By Will Wellington
To hear the author read this C-List in a lackadaisical Southern drawl, contact your local service provider.
Item! The announcement that Scott Chantler (of Two Generals fame) will serve as the University of Windsor’s first ever Cartoonist-in-Residence has received energetic responses across the board. A lot of those responses have been like, “Aight, I’m down.” Some of them, on the other hand, have been the equivalent of a big ole turd with a sticker reading “cartoonists aren’t really writers” stamped on it soaring gracefully into a wheeling fanblade. Chantler responded to the latter strain of response this week in a blog post entitled “Yes, Cartoonists are Writers,” in which he lays out a few of his goals for the position:
I won’t be trying to turn creative writing students into doodling ne’er-do-wells.
I’ll be turning them into narratively-sophisticated doodling ne’er-do-wells, thank you very much.
And while we’re beating that dead artistic-legitimacy-of-comics-and-cartoonists horse, check this little piece from the Gateway about cartoonists getting their artistic due, focusing on the scene surrounding Happy Harbor Comics in Edmonton.
Item! Librarie Drawn and Quarterly in Montreal will host a double book launch for two new Conundrum titles on September 23: Long Red Hair by Meags Fitzgerald (of Photobooth: A Biography fame) and Sherwin Tjia’s latest Pick-A-Plot adventure, You Are a Kitten! (a prequel to You Are a Cat! and You Are a Cat in the Zombie Apocalypse!).
Item! Editor Hope Nicholson and illustrator David Cutler, two of the good people behind Moonshot, “a collection of comics that feature First Nations, Inuit, and Metis storytellers from across North America,” appeared on CBC’s Q this week to discuss the book. The CBC website also features three preview pages from the anthology.
Item! Montréalers, remember! The monthly Montréal Comic Jam takes place next Tuesday evening at L’Escalier Montréal. And speaking of Comic Jams, check out this cornucopia of goodness from Vancouver’s August Comic Jam.
Item! Kate Beaton continued to enjoy the Summer of Kate Beaton this week with an appearance on Make It Then Tell Everybody with Dan Berry.
Item! This dope BlogTO post profiles ten outstanding zinesters and DIY artfolks featured at Zine Dream last weekend. This stuff has me salivating, that’s fershure.
Item! Vue Weekly published a glowing review of Kat Verhoeven’s Towerkind, which it calls “a fantastic debut graphic novel…, stylish and charming with a darkly ominous underbelly.” In particular, Vue praises Verhoeven’s showcasing of Toronto’s diversity.
Item! And speaking of highlighting diversity, MariNaomi has updated her Cartoonists of Colour Database, which now features close to nine hundred artists.
Item! And in white-people-being-goofy news, this clip of Calgary cartoonist Michael McAdam (of SuperGroins fame) having a laugh with airline safety protocol has gone viral.
That’s all, folks!
Will Wellington lives in Guelph.