as simple as it seems, and eventually, will have to rely on her new powers to shape the future of herself and her friends.
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– Chris @ The Beguiling
Hey readership. I’m gonna be honest with you here, for the next month and a half I’m going to be eating, sleeping, and breathing The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (May 9-10). It’s gonna be pretty intense, but awesome, but I’m probably going to be dumping a bunch of TCAF-related stuff on the blog here. I promise I’ll try and keep it as interesting as possible to the general readership, if you can bear with me through the middle of May.
Thanks a bunch,
– Christopher
Hey! TCAF is going to be awesome! I just added 30+ new guests and a bunch of new publishers to the website. Here’s the bulk of the updates:
From Canada: Dave Lapp (Drop-In), Brian McLachlan (Princess Planet), Michael Noonan, Joe Ollman (Chewing on Tinfoil), Steve Rolston (Emiko Superstar) and Jim Zubkavich (UDON).
From England, and attending TCAF for the first time, is Jamie McKelvie, author of Suburban Glamour and artist of Phonogram, amongst other works.
From the U.S.A.: John Campbell (Pictures For Sad Children), Scott Campbell (Hickee), Becky Cloonan (Demo, Pixu), Kevin Colden (Fishtown), Joshua Cotter (Skyscrapers of the Midwest), Justin Hall (True Travel Tales), Dustin Harbin (Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find), Cheese Hasselberger and Dave McKenna and Brian Musikoff from House of 12, Chris Hastings (Dr. McNinja), Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content), Matt Kindt (Three Sisters), Joe Lambert (CCS Grad), Miss Lasko-Gross (Escape From Special), David Malki (Wondermark), Sean McCarthy (Partyka), Erika Moen (Dar), Tom Neely (The Blot), Lark Pien (Long-Tail Kitty), Jonathan Rosenberg (Goats), Jeffrey Rowland (Wigu, Overcompensating), and Jason Shiga (Bookhunter)!
We’ve also confirmed exhibition space by publishers Adhouse Books, Anteism Books, Buenaventura Press, Fantagraphics Books, Le Dernier Cri, plus The Doug Wright Awards, Broken Pencil Magazine, and Taddle Creek Magazine.
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Cool beans!
We do have a number of potential guests who are still firming up their schedule so there’ll likely be more additions in the weekend to come, though another 30 creator update is unlikely.
– Chris
It’s time once again for The Doug Wright Awards for excellence in (English language) Canadian cartooning! “Founded in 2004 to recognize the best English-language graphic novels and comics, The Doug Wright Awards have grown into one of Canada’s premier cartooning events,” according to the press release.
The 2009 Finalists for Best Book are:
Burma Chronicles, by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
Drop-in, by Dave Lapp (Conundrum Press)
Paul Goes Fishing, by Michel Rabagliati (Drawn & Quarterly)
Skim, by Jillian & Mariko Tamaki (Groundwood Books)
The 2009 finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:
Kate Beaton (History Comics)
Caitlin Black (Maids in the Mist)
Jesse Jacobs (Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow)
Jason Kieffer (Kieffer #2)
Nick Maandag (Jack & Mandy)
The finalists for non-traditional works (Pigskin Peters’ Award) are:
Hall of Best Knowledge Ray Fenwick (Fantagraphics)
Ojingogo Matthew Forsythe (Drawn & Quarterly)
All We Ever Do is Talk About Wood Tom Horacek (Drawn & Quarterly)
Small Victories Jesse Jacobs (self-published)
Further, this year the DWAs will induct cartoonist Jimmie Frise (d. 1948), creator of the popular strip ‘Birdseye Center’, into The Giants of the North, the Hall of Fame for Canadian cartooning.
The 2009 Doug Wright Awards will be handed out on Saturday, May 9th at 7pm, in a ceremony hosted by Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar and held at the recently renovated (and gorgeous) Art Gallery of Ontario. Just after the first day of TCAF, I might add, so another reason to come.
