<via>
– Chris
Where’s Chris? New York – Tokyo – Toronto
One of the things I wanted to do this year was bring all of the disparate events and speaking enagements and travels that I participate in together, into some sort of meaningful whole. It’s all an extension of what I’ve always done at the blog–mostly try to convince people that my ideas were best–and I’ve been doing a lot of work putting those ideas into action and preaching to new crowds. It’s hugely fun and rewarding, and hopefully I get to keep doing it for a long while.
To that end, I’ve been very fortunate to be asked to speak in a number of venues over the coming months, and so I put together a little “Where’s Chris?” box on the right there, which lists all of the panels, seminars, and presentations I’ll be participating in in the coming months. Also if I’m going out of town for more than a few days I’ll try to list that cool, in case anyone wants to meet up while I’m travelling. Feel free to contact me and say hello, I’m generally very amenable to being bought a drink 🙂 Here’s a quick outline of those upcoming engagements:
Oct 7-11 New York
Oct 7: ICv2 Digital Comics Conference (Press) – I’ll be covering ICv2’s Digital Comics Conference as ‘press’, which should be pretty interesting.
Oct 8-10: New York Comic-Con (Press) – Likewise, I’ll also be covering the whole New York Comic-Con as a member of the fourth estate, and I’m hoping to do some real blogging and coverage this year akin to some of my better coverage from years past.
I’ll also be participating in a panel discussion and giving a lecture at the show.
Saturday Oct 9: Comic Events that Really Work Panel, 5pm-6pm, Room 1A17 (Speaker) – I’m going to be giving a lecture on how and why to run comics-related events, from micro to macro, book signings to Scott Pilgrim Parties to The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and everything in between. I’m tailoring it to booksellers
Saturday Oct 9: Gay for You? Yaoi and Yuri Manga and GLBTQ Readers Panel, 7:30pm-8:30pm, Panel Room 2 (1E12) (Panelist) – A panel that will be not-at-all controversial! I’ll be joining a range of very cool ladies and gents from all aspects of the comics industry to talk about how yaoi and yuri intersect with actual Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Trans/Queer concerns.
Oct 25-Nov 8: Tokyo
I’m heading back to Tokyo for a buying trip for The Beguiling and, fingers crossed, for a touch of TCAF-related business. If you’re in the area and want to go for a drink, drop me a line.
Nov 14: Toronto: Gamercamp
I’ve been invited to lead a discussion on narrative and the intersection between comics and video games. Details tba, but will be announced soonish at http://www.gamercamp.ca/.
2011
Feb 23: Toronto: Freedom To Read Week
I’ll be a guest speaker for Toronto Public Library’s Freedom To Read Week. My Speech will be entitled “Censoring Manga For Fun And Profit”.
May 7-8: Toronto Comic Arts Festival (Festival Director)
Oh My God you guys. http://torontocomics.com/
– Christopher
Big changes at DC
Edit: Tom Spurgeon weighs in with some of the strangeness surrounding the announcements and non-announcements this week. Go read.
So there was a ton of big news at DC today. So far as I can tell, it boils down to:
- They’re laying off 20% of their workforce, about 50 people out of 250 from their New York offices.
- They’re keeping publishing in New York, but they’re moving all of the digital publishing stuff to the west coast, under the direction of Jim Lee and Jim Rood.
- They’re shutting down the Wildstorm and Zuda lines, cancelling all of the Wildstorm books, and releasing everything else under the DC banner.
- There are more changes to come, but there likely won’t be any more official word about it.
I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to say about this. I look at it and I feel like kind of a dick but it’s like “Is that it? Really? They look at what DC’s doing and that’s where they think the problem is?” It’s not nice when anyone loses their job, and I personally hope that the few friends I have there are safe in theirs. I know my DC rep has worked his butt off to get my store ordering more product and doing so intelligently–he’s great and it’d be foolish to let him go. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write a letter to that effect…
But as a reader I feel like–save for the occasional Grant Morrison project–DC Comics abandoned me years ago, with the event-driven nonsense, infinite sequels and spin-offs, and a truly awful trade paperback program… As a retailer I look at their plans going forward and I just shake my head. Publishing a bunch of mediocre-to-bad comics at Wildstorm is unfortunate, but next month DC proper is publishing like 13 utterly unnecessary Batman one-shots that didn’t even have CREATIVE TEAMS when that shit was solicited? Meanwhile Planetary Volume 4 is out of print for nearly 6 months between the hardcover and softcover, and we have lost sales every day. I’m flabbergasted that this is the kind of stuff that gets a vote of confidence from the new management at DC but they decide that a digital content initiative or a separately branded licensed comics division needs to be shown the door? I don’t understand those priorities at all, and I’ve honestly gotta wonder if they understand them either. If DC Comics is really about integrating into Warner Brothers and generating new media ideas, how does their recursive publishing program tie into that?
