San Diego Comic Con 2024 (July 24 - 28) - 26 Photos

Jack C. Harris Spotlight Panel (42:06, 96.3mb)
The panel starts with Comic Con giving Jack an Inkpot Award. The panel is moderated by Mark Evanier. Jack answers questions on how he got into comics, comic fandom and DC Comics. He spoke about teaching comics, when he knew he wanted to work in comics, how he got hired at DC Comics, being Murray Boltinoff's assistant, him becoming an editor, what he learned from Julie Schwartz, a horror story about trying to get a book out before deadline, the artist and writer he found was fast and dependable, a funny story about him writing a story in 30 minutes, the Jr Woodchucks and his duties, writing fake letters for the letter pages, getting his legitimate fan letter printed in a comic, the first comic he wrote, being surprised when a particular artist was going to draw his story, why he's a huge fan of Adam Strange and Green Lanter, Supergirl and how that changed Action Comics, what he got assigned that he we wasn't right for, why he left DC, Nelson E. Birdwell, Mike Grell and Vinnie Colletta on Warlord, special projects at DC, his new Working with Ditko book and what it was like working with Ditko and why he did so much work with him.

Ken Steacy Spotlight (47:19, 108mb)
Mark Evanier interviews Ken about getting involved in comics, his Marvel fandom, artists that impressed him, changes in colour printing technology, his first pro work, difference between opinion and constructive criticism, who inspired him for storytelling, his work outside of comics, working with an airbrush, the Jello-man comic, becoming an educator, illustrating Warbears with Margaret Atwood, a Space Ghost comic he and Mark worked on, Blackhawk and Dan Spiegle, Fanboy and other work.

The Secret History of Comics on the Bookshelf (45:48, 104mb)
Moderated by Rob Salkowitz, panelists were Linda Sunshine, Michael Uslan and Chris Ryall. Rob gave an intro to graphic novel history, Linda spoke about her role in developing the DC books, including a dinner with Carmine Infantino and dealing with E. Nelson Birdwell, Uslan also spoke about working on the books and the legitimacy that they gave to comics, Rob revealed Julie Schwartz loved the Mystery in Space book, Uslan reveals what would have been the 4th DC book, Chris Ryall spoke about his relationship with the GNs, the reprint of Origins of Marvel Comics and how they chose to handle the Stan Lee introduction, Linda spoke about doing the Marvel books, Uslan gave props to Byron Preiss and his efforts to do Graphic Novels for bookstores.

Photo by Bruce Guthrie
Jo Duffy Spotlight (50:00, 114mb)
When she wanted to involved in comic books, what comics she loved growing up, how she got into comics, her first job in comics, her first written story, becoming an assistant editor, how she became a full editor, Archie Goodwin, working at Marvel as Woman, the various fill in stories she wrote, how she became a regular writer of Power Man and Iron Fist, which project she turned down, which projects she wished she could have worked on, her successful run on DC's Catwoman - which was expected to fail - and how that lead to DC firing her via fax machine while all the Batman writers were on a retreat, her self-published series Nestrobber, working for Rob Liefeld on how that ended, the various jobs she's done since then, themes in her work, a follow up to Marvel's Fallen Angel series that wasn't published likely due to it's inclusive content, dealing with the loss of their many contemporaries, which creators that she grew up reading that she got to work with and how that made her feel, her take on Power Man and Iron Fist, working with John Buscema and Marie Severin, her work with various Manga series and love on Anime, then Comic Con gave Jo Duffy an inkpot award.

Mike Friedrich Spotlight (51:00, 116mb)
Joe Ferrara spoke to Mike about his work on Batman, his move to Marvel and the characters he co-created there, his becoming a publisher with Star*Reach, who came up with the term "Ground Level" comics to describe what he was doing, what he learned from underground publishers, some of the creators that got their start with him, the decision to give artists their art back and royalties on their work, Elric and Michael Moorcock, what caused Star*Reach to fail, working for Marvel again doing their Direct Market sales, why he was only there for a short time, hiring Carol Kalish, his work for Pacific Comics and creating their contract, his becoming an agent for comic creators and some of the deals he was able to get, Chadwick and Concrete, teaming Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale, Howard Cruse and Stuck Rubber Baby, creating Pro-Con and Wonder Con, Joe spoke about the Cash Register program with Carol Kalish, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Michael Chabon, leaving comics on his own terms, getting a cheque from Marvel for his role in co-creating some of the characters they use.

Trina Robbins Tribute (50:18, 115mb)
On the panel was Lee Marrs, Roberta Gregory, Heidi MacDonald, Barbara "Willy" Mendes, Casey Robbins. The panel was moderated by Kim Munson. They all spoke about their first meeting Trina, her memorial and the surprising things they learned about Trina there, they told stories about Trina, Wimmen's Comix, her Herstory Comics Books, the Won't Back Down anthology, Lili Renee and getting her recognized. From the audience Trina's partner Steve Leialoha talked about how a comment Mort Walker made inspired Trina to do those Herstory books about female artists. Members of the audience also gave their experiences working with Trina including Ken Steacy and Liz Schuler.

Photo by Daniel Barer
Warren Kremer: Harvey Comics Cover Genius (53:51, 123mb)
On the panel was Jim Thompson, Alonso Nuñez, Jerry Beck, Maryanne Kremer-Ames, Suzanne Kremer Petrozzino, Peter Kremer and Allen Ames. They went over some covers, what Kremer does that other artists and Harvey allowed him to do that other publisher did not, particularly with playing with the logo and complex cover changes, how Hot Stuff was created by Kremer from an initial more traditional devil character sketch by Steve Muffatti, Stumbo the Giant, spoke about Mrs. Kremer and her lettering work for Harvey Comics, Peter Kremer did colouring for Harvey and was trained by Warren, spoke about Ernie Colon and how fast he was, they spoke about Warren's having a stroke and having to switch his drawing hand - which he could do as he was left handed and ambidextrous, how Warren loved drawing comics and it wasn't just a job for him, the changes in the covers in the 70s with the added word balloons and how that frustrated Warren, said Alfred Harvey had a stroke and how that changed him. Prior to that Alfred was a great boss to work for and gave Warren bonuses, but after the stroke his personality changed and he started taking credit for creating Richie Rich. Alfred Harvey did create Little Dot. They talked about how Warren would ignore all the rules about accurate colours for things but did so to make the cover & the gag work better, how editor Harvey editor Sid Jacobson praised Kremer and what he did to others, how Sid and Warren would get together and would brainstorm on just covers as they viewed them as a separate thing from the insides, said Kremer was particular about spacing within his work as he didn't like things to be too cluttered, how well thought out the covers are and how you don't recognize it until you examine a lot of them to see the patterns, they spoke about how well he did black covers which nobody else did as well, how they coloured over the comics code to hide it while the publishers kept it white and visible, how there is characterization within the cover gags, the monster theme covers in 1967 and surprisingly dark they got for kids books.
Special thanks to Jim Thompson for recording this for me.

Rick Marschall Spotlight (49:03, 112mb)
Jackie Estrada gives Rick an inkpot award. Gary Groth talks to Rick about his career, giving a brief rundown of some of the things he has done. Rick spoke about the first time he went to comic con and how he used it to get a very late artist to finish the book they were doing, what work he did in comics before working at Marvel, why he didn't fit in with Marvel, how he got interested in comics, his work at Marvel and the environment there, his work researching comic strip history, The Nemo magazine, the reprinting of Little Nemo in Slumberland, his art collection being used for exhibition in museums, his production work at Marvel and working with Tom Palmer, if he felt any competition with Bill Blackbeard or others that were getting comic strips reprinted.

William Stout Spotlight (50:26, 115mb)
William went through his mostly comics career starting with doing water colour portraits at Disneyland when Scott Shaw! Recognized his work from something else he did and invited him to come to the first San Diego comic con. William then talked about his fanzine work, working for Russ Manning, CYCLEtoons, working for Harvey Kurtzman, an illustrated Beach Boys biography, why he got into lettering an examples of some that he did, working for Byron Preiss, working for Mattel, turning down a job where they wanted him to draw like Jack Kirby and directing them to hire Jack instead which Jack was very grateful for, movie posters including Wizards and American Graffiti, working for George Lucas, drawing a Harlan Ellison story for Heavy Metal, working with Ron Cobb on Conan the Barbarian storyboards, EC work for the Comics Journal, bootleg Album covers, a story about the Philippine-American War, Two Fisted Tales, The Land Before Time (how they ripped him off and then hired him), Ray Bradbury Comics, his time in Antarctica with scientists, Comic Con Program covers, a 3D comic book for LA Schools, working with Steven Spielberg, ad he did that appeared in comics, an Alien Worlds cover and how it lead to working on a movie, The Hollywood Reporter, working with Moebius and other comic artists and his new 3 volume book that collects all of this work.

Joe Matt Tribute (47:41, 109mb)
On the panel was Matt Groening, Sammy Harkham and Brian Doherty. The spoke about Joe's obsessive personality, how he was the opposite of most comic artists in that writing and drawing was easy but inking was slow going due to perfectionism, the many reasons why he wasn't more productive, how he really got into old western TV shows. Matt spoke about how he first came across Matt's work and what he loved about it. They revealed Joe's girl problems, his knowledge of his issues in regards to that but his unwillingness to change, his odd living situation, Seth, Chester Brown and the cartoonist tropes he used in his work, his work Spent, he was teaching singer Aimee Mann how to be a cartoonist, the 15th and final issue of Peepshow and what was left to be finished, Matt revealed that HBO wanted to do an animated Peepshow and why that all fell apart, Joe's integrity and how his commitment to that hurt him.

Best and Worst Manga of 2024 (51:28, 117mb)
Moderated by Deb Aoki, panelists were Brigid Alverson, Laura Neuzeth, Leslie Flynn, Varun Gupta, Mike Jokah and Siddarth Gupta. The group gave their picks for the Best New Manga for Kids and Teens, Best New Manga for Grownups, Best Continuing Manga for Kids and Teens, Best Continuing Manga for Grownups, Worst Manga, Most Anticipated New Manga and Most Wanted Manga. They had run out of time to do the final category.

Photo by Bruce Guthrie
Comics Arts Conference: Spotlight on Roberta Gregory (50:18, 115mb)
Bruce Simon and Roberta Gregory have a conversation about her career. They spoke about growing up in LA, her father writing and drawing comics for Western/Gold Key including a story that Carl Barks drew, she said she found his invoices and sent them to the GCD to go through and add his credits to what he wrote as no credits were given within the comics themselves. She found out her father is more famous than she is in Sweden. Among the topics they talked about was her early work and how she wants to get it back into print now that she has some time. They also went though Tit's & Clits, Wimmen's Comix, meeting Joyce Farmer, the rise of women in comics, working in the production dept for Fantagraphics, Bitchy Bitch, Sheila, Frieda, Bitchy Butch, Super Dyke, her view that she's a writer who draws, Artistic Licentiousness, Follow Your Art, True Cat Toons and Jesus and the Adulteress.

Comics Arts Conference: Take This Job And… Kirby Characters, Work for Hire and Rebels with Cause (40:14, 92mb)
Jim Thompson, Marc Greenberg and Daniel Barer speak about a common theme in Jack Kirby stories regarding a creation rebelling against their master, citing Silver Surfer, Him/Adam Warlock and other stories. Marc spoke about the history of work for hire law and how it has changed with certain legislation and how that applied to Marv Wolfman and Neil Gaiman cases against their publishers. Daniel spoke about the rise of Image Comics and how eventually those that rebel, if they win become the new masters.

Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman Go to College (48:02, 109mb)
Michael Dooley started by going through a brief history of both Eisner and Kurtzman and the many similarities in the two men's upbringing, outlook, influences in their work. He also pointed out how both of them have awards named after them and made it into the Masters of American Comics. From the Audience Jackie Estrada spoke about how her late husband Batton Lash and John Holmstrom got the SVA to start teaching comics and requested Eisner and Kurtzman as teachers. Panelists Tom Sito, Grant Geissman, Patrick McDonnell and N.C. Christopher Couch spoke about the history of the SVA and what it was prior to teaching comics, how both operated as teachers with each teaching the fundamentals and principles of art but not imposing their styles and instead encouraging their own, how they brought in comics from other parts of the work (specifically Europe) to show their students, Harvey in particular liked bringing in guest speakers including one time Robert Crumb. They also spoke about the student publications both of them did, which gave the students a chance to see their work in print which was important to them.

Linda Sunshine Spotlight (51:04, 116mb)
Jackie Estrada started by giving Linda an inkpot award. Then Rob Salkowitz did an intro on who Linda was and her important contribution to comics industry, Chris Ryall then went through Linda's career not just in doing comics but her other books that she either worked on or wrote. Regarding the comics she did reveal how she got the rights to do the DC books, how they shot from Original Art, the disappointing decision to only do a colour section instead of the whole book in color, why she went from Crown to Simon and Shuster and did the Marvel books like Origins of Marvel Comics under the new Fireside line, Chris spoke about the controversial written sections by Stan Lee regarding taking full credit for creating the characters, how the books did really well which lead to them doing books based on single characters, doing DC Books again (Heart Throbs, Mystery in Space and American At War) that Michael Uslan worked on, Linda leaving publishing to write books. She told a funny story about telling her mother about her new book called How Not To Be Your Mother. Her Plane Jane Works Out (which was a parody of a Jane Fonda book) and Jane Fonda's reaction to it, the Illustrated Woody Allen reader and how the news about his relationship with Soon-Yi hurt the sales on it, her books about TV & Movies, All Things Oz and All Things Alice, becoming an editorial director, doing books about music, art, wine, family and a book that is going to be made into a movie called Though Maria's Eyes.

Collecting Comics Senior Years (51:35, 118mb)
On the panel was Greg Koudoulian, Karen Green and Maggie Thompson. Greg started off showing a clip of Walter Cronkite doing a news story about comic books. He then spoke about the archives he has, Shel Dorf, Michael Dorf, some of Richard Alf, George Clayton Johnston, what is in them and what he has learned from it. Maggie Thompson spoke about dealing with the mental side of selling your collection as some people do and then regret it, either because they parted with something that meant something to them, or because prices go up after it's sold and they wished they held on to it longer. Karen spoke about donating specifically to Columbia University and how they make it available to everybody and have at times gone out of the way to help people that can't visit the collection in person. Among all this was discussion about knowing what you have and the best way to preserve it and when certain preservation methods began being used and why. Maggie spoke about her brother's collection and how they are dealing with it including finding some original Savage Dragon art and giving it back to Erik Larsen as he had a house fire and lost everything, including a lot of original art. He was super grateful to get that art back.

Who was Steve Ditko? (47:38, 109mb)
Lenny Schwartz asked Jack C. Harris and Mark Ditko questions about Steve. They revealed the difference between what fans think about Steve Ditko and the man they personally knew. They said he wasn't reclusive and was a generally a happy funny guy. Mark spoke about the recent Rolling Stone article about Steve Ditko and their reaction to it. Jack and Mark spoke of how Steve compartmentalized work and family and didn't cross the two. Jack spoke about working with Ditko and how Steve really liked designing things and had no preference to content in his work, Mark spoke about what books about Steve he considered good, including Jack's Working with Ditko, Mark spoke about the upcoming Disney event where Steve Ditko would be getting an Icon award and how Steve would have felt about that using his writings about awards, Mark also spoke about the Ditko Con and the possibility of a Ditko Museum, Jack spoke about Steve working from a full script as was custom at DC, Ditko and his brief experiences with comic conventions, Ditko not traveling outside of NY and PA and his eating at nearby fast food restaurants, his relationship with publisher Robin Snyder, and plans to publish a number of Ditko's works.

Don McGregor Spotlight (52:20, 119mb)
The panel started with Don getting an inkpot award from Eddie Ibrahim, Director of Programming at Comic-Con International. Don was then interviewed by Ed Catto about why Don and his work has connected with people over the years, they spoke about a photo of him jumping while on the Swiss Alps, Don revealed how he had to learn the hard way about the unwritten rules of working in comics, they spoke about Black Panther and how he had to work around the editors at the time, he spoke about the various artists he worked with including Rich Buckler, Billy Graham and P. Craig Russell. He spoke of writing the first interracial kiss in comics and how he got Marvel executives and Stan Lee to agree to it when they initially had objections, he spoke about telling Jim Warren a story in one his magazines sucked on a panel and how that lead to meeting Billy Graham, Lady Rawhide and how his daughter was very involved in it's creation, The Spider with Gene Colan being reprinted with unpublished art, Billy Graham's creation to the Panther's Rage story, Sabre and how it started with Dean Mullaney and the decision to bring in gay characters.

Maggie Thompson Spotlight (48:20, 110mb)
Besides Maggie, Valerie Thompson and Devon Jaruk were on the panel. Maggie talked about how to keep the fun going after the con is over. She spoke about the earliest con she ever attended. She said her family picked up a hitchhiker and returned the favour by sending them Humbug #1, Hitchhiker was Don Thompson who would eventually become her husband. She spoke about how her family did cosplay at sci-fi conventions, the first comic book convention she attended, Valerie spoke about meeting Mel Blanc and asking him to do an obscure voice which he was very happy to do, meeting Carl Barks through mutual family friends, finding out Carl had All In Color for a Dime which Don was super happy about, how during their fanzine days her and Don being adults lead to publishers trusting them more and giving them information other fanzines couldn't get, Disney's initial objection to their proposed article on Carl Barks for the last issue of their Comic Art fanzine, learning who Quintin Tarantino's mother is, Maggie told anecdotes from hanging out with friends & celebrities after the conventions, Valerie and Devon talked about how they kept in contact with people after a convention, how Maggie learned to work a mimeograph, saying Thank you to creators and keeping in touch with them and how that lead to a friendship with Walt Kelly, they spoke about Comic Book: The Movie, paying it forward, the most positive change they've seen in fandom over the years, The Dead Dog party after San Diego, buying art at a yard sale and learning it was done by Carl Bark's wife.

Will Eisner Hall of Fame Ceremony 2024 (July 26th) - 15 Photos

This took place in the San Diego Convention Center, room 29CD @ 10:00am - 11::30am.

Montreal Comic Con 2024 (July 5 - 7) - 9 Photos

Note: I only attended Sunday (July 7th).

Where are the Queer Superheroes? (43:05, 98.6mb)
Sophie Delmas spoke about Seduction of the Innocent and how the comics code forbade anything other than heterosexual relationships, then spoke a bit about the code revision in 1989 and how after that publishers could do gay superheroes, starting with DC's Pied Piper (1991) and Marvel's Northstar (1992). She also spoke about the practice of queer coding and queer baiting and gave several examples of both. She also gave many examples of how characters who were once revealed or at least strongly hinted to be gay or bisexual had that removed via retcons or reboots. Among the examples she provided were Marvel's Rictor & Shatterstar, Eddie Brock and Venom, Cyclops, Jean & Logan and at DC John Constantine. She also showed examples of specific gay exclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Loki, Agents of Shield, and Guardians of the Galaxy. She discussed DC removing the Tim Drake coming out story from the Batman: Urban Legends trades, which was the only story from that series they didn't put into the trade paperbacks. Sophie also gives receipts with specific creators and editors that did this using what they said on social media about the topic. Note: At they end they read off ticket numbers for a raffle, I cut that part of the audio out.

