Quick links to news about Canadian comics and graphic novels. In honour of St, Patrick’s day, this edition of the C-List was powered by a shot of Jameson’s, 4 cans of Guinness, and half a bottle of wine :

  • A blast from the past: Canadian animator, superhero creator, and comic book artist blogs about the golden age of Nelvana and “classical” animation in Canada. As you can see from the Sequential playlist up top, we feel that the Nelvana Rock N’ Rule movie was a seminal moment in Canadian culture and punk rock. (this is an old link, but worth checking out)
  • Internet sensation, Wright Award nominee, and damn fine cartoonist Kate Beaton is profiled in Maclean’s Magazine. Sample excerpt: Beaton herself is defensive of this territory, bristling in fact at the suggestion that CanCon could possibly be dull. “Our history is the march of thousands of people across a continent trying to make a life for themselves,” she replies. “How can it be boring?”
  • Speaking of the Wright Awards (full disclosure: your humble blogger is one of the organizers of said event), Canada’s literary news magazine Quill and Quire has some choice quotes from trophy designer Seth and director Brad Mackay. Quote: Mackay will be handing the job over to actor Don McKellar. “I wanted to step it up a bit this year,” (…) Mackay will also be trying to increase the ceremony’s entertainment quotient, acknowledging that the awards show could be “really boring”… (Chris Butcher also comments on the nominees here.)
  • Not comics but sorta comics? dept: Some people from the Degrassi tv show (which was turned into a series of bestselling graphic novels by J. Torres and Ramon Perez) are involved in a stage production about the adult lives of characters from the U.S. comic strip Peanuts: “Dog Sees God” explores what might have happened to the Peanuts kids once they grow up and enter high school (the play has not been authorized by the Charles M. Schulz estate).
  • R.I.P. Carol Phillips. The Winnipeg editor was responsible for the lesbian magazine Swerve, gave space to queer comic strips.
  • Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon manga is being offered through Uclick at the Apple Store. Is this the first paper Canadian graphic novel to be available electronically for hand-held devices? Quote: “We’re making Dramacon 1.1 free because it gives us a chance to show off our panel-by-panel reading format with a very popular book from our lineup,” said Uclick CEO Douglas Edwards. “The Uclick comic apps offer the slickest and most intuitive comics reading experience on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and we offer the widest variety of titles and genres on the Apple devices.
  • Click here to read more on Canadian wrestler/actor James Preston Rogers latest bid to play Thor in Kenneth Branagh’s movie production of the Marvel superhero created by Jack Kirby. Rogers’ bid for the arian ubermensch role has resulted in a viral campaign (which I guess you’re reading part of). According to the National Post, Rogers likens his experience as a bouncer to the thunder god’s exile to Midgard as a lame physician.

  • Silver Snail is having its annual MARCH BREAK SALE from Monday March
    16th to Sunday March 22nd … each day is a different sale, one day might be
    20% off action figures, the next might be 20% off books/comics. To
    find out the daily sales, call the store number, 416-593-0889

  • International: The Globe and Mail covers the upcoming publication of a collection of S & M illustrations purported to be by Superman co-creator Joe Shuster. Although Shuster was a U.S. citizen living in Cleveland when he first illustrated Jerry Siegel’s vision of the Man of Steel, he is often referred to as Canadian because he lived in Toronto until he was 10. This book of pornographic images from the 1950s is edited by U.S. designer Craig Yoe and features images from a series of paperback pulp novels called “Nights of Horror”. Although several sources have disputed the authorship of the drawings, attributing them rather to members of Shuster’s studio, the book is still very intriguing, especially if it proves that Joe Shuster was a pornographer, making explicit the link between sex and superheroes that has existed as a theme of the genre from the very beginning. (Caveat: the article labels as a “myth” that Shuster was screwed by National Periodicals aka DC aka Warner Brothers out of millions of dollars for Superman. This is no myth. It really happened.)
  • Speaking of Joe Shuster: at the Shuster Awards blog, an interview with Oshawa Ontario comics retailer Tim Simms of World’s Collide. Simms really likes Thor comics. The blog also offers the first link I’ve seen to the Obama tribute by Dave Sim (see top image).
  • The Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists has an excerpt from a new book by BC policart Adrian Raeside, who recently made a trip to Antarctica.
  • Cartoons about Bill Bennett: The B.C. politico W.A.C. Bennett is featured in a new exhibit at the Kelowna Museum. Images by great Canadian cartoonists like Sid Barron, Len Borris and (the still with us) Roy Peterson are featured in the exhibit, which runs to April 28th.
  • Bryan Lee O’Malley ran a contest on his blog inviting people to stage their own photos of scenes from the Scott Pilgrim books. Here are the winners.
  • Going the recent DC “After Watchmen” campaign to promote their backlist one better, GQ recommends some comics not published by Warner Brothers, including books by Seth and Guy Delisle. I almost wrote “thumbs down for including Mike Allred’s Madman” but when you think about it, Madman is almost better than Watchmen because of its honesty.