The DWAs are decided by a rotating jury, and this year the jury includes; Bob Rae (the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and 21st premier of Ontario), Andrew Coyne (national editor for Maclean’s and political panelist on CBC Television’s The National), Martin Levin (books editor for The Globe and Mail and contributor to What I Meant to Say), cartoonist Joe Ollmann (author of the 2007 DWA Best Book This Will All End in Tears) and cartoonist Diana Tamblyn, the Ignatz-nominated author of several mini-comics including The Rosie Stories and There You Were.
…I still think it’s strange that the nominating committee, who wasn’t named (and Christ do I hate that) didn’t opt to put Scott Pilgrim 4 on there, but it’s not like all four of those best books aren’t amazing, amazing work.
– Christopher
“Yes, this may be an inconvenience for some retailers out there. But no, don’t hate on Diamond for this. They have a lot of other books from Icarus in stock, including Blue Eyes volume 1 and 3. But if you want to know why those two books are available, while Blue Eyes 2 will not be, well, here’s my best Viz impression:
“You’ll have to talk to Diamond about it.” – Simon Jones, Icarus Comics
Hey Simon, don’t worry. I’m sure that Diamond will delist volume 1 and 3 sooner or later.
– Chris
P.S.: Jesus, sorry man. Keep your chin up.
A Drifting Life
By Yoshihiro Tatsumi
856 Pages, Softcover, $29.99/$39.99
Published by Drawn & Quarterly
I have no doubt that much will be written about this book when it is officially released this spring. There’s a deceptive density to A Drifting Life, Tatsumi Yoshihiro’s arms’ length autobiography. It’s a story told very directly, switching between the first and third person to describe a young man’s passion and struggle, set against a larger picture of a nation looking to rebuild after World War II. The 800+ pages of the book read quickly, but the ideas expressed are potent and the history chronicled Important (and largely unkown); the effect of completing the book is disorienting. At one point I flipped to the back looking for footnotes to try and match my own understanding of the origins of Japanese comics to the incredible amount of information Tatsumi dolls out in a few key chapters (though the entire birth of the manga industry, and Tatsumi’s own Gekiga can be found in these pages) (about the footnotes: there are none). At its heart A Drifting Life is a memoir, filled with a density of details to give it a setting and place that will be immediately familiar to Japanese readers of the last generation but that will largely evade North American ones. This is not a bad thing, if anything the unfamiliarity of the time and place of this story will add to the experience of the lead drifting through his life, tied only to the comic that I hope you’ll be holding in your hands.
– Christopher
Yoshihiro Tatsumi will be a Guest of Honour at the 2009 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, of which I am the Festival Director.
This Fall, my friend Zach Worton’s first professionally-published graphic novel will be making it’s way to better comic and book stores everywhere, courtesy of the fine folks at Drawn & Quarterly. It’s a 300+ page monster called The Klondike.
To the right, you can see a rejected cover illustration for the book, which I rather liked thanks to its use of negative space. Apparently the final cover will be even nicer, so good on Zach (and designer Tom Devlin).
If you want to follow more of Zach’s art, check out his blog at Confessions Of A Cross-Hatch Junky. If you like what’s there, I’m sure he could use a kind word or two as he tries to power through and finish the book this month.
Also of note: I pulled this from a post he made on February 10th, which is how far behind I am in my feed-reading. It’s strange watching the book industry collapse, the fading glow of the Obama inauguration, and the build-up, hype, and scramble-to-catch-up-afterwards of the New York Comic-Con, as they all unfold in real-time a month ago.
– Christopher
ITEM: My good friend Steven Murray did a history of Watchmen‘s journey to the silver screen, in comics format. It’s quite good (excerpt above). Check it out at The National Post.
ITEM: I am interviewed about Watchmen for an article which appeared in The National Post a few days ago. They left out the part where I said that I kind of hoped the Watchmen film killed superhero movies, just like the Watchmen graphic novel really ought to have been the last word from superhero comics. Maybe next time!
ITEM: I am also interviewed as part of Now Magazine’s cover story on The Watchmen. I’m in the sidebar (along with my boss) talking about adaptations of comics to films.
ITEM: I just wanted to say I got an advance copy of Emmanuel Guibert’s The Photographer in today, and it’s awesome. And huge! Like 9×12″! I had no idea it was going be so big! Way to go First Second! Yay! Comics!
– Chris