Sketch Duel: Tom Grummett, Ryan Stegman. (40:53, 93.5mb)
Moderating the panel was Anthony Ruttgaizer. They took some odd suggestions from the audience to what to draw, then picked something. Tom and Ryan revealed what they were working on before they came to the show, gave tips for breaking into comics, the pro's and con's of working digitally, inking and the tools they use to make art, their favourite inker, what they have playing in the background while they're drawing, AI being evil, being inspired by the things you like and using it to springboard your own stuff. Note: At they end they read off ticket numbers for a raffle, I cut that part of the audio out.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2024 (May 10 - 12th) - 29 Pictures

Maurice Vellekoop: I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together (1:01:32, 140.0mb)
Miles Baker does the introduction. Maurice does a reading from his new book, then he is interviewed by Rachel Giese. Among the topics were his upbringing, themes that run through the book, the role that family photos mad in making the book, the help he had in getting the details of the places depicted in the past, the influence of specific people had on him as told in the book, where the title of the book comes from, his diverse taste in high and low art and if there is a connecting tissue within in, his trip to a castle and the effect it had on him, the positive side of his religious upbringing, depictions of his therapy sessions and voices in his head, how people in his past have reacted to the book, did his art change over the 10 years of making it and how he dealt with that, the process for creating the art for the book, the emotional turmoil in making the book, how he decided what stories to use, why he had to re-write and re-draw some of the book, what compelled him to do the book in the first place, how he chose the colours for the various chapters and his age recommendation for the book.
This took place on Thursday Night (May 9th) 7pm @ Toronto Reference Library in their new Jack Robinvitch Room.

Artists Talk on Grants: How to Get Them and How to Use Them (1:05:34, 150.0mb)
Moderated by Allison O'Toole, panelists were Josh Rosen, Victoria Day and Steven Andrews. They discussed how can I get a grant, who can apply for one, what grants fund, where to get grants, where do you start the process, what to include in an application, talking about your work, spending the money and keeping track of it when you get a grant, how grants are and are not taxed, asking for the full amount of the allowed grant.

Indy Comics: Now More Than Ever! With Avi Ehrlich (59:45, 136mb)
Allison O'Toole interviews Avi Ehrlich of Silver Sprocket about how he became an indy comics publisher, what he learned from his previous business of repairing bicycles, their being part of a comics community, the conflict of business needs vs artist desires, how being very transparent has really helped their company, how they compensate creators, marketing books, social medias value, the balance between giving away work for free vs business needs, theft and competition making like difficult, why they make books with extra fills, having a retail store front and what they learn from it, events to launch a book and how they get creative with it, being professional with money and on top of things, going to Angoulême and how that affected him, the structural differences between European and American comics industry, their first and possibly last involvement in FCBD, values and how they change over time, advise to people making comics.

Creative Law 101 with Michael Duboff (1:04:22, 147mb)
Michael explained copyright and what it is exactly, registration of copyright, ideas and AI and copyright, how long copyright lasts, public domain, publishing agreements, grant of rights, publishers obligations, compensation, right to audit, book returns, contingent compensation/media rights, copies to writer, discontinuance of publication, representation, warranties & indemnities, confidentiality, the entire agreement, independent legal advice, legal compensation, moral rights, co-authorship agreements and option agreements.

Workshop: Memory into Mini-Comics (37:21, 85.5mb)
Lara Antal teaches how to turn a memory into a mini comics. She goes through 3 steps giving evocative & sensory storytelling techniques, your creative toolbox, picking a memory, creating a thumbnail sheet, using words & pictures in context, drawing in other senses like sound, taste, smell, using contrast & similarity, how to make a zine, using connecting fill in panels to tie it all together, sharing your story.

State of the Industry Roundtable (1:03:06, 144mb)
On the panel was Alexander Finbow, Tracy Hurren, Avi Ehrlich and Andy Brown. Among the topics discussed were why the last year was a shitshow, #comicsbrokeme, different approaches to funding comics for both creators and publishers, the benefits of artists having original art to sell, things young creators show be aware of, red flags when dealing with publishers, the role of editors, creative control with big and small publishers, marketing, what they are launching and looking forward to, the gaps in the comics industry they'd like to see filled, how a weird pitch could win them over, digital comics and how that helps or hurts. The panel was moderated by MJ Lyons.

Canada Post Graphic Novel Stamp Panel (1:07:56, 155mb)
Miles Baker did the introduction, then Carrie Chisholm from Canada Post announced they made new stamps with Seth, Jillian & Mariko Tamaki, Chester Brown and Michel Rabagliati based on their books Clyde Fans, This One Summer, Louis Riel and Paul à Québec respectively. Ho Che Anderson then interviewed the Seth, Jillian Tamaki and Chester Brown. They spoke about how they got involved with Canada Post, the process of making the stamp and working with Canada Post, Jillian spoke about collecting stamps as a child and always wanting to make one as a kid, the exposure and prestige of their work on a stamp, comics as art and their progression from the 1980s to now, how in comics there are different parts that want comics to be respected vs. subversive and which 'camp' they fall into, if Chester would do Louis Riel differently today, how there are a lot more young cartoonists now, becoming 'elder statemen' of comics, the state of comics today and the industry, how big their respective OA was and thinking about how it will look when it's shrunk down to stamp size, working with scanners and digitally, the reduction of quality in non-digital art tools, how Seth and Chester influenced each other, Jillian learning how to draw comics by reading comics, Jillian being a part of a generation of comics creators that didn't grow up reading Marvel and DC comics, if they felt trapped by the success of their earlier works, Chester's Paying for It being turned into a film and what new work they are doing.

Gleem: Freddy Carrasco Spotlight (55:53, 127mb)
Ho Che Anderson interviews Freddy Carrasco about his book Gleem and other topics including learning to draw, how he started making comics and doing short stories, why he was attracted to comics, moving from Toronto to Tokyo, why he went to work on a cabbage farm, being black in Japan, getting into painting, doing sci-fi stories, publishing via D&Q, the religious element in Gleem, what the female character represents, how films have influenced him, violence and technology, AI almost making him quit Instagram, the overlap between the stories in Gleem, the colour section in the book, the wordless story and why he did it, doing more books, his interest in sculpture, the process of creating his art, his upcoming exhibition and how many pages he drew in a day.

Gene Luen Yang Spotlight (45:18, 103mb)
Gene and moderator Mark Askwith spoke about when he first began drawing, his first comic books, making comics as a kid with a friend, getting into indy comics via Rory Root's Comic Relief store, what books really connected to him, his love of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, jobs he did while starting in comics, doing American Born Chinese and how it changed his life, First Second being his "home", what Lunar New Year Love Stories is about, how some of it was based the artists stories in which they completely write and drew, how crazy fast the artist is, the Lion Dance section and how all of the ways it fit into the book, the Ambassador role he has and what he speaks about, what books he recommends to people, his early cartoonist friends in San Francisco, Superman Smashes The Klan, American Born Chinese being turned into a TV show and how that affected his life, the connection he has with his audience.

Raeghan Buchanan - Drawing History out of Obscurity (51:18, 117mb)
Raeghan talked about obscure history is harder to research, with it you will find misconceptions and need dispel them, the types of sources you can use and which ones are best, doing interviews, the pro's and con's of doing interviews, using online articles and personal websites, the library of congress site, archive.org, looking through comments on videos to find other sources, archives in university libraries, biographies, photo references, the distillation of peoples stories, how it's about the journey, letting your voice come though, some origin stories she told and the presentation of the information.

Joe Matt Tribute (50:27, 115mb)
Panelists were Chris Oliveros, Adrian Tomine, Seth, Chester Brown and Jeet Heer. Among the topics the group spoke about was Matt's impact on comics particularly in their generation and on them specifically, Chris talked about getting into alt. comics and writing and then meeting Joe Matt, Seth and Chester about first coming across his work and how they knew right away he was a great cartoonist that they had to befriend, Seth revealed that Joe was a great curator of both the items in his life and his own work, how Joe revealing so much about himself and the people around him (including his then girlfriend) lead to changes in their relationships, Adrian talked about meeting Joe, seeing in him LA and how Joe's work influenced his, Chris revealed that Joe was always talking about the collection of his work, Seth spoke about Joe presenting himself as an asshole in his work on purpose, Matt being a perfectionist when it comes to inking, why Joe wasn't included as one of the Postage Stamps and Chester talked about finishing Joe's last work.

Ask a (Comics) Librarian (57:03, 130mb)
On the panel was Natalie DeJonghe, Tina Coleman, Lindsay Gibb, Scott Robins, Fatma Faraji, Dr. Lucia Cedeira Serantes and Amie Wright (moderator). They all introduced themselves and told their comics origin story, Amie went through a very brief history of the attempts to get comics in libraries starting with a 1974 article by Will Eisner championing this idea, they all spoke about the coolest thing they worked on with comics and libraries, they all gave a shout out to other Librarians who have done great things with collections and programs, then they all recommended a new GN.

Paneled Rheum - Art, Comics and Sequential Narrative (55:03, 126mb)
Moderated by Jessica Campbell, the panelists were Thijs Desmet, Kit Anderson, Aiden Koch and Kristen Hatfield. Among the topics they spoke about was what comics do that other mediums do not and why they do them, how they experiment with comics, being experimental but still readable, being ambiguous in their work and the audiences reactions, using environment and landscapes in their work, ecological storytelling and why they put humor in their story.

Keith Knight Spotlight (58:11, 133mb)
Keith spoke about his upbringing and how it changed his work, coming up with (th)ink and why he did it, talk about American History, doing a daily newspaper comic strip, how cartooning can change the world, John Lewis's March and it's inspiration, his book They Shoot Black People, Don't They? and what inspired it, his Woke TV show and experience with it and his site BlackMugshots.com and why he created it.

Laugh Riot - Humour in Comics: Parody, Satire and Commentary (55:24, 126mb)
Creators Jade Armstrong, Mitch Lohmeier, Thom, Rick Altergott and eventually Keith Knight talk to Robert Sikoryak. They discussed what their books is about and why they decided to make it, writing from their real life and how that made it either harder or easier for them, how their art style affects their humour and if they keep it or change it from book to book, techniques for the punch line when turning the page, how they know if something they wrote is funny or not, human gestures that enhance the jokes.

Deni Loubert Spotlight (54:37, 125mb)
Deni was interviewed by Dr. Rebecca Sullivan about Starting Renegade Press, coming into comics and her challenges, her turning down working for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Image Comics when they were starting up, why she turned down Image Comics in particular, her being a founder of Friends of Lulu and why she got involved in it, the organizations work with retailers in terms of making comic shops more friendly for women, if she thinks that type of advocacy is still needed in comics, the need for women to push to open doors for themselves and other women, the creative process in publishing books, how Renegade Romance title started, publishing genre and non-genre comics, working with different creators, her very near miss in getting on a debuting iphone with the first web comic app, the best and worst changes to the comic industry, her documentary and video journalism work, why she chose to move to the US to start Renegade Press, an opportunity she thought would work and why it fell apart. Note: I came in a bit late for this panel so it starts while in progress.

Doug Wright Awards 2024 (May 11th) - 25 Photos

The Doug Wright Award for best book:
Val-d'Or Neon by Olivier Ballou (Self-published)
A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll (First Second)
Harvey Knight's Odyssey by Nick Maandag (Drawn & Quarterly)
Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman by Éloïse Marseille (Pow Pow Press)
Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)
JAJ by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Douglas & McIntyre)

The Nipper: The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent
James Collier for The Lonesome Shepherd (Wig Shop)
Vincy Lim for When I was a kid I was taught how to die. Now that I'm an adult I'm learning how to live. (I love you.) and When She Set Fire to My Friends' Houses (Self-published)
Syd Madia for Syd Madia's Dracula (Self-published)
Christopher Twin for Bad Medicine (Emanata/Conundrum)
Kyle Vingoe-Cram for Kettle Harbour (Conundrum)

The Pigskin Peters: The Doug Wright Award for best small- or micro-press book
Endsickness No. 2 by Sofia Alarcon (Self-published)
The Lonesome Shepherd by James Collier (Wig Shop)
Old Caves by Tyler Landry (Uncivilized)
Power 9: Part One by John Little and David Little (Self-published)
Index by Sven, Rachel Evangeline Chiong, and Joyce Kim (Self-published)

The Egghead: The Doug Wright Award for best kids' book
ThunderBoom by Jack Briglio and Claudia Dávila (Kids Can Press)
Pluto Rocket: New in Town by Paul Gilligan (Tundra Books)
Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy by Faith Erin Hicks (First Second)
Otis & Peanut by Naseem Hrab and Kelly Collier (Owlkids Books)
Bad Medicine by Christopher Twin (Emanata/Conundrum)

Comic book artist Maurice Vellekoop and publisher Deni Loubert were inducted into the Giants of the North Hall of Fame by Fiona Smyth and Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock respectively.

Memorial Tributes were made to Joe Matt and Phyllis Wright Thomas, widow of Doug Wright by Chester Brown, Seth and Brad Mackay.

Artsy Fartsy Comic Con - (October 21st) - 17 Pictures

Toronto Comicon 2024 (March 15 - 17th) - 9 Pictures

Sketch Duel: Mike Rooth vs. Hugh Rookwood (and vs. Jay Fosgitt) (39:50, 91.2mb)
The Moderator was JM Clark. While the artists did sketches, they spoke about a variety of topics. Rooth spoke about his youtube channel where he goes outside and finds odd things like twigs, shriveled up mushrooms and then drawing with it, just to show people you don't need expensive fancy equipment and tools to make good art. The group spoke about their most successful piece that they were not happy with, if they worked digitally vs. traditionally, doing pencils, inks & colours, their recent work. Jay told the story about writing a letter to Jim Henson as a young boy saying he wanted to be an artist and work for him, then eventually doing so and seeing that Jim kept that letter and his response. At the end they did a drawing for the sketches and some sponsored art supplies.

Larry F. Houston Spotlight (44:24, 101mb)
Interviewing Larry was Victor Dandridge. Larry spoke about his career in animation with a lot of focus on the 1992 X-Men cartoon. In particular he revealed when he started to create art/stories, his Mount Rushmore of Inspirations, his favorite animated movies, going to art school, breaking glass ceilings in the world of animation, how he storyboards a script, thinking about how a shot will be animated, his first big project, his script writing, Working on Pryde of the X-Men pilot cartoon and how that effected the 1992 X-Men series, his involvement in the writing, how he was able to sneak in cameos of other Marvel characters into the cartoons. He went into detail about the 1992 X-Men cartoon intro in terms of how it tells a story and how he had to design some of the character logos as Marvel hadn't created any, his friends Will Meugnist and Rick Hobergg, the X-Men voice actors, how Margaret Loesch was super important to getting comic book cartoons, including the X-Men, on the air even at the risk of her own job, getting to work on Marvel Comic Book covers, getting appreciation from fans at conventions and the now X-Men 97 show that picks up 6 months after the 1992 X-Men show ends.

Sketch Duel: Casey Parsons vs. Chris Compana (47:06, 107mb)
As the two sketched they spoke about when they started drawing, their art school experience, artist block and how they deal with it, what music they listen to while drawing, how doing art for a living can sometimes be a drudgery, working on trading cards, if they bargain with editor/writers when they get a page they really don't want to draw, if they have a go to character they always draw when doodling or warming up, guilty pleasures they like to draw, their other creative outlets, characters they would love to revive with their own takes, what they are working on right now, a project they weren't happy with but turned out to be a big success, their dream project, work of other artists they like, but can't happily do themselves, if it's harder starting a series mid way through vs being there from the very beginning, their 'I made it' moment. The panel was moderated by Martin Duncan. At the end they did a drawing for the sketches.

Artsy Fartsy Comic Con - (October 21st) - 24 Pictures

San Diego Comic Con 2023 (July 19 - 23rd) - 27 Pictures

Barbara Friedlander Spotlight (55:05, 126mb)
Mark Evanier interviews Barbara Friedlander about what she wanted to do before working in comics, getting hired at DC Comics, what she did, how she moved up to writing and editing, the artists she worked with, how old movies influenced her writing and plot ideas, interacting with other editors and staff, covers and Irwin Donenfeld, Ira Schnapp, working under Carmine Infantino when he became head editor, E. Nelson Birdwell and the Inferior Five, Swing with Scooter and who he was based on, other female writers and editors, how editors were stressed about their jobs around the time of the Warner Brothers buy out, how freelancers were treated and the letters to the editors.

Defending Comics Today: How You Can Save Comics (48:21, 110mb)
Panelists were Jen King, Mary Ellen Stout and Bob Wayne and the moderator was Jeff Trexler. Among the topics they discussed was why they got involved in the fight against censorship, a new Texas law wanting ratings and content labels on all books, the challenges of teaching comics today, the harm in banning books, the fear and self-censoring that comes with today's moral panic environment, how to fight against the culture wars against comics and some encouraging words.

Ron Turner Spotlight (53:22, 122mb)
On the panel was Colin Turner, Ron Turner, Trina Robbins (who had to leave early due to a panel conflict) and Jon B Cooke. The spoke about the first comic Ron published under his company Last Gasp. Trina then spoke about Ron's involvement in It Ain't Me Babe and Wimmen's Comix, the first and second all female comic book ever published. Ron and Trina also spoke about his publishing non-profit books. Other books and creators discussed were Justin Green's Binky Brown meets the Virgin Mary and how that influenced both art spiegelmen and Robert Crumb, Jack Jaxson Texas history books, George DiCaprio and using a different imprint, how Terry Zwigoff was his first employee, the ways various artists got their stuff "borrowed" by Hollywood, working with Harlan Ellison and other funny stories.

Direct Market 50th Anniversary Celebration (42:24, 97mb)
Milton Griepp, Mike Richardson, Bill Schanes and Bob Wayne reveal how they got into comics and the comic industry, how the Direct Market changed for retailers in the 1980s and 1990s, "Ground Level" comics, Carol Kalish being the unsung hero of the Direct Market with her Cash Register program, how the Direct Market allowed for smaller publishers to give much better deals to creators. Note: I came into the panel as introductions were being done.

Comics Arts Conference #5: Look for the Union Label (51:52, 118mb)
Presenters were Fred Jacob and Richard Graham. Richard spoke about the history of educational comics done for the government. He spoke about how George Gallop (famous for the Gallop poll) researched newspapers and found that the section that was most read by adults was the comic page. He also spoke about the many famous cartoonists that did work for the government comics, including Dr. Suess, Milton Caniff, Walt Disney, Neal Adams, Will Eisner, Denis Kitchen and more. He spotlighted the Harry S. Truman comic and Grenada done for the CIA. He spoke of the Malcolm Ater Collection being online for everyone to read these comics for free. Fred talked about Comics and the Labour movement, both in terms of comic stories in favor of Unions and the backlash against Unions also done through comics.

Comics Arts Conference #6: Comics and History (1:21:09, 185mb)
This panel consisted of 4, 15 minute presentations. They are:
Kyle A. Hammonds on George Takei's They Called Us Enemy.
Kyle P. Vealey on Comics and Atomic Energy.
Michael David MacBride on John Sam Allen - the Architect of the Advocate.
and Almans Khan on Graphic Narratives and the re-envisioning of legal history.

Janice Chiang Spotlight (49:34, 113mb)
Janice got an inkpot award from Comic Con. Interviewed by Justin Otero, Janice answered questions and told stories regarding how she got into lettering and who was her mentor, her upbringing, involvement in protests, meeting Larry Hama, why she went back to comic lettering, a number of different titles she worked on, working for DC, advice she'd give younger artists, Alpha Flight #106 (Northstar comes out as Gay), Asian American Comic Anthology, working with Gene Luen Yang, Tokyo Rose and doing sound effects.

So You Want to be a Comic Book Retailer? (48:39, 111mb)
Moderated by Marco Davanzo, retailers Django Bohren, Katie Pryde, Jenn Haines and Eitan Manhoff. The group reveal their personal journey into comics and then into being a comic retailer, what would need/do if they were starting a store now, the absolute need to have a point of sale system, what they would have done differently if starting over again, where they order comics from, buying back issues, how they get customers to come into their store, building a community or 3rd home with their stores, building a social media presence, firing employees, what advise they would give to somebody starting out.

