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Register now for ICv2 Conference prior to NYCC

Just got a reminder e-mail from the good folks at ICv2, reminding NYCC-goers to register to attend their conference. The expert panels, not to mention Milton’s very informative white paper, are really excellent looks at the comic industry, deeper and more nuanced than the general blog chatter that passes for same. Seriously, it’s smart stuff, and if you’re looking to ‘figure out’ comics and graphic novels, and maybe try to glean where the industry is headed, I recommend them.

http://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1014166

Hopefully I’ll see you there!

– Christopher

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NYCC and Tokyo-bound

Hey folks.

A busy summer has given way to a very busy fall, and I’ve got a bunch of travel on the horizon. I’m still writing about comics, but usually those thoughts are expressed on Twitter or through one of my other jobs. I actually have a post written about the nature of comic book stores, that I’m going to post this week for Little Island’s first anniversary, once I give it another pass. Oh, and I took on a small comics writing job that will be announced at some point too, which I’m having fun with.

Anyway, in case you’re looking for me, you can find me at the following events and place. Let me know if you want to hang out.

New York

October 10: ICv2 Conference, Javits Center
October 11-14: New York Comic Con, Javits Center

Tokyo

November 11: Design Festa (Just attending!)
November 18: Kaigai Manga Festa, Exhibiting for TCAF
November 25: Flying back to Toronto

Toronto Comics Events:

October 18: ZANTA Book Launch, The Central
October 21: Canzine (Day) Triple Threat Launch (Night)

Thanks for continuing to check out this blog! I personally feel that one day I will be back up to posting daily, I’m just not there yet.

Best,

– Chris

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Consider applying for or donating to the Queer Press Grant

Hey folks!

I got a note from Justin Hall, Editor of the excellent new queer comics compendium No Straight Lines, letting me know that the application deadline for Prism Comics’ Queer Press Grant is coming up fast–October 1st!

With the recent cessation of Peter Laird’s excellent Xeric grant, the Queer Press Grant has become the last indy publishing grant, and one that I feel is entirely necessary and has supported some excellent projects. If you’re eligible for the grant (see the complete PR below) apply now at http://prismcomics.org/grant.

Indy publishing is pretty easy to marginalize to start with, and in my experience queer voices trying to compete in the larger marketplace tend to have an especially tough go of it. Authors talking about gay/lesbian/bi/trans/queer experiences tend to only find audiences within those communities, with a few notable exceptions (I’m thrilled for Alison Bechdel’s success as a queer graphic novelist and memoirist, but it’s not like she has a lot of contemporaries). Again, my experience has been that even well-meaning readers tend to assume a queer experience isn’t a universal one until proven otherwise… and nothing could be further from truth. This grant has helped to fund some great projects, and bring some important voices to the fore.

If you’ve got it in you to support great queer creators and projects and help grow the QPG, Prism Comics accepts donations year-round at http://prismcomics.org/donate.php.

Full press release for the QPG follows:

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Prism Comics’ Queer Press Grant 2012: Application Deadline is Oct. 1st!

Both Applications and Donations for the Grant Are Being Accepted Now

There’s only one month left to apply for this year’s Prism Comics Queer Press Grant (QPG)! The QPG, the only grant today specifically awarded to independent comic book creators, was established by Prism to assist in the publication and promotion of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) comics. The submission deadline for the QPG is October 1st, 2012, with the recipient announced during San Francisco’s Alternative Press Expo (APE) taking place from October 13-14th. Applicants can submit online now at prismcomics.org/grant.

The Queer Press Grant is awarded to a comics writer/artist or team working on a project with significant LGBT characters and themes, to assist them in publishing a new project or expanding an existing one. Comic books, comic strips, webcomics, and graphic novel projects are all eligible. Entries are judged first and foremost by artistic merit, followed by concerns such as financial need, proposal presentation, and the project’s contribution to the LGBT community. Creators do not need to be LGBT themselves to apply for the QPG. Submissions are reviewed by the Prism Board and past recipients of the Grant, with the larger advisory board brought in when tiebreakers are needed. Grant guidelines can be found at prismcomics.org/grant. Questions about the grant can be directed to Justin Hall at justin@prismcomics.org.