So the whole thing strikes me as tightening-the-belt rather than a sign of any real trouble at the publisher, I guess it’s probably wise given the economic and publishing climate, but I have to wonder if Diane Nelson’s seemingly unquestioning faith in Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns to shepherd the DC Universe could maybe use the same touch of skepticism that’s touched every other part of the company. Perhaps we’ll find out more about that this week.
– Christopher
Toronto This Week: Skullkickers, Bill Everett: Fire & Water, and LEWIS TRONDHEIM!
I feel sliiiiightly guilty that I can only seem to find time to post here when it’s something events/work-related, but that passes fairly quickly when I see how awesome the many (many) events we’re doing actually are. I have big plans (big plans) about getting back on the blogging horse, but they’re going to have to wait until I’m not doing 2 comics events a week. Or in this case, three. 🙂
Anyway, if you’re out in Toronto this week come check all this out, it’s gonna be awesome!
—
Wednesday September 22nd: Skullkickers #1 Launch Party w/ Jim Zubkavich
Saturday September 25th: Bill Everett: Fire and Water Book Launch w/ author Blake Bell and daughter Wendy Everett
Saturday September 25th: Lewis Trondheim!!!
—
.jpg)
SKULLKICKERS #1 Book Launch!With author Jim Zubkavich
Wednesday, September 22nd, 7pm-9pm
@ The Central, 601 Markham Street (right next to The Beguiling)
FREE
Jim Zubkavich is the Torontonian author of MAKESHIFT MIRACLE, a fun little graphic novel that we held a launch party for a few years back. Most recently, Jim came in and did an in-store signing for STREET FIGHTER LEGENDS: IBUKI #1 as he also wrote that one. Well Jim’s got his first all-new series in a few years, and it looks great! It’s called SKULLKICKERS, and the first issue is due out September 22nd from Image Comics.
Come join us at The Central on the release day, September 22nd from 7pm-9pm. Jim will be giving a short presentation, signing copies, chatting with folks, and we’ll probably even make him draw for you too! 🙂
—
FIRE AND WATER: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner & the Birth of Marvel Comics
Book Launch and Discussion with Author Blake Bell, and speech by Bill Everett’s daughter Wendy Everett
Saturday, September 25th, 4:30pm-6pm
Innis College Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue (St. George south of Bloor)
FREE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150867711602264
For a Preview of this book, click this link: http://beguiling.com/firewater-8p-pre.pdf
UPDATE: We’re pleased to announce that Wendy Everett, the daughter of Bill Everett, will now be attending this book launch and discussion, and will be participating in the discussion of her father’s work. We couldn’t be more excited, and we’d like to thank Ms. Everett for participating!
In 1939, decades before it would become the powerhouse behind such famous super-heroes as Spider-Man, The X-Men, and Iron Man, Marvel Comics launched its comics line with a four-color magazine starring a daring new antihero: The Sub-Mariner, created by the great Bill Everett.
The Sub-Mariner alone, and his status as the original Marvel (anti-)hero, would have insured any cartoonist’s place in comics history. But Everett was a master of many kinds of comics: romance, crime, humor, and the often brutal horror comics genre (before it was defanged by the Comics Code Authority in the 1950s), for which he produced work of such stylish and horrific beauty that he ranks with the artists who kept the legendary EC comics line awash in blood and guts.
Written by Blake Bell (the author of the best-selling critical biography of Steve Ditko, Strange and Stranger) and compiled with the aid and assistance of Everett’s family, friends, and cartoonist peers, Fire and Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner & the Birth of Marvel Comics is an intimate biography of a troubled man; an eye-popping collection of Everett’s comics, sketchbook drawings, and illustration art (including spectacular samples from his greatest published work as well as never-before-seen private drawings); and an in-depth look at his involvement in the birth of the company that would revolutionize pop culture forever: Marvel Comics!
In celebration of this book, The Beguiling will be welcoming author Blake Bell to Toronto to discuss this new book, and the life and career of Bill Everett. Special guests may also be on hand to help us celebrate this release, keep watching this space for details…!
FIRE & WATER: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics will be available for sale at this event, alongside other classic Marvel Comics collections and previous books by Blake Bell.
—
Lewis Trondheim, In Conversation et “Rencontre Desinée”
Saturday, September 25th, 7PM
@ Innis College Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue (St.George south of Bloor)
FREE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100335500031016
The Beguiling is proud to be partnering with The French Consulate in Toronto and The Alliance Francaise de Toronto to welcome the bestselling French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim to Toronto! Mr. Trondheim will be in the city for the last two weeks of September, and we are thrilled to have the chance to present this English-language engagement with him.
Trondheim is the creator or co-creator of such wonderful series as Dungeon, Little Nothings, Kaput and Zosky, ALIEEEN, Tiny Tyrant, Bourbon Island 1730, Mister O & Mister I, and more, and those are just the ones in English! He’s created dozens of albums in French as well, and is one of the most famous and respected cartoonists in the entire world—this is quite possibly a once in a lifetime event.
Mr. Trondheim will be giving a drawing presentation and will be interviewed in an event that will primarily take place in English, but will have some small French-language components that will also be translated.