Graphic Origins: The Rise of Children's Graphic Novels (46:13, 105mb)
On the panel was Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi, Gale Galligan and Raina Telgemeier. Despite the title this panel was mostly for the kids in the audience with the cartoonists taking turns doing sketches that came from audience suggestions and building on them. They do answer how they got into comics, if they want to make changes to their old work, what books they loved when growing up, what part do they draw first and what tools they use for drawing.

Passion & Play: Erotica by Women (51:37, 118mb)
Panelists include Sydney Heifler, Kim Munson, Jessica Tseang, Jim Thompson and Bruce Simon. They start off by mentioning Michael Dooley, who was supposed to be moderating this panel but dealing with some serious health issues at the moment. The group discuss what brought them to Erotica, which creators they liked included Melinda Gebbie, Wendy Pini, Colleen Doran, Trina Robbins, Joyce Farmer, Emil Ferris, Fiona Smythe, Corey Silverberg, Trinidad Escobar, Giovanna Casotto, Kuniko Tsurita, Moyoco Anno, Milk Morizono and Ebine Yamaji. They also spoke about how female drawn erotica is different compared to the more extreme Robert Crumbs work.

Warren Kremer: Harvey Comics' Cover Genius (49:42, 113mb)
Moderated by Jim Thompson, Alonso Nunez, Steve Leialoha, Mark Badger and Jerry Beck talk about how they all came to re-evaluate and appreciate Kremer's work. Jerry gave a brief history of Paramount Pictures who had created some of the characters (Casper, Little Audrey) which then got done into comic books by St. John and then taken over by Harvey Comics. They then went through some covers on a slide show and spoke about how great the design work was for either making it pop out on the newsstands compared to other books at the time or how complicated the cover and prospective was and costly to do.

Defending Comics Today: Understanding Intellectual Property (54:12, 124mb)
Jeff Trexler, Brian Chase, Chinwe Ohanle, Dale Cendali, Richard Olsen and Amy Chu speak about how they got involved in comics, the need to protect themselves, artist alley and trademarked characters, copyright and registering your work and what trademarks are.

Defending Comics Today: Understanding Contracts (46:41, 106mb)
Jeff Trexler, Dirk Vanover, Mark Zaid and Gamal Hennessy speak about the most important thing to know in regards to contracts, having leverage and how much you can use it, trusting publishers that already work with their friends, what people should do if anybody says a contract can't be changed and how to deal with A.I.

Maggie Thompson Spotlight (46:58, 107mb)
The focus of the panel was preserving history. Panelists were Maggie Thompson, Karen Green, Mark Evanier and Charles Kochman. Maggie spoke about her brother and his collection of microfiche of golden age comics, Karen spoke about what is important to a researcher vs a collector, they spoke about Jules Feiffer papers, the lost records for Gold Key Comics, getting the records from Haimes Ware [who did Who's Who with with Jerry Bails], Darwyn Cooke, Walt Kelly and how comics and communication going digital is making things more difficult and it's something they are still figuring out.

Who Says Romance Is Dead? A Look at the past, present and future of Romance Comics (51:54, 118mb)
The moderator was Fantastic Frankey and panelists included Bruce Simon, Sydney Heifler, Trina Robbins and Melissa Pagluica. They discussed how and why Romance Comics started and specifically Young Romance by Simon and Kirby, the reaction to Romance Comics, their personal reaction to seeing their first romance comics, spoke about a really bad romance comic from the 1960s, Trina spoke about Teen Humor stores like Archie and her own Misty and how that is different from Romance, Melissa spoke about her own romance comics and the apprehension she had about creating them, Bruce talked about why publishers did romance comics and how publishers "updated" ones published in the 1950's/60s for the 1970s. Trina spoke about Liz Berube's work, the group discussed Romance's influences on other genre's, their favorite relationships in comics, the fashion in comics and Matt Baker's work.

Beau Smith Spotlight (54:40, 125mb)
Ted Adams does a this is your (comic) life with Beau Smith, but first Comic Con gave Beau an inkpot award, they went over his letter writing to comics, how that lead to writing comics, putting his family and friends in his comics, his education, becoming a sales manager for Eclipse, becoming a character in Scout, being part of Four Winds; a creator own self-publishing collective with other writers and artists. He talked about Black Terror an all painted mini-series published in prestige format, Parts Unknown, Guy Gardner, his friendship with Todd McFarlane and working for him, the Wynonna Earp comic book and experience on the TV show, his recent work with Clover Press and the best advice he got from Don Heck.

Who was Steve Ditko? (54:54, 125mb)
Panelists consisted of Lenny Schwartz, Alex Grand, Mark Ditko, Marci Singel and Jackie Estrada. The group talked about their involvement with Steve Ditko, Mark and Marci spoke about Steve at family events, which Steve always attended and asking him to draw him stuff as kids, Mark also spoke about the start of his philosophical relationship with Steve. Jackie spoke about her correspondence with Steve Ditko, showed art he drew for early comic con souvenir books. How intelligent and extremely well read Ditko was, Steve not accepting awards or accolades for his work. The Johnstown, PA Ditko family community, Mark spoke about the books on Dikto he really likes and recommends and revealed that he is planning on putting together a book of Ditko's essays (of which he has hundreds of) as they really reveal who Ditko was, they also spoke about Mr. A. The panel was moderated by Tyler McPail.

Comics Arts Conference #16: Identity Crisis: Trademark and the Ripple Effect in Comic Narratives. (42:06, 96.3mb)
The panel of lawyers were: Jim Thompson, Marc Greenberg and Daniel Barer. They started off talking about superheroes dealing with people using their names in comic books and dealing with it in legal and non-legal methods, they spoke about an attempt from another publisher to do a SuperWoman comic strip and how DC was able to stop that with a previously published Superwoman ashcan comic, Marc spoke specifically about what trademarks are and how they work and also went over the legal history of Superman vs. Captain Marvel, Daniel went over the Captain Marvel trademark between Fawcett, Myron Fass and Marvel, Jim spoke about the names Wonder Man and Power Man and the DC/Marvel dispute over them.

Trivia For Chocolate (1:09:02, 158mb)
Tom Galloway asks the fans to give out answers based on clues to questions. Among the topics were name the comic book character based on the parent's first name, catch phrases, sidekicks, pets, robots and more. The first person to answer correctly got chocolate. They tallied up the chocolate at the end to see who got the most and additional chocolate was handed out to the winners. Assisting with this was Peter Svensson and Michelle Melendez.

Heroes Convention 2023 (June 16 - 18th) - 26 Pictures

Back Issue Magazine 20th Anniversary (58:23, 133mb)
Panelists were designer Rich Fowlks, editor Michael Eury and publisher John Morrow. John started off giving Michael a 20th Anniversary gift for working with him and on Back Issue for 20 years. He got a Superman signal watch. John and Michael spoke about the genesis of Back Issue Magazine and Michaels work history in comics. Many of the writers and contributors were in attendance and they introduced themselves and spoke about how they got started contributing to the magazine. Michaels spoke about learning how to edit from Dick Giordano. John also spoke a bit about the other magazine Michael edits, Retro Fan. Rich spoke about the joy of working with Michael (as did all the writers). They spoke about which issue of Back Issue was their favorite and why, how they come up with topic/themes for an issue, they did some Q&A and raffled off some prizes.

Love and Staples: Romance in the Comics (59:18, 135mb)
Michelle Nolan and Suzan Loeb talked about their history with romance comics. Michelle about her reading them and Suzan about writing love advise columns for the 2 Marvel romance comics in the 1960s. Michelle spoke about the origins of Romance Comics, how the Kirby and Simonson stories were great, the difference between novels and comics, how the comics code censored romance comics, Michelle's favorite artists, the best and worst romance series and teen humor books. Suzan revealed how and why she was hired by Stan, working in the bullpen with the other Marvel staffers and John Romita Sr. in particular, Suzan getting first editions on her books from the press, they went through some romance comics they had, spoke about their other books, Michelle's funny Stan Lee story and the change in Romance comics as collectables over the years. The panel was moderated by Justin Crouse.

In Living Color (58:18, 133mb)
Colorists Ryan Cody, Laura Martin, Jeromy Cox and Steve Oliff talked about what they look for in a color portfolio, how they got into coloring, how software changed coloring, how networking with artists is more helpful than editors for getting work, what flatters do and why they are the real unsung heroes of comics. Steve talked specifically about an insane deadline crunch on a Marvel Thor Omnibus where he (or really, the team he hired) had to color 800 pages in a few months. The tight deadlines they all have the collaborative nature of the book, how they can't get offended by changes requested to their work, how sometimes they spot and fix things an editor missed, what artists and inkers can do (and not do) to make their jobs easier, how Steve's work on Akira was a tectonic event in coloring and how it changed everything, how Steve is currently coloring Miracle Man to give it's different look, Steve setting up Olyoptics and some of the talent to come from there, the benefits of working in a studio, how coloring can affect and add to storytelling - what Steve calls the silent soundtrack, how colorists are now getting more credit and even royalties on books now, how important Joe Chiodo was to them, what they hate to color and how they have to accept that the colors on printed book will not be exactly the same as on their computer screens.

Tarzan of the Apes in Comics (57:34, 131mb)
Henry G Franke III interviews Roy Thomas and William Stout their work with Tarzan. He started with some history of the character, how recognizable he is, how many stories he has vs other characters and then many publishers that published Tarzan in comic form. He also spoke about the original oversea stories and those being produced online right now. They talked about what made Tarzan popular, why Marvel went after the Tarzan license, Roy revealed why he stopped writing the comics, Stout explained how he got involved with Tarzan and assisting and learning from Russ Manning, they spoke about the Dell comics series it's artist Jesse Marsh and the Johnny Weissmuller movie version of Tarzan's influence on it, Roy spoke about meeting Weissmuller and spending an evening with him, which artists they wished has drawn Tarzan, how they get young readers interested in the character and the online still ongoing comic strip.

STAR*REACH at 50 (58:45, 134mb)
Andy Kunka, John Workman and Joe Staton spoke about Star*Reach, why it was important and how it impacted the comic industry, the connection between it and Heavy Metal magazine, how both Workman and Staton got involved with the series and in particular the Gods of Mount Olympus they both worked on, they spoke about Bob Smiths involvement, Staton told a funny Steven King story, Workman told a funny story about being mistaken for Joe Staton and also a party he and a number of creators went to and ending up in a bad part of town, Kunka also promoted the TwoMorrows Star*Reach companion.

Marvel Editors King Sized Annual #2 (58:15, 133mb)
Panelists included Howard Mackie, Terry Kavanagh, Tom DeFalco, Carl Potts and Al Milgrom. The panel moderated by Terence Dollard. The group spoke about how working for Marvel at the time was hard work, but it was fun, sometimes it was mandatory fun. They said that Mark Gruenwald was the spirit of Marvel and how it kinda died without him. Tom revealed why he always wore a tie into the office, Al Milgrom spoke at length about Marvel history with black Thursday (in the 1950s) when Stan had to let go of all the freelancers because of how many inventory stories they had. How that affected some of the freelancers, how Jim Shooter convinced the then Marvel owners to increase the editorial staff, starting of the fill in issue and then his title Marvel Fanfare, the group talked about benefits of working together in an office, the juggling act of getting books out and how they dealt with late books, the worst excuses they heard from freelancers on why their work was late, the practical jokes they played on each other, President of Marvel Jim Galton and how lucky they were to have good upper management.

John Romita Sr Tribute Panel (56:19, 128mb)
This was originally going to be a Spider-Man panel with Howard Mackie and John Romita Jr. As Romita Sr. died mere days before the show it is understandable that Jr cancelled his appearance. Heroes Convention converted this time slot to a last minute Tribute panel to John Romita Sr. On the panel was Rick Leonardi, Chris Claremont, Joe (nephew of John Romita Sr.), Bill Morrison, Ron Wilson, Suzan Loeb and Aaron Sulton. Bill Morrison spoke about how he gave (according to Romita Sr.) his proudest moment and how that was HIS proudest moment. Rick Leonardi spoke about the advise Romita gave him when breaking into the comics business, Suzan revealed what it was like working with John, his bullpen nick name and the advise he gave her when she got married, Claremont discussed how John was the Ying to Kirby's Yang, doing down to earth non-flashy storytelling, Claremont also spoke of how John was extremely dependable, always willing to help out on anything you asked of him and the anchor to Marvel, Ron Wilson spoke about his attempts to work at Marvel and how John gave him a chance and changed his life, Aaron talked about going from a fan of John's, to a collector of his art to his art dealer and personal friend. He revealed what John's favorite movies were and the little comic history anecdotes that he would tell him. Joe talked about John's wife Virginia. The group also talked about their favorite work of John's, how it had a magical spark and his humility. Panel was moderated by Jason Wheatley.
Note: Forgot to take picture.

Exploring Excalibur and the X-Men (52:01, 119mb)
Moderated by Terence Dollard, Chris Claremont and Alan Davis. Among the topics covered were Chris "grabbing" Alan when he heard he was available. What about Excalibur that Chris gets that other writers don't "get". Alan spoke about drawing Nightcrawler, Chris talked about the Nightcrawler and Captain Britian relationship and the jokes he used, Alan talked about working with Chris's scripts, they both reminisced on working on a New Mutants Annual together, Chris complimented Alan on how he was able to draw anything he threw at him and make it better, he also loved how Alan got the physical relationships between the characters, they spoke about the design of various characters, Chris revealed he made sure every character in the book was either co-created by him or Alan so they could get incentive/royalties, they both spoke about wanting to work together again and working in 'Marvel' style.

Canon - What belongs in Comics Canon (1:06:60, 152mb)
Panelists were Jennie Law, Craig Fischer, Michael Kobre, Andy Kunka and Dan Yezbick. They started off what they meant by canon. The group discussed books they would add to the comics canon, issues with availability and the costs for students, various comics databases, what - as fans - do they enjoy and is their personal canon, what books should be available but aren't, what scholarly books about comics they recommend, using single issues and short stories for scholarship and recent books they add to the canon.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2023 (April 28 - 30th) - 20 Pictures

Friday, April 28th was for the Word Balloon Academy. A day of skills-building and career management programming for comics creators.

Drawing Health (1:01:14, 140mb)
Georgia Webber takes people through one of her classes on getting in tune with your body, so that you can better deal with its issues so that you can continue making art. She started by getting people comfortable, whatever their comfortable is. She spoke about how sitting all day and its effects on bodies, defining what feeling alive means for you, listening to your instincts and trusting them. She demonstrated drawing a line around your body, finding the part of you that feels alive and transitioning. Then starting off your day just doing a sketch and/or writing about what you are feeling to help transition to feeling alive. She then recommends sharing those sketch/written work as an important part of the process of transitioning, so that you feel heard. She described pain as information and how to use that information to better deal with it.

Fully Uncensored: The Business of 18+ Comics (58:38, 134mb)
Moderated by Amanda Lafrenais, panelists were Kendra and Kat, Tim Bauer and Ed Firth. The group talked about how they deal with kids coming up to their tables at shows, their favourite genre's to merge with their adult material, sound effects in porn, their hardest or least favourite part in the production of adult comics, the least expected place they've found their work "in the wild", if they ever felt themselves putting too much of themselves in their work and pulling back, did they ever do a comic about something else but put some sex and nudity in it so people will buy it, what is it like for Kendra and Kat to work as a team and how open would Tim and Ed be on collaborating with others, how they get distribution to retail stores and what dealing with bookstore returns is like, dealing with getting banned and restrictions placed on them by other entities that they use as part of doing business, if in the current environment if they fear getting criminally charged for their work, dealing with death threats, doing other books under different names and if it's necessary, promotion strategies and social media.

Writing Comics without Knowing the Answers (1:03:41, 145mb)
Benjamin Rivers spoke about his earlier work, the three-act structure to writing stories, how Inuyasha manga was a bunch of 3 act structures strung together, 4 steps to make doing long form stories easier - 1. Breaking it Down, 2. Know your Characters, 3. Find your Conflict and 4. Brain Hacks and goes into detail on each one. He then goes into detail on revising scenes, losing the motivation to do the work, how to create different characters so they don't think and sound like you, how to make your main characters not boring, working on different stories at the same time, giving yourself deadlines, how to avoid writing yourself into corners, writing endings when you are having difficulty with them and when to stop writing.

Crowdfunding from Eh? to Zed (1:10:46, 161mb)
David Barach from Crowdfundr spoke about Crowdfunding in general and the company he works for and the differences between them. He spoke about the importance of owning your audience. How when it comes to Promotion you can buy, borrow or build an audience. The difference between US and Canadian law when it comes to e-mailing people when it comes to spam laws. He went into story writing for campaigns, rewards, goals and stretch goals strategies, how shipping is done differently on crowdfundr, how you can roll over campaigns into an online store once it's done, promotion tips, using images and videos and upcoming features.

State of the Industry Redux: Industry Publishers Roundtable (1:00:23, 138mb)
On the panel was Peggy Burns, Avi Ehrlich and Alexander Finbow who are the publishers of Drawn & Quarterly, Silver Sprocket and Renegade Arts Entertainment respectively. They spoke about how they got into publishing, the work they do, what is the best way for creators to get them interested, issues with some agents, the differences between traditional publishing and comics, getting grants, best way to communicate between the publishers and creators, the benefit of publishing anthologies for creators to both see your work and see how you are to work with, how they pay their creators, digital distribution, advertising and social media, if they were starting today how would they do it. MJ Lyons was the moderator.

TCAF 2023 Kick Off: Hurt Land (1:16:41, 175mb)
Introduction by TCAF executive director Miles Baker and Programming Director Fiona Smyth. Marc Nguui interviews Nina Bunjevac, Jesse Jacobs, Cole Pauls and Fly. They started off asking how optimistic the audience was. Marc asked Fly about doing darker stories and teaching girls about comics. Nina was asked how doing comics helped deal with her trauma. Jesse was asked where his optimism comes from. Cole spoke about his dual identity and how what is common knowledge to him and his upbringing is not common for others. Nina, Jesse and Fly spoke about their religious upbringing and their transitioning from organized religion. They also spoke about psychedelics and spirituality. Fly talked about her work as an archivist and the work she and others did to save her building. They all spoke about how the pandemic affected them and how they dealt with it. Cole and Jesse spoke about their pets and Jesse's book about his pet that died while he was working on it and finishing it.

Author Rights (58:00, 132mb)
Peggy Burns spoke about Drawn and Quarterly Contracts and Contracts in general in terms what creators should know about them. She went through the various parts of the contract, what they are for, what they mean and what should and should not be in there for creators. She spoke about what Drawn and Quarterly does vs. what Multi-National publishers do. Specifically she spoke about the Grant of Rights, Copyrights, Digital publishing, Territory Rights, specifying what currency you are paid with, what royalties mean and the different type of royalties, what rates can be expected and how they should increase as more books are sold, how print runs affect how much you get paid, export rates and how that effects your royalties, rates on digital books, what "Sub" rights are, the delivery of the manuscript, return of artwork, things to put in to get our of your contract if things go bad, publicity clause, author copies and editor clause. Peggy recommended people join the Author's Guild as it has excellent resources for this type of thing. She gave tips for getting a good agent and revealed you will need to go over much of the same thing for your contact with your agent. She spoke about having an agent for a Project vs a career, gross vs. net profit, options for future work, how discounted copies affect your royalties and more.

Life Cycle of a Small Press (51:50, 118mb)
Faduma Gure spoke with Annie Koyama, Zainab Akhtar and Patrick Crotty (via zoom) about what inspired them to become publishers, how they collaborated with each other, their transitioning out of publishing. Panel was cut off abruptly as it went over time.