The Queer Press Grant is funded entirely by donations, generally from comic book professionals and readers plus fundraising efforts from Prism members. To donate to the Queer Press Grant, go to prismcomics.org/donate. From these contributions, the standard amount of the Grant in the past few years has been $2,000.

Since its inception, the Queer Press Grant has been awarded to Robert Kirby (2011, for Three), Tana Ford (2010, for Duck), Jon Macy (2010, for Fearful Hunter). Ed Luce (2009, for Wuvable Oaf), Eric Orner (2009 for Storybox), Pam Harrison (2008, for House of the Muses), Justin Hall (2007, for Glamazonia), Tommy Roddy (2007, for Pride High), Megan Gedris (2006, forYU+ME), and Steve MacIsaac (2005, for Shiftlifter).

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Website Links:
Prism Comics: http://prismcomics.org 
Prism Comics Queer Press Grant: http://prismcomics.org/grant
Prism Comics Donation Page: http://prismcomics.org/donate

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TCAF to exhibit in Japan, November 18th

So if you follow my online happenings more deeply than just this blog, you might have heard that a thing that I’m helping to make happen is TCAF’s first international exhibition on November 18th. What this means is that TCAF as a festival is going to go and exhibit at a comics event in Japan, in furtherance of its mandate to promote Canadian cartoonists and graphic novels. We’re inviting a bunch of Canadian cartoonists to come with us as well. I go more in-depth about the event and what we’re planning here: http://torontocomics.com/japan/.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop a note here on my blog in case any Canadian TCAF Exhibitors didn’t get our e-mail or otherwise missed the news, and really just to let people know that we’re doing that I think is a cool thing. Maybe it will inspire all y’all to keep doing cool things too?

Best,

– Chris

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A very cool Malinky Robot item arrived in the mail…

Just before the San Diego Comic Con (hopefully explaining the delay!) I got a pretty amazing item in the mail, The Malinky Robot “Box of Things”, a limited edition box set of cool items from author Sonny Liew’s Malinky Robot, recently published by Image Comics. This was a lovely gift from Sonny and I’m quite happy to have received it. So in the spirit of sharing, I thought I’d photograph the unboxing for you.

Ooo… opening the box!

Oh, and the back of the box because I forgot to photograph it. You can click on everything to see a larger version…! The blurbs from Mike Carey, Gail Simone, and Mike Mignola are quite nice, but my fav bit is the ingredients list on the back. “DISCLAIMER: Not for comics allergy sufferers. Igredients: PICTURES, WORDS, SEQUENTIAL PANELS, WORD BALLOONS, CPATION BOXES, GUTTERS, MOTION LINES, ENEMATA…” very cool.

Here’s the complete box, unpacked. Clockwise from top: The box, “The San’ya Times” newspaper, a copy of the book (available now from Image Comics!), a mystery bag, a CD!

The inside of the CD booklet is cool, and the CD contains all sorts of neat bonus stuff like reviews, interviews, a digital copy of the newspaper, and a gallery including image like the French Edition cover, as shown here:

Inside the paper package was a fake pack of cigarettes, and a fake 500 yen note, both from the series. Really lovely looking too!

…and inside the cigarette pack are these trading cards from the series, one for each of the main characters and one for each of the stories. Heh! Super cute.

The newspaper is also cool, with some extra comics, blurbs, pointers to Sonny Liew’s other work, and a bunch more stuff. Plus there’s that nifty PDF version on the CD.

And finally, a copy of the book itself… signed and sketched-in by Sonny with a special little bookplate.

All in all this is an amazing little package, and I’m really grateful to Sonny for putting it together and sending it my way. I’ve been a fan of Malinky Robot since its very first appearance, and I’m happy to see it collected, and to see that it’s still something that the creator clearly loves.

You can visit Sonny Liew’s site online at http://sonnyliew.wordpress.com/ and you can buy Malinky Robot wherever better Image Comics trade paperbacks are sold.

