By Will Wellington
Item! Montreal’s Monastiraki, the art gallery and curiosity shop specializing in all varieties of works on paper, celebrates its sixteenth anniversary this year. They’re commemorating the occasion this Sunday August 17, 2pm – 8pm, with cocktails, collage, and music. Event details here.
Item! To Read Online: Eric Dyck is winning at patronage. The Lethbridge, Alberta artist behind the weekly webcomic Slaughterhouse Slough apparently created this week’s comic using supplies purchased with Patreon funding (inspiring him to give out a “PATRON’S-ONLY PREVIEW”). Also, Kelly Tindall’s The Adventurers, documenting Tindall’s relationship with his daughters, is back following a break to fund and print the first volume of Strangebeard. And Magnet Magazine continues to feature illustrations by guitarist David Lester of Vancouver indie/punk/underground/art duo Mecca Normal. Every Saturday Magnet posts a new image, each one documenting a moment in the group’s thirty-year history and accompanied by a brief note from vocalist Jean Smith.
Item! Writers and artists interesBrok Windor 1ted in contributing to Epic Canadiana # 2 should submit their initial character profiles to editor Bevan Thomas by next Monday, August 18. Like Epic Canadiana # 1, this new volume, a tribute to the golden age of Canadian comics, will feature a slew of new Canadian heroes inhabiting a single world. For further details, visit the Cloudscape Comics website.
Item! The Brok Windsor Kickstarter campaign has reached and surpassed its $17 000 goal with a whopping 48 days still to go. New contributions to the campaign will help Hope Nicholson and crew reach their stretch goals, perhaps the most exciting of which is the $25 000 goal, which will see the production of a “lost” Brok Windsor script illustrated by Scott Chantler of Two Generals fame. Check out the updated Kickstarter for new artwork by Ian Herring and Tyler Crook.
Item! Chris Randle contributed a lengthy look at cartoonist Emily Carroll and her new book Through the Woods for Hazlitt Magazine this week. And speaking of Hazlitt, they’ve released all sorts of great Canadian comics content recently. Both Jesse Jacobs and Bryan Lee O’Malley spoke to Anshuman Iddamsetty for Hazlitt’s The Arcade podcast. Meanwhile, their Comix feature regularly includes art by Michael Deforge and Walter Scott.  Also, check out Toronto writer Will Sloan on the fate of Dick Tracy and take a look at how five different artists, including Toronto’s John Martz, re-imagined the cover of Marian Engel’s 1978 novel Bear.
Item! The team behind the new Batgirl, which includes Montreal writer Brenden Fletcher, spoke briefly to Comics Alliance at SDCC. Their comments are recorded here. In related news, Becky Cloonan, who’s partnering with Fletcher and Karl Kerschl on Gotham Academy, chatted with the A.V. Club about a number of her “firsts.”
Item! Queer Between the Covers, Montreal’s annual queer book fair, takes place this Saturday, August 16, starting at 11am at Comité Social Centre-Sud. Admission is free, bus tickets and childcare are available, and the venue will be both wheelchair accessible and, hopefully, scent-reduced. Check out more details on the event and all the participants and exhibitors here.
Item! This week in bad puns pursued with preposterous dedication, Quebec illustrator Greg Woronchak launched a Kickstarter to fund the creation of a new webcomic. Slam McCracken: Hard Boiled Private Eye will depict the noirish adventures of the titular detective, the only truly “hard-boiled” sleuth in town. Because he’s an egg. In a world where cops are donuts and assassins are Swiss Army knives. Essentially, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and now I’m hungry.
When he’s not busy being Sequential’s Summer Intern, Will Wellington scoops ice cream, writes plays, and skulks around Guelph.