Projecting Thought - The Experimental Comics of Martin Vaughn-James (41:46, 94.8mb)
On the panel was Jeet Heer, Seth and Sean Rogers. All 3 spoke about MVJ history and his work, how much impact it had when it first came out, what other experimental work that was being done at the same time, the politics of his work, Seth read MVJ's statement on The Elephant, how he almost never spoke about his work wanting others to come up with their own experiences with it, how his work had some roots in the underground movement but would quickly become more serious, how MVJ was breaking new ground, his evolving away from using human figures, how the book is an experience and not a narrative, Mark Askwith also stood up to speak about other influential people around MVJ around the time the books were published.

Cartoonists in Conversation: Faulted Heroes (57:56, 132mb)
Joe Ollmann interviews Noah Van Sciver on topics such as his appeal to both younger and older cartoonists, making flawed heroes and unlikable characters likable, his rocky relationship with his father, him now being a father and raising his own son, how their work has changed, his auto-bio work and the reactions he gets from real people he depicts, his religious upbringing and how that's changed, why he stopped podcasting, doing a podcast with art spiegelman, his biography on Lincoln and Joseph Smith and why he did them, the responses his work got, missing Tom Spurgeon, the movie adaptation of one of his works and his reaction to that, his process of creating comics and getting rid of his mustache.

Horrid World: Why We Need Horror and Dystopic Stories More Than Ever (54:53, 125mb)
Panelists include Erik Svetot, Joy San, Peter Rostovsky, Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha. Among the questions asked were what art made them scared when they were young, what brought Lonnie and Jenna together, what their new book is about, Peter's envision of Hell and going from doing paintings to cartoonist, why Erik's work took place in a spa and if there was any anger in the work, where the images come from in Joy's work and how Sugar is a collection of her earlier zine work, did they ever draw something that scared them or surprised them in that they didn't know they had that in them. Junji Ito's work, if they get the urge to tone down their work, Peter spoke about his work being censored in China and self-censorship. The panel was moderated by Alison Lang.

Indigeneity and Comics Medium as an Action for Change (48:13, 110mb)
Cole Pauls and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm talked about getting into comics, how they worked on their books, how much direction is good to have, the social justice theme in Cole's work, how things they thought were common knowledge are not, reactions they get from showing their history and work, future work they are either going to or really want to do, consulting elders on books, advise to younger people just starting out making comics.

Cartoonists in Conversation: Inner Sites (50:13, 114mb)
Aaron Costain interviews Jesse Jacobs about his drawing style, listening to music or podcasts when they work, when he started making comics, the human characters in New Pets, the violence in their work, the religious/spirituality in their work, nature, where comics start with them, creating characters, the split between doing illustration work and doing comics, unfinished work, how productive they were during the pandemic, their process of making comics, the tools they use and the time involved in making books.

Zine Legacy Part One: Comic Zine Pioneers (58:03, 132mb)
Fiona Smyth talks to James Kochalka, Lorenz Peter and Fly how they started making Zines, how they made their zines and distributed them, how Factsheet Five was a bible to zine community, advise they give to people making zines today, how zines are still growing and why, and with all 3 being in bands how music crosses over to their zines.

Zine Legacy Part Two: Queercore and RiotGrrrl (55:27, 126mb)
Moderated by MJ Lyons, Eric Kostiuk Williams, Lindsay Gibb and Mel Stringer speak about their first encounter with Zine culture, their relationship with Queercore and RiotGrrrl, where they go to find that politics for today, online resources and where to go for places with minimal restrictions, the feeling of being disconnected during the pandemic and getting connected again, advice to emerging zinesters.

Wordysmiths - Comic Writers (52:24, 119mb)
Jim Zub, Ryan North and J. Torres talk about when they got interested in comics, their turning point for getting into comics, if they quit their day job, favorite failed project, taking a writing course and expectations when working with collaborators. The panel was moderated by Mark Askwith.

Doug Wright Awards 2023 (April 29th) - 16 Photos

2023 Doug Wright Awards (1:28:54, 203mb)
Introduction by Brad Mackay, hosted by Dustin Harbin.

The Egghead award presented by judge Dave Howard:
Nominees and Winner in bold:
Scout is Not a Band Kid by Jade Armstrong (Random House Graphic)
Paws: Mindy Makes Some Space by Michele Assarasakorn and Nathan Fairbairn (Razorbill)
Super Family! (Simon and Chester Book 3) by Cale Atkinson (Tundra Books)
The Flamingo by Guojing (Random House Studio)
You Know, Sex by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth (Triangle Square)

Peter Pigskin award presented by Zack Kotzer:
The Life I Want by Patrick Allaby (Self-Published)
Assorted Baggage by Matthew Daley (Black Eye Books)
Where Have You Been? By Ivana Filipovich (trans: Ivana Filipovich/Andrea Hankinson) (Self-Published)
Butterfly House by Troy Little and Brenda Hickey (Pegamoose Press)
Thousand Oaks: Machine Mail (Part 3) by Blaise Moritz (Urban Farm Print and Sound)

Memorials for were done for Scott Carruthers and Mandi Kujawa. Speaking about them was Mark Laliberte and Alexander Finbow.

Inducted into the Giants of the North was Henriette Valium and accepting on his behalf was Marc Tessier and Valium's family.

Brad Mackay and Seth spoke about Doug Wright and the Crowdfundr for Doug Wright Volume 2

The Nipper was presented by Jordan Reg. Aelick:
Emily Carrington for Our Little Secret (Drawn & Quarterly)
Jonathan Dyck for Shelterbelts (Conundrum Press)
Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet for We Were Younger Once (Conundrum Press)
Lynette Richards for Call Me Bill (Conundrum Press/Emanata Imprint)
Adam de Souza for Blind Alley No. 1, ISH (Self-Published, Silver Sprocket)

Best Book presented by Kat Sun:
Ducks by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)
Time Zone J by Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly)
Shelterbelts by Jonathan Dyck (Conundrum Press)
The Flamingo by Guojing (Random House Studio)
Kwändür by Cole Pauls (Conundrum Press)
You Know, Sex by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth (Triangle Square)

Steve Manale also showed up at the end.

Baltimore Comic Con 2022 (Oct 27 - 30) - 18 Photos

From Skartaris to Danger Street (1:02:23, 142mb)
On the panel was Mike Gold, Tom King, Mike Grell and the panel was moderated by Pop Culture Squad's Bob Harrison. The panel was devoted to the 13 issue 1st Issue Special and the events surrounding and sprung from it. Mike Gold spoke about why it came into existence and how the Cancelled Comics Cavalcade came from it. Mike Grell talked about how The Warlord was originally meant for another publisher and how Carmine convinced him to do it for DC. Gold and Grell told funny stories about Jenette Kahn and Vince Colletta. They spoke about why the Creeper issue was done and Steve Ditko's sense of humor. How bad the Green Team was, who the artist of Code Name: Assassin was. The Dingbat's of Danger and Tom King's revival of them and other characters from the series (Lady Cop, Green Team and The Creeper). Grell and Gold spoke about a Jon Sable and Batman announced crossover, to be written by Grell and drawn by Jim Lee, and why it never got done. Grell talked about how he got on Batman, a funny LOSH story, a Warlord and Green Arrow crossover, the Superman and Warlord crossover and his work with early PowerGirl.

Celebrating Tim Sale (47:13, 108mb)
Panelists were Jared Michalski, Klaus Janson, Jason Schachter and Tom King. Jared and Jason spoke about the first time they hung out with Tom, taking him out to a ball game. Jason spoke about visiting the set of 30 Rock with Tim and meeting all cast. Klaus spoke about meeting and working with Tim and one of his fondest memories with Tim. They mentioned that Tim was a foodie. Tom King talked about talking with Tim and a cover Tim drew with 3 hands on it. They all spoke of their favorite of Tim's work, how Tim as an artist did his own thing and did not follow any popular trends, his storytelling ability - particulary in Solo.

A Celebration of George Pérez (52:31, 120mb)
On the panel was Ron Marz, Jerry Ordway and Robert Greenberger. Jim Starlin was also supposed to be there but wasn't. Robert spoke about George getting his start at Marvel and his progression to working on Avengers. Then they spoke about him working for DC on Teen Titans with Marv Wolfman. Jerry talked about how he began inking George. They then moved on to how George worked on Wonder Woman. Ron Marz spoke about working with George. They spoke about George's designs and how he puts everything into it and never cut corners. Jerry revealed that at times George would get him to draw a page while he inked it. They spoke about George's ability to do compressed storytelling. Ron talked about being such a fan of George and then getting to know him, then getting to work with him at CrossGen. They spoke about his JLA/Avengers, the 3 Legionnaires project he wanted to do, how good George's memory was when it came to costumes, his love of musical theatre, how George donated most of the money he made at conventions to HERO. They talked a bit about what went into getting out the Hero edition of JLA/Avengers, George MC'ing the Masquerade in Atlanta, George taking a pay cut to ink over Curt Swan's art on the Alan Moore Last Superman story, George giving away his art to others within the industry, George setting up early at conventions before the doors opened to the fans so that others working at the con could line up and get something from him.

Howard Chaykin Spotlight (53:03, 121mb)
Howard goes off with views and opinions about a variety of topics including how he got into reading comics, then working in comics, when he began to despise mainstream comics, his disdain for the comic book audience tastes that are mostly imposed from on high and the industry, his pulp novel reading and author recommendations, his feelings on his old work, why he moved to California and worked on writing TV shows for a while, how creators responded when he asked for stories for his Hey Kids, Comics! series, Gill Kane and why he was despised by the comic industry, what is next for him, his early work and how he progressed as a storyteller, his current wife and watching classic movies with her, what comics he likes, people he feels he can't compete with in comics, his love of Robert Crumb, his work that hasn't yet come out, his love of musical theatre, meeting Stephen Sondheim and being influenced by him. Questions throughout was asked by Robert Greenberger and the audience. [Note: There is some swearing on this panel]

A Celebration of Neal Adams (52:39, 120mb)
Moderated by Robert Greenberger, Alan Davis, Jim Starlin and soon joining Neal's daughters Kris and Zeea spoke about Neal. Specifically they discussed Neal's early career and working on Ben Casey, Continuity Comics, his work on X-Men and Batman, working for Neal, how Neal helped young creators get careers as well as older creators who were out of work, his working to improve comic book coloring, Frank Miller's portfolio review, his helping of causes, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman's racial story, charging for sketches, creating Man-Bat, Ra's al Ghul and who he was supposed to be in relation to Batman, Neal's stimulating other people in the industry to be better, how artists took a bit of what Neal was doing and made careers off of it, what made Neal Neal. Some fans told some stories. Kris revealed they have a large amount of unpublished work by Neal, including a finished comic that just need to be colored that will be coming out.

A Celebration of Tom Palmer (54:22, 124mb)
Tom Palmer Jr., Klaus Janson, moderator Robert Greenberger and coming in part way through was Walt Simonson. Rob began by talking about Tom's career and said that Tom also colored books, Klaus spoke about Tom and what inking is and is not, about the creative decisions involved in inking, the needing to master the brush like a music instrument and also your hand, what Tom Palmer brought that nobody else did and how much influence Tom had on him personally, Tom Palmer Jr. spoke about his father and how he would get him involved in helping, they spoke about Joe Sinnott work and Tom's inking Gene Colan's work, then John Buscema's. They revealed that Tom had a deep education in art and how that helped him know what to do. Walt talked about working with Tom, particularly on Star Wars, plus being personal friends with him as they lived near each other. People from the audience told stories about Tom and how John Byrne when doing X-Men Hidden Years insisted on Palmer being his inker. [Note: There is some swearing on this panel too. Walt blames this on him sitting beside Howard Chaykin all weekend.]

Ottawa Comic Con 2022 (Sept 9 - 11) - 84 Photos

Gail Simone Spotlight (46:11, 105mb)
Gail was interviewed by CBC Radio's All In A Day host Alan Neal. Among the topics covered are the research she puts into her writing, her love of reading and libraries, how she writes villains, having characters laugh and the different types of humor, what character was hardest to connect with to write, exploring different family dynamics and their relationships, the common theme of plagues in her work, writing about trauma, her changes to Wonder Woman and Black Canary, working on Jessica Jones, her theatre background, toxic fandom, having female characters being friends with each other, the world getting more evil/awful and her recent work on a local project out of Ottawa.

San Diego Comic Con 2022 (July 20 - 24) - 81 Photos

Celebrating 50 Years of Jim Starlin (50:17, 115mb)
Jim Starlin spoke about his 50 year career in comics, interviewed by Coy Jandreau. Among the topics discussed were how he realized people made comic books as a kid, his schooling and learning how to think, what some of his low points were and how it affected his work, what the Marvel office was like in the early 1970s, how the drug influenced philosophical discussions within the comics social gatherings got into the comics, the changes to Marvel in the 1980s and 90s, the accident he had 50 years ago which stopped him from drawing and how he recovered from that, comic up with Death, his character and work being translated into the Marvel movies, the origin of Shang Chi and why he quit very early into the run, his desire to do space based stories, why he chose to kill Captain Marvel with cancer, how the DC licensing people got mad after killing Robin, his getting fired and follow up work, his proposed Namor story that never got done, how he would like Dreadstar adapted, how Jack Kirby helped him with Dreadstar, how Dreadstar work, the changes in the comic industry that he likes, his thoughts on Drax the Destroyer and his adaption into the Marvel movies.

The Forgotten Trio: Letters, Colorists and Inkers (50:50, 116mb)
Jessica Tseang moderates a panel with Letterer Dave Lanphear and colorist Beth Sotelo (the inker couldn't make it). Jessica asked about making comics during Covid, the increase in digital comics due to the shortage of paper and shipping delays, people doing some soul searching and switching to creative careers, clearing up misconceptions about lettering and coloring and explaining their jobs to people, advise they'd give to people wanting to become an letterer or colorist, where they learned how to do what they do, trying to make digital lettering look like hand lettering, the problems you need to work around with lettering, makes that beginners make, the digital tools they use and having to learn new ones, difficulties in coloring superhero comics, what they wish editors would keep in mind, the difference between In Design and Illustrator, coloring from loose or tight pencils and if editors gives them notes about proper balloon placement.

The Universal Cinematic Influence of Jack Kirby (50:31, 115mb)
On the panel was Rand Hoppe, Tom DeSanto, Tracy Kirby, Ashley Miller and moderator Mike Cecchini. They started off with a video from Mark Hamill discussing Jack Kirby. Tracy spoke about Jack and watching him meet people and give his time to them. She also spoke about what Jack liked in terms of movies and what he would have thought about today's movies and what he did think about some of the older bad movies featuring his characters. Tom discussed "getting it right" while doing X-Men and how the X-men movie saved Marvel from getting broken up and all the characters individually sold off to the highest bidder. Ashley talked about bringing Jack's work into the movies. Rand brought up several links between Jack's work at Star Wars. Tracy reminisced about seeing the Star Wars toy prototypes as a kid as they hired Jack to work on them. They also spoke about James Cameron and other directors and designers being influenced by Kirby. They said Jim Starlin admitted to swiping from Darkseid to create Thanos. They brought up other movies and how used Jack's work and paid a small tribute to Barry Geller for the Lord of Light work that Jack did.

50 Years of Funny, The Cartooning Career of Scott Shaw! (48:20, 110mb)
Scott quickly ran through a bunch of photos of his work, discussing them briefly, going from childhood photos and early work, to his underground comics and professional work. He spoke about working with Dave Stevens, working for Hanna Barbera, Pacific Comics, doing Captain Carrot and why he stopped, doing the first few issues of Sonic the Hedgehog, working with Martin Short and John Candy, the chipmunks, cereal boxes, advertising, toys, music albums, government work, the Garbage Pail Kids, Annoying Orange, writing the introduction of the Herbie archives and his new project about Home Nursing.

Bill Morrison Spotlight (49:21, 112mb)
Tom Racine interviews Bill Morrison about his work. They showed early childhood photos and an example of his mechanical drawing. Bill revealed why he never bothered to move to NY and trying to break into comics, his working for Hollywood doing movie posters, how he got involved with the Simpsons, how he got to draw the Simpsons for the first time in Simpsons Illustrated magazine, then moving on to writing for them, how a popular store signing lead to Bongo Comics being formed, the difficulties of getting the first issues out, them getting and Eisner Award. Bill brought up Chris Yambar who recently passed away and his getting famous musicians to write for the Treehouse Horror special. Bill talked about his original work Roswell, then his involvement in helping with designing the Futurama characters and becoming the art director of the show. They spoke about his other projects like the Beatles Yellow Submarine book, fine art of various rock stars, his Disney art and more.

Our Collections, Archives and Creative-Works (50:22, 115mb)
Moderated by Greg Kouloudian, panelists were Dr. Bill Watson, Terry Stroud, Dr. Alex Grand and Jamie Coville. The group talked about what are our particular specialties are, the various ways we get the things we get, how we differentiate from collecting and archiving, the reasons why we do it and the ways we make it available.

Gary Leach Memorial (43:24, 99.3mb)
Panelists included Scott Dunbier, Doselle Young and John Layman. They all spoke about first meeting Gary and working with him. Scott brought some pictures and discussed them, Doselle talked about how his friendship with Gary was more than just working together but was very personal and how they had a shared aesthetic. Scott played some pre-recorded messages from some of Gary's friends that couldn't be at the show. They all gave examples on how Gary was super generous with his time and had absolutely no ego about himself and not only loved comics but comic fans as he was one of them.

AutoBio Comics (48:30, 111mb)
Cecil Castelluci moderates a panel with Nathan Pyle, Miram Libicki, Barbara Randall Kesel and Henry Barajes. Among the topics they covered were, who their influences were when it came to doing autobiographical comics, revealing their secrets and embarrassing bits into their work and dealing with people's reaction to them, relying on memory for their stories, if they should find a way to make their specific experiences into something universal, telling stories that they feel need to be told. For those that had collaborators, letting them interpret the work and letting that happen and for those that drew their own stories dealing with their artistic limitations when trying to depict their stories. The group spoke about Raina Telgemeier and how her work inspired them, which auto biographical books they recommend, how they financially sustain themselves while doing comics and how they deal with telling the truth when it might hurt somebody they know.

Love from the Silver Age Until Now (51:01, 116mb)
Barbara Friedlander spoke about her time editing Romance Comics at DC during the 1960's Mad Men days. She talked about starting off as a file clerk and also worked doing the subscriptions, she also talked about how her Mother didn't understand her working at all. She revealed they got a lot of subscriptions from Prisoners and Reformatory schools. She called DC a Mom and Pop shop when she worked there. She spoke about Joe Simon and Jack Kirby starting Romance books. She said she worked with Jack Miller who not only was an editor but also wrote a lot of comic books. She revealed what the other editors at DC were like in both physical appearance and personality. She revealed they would get letters from kids revealing they were being sexually abused by their family members or clergy, she spoke about her creating Swing with Scooter, she spoke about Warner Brothers buying the company and how that affected things there leading her to leave the company. She also talked about her upcoming Romance Comics called Another Time, Another Place that she's doing with Ken Wheaton.

Barbara Randall Kesel Spotlight (51:52, 118mb)
Barbara got an inkpot award from Comic Con. The panel was a back and forth discussion between Susan Karlin and Barbara. They spoke about her working on Watchmen, how she grew up in an engineering environment, got involved in theatre as a gifted kid, how she ran into a comic shop to get away from an aggressive man, then got her first job in comics, how people reacted to her, how her background helps her bring messy proposals into something they can publish, why she worked with a lot of new talent and gave people their first work, her working for Darkhorse, then CrossGen, how she comes up with creative new ways to use IP, how she tries to push the boundary of comics and what she is working on now.

