New work from Bernie Mireault & Steven Gilbert.
Best of lists from Monet books & Hope Nicholson.
And other bits of can-con comics news for your weekend reading.
Stories culled from the Sequential fan page,
like and follow us there, and on twitter.
By Salgood Sam
Item: Monet’s yearly best of list, Les bandes dessinées de 2013, as selected by staff. They report there was no singular favorite, like last years Susceptible by Geneviève Castrée [site].
The eclectic 2013 list suggests they think exceptional vitality in the current Quebec comic market. With five very recent arrivals making the list. Vil et misérable by Samuel Cantin, Poulet Grain-Grain by François Samson-Dunlop and Alexandre Fontaine Rousseau, La liste des choses qui existent by Iris et Cathon, Les pièces détachées by Vincent Giard and David Turgeon, and La guerre des rues et des maisons by Sophie Yanow! And the original classic Mélody comics by Sylvie Rancourt from before she teamed up with Jacques Boivin, republished Ego comme X.
There were it seems a plethora of books to pick from. Many there, and other QC BD listed were Les deuxièmes by Zviane, from Pow Pow. Non-aventures : Planches à la première personne, collecting all of Jimmy Beaulieu’s autobio work. There a lot more mentioned in the preamble here along with the compleat list of the staff picks .
Item: Comics historian and producer Hope L Nicholson posted her 5 favorite characters from the Canadian golden age here on the G33KPRON blog. Unsurprisingly #1 is Nelvana of the Northern Lights. 2, Major Domo and Jo-jo. 3, Speed Savage/The White Mask. 4 is The Wing. & 5 Doc Stearne/Mister Monster! Who you say? Read her full post here for the lowdown on each!
Item: Mentioning Hope and Nelvana of the Northern Lights, the project to republish the classic comic has begun, with some of the first scans of pages to be restored being posted by Hope to peek at. It’s nice to get a closer HD look at Adrian Dingle’s printed line In detail.
Item: Bernie Mireault has some new comics work coming out, the first we think since he published his GN To Get Her. The new work is in collaboration with Heroes of the North. A preview of some of the art is posted here.
Item: If you visit Conundrum Towers, home of Conundrum Press, you’ll find the Annapolis Valley Zine Library. A tumbler with lots of notes is promised soon.
Item: The Beguiling Books & Art blog posted about a new acquisition here, Steven Gilbert’s The Journal Of The Main Street Secret Lodge. A fascinating history Newmarket Ontario. Crooks and cops and boudoir photos, all incredibly detailed. Sammy Harkham [@samharkham] tweeted “Steven Gilbert’s self published The Journal of The Main Street Secret Lodge is really great & weird. God bless it.” These are so far some of the only mentions we could find of this title along with the photos here, posted originally on a TCJ Tour Swag blog post by Frank Santoro. Gilbert was an up and comer in the late ’90s, early ’00s Canadian Alternative Comics scene. He got a good bit of attention for his last book Colville and then was not heard from for a while other than a few social media 1.0 appearances [cite]. In 1999 he opened comics shop in Newmarket Ont where he lives, called Fourth Dimension [map]. The same name used for the publisher credit on the cover of the book. The Journal appears to have no site listings yet or home of its own online so if you can’t find it in your local book stores, perhaps call his shop to see how you can get one!
Item: Joe Ollmann likes to pretend he’s out of touch with the internet, but unlike Steven, he’s been keeping up a blog and documenting some of the work on his next book along with other things.
Item: What people actually wear is a fun and self satirical cartoon style tumblr maintained by Britt Wilson, Vicki Nerino, & Charmaine Vee. They also have a number of guest contributors too. It’s a pretty entertaining send up of things like Look Book.
Item: Benjamin Rivers’ Snow GN to be made into a movie reports blogto, along with some set photos and a video interview with Ben.
Item: And we’ll end this roundup with a link to a preview of Through the Woods by Emily Carroll. As always, gorgeous.
By the by, Sequential is recruiting!
If you want to help document your corner of the Canadian comics scene, here’s where to sign up, or write us directly.
Read the facebook event page first though to find out what we’re looking for.