I just wanted to briefly mention that I was in the newspaper a couple of times in the past few weeks, which is kind of thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
Comic Book Hero
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=361519
“Chris Butcher takes a break from rescuing literacy and gives Zenya Sirant the 411 on the superpowers of the graphic novel from his HQ at indie institution The Beguiling.”
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/349210
“We don’t let people leave the store without buying [Scott Pilgrim],” says Chris Butcher, manager at The Beguiling comic book store in the Annex. “Yeah, we’re totally excited about the movie news. You know, it’s still our best-selling graphic novel every week … People are always discovering it.”
My Night As A Lady: Steve Murray Goes Undercover
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=295844
It was a pretty fun evening.
Also: Funny story. I actually quit an interview two questions in, yesterday. A journalism student for an accredited university had called looking to do an interview for class on graphic novels, and somehow heard I was the guy to go to. Fair enough, I like to be helpful. The first question was “What’s a graphic novel?” and I was like “Seriously?” The second question was “Are they all superheroes?” and… I just balked. Like, maybe they didn’t know what they were doing, maybe they just thought that they needed me to reiterate all of their background information in my own voice for some reason, but I just was totally put off by the style and tone of the questions and balked. I just couldn’t do the interview anymore… I feel like a bit of a jerk too because I’m sure that now this person needs to find someone else for their project or whatever, but I realised that getting angrier and angrier at the questions and even answering these sorts of questions wasn’t going to do anyone any favours… Ah well.
Also Again: I feel like I’m getting back into the groove of blogging after a bumpy few winter months. Thanks to everyone for the comments and links on my last few weeks of articles. I’ve been trying a lot harder and I think it shows.
– Christopher
Don’t feel bad about turning down the student – they clearly failed one of the basic rules of j-school about ALWAYS doing research before interviews.
In addition to avoiding such dumb questions, the act of research is a basic sign of respect – it shows a journalist cares about whoever they’re interviewing. In that sense, your reaction is totally justified and you shouldn’t feel bad at all.
I just feel bad that an experience like that adds to the idea of many student journalists acting like completely clueless rookies in the field. They ruin it for the rest of us.
Oh Jesus…everytime I see that panel with you and Steve, I can hear your voice saying those words, and I can’t stop laughing…
😀
And congrats on all the media exposure. I honestly can’t think of a better voice for comics in this Province, or really this country, and those are not faint words of praise, my friend…
Chris, your interview in the National Post was very good and it would have been nice to see nationally but I get the paper delivered to my house every day and it was not in the national edition. Too bad they only ran it in the Toronto edition.
Steve Murray is hilarious. I love his “extremely bad advice” strips. Do you know if he has any plans to collect his stuff?