Wimmen's Comix at 50 (0:0, mb)
Panelists were Lee Marrs, Trina Robbins and Barbara "Willy" Mendes. The panel was moderated by Heidi MacDonald. The group discussed when they knew they wanted to be artists and cartoonists, the discrimination against them for being women, not getting work with the men in the various underground anthologies, how It Ain't Me Babe was a precursor to Wimmen's Comix, how Wimmen's Comix came together, the direction the comic would take over time, the reaction to the comic from guys, the difficulty in getting retail places to sell it - including feminist bookstores, the criticism they got, if they wished they did anything differently, the Wet Satin anthology and the difficulty of getting it printed, how the I Loved a Vampire and Lived got a lot of mail, their favorite stories from the series, which artists they knew would be great cartoonists, the giant Fantagraphics reprint, why Barbara has the Willy nickname and what they've been doing since.

The Importance of Comic Creator's Owning their IP (50:59, 116mb)
Ron Cacace interviewed a panel consisting of Amanda Connor, Jimmy Palmiotti, Chris Gilberti, Phil Jimenez, Moisés Zamora and Aaron Covington. They creators spoke about why owning their IP is important, holding back characters and stories from Marvel and DC due to poor compensation, Phil Jimenez talked about the title Otherworlds which used to be at DC is now at Zestworld, what Vertical Scrolling comics are how they work on people's phones, Aaron and Moises talked about adapting comics to the big screen and how difficult it is, Chris explained what Zestworld was and what it would do for creators, Jimmy told everyone to never sign the first basic contract that you receive from a publisher and the importance of working with companies that are transparent, there was also talk about how Hollywood people will change your work to justify their jobs and will also not have the same passion for the work that you have, they also answered questions about copyright and trademarks.

Kevin Maguire Spotlight (46:40, 106mb)
Kevin got an inkpot award. He talked a bit about his life before being a professional cartoonist, breaking into doing comics, JLA and the One Punch page, Captain America Sentinel of Liberty, Strikeback at Malibu and Wildstorm, working with Darkhorse and Image Comics and Alan Moore in particular, Trinity Angels at Acclaim Comics, how nobody was happy with JLA Created Equal, X-men Forever, meting Michelle Rodriguez, working with Stan Lee for his version of the Flash, working on JLA again, the changes made to Maxwell Lord, Defenders at Marvel, Batman Confidential and his thoughts on the naked Batgirl Catwoman fight, Amazing Spider-man with Seth Myers and Bill Holden, Metal Men, his creator owned Tanga, Weird World, how the coloring got messed up in JLI Retroactive, Worlds Finest with Paul Levitz and George Perez, the Justice League 3000 that didn't come out, Guardians of the Galaxy and Man of Steel with Brian Michael Bendis, why he did Supergirl and his upcoming Human Target. He also answered questions on his inspirations, what he was into as a comic fan, what he doesn't like to draw, what he would have liked to do but haven't, how he likes a full script with dialog but leave the action part open, advise he'd give the new artists, his regret for selling the One Punch page, working digital and his love of Dave Stevens.

Willy Mendes Spotlight (47:46, 109mb)
Willy was joined by Trina Robbins, Kim Munson, Joshua Starnes and the panel was moderated by Brian Doherty. Comic Con started off the panel by giving Willy an inkport award. Willy spoke about her Queen of Cosmos Book 1 and 2. Kim talked about her 50 page article researching Willy's career and giving her credit for many Underground books that other historians did not bother to mention her involvement in. Trina talked about she met Willy and why she invited her to work on It Ain't Me Babe. They also talked about the reaction to the comic from both male and female cartoonists. Joshua spoke about meeting Willy and his publishing business. Willy let loose about her desire to spread positivity through her colorful art, her being a mystic and what she rages about in our male dominated world. Kim talked about her museum exhibit with Willy's art.

Race, Gender and the Comic Book Medium (52:50, 120mb)
Regine L. Sawyer moderated a panel consisting of Shamika Mitchell, Vanee Smith-Matsalia, Malissa White, Christine Pasalo Norland and John Jennings. The group spoke about what inspires them, what representation means to them, how they get through times when they are discouraged, what changes they have seen at comic con since they started coming to the event, what they look forward to, how they fight back and the need to persevere and support each other.

Classic Erotic Comics (48:56, 112mb)
Sydney Heifer, Trina Robbins, Danny Fingeroth, Andrew Farago, Maggie Thompson, Amanda Conner all talked about classic artists who did Erotic art. Specifically Amanda Conner talked about Bill Ward, Danny Fingeroth spoke on Will Eisner, Maggie Thompson liked Lee Elisas, Andrew Farago was a fan of Jack Cole, Trina Robbins said Tarpe Mills, Matt Baker was also discussed. They also went through the common theme of spanking by many artists, including Dan DeCarlo. Al Capp's work was mentioned as was Joe Shuster and doubt was thrown on if he drew underground erotic art that has been credited to him. Michael Dooley was the moderator.

Jack Kirby Tribute (1:06:13, 151mb)
Moderated by Mark Evanier, the panelists were Frank Miller, Jeremy Kirby, Bruce Simon, Rand Hoppe and Steve Saffel. They spoke about Kirby's inkers and what Kirby liked his inkers to do to his work, as well as Kirby's favorite inker that wasn't Mike Royer, Frank Miller getting DC to issue a statement saying giving artwork back to creators was DC's policy helping Jack get his art back from Marvel, how Stan Lee's version of events changed in private statements vs public statements, Stan Lee at Jack Kirby's Funeral, Jack wanting people to develop their own style instead of imitating his, Joe Simon's personal and professional relationship with Jack Kirby, Seeing Jack draw and his improvisational writing style, Frank talked about Klaus Janson and they also spoke about the recent passing of Steve Sherman.

Comics Arts Conference #15: The Jewish Graphic Novel (49:17, 112mb)
An introduction was done by Dr. Travis Langley. Danny Fingeroth moderated the panel consisting of Trina Robbins, Ken Krimstein and Karen Green. Danny spoke about Will Eisner and how there was a dark side to some of his work. They also spoke about Jews and Communism. Then talked about the many Jewish creators who created Graphic Novels regarding Jewish subjects including Joe Kubert, art Spiegelman, Liana Finck, Harvey Pekar, Miriam Katin, Jules Feiffer, Rutu Modan, Sarah Glidden, Ben Katchor, Peter Kuper, Joann Sfar, Miram Libicki, Leela Corman, Roz Chast, Neil Klied, Stan Manck and Trina Robbins and Ken Kristain's new books.

Montreal Comic Con 2022 (July 8 - 10) - 14 Photos

80 Years of Canadian Made Comics Explored (44:03, 100mb)
SequentialPulp.ca's Brendan Montgomery went through the history of Canadian comics, breaking them up into various ages and talking about some key books of each time period. He spoke about the origins of Canadian Comics and why we developed our own industry. Key characters and their creators were discussed, as well as early Canadian fanzines, Comic shops, self-published books, web comics and Kickstarter books. Brendan highlighted some female comic creators who worked in the industry. He also spoke about how one defines a Canadian Comic.

Jim Zub Spotlight (48:49, 111mb)
Jim Zub talked about his origin story, going to Sheridan College and completing their animation course, working in the animation history and doing web comics on the side. He gave an account of how Scott McCloud (plus some family help) got him to San Diego Comic Con and introduced him to the comics industry. He spoke about his difficulty in creating new work after that and getting a job at Udon and the skills that he learned there that has helped him to this day with collaborating with editors and other creative people. He then spoke about getting back into doing comics again with Skull Kickers. He also spoke about his getting to work on Conan for Marvel and doing another run on Thunderbolts.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2022 (June 17 - 19) - 92 Photos

Conceptualizing the Comic (49:51, 114mb)
Joana Mosi spoke about her education and career path, going from getting a BA in Fine Arts to getting a MA in Film and how that shaped her as a cartoonist and her thought process about creating comics. She referenced Dan Clowes Art School Confidential and how accurate it was for her, her biggest challenges, showed examples of her fine art, spoke about her short film, how after doing the film her had radically changed as an artist. She spoke about her influences, inspirations, some of her recent print and her Instagram comics and how important knowing your references is.

Publishing Agreements and You (1:24:36, 193mb)
Burt Gidaro and Michael Duboff are entertainment lawyers who go through what a publishing agreement should have and why. They go over Grant of Rights, Delivery of Material, Obligations, Advances, Royalties & other compensation, Returns, Copies of material for the creators, Discontinuation of publication, Force Majeure/Act of God, Representations, Warranties, Indemnities, Agents, Managers, Dissolving a contract/Termination, Publisher Bankruptcy, Foreign Language and Translation Rights, Co-Author Agreements, Submission Releases and more. Note: There was a fire alarm that interrupted the panel twice that has been edited out of the recording.

By the Numbers (1:01:51, 141mb)
Alexander Finbow, Peggy Burns and Andy Brown were interviewed by MJ, covering topics such as their business models, management structure and number of employees, where they work out of, managing finances and giving advances, a walk through of how they finance a project, Kickstarted and distribution, using Grants and how they've changed, getting audited because of those grants, their supply chain and now having to build a buffer due to delays, tips for creators in terms of getting published by them, how they get their books printed, now having to add metadata to their distribution, print runs, what's considered a success and deciding cover prices.

Don't Pass Me By: Funding Indie Comics (1:01:09, 139mb)
Kat Simmers speaks about where to start with your comic, how using film and screen plays can be very useful for creating comics. She goes into some specifics on Crowdfunding with Kickstarter, budgeting, shipping costs, promotion, social media and videos, doing fulfillment. She spoke about what pitfalls to avoid, particularly with stretch goals and shipping, doing launch events, press kits and interviews, tabling at shows and getting grants.

TCAF Kick Off Event: The Next 20 Years (1:25:59, 196mb)
Miles Baker started off as the host, Sami Alwani interviews Conor Stechschulte, Lee Lai, Kat Simmers and Akane Torkai (through her translator Jocelyne Allen). They discussed what they take and leave behind from traditional comics, deciding accessibility vs how much they want to push the medium, what non-comics media influenced them, how they bring in today's world into their work specifically with dialog, how they handle internal editing of their work, how comics have shifted in being able to talk about heart wrenching issues, making comics for the first time, creating marketable vs experimental comics and doing non-fiction within fictional work and why.

Spotlight on Seth (54:14, 124mb)
Diana Tamblyn interviews Seth about his very recent award from the French Consulate, how his work has changed over the years and why, what inspired him to be a cartoonist, how comics are like poetry, his design work, his illustration work, his views on plot and conflict, showing/telling with the art, dialog, working on things just for himself, his models and learning from projects, feedback from the internet, interest in post WWII Canadian esthetic, doing sculptures, things connecting in your brain and how his father being in the military has influenced him. Note: I missed some of Diana's introduction of Seth.

Final Fantasy (52:07, 119mb)
Heidi MacDonald talks to Stephanie Cooke and Jo Rioux about their teen fantasy books featuring magical girls, how they both incorporate mythology, playing Dungeons and Dragons, getting their books published, writing stuff they don't want to draw, the most dog eared fantasy book they have, sequels to their books, how they approach world building and not getting carried away with writing and re-writing in their fantasy world.

Conundrum at 25 (53:10, 121mb)
Panelists were Joe Ollmann, Nina Bunjevac, Andy Brown and Sonja Ahlers. Andy gave a brief history of Conundrum Press, the group spoke about Insomniac Press, which most of them worked for previously, the creators spoke about how they found out about zines and getting started doing them, Nina spoke about getting published in Europe and the difference between French and North American culture when it comes to comics, the future of Conundrum, how Andy picks artists to publish and getting grants.

Strange New Worlds, Same Old Problems (31:44, 72.6mb)
Jenn Woodall, Freddy Carrasco, Zviane (with her interpreter Violaine Touny helping) answer questions on the sci-fi focus of their work, the philosophical issues with sci-fi, work becoming dated thanks to references, their process of creating story in terms of images or words coming first, the pacing and rhythms of their stories, their influences, what inspires then, the music they listen to while working and books that blew their minds. Panel moderated by Mark Askwith.

The Finer Things: Painting and Comics (51:47, 118mb)
Stanley Wany and Conor Stechschulte speak with Heidi MacDonald about getting an education in fine arts and doing comics. She asked if they wanted to be fine art painters or cartoonists growing up, their first memory of art and how it affected them, when they realized they wanted to be artists, if art school was a good experience for them, differences between the comics community and the fine arts community. Stanley talked about his two art shows he has going on now. Conor spoke about his series of mini comics (called Ultrasound) being turned into a movie and getting to write the screen play. Stanley gave us the history of his book Helem going from a self-published comic to being with a publisher. Both spoke about what made them want to tell stories, how they view panels vs the page and if the snobbery against comics still exists within fine art.

Helping Yourself Through Comics (53:27, 122mb)
Brigid Alverson moderates a panel with S. Bergman, Saul Freedman and Isabella Rotman. Among the topics discussed were why they felt the need to write books they did and believe they should be the one to write it, why they chose to do the advice in comics format, how they use the comics format to make the content more accessible, how did they work at not coming across as being patronizing and not using a voice from on high, telling people to be kind to themselves and if they worry about their work aging badly like self-help books from the past have done.

Nordic Bridge (45:21, 103mb)
Fredrik Strömberg talks to Tatiana Goldberg (Denmark), Anne Mette Kærulf Lorentzen (Sweden) and Anneli Furmark (Finland) about transitioning from fine art to comics, what they enjoy about doing comics vs fine art, their process of making comics, the comics culture in their respective countries when they started doing comics and today, how they get by financially as comics doing comics doesn't make much money in their countries.

Doug Wright Awards 2022 (June 18th) - 22 Photos

The Egghead: (The Doug Wright Award for best kids’ book)
Simon and Chester: Super Sleepover! by Cale Atkinson (Tundra Books)
Otter Lagoon by Mike Deas and Nancy Deas (Orca Book Publishers)
Living with Viola by Rosena Fung (Annick Press)
Shirley and Jamila’s Big Fall by Gillian Goerz (Dial Books for Young Readers)
Over the Shop by JonArno Lawson and Qin Leng (Candlewick Press)
Etty Darwin and the Four Pebble Problem by Lauren Soloy (Tundra Books)

The Pigskin Peters: (The Doug Wright Award for best small- or micro-press book)
Endsickness No. 1 by Sofia Alarcon (Self-published)
Fruit/Soil by Kim Edgar (Moniker Press)
The Northern Gaze by Akeeshoo Chislett, Chris Caldwell, Cole Pauls, Andrew Sharp, Juliann Fraser, Esther Bordet, Alison McCreesh, Keith Verbonac, Princess J; edited by Kim Edgar (Hecate Press)
Sleemor Gank: Burg Land No. 1 by Alexander Laird (Self-published)
Dwellings No. 2 by Jay Stephens (Black Eye Books)

The Nipper: (The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent)
Sofia Alarcon for Endsickness No. 1 (Self-published)
Sami Alwani for The Pleasure of the Text (Conundrum Press)
Brigitte Archambault for The Shiatsung Project (Conundrum Press)
Alexander Laird for Sleemor Gank: Burg Land No. 1 (Self-published)
Kyle Simmers and Ryan Danny Owen for Pass Me By: Gone Fishin’ and Pass Me By: Electric Vice (Renegade Arts Entertainment)

The Doug Wright Award for best book
The Shiatsung Project by Brigitte Archambault (Conundrum Press)
Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal (Drawn & Quarterly)
The Rock From the Sky by Jon Klassen (Candlewick Press)
Stone Fruit by Lee Lai (Fantagraphics)
Fictional Father by Joe Ollmann (Drawn & Quarterly)

Toronto Comicon 2022 (March 18 - 20) - 20 Photos

Let's Talk Story: Writing For TV and Comics (49:21, 112mb)
Amy Chu and Dan Parent give their origin story and talk a bit about writing for comics and TV. This was mostly a Q&A with the audience that covered topics such as what the writer does and who are they are writing for, the editors' role and why they would hire you, seeing your work on TV, Work for Hire vs Self-Publishing, short and long stories, deadlines and how to juggle them, combating writers block, solo writing in comics vs. group writing for TV, breaking into TV writing, looking back at your old work and making mistakes.

Joe Shuster Awards 2019 (September 14) - 12 Photos

Full 2019 Joe Shuster Awards Ceremony (35:42, 65.3mb)
Presented at the 10C Shared Space, 4th Floor, 42 Carden St, Guelph, Ontario.
The presenters were Kevin Boyd & Jennifer Haines.
The Awards went to:

Outstanding Artist / Marquant Dessinateur:
DYLAN BURNETT – COSMIC GHOST RIDER (Marvel Comics), Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers 2018 Annual (Boom! Studios), Reactor (Vault Comics)
EMILY CARROLL – SPEAK: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
MARC DELAFONTAINE – LES NOMBRILS 08: EX, DRAGUE ET ROCK’N’ROLL! (Dupuis)
MIKE FEEHAN – EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES (DC Comics)
KARL KERSHL – ISOLA (Image Comics)
SACHA LEFEBVRE – U-MERLIN (Éditions Michel Quintin)
YANICK PAQUETTE – ACTION COMICS, WONDER WOMAN EARTH ONE BOOK TWO (DC Comics)
DENIS RODIER – ARALE (Dargaud)

Outstanding Writer / Marquant Écrivaine ot Écrivain:
MARYSE DUBUC, MARC DELAFONTAINE – LES NOMBRILS 08 EX, DRAGUE ET ROCK’N’ROLL! (Dupuis)
MEREDITH FINCH – XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (Dynamite Entertainment), ROSE (Image Comics)
JEAN-FRANCOIS LALIBERTE – U-MERLIN (Éditions Michel
) JEFF LEMIRE – BLACK HAMMER: AGE OF DOOM, BLACK HAMMER: CTHU-LOUISE, DOCTOR STAR & THE KINGDOM OF LOST TOMORROWS, QUANTUM AGE (Dark Horse), THE TERRIFICS (DC Comics), DESCENDER, GIDEON FALLS, HIT-GIRL (Image Comics), THE SENTRY (Marvel Comics), BLOODSHOT: SALVATION (Valiant)
TRISTAN ROULOT – ARALE (Dargaud)
CHIP ZDARSKY – MARVEL 2-IN-ONE, PETER PARKER THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN (Marvel Comics), THE WICKED + THE DIVINE: THE FUNNIES (Image Comics)
JIM ZUB – DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: EVIL AT BALDUR’S GATE (IDW), WAYWARD (Image Comics), AVENGERS, THE CHAMPIONS, HUNT FOR WOLVERINE: MYSTERY IN MADRIPOOR, INFINITY COUNTDOWN: CHAMPIONS (Marvel Comics), RICK & MORTY VS DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (Oni Press)

Outstanding Cartoonist / Marquant Auteur:
HO CHE ANDERSON – GODHEAD (Fantagraphics)
EMILY CARROLL – BENEATH THE DEAD OAK TREE (Shortbox)
SVETLANA CHMAKOVA – CRUSH (Yen Press)
JOHNNIE CHRISTMAS – FIREBUG (Image Comics)
FRANCIS DESHARNAIS – LE PETITE RUSSIE (Éditions Pow Pow)
MICHEL FALARDEAU – L’ESPRIT DU CAMP T.2 (Studio Lounak)
FAITH ERIN HICKS – THE DIVIDED EARTH: NAMELESS CITY VOL. 3 (First Second)
JEFF LEMIRE – ROYAL CITY (Image Comics)
MIKAEL – GIANT t.2 (Dargaud)

Gene Day Award (Self-Publishers) / Prix Gene Day (Auto-éditeurs):
BEAVER DAMN 2 – A. SHAY HAHN
CHRISTIE PITS – JAMIE MICHAELS, DOUG FEDRAU
HAPPILY EVER AFTER – RICKY LIMA, NICOLAS LONDEIX, ANDREW THOMAS
HOCKEY APOCALYPSE SEASON 4: CULT OF HOCKEY – JEFF MARTIN
LES ANIMAUX SE REVOLTANT (RINGO STARR AUSSI) – VAL-BLEU
THE COMPLETE SQUID-GEE OCTOLOGY – KEENAN POLONCSAK

Gene Day Award (Independent Press Anthologies) / Prix Gene Day (Anthologies de presse indépendantes):
CAULDRON 1 (Shane Heron)
GOTHIC TALES OF HAUNTED LOVE (Bedside Press)
JEWISH COMICS ANTHOLOGY VOL. 2 (AH Comics)
SWAN SONG (Cloudscape Comics Collective)
TORONTO COMICS: OSGOODE AS GOLD (TO Comix Press)
WAYWARD SISTERS (TO Comix Press)

The Dragon Award (Comics for Kids) / Le Prix Dragon (Bandes Dessinées pour Enfants):
Alpha Comics (Calgary, AB)
Cape and Cowl Comics (Lower Sackville, NS)
Comic Book Addiction (Whitby, ON)
Comic Hunter (Moncton, NC)
Curious Comics (Victoria, BC)
Cyber City Comics (North York, ON)
Variant Edition (Edmonton, AB)

A surprise 2nd Harry Kremer Award went to The Dragon (Guelph/Milton, ON)

Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame / Temple de la renommée Créateur Canadien de Bandes Dessinées:
Al Hewetson (1946-2004)
Dale Keown (1962-)
Ken Lashley (1967-)
Gerhard (1959-)

The T.M. Maple Award / Prix T.M. Maple: Jennifer Haines

Details about the awards can be found JoeShusterAwards.com

Guelph Comic Jam (September 14-15) - 30 Photos

San Diego Comic Con 2019 (July 17 - 21) - 57 Photos

The Art and Magic of Comics Lettering: Discussion with Richard Starkings (53:09, 48.6mb)
With Ivan Salazar and Taylor Morgan asking questions, Richard spoke about the classes that he teaches on lettering. He went through a slide show of different lettering types and spoke about where and what is lettering. He showed where balloons should be placed, how it can assist with the art, 2 and 3 dimensional planes, gave examples from works he felt were really well done, why he pioneered digital lettering, how to deal with difficult creative situations and losing the organic feel of pen lettering.

