Because the whole world is now an Alpha Flight fanpage.
Since every third websearch I did in preparation for this post came up with a reference to the new Hugh Jackman movie, I decided to just give in and go with it. It used to be that if there wasn’t any actual news about Canadian comics to report, I would punish the Sequential readership with links to news about Alpha Flight. It’s a sign of quantity of the Canadian content and the current efforts by Canadian creators that I haven’t had to do one of those posts in awhile. Now that everyone on Earth is thinking about a Canadian superhero (albeit a corporate-owned superhero created by Americans), good art still triumphs here at Sequential.
Item: Toronto cartoonist Steve Manale has his apartment and robot collection featured in Eye Weekly.
Item: The National Post goes TCAF crazy, with interviews with Scott Campbell, Tom Humberstone, Paul Rivoche, Ryan North, Tim Fish, and J. Torres, and a backgrounder on the Scott Pilgrim phenom.
Item: Speaking of TCAF, did we mention Sequential is publishing a free print edition for the festival?
Item: And speaking of Scott Pilgrim, Colin Upton finally gets around to reading the fiirst volume in the series, and writes a review.
Item: Again with the Post, Nathalie Atkinson gets some quotes from Ontario retailers on the occasion of Free Comic Book Day.
Item: In other FCBD news, various media cover the events in Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax,
Item: Policart Bruce MacKinnon has won this year’s Atlantic Journalism award for editorial cartooning. Congrats Bruce!
Item: D+Q publisher Chris Oliveros writes a long blog post about Doug Wright, making a case for him as a major cartoonist on an international scale and as a great illustrator. Lots of behind-the-scenes about the creation of the brand new Collected Doug Wright book, as well.
Item: Writing for the Central-Plains Herald-Leadre, Sean Borland reviews the new Metic graphic novel anthology, Stories of Our People.
Item: In publishing news, the strip collection L’Age d’Innocence by Eric Peladeau is now available from Editions Zailees.
Item: Zinester and novelist Mike Aragona’s Mysterious Mystery Men is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Congrats Mike!
Item: In general book news, the Google copyright settlement deadline has been extended by 4 months and a growing group of authors and estates has formed an opposition.
—–
Item: Oh yeah, Wolverine. Well, it seems a movie about everyone’s favourite superhero with a fictional attachment to Canada (no, not Superman) came out this weekend and made over $80 million in ticket sales. The Canadian-ness of this fact was noted by the New York Times and others. There are several Canadian actors in the film, but Alpha Flight, the Canadian superhero group created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, is referred to only elliptically. And that’s all I can bear to link. There is really no comics news here. Well, besides this, which ties in neatly to the Google copyright think, ironically. (Plus, the Shusters are using the character to help with fundraising this year.)