By Will Wellington
Hey, folks. Your friendly neighbourhood summer intern here with another C-List: heavy on the C, hold the List. Let’s travel back in time through the miracle of INTERNET MEDIA to relive in FULL SENSORY SPLENDOUR all the “Canadian” “comics” “news” that caught our eye, nose, ear, tongue, and skin this week.
Item! Toronto gay magazine Daily Xtra profiled and interviewed Chicagoan Eric Orner to mark the release of The Completely Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, the collected version of Orner’s comic, which ran for around fifteen years in as many as a hundred mostly gay papers, including Xtra. The profile details how Xtra‘s support of the strip partly inspired a healthy helping of Canadian content in the strip, and also includes some of Orner’s thoughts on making a living as a cartoonist: “‘Cartooning’s a little bit like being a poet,’ he says. ‘Most cartoonists I know aren’t lucky enough to do it full-time.'”
Item! And speaking of Making a Living or Living a Making, SKTCHD just published the findings of their first annual comic artist survey, which asked 186 cartoonists (6% of them Canadian) questions like, “How much do you earn strictly from your comic art?” and “Do you earn enough for comics to be your sole occupation?” while ignoring other pressing questions like, “Have you ever had a wish chip wish come true?”
Item! Quebec newspaper Le Soleil decided to get around the Foo Fighters’ stringent photo policy this week by sending cartoonist Francis Desharnais, rather than a photographer, to cover the Foos’ show at Festival d’été. The results are nifty–I’d like to see more of this kind of coverage. But then again, I simply don’t see enough comics journalism out there, for all the good work the Joe Saccos and Guy Delisles of this world have done. It’s a move that for me raises the question: What is the difference between a photo and a cartoon when it comes to the depiction of reality? Is the universe merely the doodled mark of the cosmic toddler’s infinite crayon?
Item! This week Robin McConnell’s Inkstuds podcast featured an impromptu roundtable about comic conventions featuring TCAF co-founder Christopher Butcher, Image Branding Manager David Brothers, and cartoonist Brandon Graham, who recently shared the covers for the first four issues of his Image magazine Island (which just got a nice write-up on the A.V. Club).
Item! In other podcasting news, Deconstructing Comics spoke this week with Dakota McFadzean, creator of these hilarious dailies, about learning to draw and his practice of drawing comics every day.
Item! After over thirty years of drawing editorial cartoons for the Victoria Times Colonist, Adrian Raeside, “one of the last cartoonists in Canada still plying their craft in the dailies,” has been let go in a new round of budget cuts, reports the Vancouver Sun. He drew his last comic for the paper one week ago today–you can read it on his website (it’s the one with the fish). His comics will still appear in plenty of weekly papers and online.
Item! As Northern Life explains, until November 1 the Art Gallery of Sudbury features For Better or For Worse: The Comic Art of Lynn Johnston, a retrospective show including everything from childhood drawings, original For Better or For Worse strips, the paintings and fabric designs she completes nowadays, and her old drafting table. The show will travel to other cities when its run in Sudbury is up.
Item! Faith Erin Hicks has revealed the cover for her new graphic novel, volume one of the The Nameless City trilogy, coming in April 2016 from First Second. With art profoundly reminiscent of Avatar: The Last Airbender (what a show), the story focuses on the friendship between a girl local to the titular metropolis and a boy from a colonizing culture.
Item! Dates for TCAF 2016 have been announced. The festival will take place on Saturday May 14 and Sunday May 15 in, as always, the Toronto Reference Library,
Item! Ape on the Moon profiled Patrick Kyle this week following the release of the latest instalment in Kyle’s ‘New Comics’ series. Those images are awesome! Also, Kyle and bandmate / buddy Michael Deforge just released a new Creep Highway record. Spoiler alert–it’s really abrasive and loud!
Item! Broken Pencil celebrates its 20th Anniversary next Thursday with an event at the Gladstone Hotel featuring Mammalian Diving Reflex (!), “Embarrassing High School Zines Some People Wrote When They Were Young,” and KARAOKE, among other things.
That’s all, folks.
Will Wellington lives in Guelph.
2015-07-17