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I’ll be interviewing Masashi Kishimoto at New York Comic Con. Twice.

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Hey there! So I gotta say, I’m honoured and more than a little humbled to have been asked by VIZ Media to interview Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto live in front of an audience for two of his biggest events at New York Comic Con this year. So, I’ll be in New York (with Andrew, YAY!) next week for the Comic Con, which is always an interesting affair. I don’t think Andrew has ever actually been to a real Convention before? This will be a whole thing.

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Anyway! The big news. First up, I’ll be interviewing Kishimoto-sensei at the Apple Store in SoHo, Wednesday, October 7th, at 7pm. Tickets to this event are free, but you need to register ahead of time with your Apple account at  https://s.apple.com/dE4R6Z9o6N. This interview is going to focus mainly on creative process. I’m excited to see how it goes. I’m told that this interview will be filmed too, so I’ll live on forever in infamy (and people not in New York might be able to see it).

The second event I’ll be hosting is the big one, where 2000 members of the general public will see me ask Kishimoto-sensei about everything under the sun, including what it’s like to end a massive international entertainment franchise. I will seriously be hosting an event with 2000 Naruto fans in the audience, it’s crazy to me. This event is Thursday, October 8th, from 5:30pm to 6:30pm, on the Main Stage at the Javits Center. Honestly the process to get in sounds a little complicated, so if you really wanna see it, you can figure out how at http://nycc15.mapyourshow.com/6_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?ScheduleID=164.  You need an NYCC badge to get into this one.

There’s a bunch more of Kishimoto-sensei in New York, I think, you can check it at http://nycc15.mapyourshow.com/6_0/sessions/index.cfm?srch-type=sessionkeyword&srch-query=Masashi%20Kishimoto&srch-showresults=true&CFID=153080176&CFTOKEN=4329b13f7318b79d-42BB2173-D3F9-64D7-082DB629744DD110.

So, yeah. This is an incredible opportunity, and I’ve already written up all my questions for him and what not, and I’m just hoping we get to ask all of them. I mean, this guy created something like 14,000 pages of manga on one series, not to mention the global media empire and Naruto effectively leading the charge in the This really is an unprecedented opportunity for me and I’m grateful to have been asked. I believe it’s his first time in the U.S., and he’s one of the bestselling and most popular comics creators in the world, and yeah, it’s gonna be a whole thing.

See you in New York!

– Christopher

 

 

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SEE YOU AT SPX THIS WEEKEND – SEP 19-20

Hey there! I’m happy to say that I’ll be headed to SPX this weekend in Bethesda, MD, for the second year in a row, repping TCAF and a selection of Canadian small presses. I’m at table L10, the same block as Koyama Press, Massive, Youth In Decline, and a whole bunch of awesome people.

The main thrust of the visit will be TCAF stuff, including comics, prints, posters, postcards, and books that we’ve produced over the years. We have some neat stuff! But I’m filling that out with a great selection of works from Canadian pubs like Coach House Books, Conundrum, and La Pastque, and small-run and self published works by a whole whack of Canadian TCAF exhibitors including Tin Can Forest, Michel Rabagliati, Steven GIlbert, John Martz, and more. I’ve also dug up a few real rarities from The Beguiling’s archives, the kind of one-of-a-kind stuff you would never actually be able to find in the store itself. 😉 I’ll instagram some of the rarest stuff on the torontocomics account, so keep an eye out there for it.

Please feel free to say hi if you see me–even if I’m “busy”. It’d be great to catch up.

Thanks to the SPX crew for having me at the show!

– Christopher

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Japan Travel, Hiroshima, Barefoot Gen, and Kickstarter.

I’ve been recounting my travels to Japan in November and December 2014 over on my Facebook. These are travels outside of Tokyo, and were largely personal trips, not related to comics, and I felt like they weren’t particularly well-suited to Comics212. But we’re at the point in the trip where I reached Hiroshima, and I thought I’d share that here.

The Eternal Flame Monument at the Hiroshima Peace Museum.
The Eternal Flame Monument at the Hiroshima Peace Museum.

71lPIsdV9hLI had been to Japan about a half-dozen times before my trip in November and December 2014. With each trip I’d never made it much further west than Osaka, and with each trip I’d feel a growing feeling of… I dunno, guilt, but also the abdication of responsibility, that I’d never been to Hiroshima, to see the remains and to see the Peace Museum. I’d read a bunch about Hiroshima and seen a documentary, and the graphic novels ‘Barefoot Gen’ by Keiji Nakazawa, and ‘Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms’ by Fumiyo K?no, are both excellent, emotional, and often visceral works on the subject of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath that have stayed with me for years.

Monument on the Hiroshima Peace Museum grounds.
Monument on the Hiroshima Peace Museum grounds.

Currently, Last Gasp Publishing has a Kickstarter running to support its mission to place Barefoot Gen, for free, into schools and libraries across America. As someone who finally visited Hiroshima late last year, and who saw the devastation and its aftereffects, and spoke with survivors firsthand, I can say that this incident is still as relevant as ever. The discussion that Barefoot Gen could and should spark in schools and libraries is one worth having, and I hope you’ll support this Kickstarter:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1784498350/barefoot-gen-for-schools-and-libraries

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The only photo I snapped inside the museum is this one showing the town of Hiroshima in 1945. The red ball hanging over top is the height, location, and size of the explosion of the atomic bomb.

I didn’t take many photos in Hiroshima, because quite honestly I was having a tough time. It didn’t seem appropriate to be snapping away, at least not with tears in my eyes. My friends have told me that it doesn’t get any easier, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary to go, and I’ll probably head back there at least once more, to take it all in again.

Across the river from the museum is the actual memorial, with the "Atomic Bomb Dome" building.
Across the river from the museum is the actual memorial, with the “Atomic Bomb Dome” building.

If you’re able to visit the Peace Museum, and like myself able to sign the Peace declaration, please do.

Thanks,

– Christopher

The Atomic Bomb Dome is a ruin left largely intact as a reminder of the devestation of the war. After visiting the museum, I sat for a long time directly across the river from this monument.
The Atomic Bomb Dome is a ruin left largely intact as a reminder of the devestation of the war. After visiting the museum, I sat for a long time directly across the river from this monument.