Batman and the Secret Origins of Bill Finger (44:27, 40.6mb)
Marc Tyler Nobleman was interviewed by Brad Ricca and Danny Fingeroth. They spoke about Marc learning about Bill Finger, what Bill contribution to Batman’s creation, the people he researched, who he found, the lengths he went to in finding people that knew Bill or those close to him, Finger’s Grand Daughter, the decision to do a picture book, the documentary and changing of the Batman credit to acknowledge Bill Finger.

3rd Annual Prism Awards (29:49, 27.2mb)
On the panel were Maia Kobabe, Ted Abenheim, Nina L. Taylor Kester, Rob McMonigal, Sina Grace and Heidi MacDonald. They spoke about the awards and it’s association with the Cartoon Art Museum., they gave a shout out to last years winners, spoke about the judges, the awards themselves and presented the awards for the following categories:

Best Short Form Comic – See Me by E. Jackson
Nominated: You Don’t Have to Be Afraid of Me by Victor Martins and Fazenda De Sangue Azul by H. Pueyo and Dante Luiz

Best Web Comic – Super Butch by Barry Deutsch & Becky Hawkins
Nominated: After the Fog by H-P Lehkonen and Null Point by Amara Sherm

Best Comic from a Small to Midsize Press - Meal by Blue Delliquanti and Soleil Ho
Nominated: The Lie and How We Told It by Tommy Parish and It Will Be Hard by Hien Pham

Best Comic from a Mainstream Publisher - Lumberjanes: The Infernal Compass by Lilah Sturges, polterink, and Jim Campbell
Nominated: Runaways #12 by Rainbow Rowell, Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson, & Joe Carmagna, and Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #6 by Mark Russel, Brandee Stilwell, Paul Mounts, Jeremy Lawson, Rose Campbell, Ben Caldwell, Mike Morales, Gus Vazquez, Sean Parsons, and Mike Feehand

Best Comic Anthology - ABO Comix Vol. 2: A Comic Anthology by LGBTQ Prisoners edited by Casper Cendre
Nominated: Being True: LGBTQ+ Comics From The Boston Comics Roundtable, edited by Renie Jesanis, Kyri Lorenz & Steph Rose Glass and Group Chat, edited by Carolynn Calabrese, Jenny Mott, Ashley Gallagher, and Rachel Weiss

The Hard boiled Return of Ms. Tree (52:32, 48.1mb)
Max Allan Collins was interviewed by Andrew Sumner. They talked about how Ms. Tree was started, the look of Ms. Tree designed with Terry Beatty, the soft reboot of the series when it was published by DC, things done in Ms. Tree that wasn’t being done in comics at the time, Ms. Tree being set in the 80s, Mickey Spillane and his relationship with him and Mike Hammer, Jack Webb and Dragnet, the Challenge of his career and advise he got, the Ms. Tree letter pages, how Terry drew the comic and the criticism he got for it.

That 70's Panel (1:16:06, 69.6mb)
Tony Isabella, Trina Robbins, Arvell Jones, Lee Marrs, Mike Friedrich, Louise & Walt Simonson and moderator Mark Evanier spoke about why they got into the comics industry and their attitude towards doing it as a career. They also revealed if they got some discouraging advise from veteran creators, if they were told to work in a certain style, the freedom of working on underground comics and keeping their rights, Star Reach and connecting the underground and mainstream comics to ‘ground level’ comics, editing comics and Archie Goodwin, how the Direct Market affected their work and their 70s work they are most proud of.

Excelsior! Remembering Stan Lee (49:32, 45.3mb)
Moderated by Danny Fingeroth panelists Denis Kitchen, Maggie Thompson, Paul Levitz, Marv Wolfman, Michael Uslan, John Semper Jr and Todd McFarlane all shared their favorite stories of Stan Lee, demonstrating his humor, willingness to help people, joy of interacting with comic fans, intelligence and more. Danny also played a video of Stan wishing Al Jaffe a happy 95th birthday that was funny and ‘pure’ Stan Lee.

Kurt Busiek Spotlight (48:53, 44.7mb)
Scott McCloud interviews his life long friend Kurt Busiek, revealing that he wouldn’t be in the comics industry if it wasn’t for Kurt. The two reminisced about what they enjoyed about comics, doing a fund raising comic for the Boston Pops that had the permission to use DC and Marvel heroes together in the same story, breaking into the comics industry, his interviewing Dick Giordano and how that lead to his first work, his “fun” mistakes early in his career, their liking Manga in the 1970s, Kurt's view of the mistake the comics industry made with the Direct Market, why he’s getting special thanks in the Marvel movies, Arrowsmith, Marvels, Astro City and more.

Comics Law: Disney, Malibu and the Uncensored Mouse (52:02, 47.6mb)
On the panel was Michael Lovitz, Dave Oblrich, Chis Ulm and Nat Gertler. They discussed what the Uncensored Mouse was and played an Entertainment Tonight story about the comic, Dave spoke about publishing the book, Michael discussed what is public domain and how it related to the comic, the cover and why it was legally smart, why Disney hit them with a Cease and Desist and the negotiated settlement with Disney, lessons learned from the experience, asking for permission vs for forgiveness, looking up if a property is public domain or not, trademark law and from the audience David Seidman spoke about the reaction within Disney where he worked at the time.

Best and Worst Manga of 2019 (45:50, 41.9mb)
Moderated by Deb Aoki, Rob McMonigal, Megan Peters, Christopher Butcher and Zac Bertschy discuss their picks for Best New Manga for kids and teens, Best New Manga for Grownups, Best Continuing Manga for Kids and Teens, Best Continuing Manga for Adults, Worst Manga, Most Anticipated New Manga, Underrated but Awesome Manga. They go through a large number of titles, giving a 1 minute summary of why they chose the title for it's category.

Innovations in Comics (51:00, 46.7mb)
Bret Schenken talks to Nick Coglianese, Jordan Plosky, Atom Freeman and Shing Yin Khor. They introduced themselves and what innovations they have been working on, what kind of gap they saw that inspired them to create their software, gate keeping and crashing those gates, democratizing the industry, lessons learned, what technology they’d like to see, helping educators and digital comics.

Nerd Finance: Valuable Tax Advice for Creatives and Freelancers (51:08, 46.8mb)
This talk by Neil Narvaez went through several topics in regards to taxes and finance including Hobby vs. Business, 5 Deductions, the right business structure, if they need to establish an LLC, and Estimated Tax Payments. He broke each topic down and went into more detail with some specific information on each one.

Stan Sakai Spotlight (50:21, 46mb)
Jessica Tseang interviews Stan about his career going into topics such as how long Stan has been going to Comic Con, how Usagi Yojimbo started, why he left Fantagraphics and Dark Horse, why he’s now with IDW, his views on black and white vs color comics, looking back at his old work, how Usagi has changed, his level of control over the series with the various publishers, interacting with Stan Lee, how the business of comics changed over the years, views on digital comics, Usagi being developed for other media, being a part of Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles and more.

The Awards of Comic-Con (51:32, 47.1mb)
Moderated by Jackie Estrada (Eisner Awards), the award administering panelists were Ruth Clampett (Bob Clampett), Mark Evanier (Bill Finger), David Glanzer (Icon), Joe Ferrara (Spirit of Retailing), Gene Henderson (Russ Manning) and William R. Lund (Inkpot). At the beginning the United States House of Representatives gave an Proclamation to David Glanzer for Comic Con’s positive contribution to the city of San Diego. All the panelists spoke about their respective Awards, when they started, how they evolved, their judging criteria and a few funny stories about presenting the awards.

Comics and Comic Convention Historians: The Next Generation (58:16, 53.3mb)
On the panel was Terry Stroud, Mike Royer, Bill Morrison, Matt Dunford, Greg Koudoulian, Elliot S! Maggin, Steve Geppi, Josh Geppi and Alonso Nunez. Greg started by playing a news story by Walter Cronkite about comic book collecting. The group talked about a variety of issues including, comics now building a new ground floor and helping the movie industry, more women are now interested in making comics, Terry spoke about selling comics, Mike Royer his involvement in the first comic con, Matt Dunford spoke about being inspired by comic con, Elliot talked about his getting into comics, Steve Geppi spoke about the magic of comics, Josh and Steve Geppi also spoke about comics surviving digital comics and how they were a good thing for the industry and the group told what their first comic convention was. [Note this came to an abrupt end as they ran over time and were cutting into J. Michael Straczynski's panel time]

Batton Lash Tribute (52:29, 48mb)
Moderated by Rob Salkowitz the panelists were Jackie Estrada, Anina Bennett, Dan Bois, Jim Pascoe, Jon Cooke and Bill Morrison. Everyone spoke about the first time they met Batton. They spoke about Wolff & Byrd, how it started and changed over time, how Jim became a character in it, Batton’s influence as an artist and how his being well dressed caused others to become better dressed for the Eisner Awards.

Friends of Lulu: We Changed Comics (46:57, 42.9mb)
Alexa Dickman moderated a panel with Friends of Lulu founders Anina Bennett, Trina Robbins, Liz Schiller, Lee Marrs, Heidi MacDonald and Jackie Estrada. The group talked about why the group started, the reason they chose the name, what the early meetings were about, the things they were able to accomplish, the push back they got from conventions and retailers, the awards they gave out and the ripple affect on their work.

Jae Lee Spotlight (46:18, 42.3mb)
Jae Lee is interviewed by Andrew Farago, they go over his starting comics and breaking into Marvel, the massive shift in style between him and John Byrne on Namor, why he hated the colour purple for a long time, the working relationship he had on titles, his doing Hellshock and why he took 2 years off between Volume 1 and 2, his work in Inhumans, Dark Tower, and what he wants to work on going forward.

DC Too Tough Trivia (56:00, 51.2mb)
Hosted by Hector Navarro, the panelists were Frank Tieri, Steve Orlando, Dan Jurgens, Paul Levitz, Benjamin Le Clear and Marie Javins. Audience members were to pick a topic from Golden Age, Silver Age, Super villains and Batman. A question was asked and the audience would pick which DC pro would answer the question. The audience member would say if they though the pro was correct or not. There was some cheating involved. Regardless, the audience member would then get a prize for their participation.

John Rogers Tribute (52:29, 48mb)
On the panel were David Glanzer, Janet Tait, Robin Donlan, Mark Yturralde, Maija Gates, Mark Stadler and moderator Eddie Ibrahim. They all spoke of how John had taught them or influenced them in some way, how he was a very intelligent problem solver, how he had faith in his employees, his compassion, his not wanting credit or to be in the spotlight, how he made them laugh, his being a “work dad” and wanting to know about any major purchase you made, his being very technically proficient and his dog Parker.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2019 (May 10 - 12) 36 Photos

Note: Friday May 10th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 11-12th.

Hidden Histories (58:37, 53.6mb)
Dale Jacobs did the introductions. Heidi Jacobs, Scott Chantler, Gord Hill and James Davidge took turns speaking about their books. Heidi spoke about getting a large amount of information on Wilfred ‘Boomer’ Hardling and the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars baseball team. It came from a family member for the purpose of digitizing it and making it available online. The family member had also suggested they turn it into a comic book. Scott Chantler happily spoke about having all that research to draw from and creating a comic from it. Gord Hill talked about his work on the history of Indigenous peoples of Canada, their resistance and other resistance movements he is a part of. James Davidge then talked about his book 1st Legion of Utopia on the founding of the CCF political party (today called the NDP) and how the people within the story connects to a variety of other significant movements in Canada's history.

Breaking The Distribution Chains: Crowdfunding & Self Published Comics (57:43, 52.8mb)
On the panel was Marta Chudolinska, Steven Andrews, Cole Pauls, Camilla Zhang and Zainab Akhtar. The panel was moderated by Matthew Murray. Matthew started by revealing the problems that Libraries and Schools have in purchasing crowdfunded & self published comics. The panelists discussed why they chose to do crowdfunding, who the audience of the books are, if they have libraries and schools in mind when creating the work and the support libraries & schools can provide beyond buying the books. Marta spoke about her Zine cataloging project and Zainab talked about adapting her already alternative publishing methods for selling books to libraries and events like TCAF.

Getting Graphic with Global Competencies (52:45, 48.2mb)
Amie Wright gave a Global Competencies 101 for those not familiar with the academic standard and went into the 5 areas of it (critical thinking & problem solving, global citizenship &character, communication, collaborations & leadership and creativity, inquiry & leadership.) Panelists Thomas Maluck, Jordan Graham, Eric Kim and Fatma Faraj gave their views on the suggested books and programs that could be done that would meet the requirements.

My Manga Academia (50:58, 46.6mb)
Phil Amara read from his upcoming picture book giving an introduction to Manga and Anime for beginners. Mike Barltrop spoke about Manga’s ability to reach reluctant readers, studies showing the benefit of teaching with comics, the top circulated manga from the Toronto Public Library, basic statistics regarding manga, graphic novel and fiction rates within libraries, issues of acceptance of comics within the classroom, the 10 key literary skills and how comics (and specifically the manga adaptation of Romeo and Juliet by Manga Classics) apply to them, Manga as the class text and his free detailed teachers guide that can be used towards this end.

Bill Griffith Spotlight (47:58, 43.9mb)
Bill started off talking about Toronto’s 1965 event at the CNE and how it inspired Zippy the Pinhead and also his current book about Schlitzie Surtees, a real life circus sideshow performer with microcephaly. Griffith spoke about Schlitzie early life, the origin of Zippy, his seeing the movie that Schlitzie was in (1932’s Freaks), the background of the movie and it’s director, the information that Bill could confirm and could not, who Schlitzie performed with and what happened to him later on in life. The panel was moderated by Mark Askwith.

Fans Service: Seth Spotlight (49:23, 45.2mb)
Conan Tobias interviews Seth on his latest book, the complete Clyde Fans. Seth answered why he did Clyde Fans, why it took him 20 years to finish, the changes in his art over the years, how he does visual research, the sales dialog, serializing stories in hardcover Palookaville comics, the craft of writing comics, the two brothers in Clyde Fans and how he relates to both, the graphic design of the pages before the book starts, the changing of his audience over his career and his process of creating a page of work.

Death Threat: Vivek Shraya and Ness Lee Spotlight (50:27, 46.2mb)
Moderated by Kelly Frazier, Vivek and Ness discussed why they did the book about Vivek’s online death threats for being transgendered and what they hope people get out of it, why they did the book in that particular style, horror and humor, using comics to tell this story, how the book fits in with Vivek’s work in other media, social responsibility when you are part of a marginalized group, the roles of allies, getting “trapped” in your brand/identity and the struggle to break out of it.

The Motherhood Challenge (56:41, 51.9mb)
On the panels were Teresa Wong, Megan Kearney, Lucy Knisley, Sylvia Nickerson and moderator Wendy Browne. They talked about Mom’s as the main characters in stories, writing about motherhood and it’s expectations, how being a parent shapes your work habits, what kind of feedback are they getting about their books, what about parenting that they wish they knew more about, how motherhood affected how they experience other media, how their parents affected their experience and dealing with the switch of identity from artist to mother after childbirth.

Belonging: Nora Krug Spotlight (56:13, 51.4mb)
Nora Krug is interviewed by Michelle Kay from the Goethe Institute about her book Belonging. Nora started by reading from the book, speaking about German culture, the cover the book, the amount of research it took, how to talk about WWII from the German POV today, the personal difficulty in doing the book, the personal responsibility regarding this subject, her family’s reaction, the simplified narrative of WWII in pop culture, the reaction from Germans, the suffering of German and the difficulty in expressing it, the difficulty in expressing German patriotism in terms of waving the flag and singing the national anthem and the far right neo-nazi’s of today.

Emily Carroll Spotlight (56:37, 51.8mb)
Emily Carroll and moderator Erica Friedman have a discussion on a wide range of topics including the resurgence of horror, marginalized voices in horror, the first horror comic she read and terrifying stories in general, anger, humor and shame in horror, her artistic inspirations, drawing horror and the challenge of being realistic vs doing what the audience expects, how she puts together a horror story, her current book through Koyama Press, winning an Eisner Award, negative feedback, double marginalization with LGBTQ works.

Exploring the World Through Science Comics (1:01:49, 56.6mb)
Moderated by Jam, the panelists are Lillian Melcher, Jérémie Royer and Ryan North. The threesome introduced themselves and their works. Among the issues they spoke about was dealing with the amount of information that goes into a science related book, the challenge of making sure you are accurate in what you are saying, knowing what to leave out, making scientists into people you can connect to and the adventurism in science.

History Through Comics Eyes (40:54, 37.4mb)
James Davidge, Ellen T Crenshaw, Andy Warner answer moderator Johanna Draper-Carlson’s questions regarding how they decide which stories to tell, choosing between the truth and entertainment, why they started doing historical comics, their most memorable reactions from their audience, who are their artistic influences are, what advise they’d give to a person starting a new history based comic, when to stop researching and what topic would they cover if they hosted an episode of drunk history. [Note: I had to cut out Johanna’s introduction due to cross chatter on the recording]

Doug Wright Awards 2019 (May 11th) - 24 Photos

2019 Doug Wright Awards (1:31:49, 84mb)
Masters of Ceremonies was Steve Manale. Presenters/Speakers were Brad Mackay, Sabrina Scott, Dalton Sharp, Andy Brown, Jamie Yun, Seth, Phyllis Wright, Ken Wright, Rotem Diamant, Joe Ollmann and others.
Winners are in bold

Pigskin Peters Award (For the best experimental, unconventional or avant-garde comic)
Eggshell 2 (ddogg) - William Dereume
Winter’s Cosmos (Koyama Press) - Michael Comeau
Promising Jupiter - Ron Hotz
310, 310 (Peow Studio) - Mushbuh
Retomber - Xiaoxiao Li

Doug Wright Spotlight Award (a.k.a. The Nipper) (For a Canadian cartoonist deserving of wider recognition)
Ariane Dénommé - 100 Days in Uranium City (Conundrum Press)
Aminder Dhaliwal - Woman World (Drawn & Quarterly)
Al Gofa - Dark Angels of Darkness (Peow Studio)
Victor Martins – Stay and You Don’t Have To be Afraid of Me
Sylvia Nickerson - All We Have Left Is This
Eric Kostiuk Williams - Our Wretched Town Hall (Retrofit Comics)

Giants of the North Hall of Fame Inductee’s are:
Alootook Ipellie – Inducted by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and Louisa Gillespie. Followed by a song from Monica Ittusardjuat and Louisa Gillespie.
Fiona Smith – Inducted by Maurice Vellekoop.