– Chris @ The Beguiling

 

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Comics & Medicine

Hey there,

On the Twitters last weekend I was talking about this comics and medicine conference taking place in Toronto, a really important one (that I missed almost all of as I was on vacation). The Beguiling sponsored a reception on the Monday evening as well, which was apparently a nice time.

Anyhow, my friend Jamie saw this article on the event and sent it my way, and since I’d original missed it as well I figured I’d post it here for you to check out.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1231183–comic-books-have-something-to-teach-future-doctors

Comic books have something to teach future doctors

In addition to the stalwart Manual of Clinical Oncology, medical students may soon see the comic book Cancer Vixen: A True Story on their required reading list.

Researchers at the University of Toronto are using graphic novels as a teaching tool to communicate the ethical and emotional complexities of illness, disease and trauma to medical students…

More in the link!

– Chris

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No more gatekeepers

I feel pretty good about comics right now. This thought was spurred by the news that, the week after the Batman movie opened, the bestselling graphic novel in the country was Raina Telegemeier’s Smile, a semi-autobiographical account of a young girl finding her way through middlegrade. It’s a full-colour graphic novel for kids, girls in particular, and it’s been on-and-off the top of the bestseller lists for the better part of the two years since it was released. Telegemeier’s next book, Drama, arrives at the end of next month and is likely going to do just as well.

Smile started out as mini-comics, and as web-comics, quite a while back. Raina has been making comics and putting them out there for people since before there was a ‘professional’ avenue for her to do so. She was like hundreds of other creators out there in that way, doing work that is (by every other measure) in a popular genre or mode, but where a professional delivery system for that work did not exist in the comics industry.

It does now.

I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t work to be done of course, but we’ve hit a point where the lie espoused by the industry gatekeepers, that “there isn’t an audience for kids comics” or “there isn’t an audience for girls or womens comics” has finally been put to rest. Oh, the gatekeepers hung onto it as long as they could, “webcomics aren’t comic books” or “manga aren’t comics” or whatever nonsense they dug up. They’re still espousing it to some degree or another–I particularly liked this article by Heidi MacDonald on why superhero publishers will never “get” women–but it’s demonstrably false. Comics for kids sell now, the Lego Ninjago comic has a 425,000 copy first printing, a number that dwarfs most others in comics… and DC had that license at one point btw. Comics for girls (and boys) like Smile continue to sell very well. Despite the gleeful hand rubbing over the demise of manga, it still sells quite well, thanks. And the internet…? The internet is home to a fantastically diverse array of cartoonists either making their living or a significant chunk of it from the online serialization of their work–and they’re coming for print too.  They are COMING FOR PRINT.

Basically, the gates are down. There are smart publishers, and they aren’t turning down projects by rote anymore. Projects with queer characters, for girls, for women, for kids, for people of colour. And where there aren’t publishers, there are now distribution systems for creators to put their work directly in the hands of readers. If your sole desire is to write/draw Spider-Man or Superman (or god help you Batgirl) then, yeah, the gates are tighter than ever. They probably aren’t going to loosen, either. But if your goal is to do comics, and tell stories that reach people, then that’s at least possible now. There is an industry now, where there wasn’t 10 years ago.

It’s bogus to be denied access to the market do to age or gender or ethnicity or sexuality, and those are the gates that I feel have fallen. Now the challenges of these creators are the same, legitimate challenges that established creators have been facing for years–finding and connecting with your audience, digital, piracy, contracts, publishers, distribution, all of that. It’s not easy, and I doubt it ever will be, but I do finally feel that everyone can finally face those challenges together.

– Chris

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Two events in Toronto: Adventure Time Wednesday, Underwater Welder Saturday

I’ve got a billion things to write about having just gotten back from vacation, but the two most time-sensitive are events I’m running in conjunction with The Beguiling and Little Island comics on Wednesday and Saturday…!

