sleepofreason
Catching up with the summertime Canadian comix newz.
Item! As Aurora Tejeida reports for The Tyee blog, The Vancouver Province newspaper has lost its last two editorial cartoonists. “Bob Krieger accepted a buyout after 32 years of working as a cartoonist for the newspaper. Krieger’s last cartoon appeared in the newspaper on November 27, 2012. A couple of months later, Dan Murphy, the other cartoonist employed by the newspaper, quit. Krieger had been working as a web editor for the sports section for the past six months, until he decided he’d rather go back to drawing cartoons [as a freelancer].” As Kreiger explains in a longish interview, now “there are only two cartoonists west of Toronto: Malcolm Mayes at the Edmonton Journal and Graham Harrop, a freelancer frequently published in the Vancouver Sun.” It’s official: long gone are the days when there was a thriving class of cartoonists working for daily newspapers across the country.
Item! One of the happier headlines I’ve read recently is this one about a comic shop opening up in the location formerly occupied by a pool hall and almost occupied by a gun shop. Local adults agree that having Cambridge, Ontario’s Retro Rocket comic shop “across the street [from a grade school] is a lot better than the pool hall that once sat in the corner pocket of this Galt plaza.”
Item! Speaking of comic book shops, did you know about this high rollers’ collectibles dealer located on the ninth floor of an office building in downtown Montreal? Me neither.
Item! This Kickstarter campaign for a horror comics anthology will include new full colour work by Dave Cooper. Cooper hardly ever produces new comics, so this is an event. Ironically, although Cooper makes his living as a painter these days, the story will not be coloured by him but instead by the editor of the anthology. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the last day of the Kickstarter, although it has already doubled its goal of $20,000. The book features a Michael DeForge cover and stories by the likes of U.S. cartoonists KC Green and Gabby Schulz. The Sleep of Reason is due in October.