Doug Wright Best Book Award (for the best English-language book published in Canada)
A Western World (Koyama Press) - Michael DeForge
Young Frances (Adhouse Books) - Hartley Lin
Evie and the Truth About Witches (Koyama Press) - John Martz
Somnambulance (Koyama Press) - Fiona Smyth

Toronto Comicon 2019 (March 15 - 17) - 24 Photos

Steve Englehart Spotlight (51:27, 47.1mb)
Steve Englehart is interviewed by Mark Askwith. He asks him about working on The Prisoner comic, starting off as an assistant under Neal Adams, working at Marvel, how he became a writer, why he left comics and what work outside of comics he did, writing Dr. Strange as a solo hero vs part of the Defenders, working with Frank Brunner and Gene Colan, the Master of Kung Fu, Starlord, Captain America, Silver Surfer, his work at DC for both Batman comics and the 1989 movie, working with Jim Warren and Steve Ditko.

Meet the Pros (46:46, 42.8mb)
Moderated by Brent Chittenden, the pros we meet are Phil Noto, Sean Galloway and Derek Laufman. They spoke about how they got started in comics, the culture shock of going from another industry to comics, how they all draw from the hardware they use to the software, designing characters and toys, their work schedules, the best advice they got, work they did that stands out, the benefits of a deadline and toughest deadline they had.

Denny O’Neil Spotlight (49:59, 45.7mb)
Denny O'Neil talked about a wide range of topics, including how we went from journalism to comics, Harlan Ellison, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Neal Adams, his near death experience, his views on violence, doing detective stories, mentoring Frank Miller, his rules for Batman, No Man's Land storyline, Azreal, The Question, his son's movie, how corporations affect the stories, the biography of Bruce Wayne. The panel was moderated by Mark Askwith.

Ron Wilson Spotlight (45:36, 41.7mb)
Brent Chittenden interviews Ron Wilson about how he got started, his love of Kirby, the difference between Marvel and DC when he was breaking in, Marvel Two in One, Captain Britton, character he would have loved to work on, He-Man, WCW comics and getting to know wrestlers, how he handled friction with his collaborators, who he liked collaborating with, Milestone Media, his tools for drawing, doing Kickboxer Genesis book through Kickstarter, Creative Freedom and more.

The Rhythm Section of Comics: Ink and Colour (45:49, 41.9mb)
On the panel was Craig Yeung, Jay Leisten, Nolan Woodard, Dave McCaig, John Beatty and moderator Brent Chittenden. The group talked about what lead them to colouring or inking, what tools they use for their jobs and how that's changed over the years, keeping computer software and hardware updated, recommendations for scanners and printers, what they hate inking/colouring, the work process and notes from other creators, resolving creative conflicts, their tightest deadline and changing trends.

King Con 2019 (March 9 - 10) - 29 Photos

Writing Nonfiction and Comedy When You Mainly Just Know About Comics: A Talk by Ryan North (51:03, 46.7mb)
Ryan North spoke about his new Non Fiction book: How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler. He went through various important things that were invented and when they could have been invented, he spoke about other inventions, politics and not getting called a wizard and being killed for inventing stuff in the past.

Working On Comic Book Anthologies: Q&A with David Lloyd, Jack Briglio and Tom Fowler (1:02:17, 57mb)
Moderated by Adam Pottier, the topics included the difficulties in editing an anthology, slotting in stories when somebody can't finish the work on time for some reason, creators getting matched up that don't see eye to eye creatively, what a short story should do, the expanded creative freedom when contributing to a comic anthology, webcomics, writing for a collection and molding stories as an editor.

San Diego Comic Con 2018 (July 18 - 22) - 28 Photos

Wonder Woman in the 1940s (52:46, 48.3mb)
On the panel was Trina Robbins, Joye Murchinson Kelly and Mark Evanier. Joye gave some of her background in where she grew up, went to college and what she originally wanted to do for a career. She told how she met William Marston and got the job of writing Wonder Woman. Joye spoke about her experience with Marston and what he was like. Joye revealed how much preparation she had for writing comics, how long she wrote Wonder Woman for and why she stopped. She talked about working with Sheldon Mayer and under DC's editorial board. Joye revealed were always push back over Wonder Woman's stories and costume and said what one thing Marston would not budge on. Joye also talked about working with H. G. Peter and told a funny story about him.

Maggie Thompson Spotlight: The Comics Buyers Guide (40:51, 37.4mb)
On the panel was Maggie Thompson, Mark Evanier, Scott Brick and R.C. Harvey. Maggie described the origin and the ending of The Comics Buyers Guide. Mark Evanier spoke about why he started and stopped writing for CBG. Maggie told a story about proposing a book of Mark Evanier columns and the shocking reason they turned it down. R. C. Harvey talked about his involvement with the magazine. Scott discussed writing comic history articles for CBG. It was also revealed that Scott wrote the most popular article the magazine had and that was about who added the 'snap' sound effect to Gwen Stacy's fall, killing her. Maggie revealed the effort to save the CBG archives from the dumpster. Maggie and R.C Harvey told stories about Steve Ditko. Finally, they talked about digitizing CBG and putting them online.

20 Years of About Comics (52:00, 47.6mb)
The panelists were Nat Gertler, Lea Hernandez, Andrew Farago, Scott McCloud and Jim MacQuarrie. Nat spoke about why he got into publishing, who some of the early creators he publish were and what they've done with their careers. He talked about some non comics related publications that are popular like the Green Book and a Jewish parody of James Bond. He also spoke about Superfolks that influenced Kingdom Come. Nat mentioned that as of late he's been reprinting works previously published by Eclipse, Aadvark, Dark Horse and Epic/Marvel. Scott McCloud and Nat spoke about 24 hour comics and some of the creators who did it and was published by Nat. Lea spoke about her own experience doing a 24 hour comic. Jim talked about the Licensable Bear, one issue having the first Obama in it and Nat selling a bunch on ebay and giving a cut of the ebay money to the artists.

Comics Arts Conference #3: Attorneys vs. Historians: Who Authors the Authorship Narrative? (50:19, 46mb)
An introduction was done by Kathleen McClancy. On the panel was Jim Thompson, Danny Barer, Alex Grand and Marc H. Greenberg. The group spoke about 3 cases where there are conflicting stories among the co-creators and publishing. They were Bob Kane and Bill Finger over Batman, Stan Lee, Martin Goodman, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon over Captain America and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby over Fantastic Four. They also pointed out how sales of the publisher or other media adaptions had correlated with those statements. They briefly went into how comic history books have written about these topics. Marc spoke about Batman and Me written by Bob Kane and Tom Andrae and Bob suing Tom and how that played into Bill Finger getting credit for Batman.

Spotlight on Robert Williams (45:41, 41.8mb)
Eric Reynolds interviews Robert Williams. Among the topics discussed were how much of his art is already finished in his head before he starts drawing or painting, his rules for himself as an artist, the comics he read as a kid and his other interests and how that influenced him as an artist. Robert talked about his early jobs he was fired from, working with Big Daddy Roth and then comics. Williams revealed he just didn't fit in with the fine art world and how the punk rock culture become his peer group. They spoke about Juxtaposed, The Lowbrow art of Robert Williams, Zap Comics, Feltch and an obscenity case against underground comics. Other topics covered were politics, museums showing comic art, Tijuana Bibles and reduction & reproduction of art.

Splashing Ink of Museum Walls (52:04, 47.6mb)
Moderating the panel was Rob Salkowitz, panelists were: Kim Munson, Ann Nocenti, Adam Smith and Emil Ferris. Emil spoke about how art in museums was a part of her growing up. Kim spoke about the history of comic art in museums, Rob spoke about Robert Crumb being in a show with Rembrandt, Picasso and other traditional echelon of fine artists and why. Ann spoke about meeting Jack Able at Marvel and how art would be blown up and then sold for millions of dollars. Adam spoke about his plans for the new San Diego Comic Con Museum, how they want to be different from other museums dedicated to comic book art. Ann and Adam spoke about 'ghettoizing' comic book art and avoiding doing that within the museum. Emil discussed the Familiar Strange, the Wolfman being her favorite monster and what was behind the pentagram on the hand. Multiple people spoke about how taking 1 page out of a story and displaying it in a museum and how the comic art isn't just art, it can be a historical artifact that people have a real attachment to.

Spotlight on Shannon Wheeler (54:28, 49.8mb)
Comic Con gave Shannon an inkpot award at the start of the panel. Shannon played 2 minutes of the Too Much Coffee Man Opera. Then Shannon did a reverse timeline of his career, where he started with the work he's doing now, meeting Stormy Daniels at a strip club and Sh*t My President Says, and going back through time covering God is Disappointed with You, Oil and Water, Gramps Won't Wake Up, Screw Heaven, When I die I'm going to Mars, The New Yorker and the process of relearning how to do cartoons to get published by them, the Too Much Coffee Man Opera and why he did it, the Too Much Coffee Man comic book and the incentive for stores. He spoke about the "bootleg" t-shirt of TMCM, JAB #3 where they shot a hole through the comic and Children with Glue.

Len Wein Tribute (48:19, 44.2mb)
Moderated by Gary Miereanu, panelists were Lynn Latham, Gillian Horvath, Christine Valada, Melinda Snodgrass, Paul Levitz and Charlotte Fullerton. The group talked about their first interaction with Len, working with him, where Len's creative spirit came from, why he was so positive, his life long health issues, Len's extraordinary memory, The Fan vs. Pro Trivia matches at San Diego, Len's wish for Wolverine's healing powers, Len's odd rules for food and other things, Len's work being displayed on Big Bang Theory, how Batman saved Len's life as a kid, Len's love of broadway musicals and singing, from the audience Michael Davis told a story about Len helping him out of a very serious situation with his singing. At the end a woman from the audience read something that Len wrote about Wolverine in an interview with her for Christine.

Graphic Novels: From Eisner to Explosion! (46:41, 42.7mb)
On the panel was Paul Levitz, Richard Burning, Scott McCloud and Emil Ferris. Scott talked about the Graphic Novel terminology and where he saw the graphic novel going after A Contract With God. Emil spoke about how Eisner's work inspired her. Richard discussed the gap between the self expression of underground work and character expression of superhero work. Paul reminded everyone that A Contract With God was a disguised personal expression as it related to the death of his daughter. Paul also spoke to how Eisner saw the whole page when he drew, something that most artists didn't do until the publishers replaced the 2x up boards with 1.5 boards. Emil talked about her crazy journey in creating and getting My Favorite Thing is Monsters published. Richard spoke about repackaging comics into graphic novels in the 1980s. They also spoke about the Graphic Novel format (particularly with A Contract With God) having the format fit the work, instead of having to fit the work into the format.

Comics Arts Conference #6: Two Women and Wonder Woman (51:56, 47.5mb)
Kathleen McClancy did the introduction and then Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson and Trina Robbins spoke about their issues with Jill Lepore's book on Wonder Woman. Nicky went through the Greek Mythology influence on Wonder Woman that Jill didn't mention, she also did this in regards to Amazon warriors. She also spoke of H. G. Peter and how under rated he is towards the success of Wonder Woman. She revealed how much of the family wasn't that happy with Lepore's book as Marston and his accomplishments were regularly trashed within it. Trina went through 3 golden age Wonder Woman stories that were both funny and revealing to Wonder Woman's character. She also spoke about the changes to Wonder Woman over the years. Nicky spoke about the possibility of a good book about Wonder Woman and Marston ever coming out.

50th Anniversary of Underground Comics (50:51, 46.5mb)
Panelists were Joyce Farmer, Mary Fleener, Carol Tyler, Robert Williams, Denis Kitchen, Trina Robbins and Ron Turner. The panel was moderated by Charles Brownstein. Jackie Estrada started off by giving an Inkpot Award to Justin Green, who couldn't make it to the convention. Carol Tyler accepted the award on his behalf. The group talked about how they got into Underground Comics, why they did those comics, what the current generation can learn from their struggles and S. Clay Wilson. In the audience was underground cartoonists Lee Mars and Bill Stout who also spoke.

2000AD: Simon Bisley (51:59, 47.5mb)
Simon Bisley is interviewed by Mike Molcher. They went over a range of topics including Simon being a self taught artist, his growing up, his influences, getting his professional start, painting, his styles of work and their evolution, getting work in the US, Batman / Judge Dredd, his following among the gay community, Lobo and where he was at the time, how he chooses projects, not doing a long run on a single character, Hellblazer, Album covers, what characters he wants to work on, his playing base in a band and his upcoming work.

IDW Artists Edition Panel (15:31, 14.2mb)
This was a very short panel where Scott Dunbier announced a new print run of Bernie Wrightson artist edition book and a new Bernie Wrightson Frankenstein artists edition book. Liz Wrightson joined the panel briefly as well. During the Q&A Scott revealed that DC for some reason doesn't want to do any artists edition books and names some of the artists he'd do books on if he could. This panel was delibritely made short so that there could be a tribute panel for Steve Ditko who recently passed away.

Steve Ditko: Artist (45:17, 41.4mb)
Scott Dunbier, Paul Levitz, Nick Lowe, David Schwartz and Steve Leialoha all shared their stories of Steve Ditko. Paul spoke about working with Steve Ditko and Wally Wood at the age of 19 on Stalker. Scott talked about printing Ditko's art in the artists edition books. David told his story of communicating with Ditko via letters and eventually getting a 3-hour visit and conversation with him. Nick told some hilarious Ditko stories courtesy of former Marvel editor Ralph Macchio. Steve Leialoha talked about inking Ditko pencils on what is likely his last comic book for another publisher and then meeting him. Paul and Nick revealed that DC and Marvel were still regularly reaching out to Ditko to see if he was willing to do some work for them, Marvel in particular wanted him to do something with Squirrel Girl. They spoke about Shade the Changing Man and what Ditko did best in comics.

The Gospel According to Archie (57:03, 52.2mb)
On the panel were Adam Sand, Rob Bradfied, Jennifer Joan, Jessica Tseang, Pat Jankiewicz and it was moderated by Erik Amaya. Among the topics discussed were Al Hartley's work at Marvel and why he quit to work for Archie. They started talking about Spire, their licensed work, then the Archie comics. They went over some odd and now politically incorrect parts of the comic, how Archie characters were sometimes drawn off model, how certain characters like Reggie and Midge were almost never used and how there was some dark scenes not typically found in Archie Comics. The groups spoke about Hartley's method of trying to convert people with these comics and why she didn't agree with it. They also spoke about Jack Chick Comics and the Riverdale TV show.

Larry Stroman Spotlight (44:19, 40.5mb)
Larry got an Inkpot award to start off. He talked about his neighbourhood growing up and having dyslexia, how the Fireside Marvel books inspired him to become a comic artist, him quitting his job to pursue comics full time and moving to New York, selling his art in central park, going to a comics convention with his portfolio, Howard Chaykin giving him work and helping him get work from publishers, focusing on working for editor Carl Potts on the Epic line, getting his first regular book, his hilarious story about becoming the regular artist on X-Factor, doing Tribe at Image, his getting out of comics and doing other type of work, going back to do comics again, his commissions and how doing them has improved his inking, his restarting Tribe, his influences, differences between doing creator owned work via Image vs working for Marvel or DC, developing a style and having it slowly go away and how he feels about having one of his comics turned into a movie.

CBLDF - The Trials of Underground Comix (49:01, 44.8mb)
Moderated by Charles Brownstein the panelists were Robert Williams, Joyce Farmer and Ron Turner. Charles began by giving a brief overview of the censorship of EC Comics and the Comics Code Authority. Robert Williams spoke about psychedelic poster artists who were all EC Comics fans, he also spoke about the drug culture starting in the 1950s and the 'beat' culture. Ron continued on with history of how the beat culture connected to the origins of underground comics. Joyce spoke about her personal experience of getting married, having a child, getting a driver's license, then divorcing her husband, Richard and Ron told a funny story about Feltch comics going missing causing a obscenity case to be dismissed, they also spoke about Zap Comics #4 being busted for obscenity and how that affected the comics industry.

Thi Bui Spotlight (48:13, 44.1mb)
Thi started by getting 3 audience members to join the panel for a reading a portion of her book The Best That We Could Do. She also spoke about A Different Pond, which was a children's book that she drew, she revealed she is working with an Asian American Law organization to help fight the Trump administrator deport Asian refugees and the results of that work. She spoke about another book that is being worked on about climate change in Vietnam where the issue is very pressing. She talked about going to Vietnam twice and how the local population reacted to her. She also revealed why she chooses to use comics to tell her stories, how she deals with anxiety issues and the conflict within the Asian American communities in terms of conservative vs progressive politics.

How to create (and survive) a successful Graphic Novel series (45:25, 41.5mb)
The panelists were Jennifer and Matthew Holm, Raina Telgemeier and Traci Todd. The panel was moderated by Dr. Rose Brock. Jennifer and Matthew spoke about how they started collaborating together and their process of doing books. Raina spoke about her process and how much of her personal life she puts into the book. Traci spoke about the process from the editor's perspective. They all revealed what they would tell their younger selves before doing a graphic novel. Traci recommended being brave and accepting feedback from humans (and not social media). They all gave recommendations for other graphic novels they enjoyed. They all spoke about what they wanted to be when they grew up, if they put real people in the book and how they keep themselves organized.

Fan vs. Pro Comic Trivia - Len Wein Tribute Edition (48:39, 44.5mb)
The Fan side was David Oakes, Derek McCaw and David Crowe. The Pro's were Christopher Sequeira, Paul Levitz, Jamie Coville and eventually Glenn Hauman. Tom Galloway did some moderating and served on the fan side as did Derek McCaw. Christine Valada also did some moderating. All of the questions were about Len Wein's work, including X-Men, Hulk, Swamp Thing, Batman, Teen Titans and much, much more. This is likely to be the last Fan vs. Pro Comic Trivia match.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2018 (May 11 - 13) - 42 Photos

Note: Friday May 11th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 12-13th.

White as Milk, Red as Blood – Willow Book Launch (10:11, 9.33mb)
Willow Dawson and Jennifer Lum explained how this book came together. Willow had learned that in 2012 500 new fairly tales were discovered and they were written by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth. Franz had worked under The Grimm brothers (author of the world famous Grimm fairly tales) and continued to write in their tradition after the brothers passed away. This book translates some of them and Willow illustrates what the fairy tales don’t say.

Understanding Canadian Comics (1:05:46, 60.2mb)
Amie Wright and Lucia Cedeira started off by talking about Canadian Comic history from the 1800s to today. Then they went into what makes a comic Canadian and how The Joe Shuster Awards, The Doug Wright Awards and the Canadian Government defines a Canadian Comic. They discussed Canada Reads and the Essex County controversy, the classification of books by writer first and how that affects the listings of comics, they informed which publishers were Canadian and which titles are Canadian, spoke on trends in Canadian publishing and gave tips on collection development.

Academic Round Table (1:03:32, 58.1mb)
Lindsay Gibb invited some of her academic colleagues Michelle Miller, Michael Jones, Barbara Postema, Jamie Lee Morin and Frederik Kohlert to discuss issues of comics in Academics. The room was set up with the chairs in a circle and several audience members joined in on the discussion. Among the topics covered were: Is their institution on board with comics? Comics being used outside of comics classes, introducing comics to co-workers and helping them incorporate them into their courses, Representation in comics to reflect their audience, Teaching corporate superhero comics, the goals of using comics in the classroom and how do they measure their success, resistance to certain books and Zine collections.

