Welcome the new year, 2012
Certainly, blogs are dead, replaced for the most part by Facebook, and so I admit a kind of personal blog like this can seem redundant. What exactly am I going to post – and why – when most of the people whom I would be reaching out to are already connected to me through “social media”?
I still feel the pull, though, and would like to try and update this blog more often, even if only to keep up my writing practice.
Sarah Harmer and the Mega-quarry
Please sign the petition to stop the mega-quarry in the Niagara Escarpment
Leah Louise – my real hero
Jillian Tamaki is my newest superhero, but my the real hero in my life is my daughter Leah. Every day she tries something new, embraces life, and creates something. She blows my mind.
Jillian Tamaki is my new Superhero
Master master master comics artist (Skim), illustrator, artist, humourist, web-cartooist (SuperMutant Magic Acadamy) and blogger (Jillian Tamaki sketchblog), Jillian Tamaki’s art just lifts me up. I freaking love it.
I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to interview her – and I can’t help feeing that every question I ask is just not going to measure up.
Alan Bunce’s Funny Forest webcomic is fantastic
Somehow, Al’s comic Funny Forest captures so perfectly the joyousness and exuberance of spontaneous comic creation. I love all the visual gags, the irreverence for reality, for plot – smart in all the ways of all great meta-web-comics - it sort of reminds me of Krazy Kat in it’s way. It’s just so much damn fun. Read it every day – for your mental health!
Sonja Ahlers: A Look at Our Selves
Here’s another interview for the torontoist, this time with underground artist Sonja Ahlers. She’s published a new book with Drawn & Quarterly called The Selves, which uses a technique she’s perfected over ther years using found and drawn images from media (books, magazines, album covers, newspaper photos, wrappers) to create a kind of extended Rorschach test of a narrative. Reading it closely in preparation for the interview I had a strong emotional reaction, I found it very dark – so much so I had to put it down for a bit. Fortunately Sonja’s about as nice as a person can be, she was very patient with the interview process.
So, here it is, if you’re interested - http://books.torontoist.com/2010/07/sonja-ahlers-a-look-at-our-selves/
More Comics: Line Gamache’s Hello, Me Pretty
Line Gamache is a Quebec comics artist whose work is being reprinted in English by Conundrum Press - here’s a look at Hello, Me Pretty, her autobiographic work about growing up with a developmentally delayed sister – http://books.torontoist.com/2010/06/a-review-of-line-gamaches-hello-me-pretty/
Hark! An Interview with Kate Beaton
I had the pleasure of interviewing the great Kate Beaton recently: Hark! An Interview with Kate Beaton | books@torontoist.
Here’s a quote:
Howard: Is there other comedy that you like, that you would watch or read, growing up?
Beaton: Definitely. I think my favourite humour is still Stephen Leacock, and I really like the Algonquin Roundtable type of humour; that old “1066 And All That” as well. That kind of “educated” type of humour, that doesn’t talk down to people. But then hilarious slapstick is just as good as that. I don’t know. I like a lot of different kinds of humour, just like everybody else. I like Arrested Development, and shows like that. The usual. (laughs)
Howard: I’m wondering where you get your comedic sensibility?
Beaton: I watched a lot of Monty Python as a teenager, and then, wanted to be like that, I guess. It’s hard to know. I think that, in comedy, you’re not really doing your job until it’s only your voice. It’s your uniqueness that makes you stand out. When you start out you tend to copy a lot of different people that you admired—their style and their delivery and their subjects—and then eventually, hopefully, its just you, it’s just your voice, with influences, but not lifting anything directly. That makes you stand out.
Interview with Canadian cartoonist Marc Bell
Here’s an interview with Marc Bell at books.torontoist.com, about his new book Hot Potatoe, about his style, and a bit about his move into fine art.
Here’s an excerpt:
Bell: I think it’s more that there has been a second wave of people that have been influenced by a lot of the same things. There was that whole wave of–there was the Royal Art Lodge, and Fort Thunder, and there was the work that you can see in that Nod a Dog book I put together. All that stuff was happening at the same time independently and now I think there’s a second wave of people doing that kind of stuff. Drawing, for example, is back in art.
Kate Beaton: A New Canadian Hero
This new wave of Canadian patriotism has bred a new hero – behold, the great Kate Beaton! Canadian Cartoonist!
Dave
