An orgy of major comic book goodness
is happening across Canada over the next few days,
so let’ get to it!

Item! Dustin Harbin announced he will be one of the presenters at The Wright Awards on Saturday.
Item! An angry review of Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem. Brad Mackay also reviews it for the Globe, the AV Club profiles Delisle here, and Macleans profiles it here. The book has its Canadian debut at TCAF and apparently 100,000 copies have been printed.
Item! The Ottawa Comiccon is next weekend, May 12-13.
Item! What John Martz is bringing to TCAF.
Item! A progress update from the Shuster Awards. The awards are scheduled to announce their nominees Saturday night, after the Wright Awards conclude.
Item! The aforementioned announcement being the capper to the Free Comic Book Day activities at The Comic Book Lounge in Toronto. Across town, Little Island Comics has an event scheduled as well with Andy Runton. Others? Well, there is Strange Adventures, with events at all 3 of their stores. Jay Stephens will be at my local store, The Dragon in Guelph. Kurtis Wiebe (Peter Panzerfaust) will be at Regina’s ComicReaders, Tom Grummett will be at 8th Street Books & Comics in Saskatoon, and a giant cohort of comics artists including Marcus To will be at Brampton’s Stadium Comics. All the stores in London, ON have a cool crossover for FCBD. I’m sure there are tons more, but I haven’t stumbled across them.
Item! Robert Iveniuk previews TCAF for BlogTO.
Item! I highly recommend checking out this article about a collection of mass-produced figurines based on designs by Vancouver cartoonist Len Norris. Norris was one of the great Canadian political cartoonists of the 20th Century and I had no idea these artifacts existed. There are really very few “collectibles” of this sort based on Canadian comics. A handful of paper ephemera items and toys from World War II, souvenirs featuring Jasper the Bear, a stuffed Cerebus, various mugs and t-shirts, and that’s about it.
Item! The Toronto Star interviews Kid Koala about his Space Cadet graphic novel and his musical performance of same scheduled as part of TCAF.
Item! I’m one day late on this, but rabble.ca previews a graphic history of May Day, a comic produced by a collective of Canadian artists.
Item! Not exactly comics, but the second annual Star Wars Day TO will take place at the Toronto Underground Cinema on Friday, May 4th, 2012 and all proceeds from the 2012 event will go to the SickKids Foundation. The goal is to bring together Star Wars fans of all ages and levels of interest. This family-friendly event celebrates the series through fan-created materials and activities including costume contests, trivia, special guests, prizes and more.
Item! Alice Quinn from TdotComics provides a Fan Expo Vancouver travelogue.
Item! Evan Annett picks five books to look forward to at TCAF.
Item! Fiona Staples is interviewed in this podcast from Comics Should be Good’s 3 Chicks.
Item! I gotta say, the last half-dozen or so posts on the They Stand on Guard blog describing very obscure Canadian superhero comic books like this one have been hilarious. Check it out!