Books are currently available for sale at The Beguiling and will be available for sale at the event.
—
– Christopher
This Week In Toronto: UDON 10th Anniversary Party on Thursday
Hey folks!
I’ve been super-busy with work but one thing I did want to put out into the larger world — i.e. to folks not already facebook friends with me — is that The Beguiling and I are hosting a 10th Anniversary Party for Toronto Publisher and Creative Studio UDON Entertainment, this Thursday, September 16th from 7pm-10pm. It should be a lot of fun, with tons of the UDON studio guys, the launch of their 10th Anniversary book, some great food, video games, music, just… you know, a party. 🙂
This is open to the public and free to attend too, so I hope we’ll see ya there. 🙂
– Chris
—
UDON COMICS: TENTH ANNIVERSARY PARTY
And book launch for the VENT Anthology
Thursday September 16th, 8pm-10pm (Doors at 7pm)
@ Revival, 783 College St. (Just east of Ossington).
FREE
http://udoncomics.com/blog/
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116007981786405
Come one come all, and celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Toronto Publisher and Studio UDON COMICS! Food, drinks, and of course video games, in honour of their decade-long career creating work on numerous video game and comics properties!
This event will also serve as the launch for VENT, the new coffee-table book project which includes a gallery of new comics and illustrations from all of Udon’s top creators, as well as a look behind the scenes of the company and extensive art tutorials. More than a dozen Udon creators will be in attendance, and all of Toronto’s creative community and fans are invited to come out and celebrate! Our friends over at A&C games will have a great big video game setup as well, featuring classic and new Street Fighter games.
This will be a big party, with music and fun in a very cool club setting, we’re expecting a massive turnout for this one…! Hope to see you there.
Presented by The Beguiling and UDON.
Earned Retirement From Comics
I’m no apologist for Alan Moore, but it seems like more than anything Alan Moore just wants to be left alone to pursue his other interests, and has largely retired from the comics industry (if not from the medium). An industry that has cost him money, friends, and a good night’s sleep, I might add. Good for him. It’d be nice if people left him to do that, rather than scaring up a new “Fuck you,” interview every six months. It doesn’t do anyone any good to put a great man into a bad mood and then capture it on tape, save for the bean-counters at Wired and Bleeding Cool, of course.
The main thing I think about this is that Tom Spurgeon, as usual, has the best take on the whole thing.
The other thing I think about this is: Can you imagine if Neil Gaiman actually gave interviews to the comics press, and let them know exactly where the bodies are buried? The masses would turn on him in a second.
– Chris
Gengoroh Tagame has an English blog, and is not averse to English-language publications of his work! (NSFW)
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised this week to discover that the insanely talented gay manga artist Gengoroh Tagame has a blog, and one in English at that! You can find it online at http://www.tagame.org/enews/. This is pretty great as it’s a rare thing for a mangaka to have an English language blog, and Tagame is one of the most talented and easily the most famous mangaka producing gay-themed work (real gay, as opposed to yaoi-gay).
For those of you who not in the know, Tagame is best recognized for the muscular physique he gives his characters, which echoes the North American “Bear” gay subculture and the Japanese “Gachi Muchi” gay subculture, and is generally referred to as “Bara”. The majority of Tagame’s work is marked by strong themes of B&D and S&M, even leading into some verrrrry extreme situations. I heartily recommend checking out his website at http://www.tagame.org/frame_new.html and for the strong-willed and strong-stomached, check out his galleries.
Tagame is a bit of a trailblazer in that his web-presence has been English-friendly for years and years now, much moreso than any other gay manga artist (or almost any manga artist in general). While one of these days I’m really going to have to learn Japanese, for now I’m very happy that Tagame-san has made himself more accessible to his English-speaking fans.
On that note, one of the most interesting posts about his accessibility came a few months back on his English-language blog, entitled “The Groundless Rumour About Publishing of English version of my comics:”
A little while ago, my friend told me the groundless rumor about me and my works.
It was a big surprise for me, so I think that I must correct them officially.[the rumor]
Tagame does not want to publish his works in English.
In fact, he had refused the offer to publish his book from Tom of Finland foundation.[the truth]
The rumor is false. I’ve been always wanting that my comics will be translated into English and will be published on magazines or books.And I’ve never been proposed such publishing program directory from Tom of Finland foundation.Then, why my books have not been published in English? The reason is simple. If a proven publisher offers to me to publish my books in English, I welcome it. In fact, until now, French, Italian and Spanish publishers had contacted to me to publish my comic book in their language. I welcomed them, so my books in these three languages are being published now. But I’ve never been contacted from American, UK’s and Canadian publishers who want to publish my book in English. That is an only reason of why my comic books in English have been never published before.
For your more questions about that, I open the comment form of this post.
(But please write with very plain and easy English! I’m not so good at your language!)– Gengoroh Tagame [link]
So there you go folks. Which one of you forward-thinking publishers is going to step up to the plate?
– Chris