Adventure Time Signing Spectacular! w/ Meredith Gran, Ryan North, and Michael DeForge
Wednesday July 25th, 2012
@ Little Island Comics, 742 Bathurst Street, 1pm-3pm
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street, 6pm-9pm

Hey everyone! The Beguiling and Little Island Comics are teaming up to throw a kick-butt ADVENTURE TIME event on Wednesday, July 25th, and you’re all invited! There will be signings by the creators of the ADVENTURE TIME comics, costume contests, presentations and more! It’s gonna be mathematical… TO THE MATH! Check out all the details at:

http://thebeguilingat.blogspot.ca/2012/07/wednesday-adventure-time-awesomeness.html

http://www.facebook.com/events/496652623693914/

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The Underwater Welder: Book Launch & Discussion
Featuring author Jeff Lemire
Saturday, July 28th, @ 7pm (Doors @ 6:30pm)
at Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave (at St. George, one block south of Bloor St.)
$5 admission or free with book purchase

The Underwater Welder Book Launch and Discussion will take place on Saturday, July 25th at Innis College Town Hall, and will feature a presentation by Lemire from the new work, an on-stage interview with Q&A, and a signing. Admission to this event is $5 for two persons, however, anyone purchasing The Underwater Welder in-store at The Beguiling will receive a free ticket good for two admissions and guaranteed seating. Tickets and The Underwater Welder advance copies on sale now. More info at:

http://thebeguilingat.blogspot.ca/2012/06/announcing-underwater-welder-book.html

http://www.facebook.com/events/288602321238139/

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– Chris

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Where’s Chris at San Diego Comic-Con 2012?

Hey folks! I’m headed off to “Comic-Con International: San Diego” this week, in what looks to be my busiest trip ever. I just thought I’d post real quick to let folks know where I’m going to be if they want to check out what are sure to be some great panels. 🙂

Booths:

UDON: Booth #5037: I’m going to be headquartered at The UDON Booth this year Weds thru Sat, all the way on the east side near Hall H, booth #5037. We’re debuting artbooks based on the video games Marvel vs. Capcom, Disgaea, and Shining Force Feather, and they’re all totally gorgeous-looking. Plus non-stop creator signings, a huge catalogue of material, and much more. Should be lots of fun!

Drawn & Quarterly  (Beguiling): Booth #1629: On Sunday I’m headed over to the other side of the convention centre to sell some jaw-droppingly great original art! The fine folks at D&Q are once again providing us with a little corner to sell originals, and we’re going to make the most of it with a ton of great stuff. We’ve got all new pieces by Farel Dalrymple, Jason, Shintaro Kago, Pascal Girard, and maybe even a few surprises too…! Brings back memories, being in the D&Q booth. 🙂

Panels:

I’m actually doing a lot of panels this year! Hosting 2, on 3. I think it’s actually gonna be a bunch of fun, but I gotta make sure to buckle down and get all my work done because there are some VERY heavy hitters on these things! Here’s the quick run-down, and the full panel descriptions are under the cut:

Friday: 4:30-5:30: UDON 2012: Some major new announcements on this, I’m actually a bit nervous. 🙂 (Moderator) Room 26AB

Friday: 7:30-8:30: Making a Living in Manga: I’ll be sharing the results of some of the interviews I conducted with manga creators and editors in Japan! (Participant) Room 8

Saturday: 12:30-1:30: D&Q: Canada and Comics: Discussing the current renaissance of Canadian comics. Kate Beaton, Jeff Lemire! (Moderator) Room 5AB

Saturday: 6:00-7:00: Best and Worst Manga of 2012: Reprising my role from last year. I’ve read SO MUCH manga in the past 2 weeks. (Participant) Room 23ABC

Sunday: 3:00-4:00: PW Comics World: Serious Pictures: Comics and Journalism in a New Era: Mostly I’m here as a retailer/pundit, talking about the place of comics reportage in the industry. Should be very cool. (Participant) Room 32AB

Other Stuff:

I heard there might be a very cool announcement at the Gays in Comics 25th Anniversary Panel Saturday night, so I want to try to hit that one for sure. Otherwise, I’m hoping to get out and see a few panels, snap a few photos, and generally just enjoy myself. I hope if you’re going, you get to do the same! See you there!

– Chris

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