Item: Toronto cartoonist Eric Kim is profiled by the National Post’s Mark Medley about his new book, The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare, made up of 2-panel cartoons illustrating the Billiam’s works. Watch your back, creators of Kill Shakespeare, there’s a new bardinator in town!
Item: The Toronto Star’s Corey Mintz cooks for Bryan Lee O’Malley: “The last time I cooked for O’Malley, it was also for his wife, cartoonist Hope Larson. She has since been, as he puts it, “cured” of veganism. That means he’s cured too. Maybe it’s reading too much into subtext, but the changing attitude shows in his work. In the second volume of Scott Pilgrim, the characters cook a vegan shepherd’s pie for a get-together, just to be inclusive. In the third volume, one of the evil ex-boyfriends that the protagonist must face is superpowered by veganism: a mysticism fuelled by arrogance and willpower.”
Item: Speaking of O’Malley, the first printing of 100,000 copies of Scott Pilgrim has already sold out, according to publisher Oni Press. An amazing achievement for one week. The movie hasn’t even come out in wide release yet. Congrats to Oni and Bryan Lee O’Malley.
Item: Troy Little (Angora Napkin) is interviewed upon his return from the San Diego Comic-con.
Item: Related-ly, Peggy Burns has a photo journal of San Diego up at the D+Q blog. Congrats to Peggy on her 10-year anniversary in comics! The Sequential team (well, Salgood and myself, at least) talked to her briefly at TCAF when we crashed a D+Q artist dinner after the Wright Awards. One of the most charming and professional people I’ve met in the comics world and Drawn and Quarterly’s greatest asset lo these many years.
Item: Speaking of our own publisher Salgood Sam, his Dream Life webcomic will momentarily have a new home as part of the Transmission X crew. I thought I linked to this already but maybe only on Twitter? For those who don’t read comics online, a preview was in the latest print edition of this blog, Sequential Pulp.
Item: Kenton Smith of Edmonton’s See Magazine reviews Pascal Girard’s Ruts and Gullies.
Item: Jillian Tamaki unpacks Indoor Voice.
Item: Is Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth the “surprise hit” of 2009-2010, as Vaneta Rogers of Newsarama asserts? Read her interview with Lemire to find out if, how, and why.
Item: Two new books on the market this week. The long-awaited (and long-delayed) Rand Holmes retrospective by Patrick Rosenkranz finally hits shelves. Holmes was inducted into the Giants of the North in 2007 (full disclosure: I helped). As well, Dave Sim’s latest issue of Glamourpuss, the series the Comics Journal called “compelling.”
And that’s that. Have a good weekend!