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For the love of comics:
Item! Frankenstein réassemblé is a new anthology from Les Editions 400 Coups that examines the what-if? ramifications of Mary Shelley’s classic.
Item! Matt Forsythe previews his upcoming Ojingogo follow-up, Jinchalo. Publisher D+Q has another page. Forsythe’s process is old-school:
“A lot of people say they can get the same line and effect from using a Wacom tablet on the computer, but I can’t, so I still ink everything. And every moment I spend *not* working on the computer is wonderful.”
Item! You can also see a little strip about his experiences teaching comics that Forsythe did.
Item! Robot 6’s Chris Mautner drills Joe Ollman about his Mid-Life graphic novel and the perils of fatherhood:
“I think the only way to pull off this stuff is with humor, hyperbole and the self-referential aspect of the narrator himself commenting on how he shouldn’t be complaining about his tiny problems, that he’s lucky and there are people out there with real problems. It’s kind of the crux of the whole book, really.”
Item! David Collier’s Chimo graphic memoir reviewed:
“David Collier enrolled in the Canadian War Artists Program as a cartoonist. The reason for his acceptance is clear, thanks to his quirky renditions of military life as a man of ‘advanced years,’ which, in Collier’s words, was a ‘truly Canadian experience at the time’—if only because the American military doesn’t accept soldiers who are 40 years or older.”
Item! The National Post’s Mark Medley has some actual quotes from Collier in a short profile/Interview:
“The original war artists, they were soldiers first. So I thought, ‘Well, maybe it’d be better if I was actually in uniform again.’ ”
Guilt factored into his decision, too, seeing as soldiers he’d known during his first tour of duty were heading off to fight.
“I thought, ‘Why them and not me?’ Here I am living this nice life, just doing these comic books and stuff, and I thought that I could contribute something.”
Item! A graphic novel about life in Yellowknife? Local artist Alison McCreesh is working on it.
Item! Inkstuds interviews the great Al Columbia, creator of my favourite comic of 2009. The interview already has people pulling anecdotes out of it.
Item! Kevin Boyd presents the comics portion of the Kids Can Press Spring/Summer 2011 publishing schedule.
Item! A giant series of Superfriends valentines from 1980. I think they are quite awesome. Looks like Jose Garcia Lopez/Neal Adams style but lots of fun to cut and paste regardless.
Item! Jeet Heer, Kevin Boyd and Yan Basque all have excellent overviews of the recent Canada Reads event with a focus on the place of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County book in that contest. An important story, not because a graphic novel was placed alongside traditional prose novels on a national radio show, but because of the debate about comics as art for grown-ups that the placement engendered. As Basque notes,
“The book being part of the competition became less about this particular work of fiction by this specific artist with a unique voice in Canadian (and worldwide) literature, and more about the entire medium’s struggle to be taken seriously and accepted as art.”
Item! Chris Butcher catches word that Maurice Vellekoop is publishing a new comic book through Koyama Press this Spring. According to Vellekoop, The World of Gloria Badcock is “joyous, guilt-free, surreal, silly, symphonic celebration of sexual freedom and the special friendship that bonds gay men and (mostly) straight women!”