Books with Bubbles: Comics for Beginning Readers (36:57, 33.8mb)
Kevin McCloskey went through the books he’s worked on and discussing how some of them came about, his new Snails Are Just My Speed! book and how snails are gender neutral, switching from doing children book type narration to using word balloons, the bias against comics from the catholic church, funny stories about bringing worms to events, sound effects in comics and recommendations for other books.

Convincing Parents, Teachers and other Gatekeepers (55:32, 50.8mb)
Moderated by Scott Robins panelists were Michelle Miller, Leigh Hurtitz, Fatma Faraj and Amie Wright. The group gave their experience of how they encountered resistance to comics, what is advocacy in their day to day jobs, the main misunderstandings on comics, children repeatedly reading books, should we ask/make kids read prose books if they are only reading comics, how they deal with parents who are resistant to graphic novels, the 5 finger/word rule & why it’s bad and web comic recommendations.

Radical Application of Black Aesthetics (58:14, 53.3mb)
David Brothers asks Ronald Wimberly questions about his thoughts on how the black body is depicted in pop culture. Ronald reads from his LAAP magazine in regards to that issue and other images he created in it. Why the depictions of the black body was bad and what their purpose was. They spoke briefly about the Cotton Club, the production of Cotton and it’s impact on Europe. There was just discussion on Jay Z’s The Story of OJ and the Sambo character. Other topics touched on was Anime and appropriation, seeing stereotypes as kids and changing it for modern audience (eg the Mammy character from Tom & Jerry cartoons), black women vs black men depictions, blaxpoitation done by white creators, the 1975 Coonskin animated movie, Donald Glover’s / Childish Gambino's This is America video, the White Gaze & David Chappel and Monsters & black bodies.
Note: There is some swearing and racial slurs spoken on this panel.

Toronto Comics: Past, Present and Future (1:19:47, 73mb)
Chris Butcher started off with an introduction and thanks to TCAFs sponsors. Mark Askwith interviewed Fiona Smyth, Michael Comeau, Hartley Lin, Georgia Webber and Ho Che Anderson. The group introduced themselves and explained why they moved to Toronto and if comics played a role in that. Some of the group reminisced on The Silver Snail and Vortex Comics. Seth, Chester Brown and Joe Matt’s work gets discussed. They spoke about at what point did they decide they wanted to do comics and what role did Toronto played in that. They talked about comics that represent Toronto for them, being depicted in comics that other people made, if/how Toronto influenced their work, what do they think of Toronto comics scene now and more.

Spotlight: Chris Reynolds and Seth (50:39, 46.3mb)
Seth started by talking about discovering Reynolds work in a British anthology called Escape and then tracked down as much of it as he could. Seth interviewed Reynolds on a wide range of topics, among which were: Where Chris grew up, the intentions behind the work, the focus on children, his involvement with film, his childhood, his learning curve with comics, the level of detail in his art, his involvement with the British comics community, what he did after Escape ended, his love of Harvey Pekar’s work, how he designs a page, his parents and education.

Creators for Creators (45:17, 41.4mb)
Nick Dragotta and David Brothers talked about their new Creators for Creators charity designed to give new creators $30,000 to produce creator owned work. They talked about why they created this award, being inspired by the Peter Laird’s Xeric grant, their submission process, they spoke about last year’s winner and how they are now being published by Fantagraphics, that they have several publishers willing to publish their winners, they announced who won the 2nd year’s grant and showed their work, they spoke about growing and how they want to have more than 1 winner, what they are doing to help ‘finalists’ of sorts in terms of pairing up really good creators with publishers, how they are providing mentoring to the winners based on their needs, Nick spoke about his own path through Marvel and how publishing via Image taught him about how much it costs to produce comics and what his worth is as a creator, they also mentioned that Spike C. Trotman is a big part of this endeavor. They also said they’d like to pair up this award with TCAF in terms of making future winning announcements here, giving the creators a spotlight panel and more.

Men in Comics (42:35, 38.9mb)
This hilarious all female panel consisted of moderator Eleri Harris, Iasmin Omar Ata, Sanya Anwar, Sheika Lugtu and Caitlin Major. They spoke about their favourite male character, growing up (or not) reading comics by men, the affect of the web in evening the playing field in terms of who gets to make comics, writing male characters, drawing male bodies, male stories they don’t want to see, if they worry about objectifying men, writing male characters accurately within the power dynamic.

Couples in Comics (47:29, 43.4mb)
Moderated by Glen Downey, the couples were: Brigitte Findakly & Lewis Trondheim (with translater Thomas Cote), Ananth Hirsh & Yuko Ota and Audrey Niffenegger & Eddie Campbell. They discussed how they became a creative couple, what have they learned from each other creatively, how they interact when they are working creatively vs when they are not, do they put their partner in their work in some manner, do they have a project they want to do together and when collaborating how much do they do themselves vs doing it together?

Spotlight: Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell (59:46, 54.7mb)
Mark Askwith moderated this panel. Eddie started off playing a video of all the characters of their new book Bizarre Romance. They then spoke about several topics including how their collaboration started, how did they divide the work as they are both writers and artists, if the 13 stories in the book was inspired by old music albums that always had 13 songs. They spoke about specific stories and which were their favourites, the supernatural elements in their work, getting married and moving in together as they were working on the book, colourizing From Hell and fixing mistakes in the art and they took questions from the audience.

Johnny Wander 10th Anniversary (57:18, 52.4mb)
George Rohac interviews Johnny Wander creators Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota. Among the topics they discussed were their early auto bio work, using kickstarter to publish volume 3 and reprint volume 1 and 2, how Yuko had to teach herself how to draw using her left hand due to injury and the Offhand book that came from it, the design of their books, their merchandise, specific details of their books Cuttings, Lucky Penny, Barbarous, Our Cats Are More Famous Than Us Omnibus, their travel comics and their creative process.

Building a Comics Community (35:13, 32.2mb)
On the panel was Sagan Yee, Olivia Ongai, Althea Balmes, Steven Andrews, Stephanie Wunderlich and moderator Gina Gagliano. They introduced themselves and what their respective communities were, discussed how their artistic community interacts with the fan/market community, the need for change to keep their community going, the benefits of face to face meetings, the fundamentals of building a community, the amount of work that goes into maintaining it.

Doug Wright Awards 2018 (March 12th) - 17 Photos

2018 Doug Wright Awards (59:34, 54.5mb)
Brad Mackay did the opening and Dustin Harbin hosted the ceremony.
There was a word from the family of Doug Wright, Don McKeller, Marc Ngui and Bo Doodley also spoke at the ceremony.

Pigskin Peters Award (For the best experimental, unconventional or avant-garde comic)
The Dead Father by Sami Alwani
The Death of the Master by Patrick Kyle
Crohl’s House Nos. 1 & 2 by Alexander Laird, Jamiel Rahi and Robert Laird
Creation: The First Three Chapters by Sylvia Nickerson
Potluck by Wavering Line Collective

Doug Wright Spotlight Award (a.k.a. The Nipper) (For a Canadian cartoonist deserving of wider recognition)
Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes for The Case of the Missing Men (Conundrum Press)
Gillian Blekkenhorst for All-Inclusive Fully Automated Vacation and House of Strays
Eric Kostiuk Williams for Condo Heartbreak Disco (Koyama Press)
Jason Loo for The Pitiful Human-Lizard Nos. 12, 13 and 14 (Chapterhouse Comics)
Jenn Woodall for Magical Beatdown Vol. 2 and Marie and Worrywart

Duncan Macpherson (1924–1993), editorial cartoonist at the Montreal Standard, Toronto Star and Maclean’s magazine was inducted to the Giants of the North Canadian cartoonist hall of fame by fellow hall of famer Terry “Aislin” Mosher. The award was accepted by his son Ian Macpherson.

Doug Wright Best Book Award (for the best English-language book published in Canada)
Hostage (Drawn & Quarterly) by Guy Delisle
I’m Not Here (Koyama Press) by GG
Crawl Space (Koyama Press) by Jesse Jacobs
The Abominable Mr. Seabrook (Drawn & Quarterly) by Joe Ollmann
Anti-Gone (Koyama Press) by Connor Willumsen
Brad Mackay closed the ceremony.

King Con 2018 (March 10 & 11) - 16 Photos

We Can Be Heroes: On Freelance and the Importance of LGBTQ Superheroes. (35:13, 32.2mb)
Writer Andrew Wheeler talks about his book Freelance (from Chapter House Press) and gives a history of LGBTQ Superheroes from the resistance of them, focusing primarily on Marvel and DC Comics. Going from the beginning of newsstand comics through the comics code, to various characters in Marvel and DC and other depictions of LGBTQ people and making previously straight characters gay. There is a brief question and answer session at the end. [Note: I missed the first few minutes of this panel where Andrew was giving an introduction of himself.]

San Diego Comic Con 2017 (July 19 - 23) - 43 Photos

Jack Kirby's Consciousness, Roger Zelanzny's Lord or Light, Barry Ira Geller and the Real Argo (48:05, 45.1mb)
On the panel was Barry Ira Geller and Mike Royer. Barry talked about Kirby's and Royer's involvement in the Lord of Light project. Barry announced that Lord of Light is being produced as a television series. Barry said 80% of the movie Argo was not true. They played 2 clips from CIA Agent Mendez regarding the Argo plan that Barry said was true. Barry mentioned he talked to the son's of the Iranian revolution and they told him that Jack's artwork made them believe the Hollywood production was real. Royer said he could tell that the Lord of Light was special to Kirby by the work he put into the drawings. They talked about specific pieces of art and plugged a kickstarter to make 3D versions of the Lord of Light figures.

Mike Royer Spotlight (46:05, 43.2mb)
Moderated by Mark Evanier. Mike revealed how he got started in comics, his working on the Marvel animated cartoons particularly Marvel Superheroes and the 1966 Spider-Man. Mark and Mike talked about editor Chase Craig and how important he was to furthering their careers. Royer gave his views on inking other people's work, Mike's work for Jim Warren and his views on Jim. Royer spoke about his meeting Jack Kirby for the first time and the circumstances on inking his work, how Royer also lettered Jack's work and it was delivered to DC camera ready which was new for DC's production dept who previously always "fixed up" artists work to give it the DC touch. Royer then discussed why he took a hiatus from inking Kirby's work and how Kirby reacted, Royer spoke about working on staff for Disney, what work he was proud of and Jack not wanting his faces changed.

Paul Levitz in Conversation with Karen Berger (48:41, 45.7mb)
Karen started off talking about Paul hiring her, she then interviewed Paul about his being a writer and a businessman. Paul discussed getting started working for DC and writing comics. He also spoke about balancing being a creative writer vs business man and the conflict that brings, having to go to meetings with upper level executives in his early 20s where everybody else was much older and richer than he was. Paul gave advice on editing creative people, who his writing influences were, his work now for Dark Horse Comics. Karen talked about doing books that made Paul uncomfortable and Paul giving her a lot of rope. Paul discussed the comics sales transitioning from the newsstand to the Direct Market and how that affected the writing. Karen revealed how she finally got approval to print the word "fuck" in a DC comic, the creation of Vertigo and why. They spoke about finding a Graphic Novel format that worked in the marketplace. Finally, Paul revealed what his is most proud of in his career thus far.

Editing Comics (51:24, 48.2mb)
Moderated by Chris Butcher, on the panel were editors Shannon Watters, Mark Siegel, Cassandra Pelham and Robin Herrera. They started by introducing themselves and answering Chris's question: Do editors talk to each other? Robin then spoke about her editing style on different books, the groups discussed different types of editing and how not all editors are good at all aspects of editing, they said if they still like reading comics for pleasure. Cassandra talked about how she edits different creators differently. Mark spoke about being more transparent about his job, the pitch process and what does and does not matter. The group discussed using the thumbnail for editing, using Skype for communicating with creators, catching problems early to avoid costly corrections later, the mental fatigue of doing a graphic novel and how to combat it. Shannon revealed how certain books of hers came about and how to manage the collaborative process. The group then discussed if they are on the creators side or the publishers side.

Why Will Eisner Still Matters at 100 (58:30, 54.9mb)
On the panel was Paul Levitz, Jackie Estrada, Maggie Thompson and Paul Dini. They first discussed why Will is not just important, but still relevant. Will owning his work and expanding the readership of comics into the bookstore market. Will as a person, how he adapted over the years and his communicating through images. Will as a teacher, role model, how he made changes to the Eisner Awards, his ability to tell short stories, the line between art and craft and how Will balanced and transcended them. They also discussed his treatment of fans, the human reaction in his stories, the cinematic method of telling his stories, exposing people to Will's work and Ebony.

The Forgotten Trio: Letterers, Inkers and Colorists (42:21, 37.7 mb)
Panelists include Dave Lanphear, Le Beau Underwood, Kelly Fitzpatrick, Veronica Gandini and moderator Jessica Tsang. They started out with what they are currently working on, do they feel they are getting enough credit, where the industry falls short in crediting them. They then went into their specific fields and discussed how to be a successful inker, the difference between good and bad lettering and how it affects a story, colour vs. black and white comics, what a flat is, how the colourists chooses the colour types, grayscale colouring, how they choose a colour palette and they gave career advice for people breaking in.

Publishers Weekly: Selling Comics to Diverse Audiences (51:11, 48mb)
On the panel was Calvin Reed, Christopher Butcher, Terence Irvins, Jennifer Haines and Kristen Parraz. They started with an introduction and what diversity means to each of them. Is diverse material available and where is the demand coming from, distribution issues in regards to retailers getting diverse books, diversity of reading material and formats, why Marvel is not selling well and is it because of diversity and different types of retail stores.

Graphic Novel Creator Richard Kyle's Legacy (44:06, 41.4mb)
Photo by Bruce Guthrie.
A collection of Richard's friends and colleagues gather to discuss the recently departed Richard Kyle. They were David G. Brown, Maggie Thompson, Greg Koudoulian, Mike Royer, Phil Yeh, Ron Turner and Jamie Coville. The group, including audience members who knew Richard spoke about his intelligence, kindness, his bookstore, his strong opinions, creating of the term Graphic Novel and more. An audio clip was played from his interview with me and the panel told some stories about Harlan Ellison as well.

Comics Arts Conference #5: Lassoing the Truth: Marston vs Wertham in the Wonder Woman War (53:41, 50.3mb)
After a brief introduction by Kate McClancy, the panel moderated by Travis Langley consisted of Christie Marston, Phil Jimenez, Alan Kistler, Trina Robbins, Dr. Mara Wood, Mike Madrid, Danny Fingeroth and Andy Mangels. They started out describing the differences between the Martson's and Wertham's disciplines. They cleared up what Marston did and did not invent in terms of the Lie Detector Test and its impact on the court system. The group discussed the mythological aspects of Wonder Woman's origins, Harry G. Peter, Marston's book The Emotions of Normal People, what Marston was saying about bondage, Wertham's view of Wonder Woman as a lesbian Batman, The Comics Code effect on Wonder Woman comics, Wertham's psychoanalysis on Pop Culture, Jill Lepore's book on Wonder Woman and the problems with it.

Keith Pollard Spotlight (46:45, 43.8mb)
Mark Waid interviews Keith Pollard. Keith talks about becoming a comic book artist, his time in highschool and getting into college. He reveals his jobs prior to comics, meeting Jim Steranko and Neal Adams and getting their critique, his friendship and collaboration with Arvell Jones, working with Rich Buckler, his first solo Marvel work, inking, his influences, moving from Marvel to DC, how Jim Shooter helped him out of a jam, working with Roy Thomas on Thor and working on Master of Kung Fu. [Note: I came in a few minutes late for the panel]

Will Eisner: Mentor and Friend (45:23, 42.6mb)
Denis Kitcken was joined by Danny Fingeroth. Denis started talking about his first meeting Will Eisner. He then spoke about Will's early work. They both spoke about how water was a theme in Will's work and how Harvey Kurtzman came up with a term for it. They discussed Will's work for the Army, his educational and commercial work, his contributions to the underground, A Contract with God, the term Graphic Novel, his autobiographical books The Dreamer and The Heart of the Storm, how Will planned the pages and not using standard layouts. Danny questioned why Eisner and Kitchen connected despite their differences, Will's reaction to the first underground comic he saw. They also discussed Will's relationship with Jack Kirby & Harvey Kurtzman and that Stan Lee once offered Will the job of EIC of Marvel.

Jack Kirby: Family and Friends (48:48, 45.7mb)
The panel consisted of Jillian, Lisa, Tracy and Jeremy Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux and moderator Mark Evanier. Mark started out with a funny story about Jack being physically strong and cleaning out the stables for Lisa's horse. Lisa told a story about Jack going to her school and doing drawings for her classmates, which helped her make friends. Granddaughter Jillian talked about how people around her react when they find out who her grandfather was. All the family members told when they realized that Jack Kirby was special. Mike spoke about meeting, hanging out with Jack and loving his work. They told stories about introducing Jack to other people and their reaction. Jillian spoke about her Kirby 4 Heroes campaign that she runs to raise money for the Hero Initiative. Jeremy talked about how fans react to them because they are related to Jack. The panelists spoke about Jack's warmth in dealing with his fans. Lisa told a funny story about a cult coming to the door and wanting Jack to sell all his possessions and move out to the desert with them. They talked about the D23 convention where Jack was honored as a Disney Legend. David Glanzer, Director of Marketing and Public Relations of Comic-Con International then announced that San Diego is giving Jack Kirby their Icon Award, something they give to 1 person per year and only give it to people who are alive. Jack is the first person they have given it to posthumously.

Ron Wilson Spotlight (44:33, 41.8mb)
Mark Waid interviewed Ron Wilson. Among the topics discussed were: How he was first exposed to comics, drawing on newspapers, how being an artist helped him, his schooling, his influences, breaking in, what he learned from John Romita Sr, his favourite inker, meeting Jack Kirby, how he got the job for Luke Cage, Marvel 2 in 1, working with John Byrne, his boxing matches with Jim Shooter, his work on He-Man and Pro Wrestling comics, his work on Superboxers and Kyle Baker inking his work.

Manga Superheroes: Super Differences Between Japan and US (56:25, 52.9mb)
Moderated by Deb Aoki, the panelists were Brigid Alverson, David Brothers, Chris Butcher, Carl Horn and Andy Nakatani. The group went through how Manga and US creators were influenced by each other in major ways, starting with Osama Tezuka being influenced by Disney. Other examples were Lone Wolf and Cub influencing Frank Miller, Cyborg 009 & X-men and more. Chris talked about the cultural exchange that happens between French, USA and Japanese creators. The group talked about Ultra-man, Magical Girl Manga (Sailor Moon in particular), One Punch Man, the weird stuff that Japan does with their superheroes that's different and ended by talking about My Hero Academia.

Mike Grell Spotlight (45:48, 42.9mb)
Mike Grell was interviewed by Derek Maki. They started by announcing that Mike had been inducted to the Wizard World Hall of Fame. What he did before becoming a comics artist, what comics he read as a child, advice he would give to those just starting out. Grell told a story about a brutal deadline and working so long without sleep he saw hallucinations while driving. He told stories about crazy jobs, what he finds easy and hard to draw, being on safari in Africa, having to pee and draw at the same time, he revealed an Easter egg in an issue of Warlord, what underwear he wears, what he wants to be remembered for. They did a trivia contest at the end. You can find out more about Mike Grell at his website.

Spotlight on Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim (51:20, 48.1mb)
Karen Green interviewed Brigitte and Lewis, often through the use of a translator Julia Pohl-Miranda. They talked about their book Poppies for Iraq. Karen asked why are we seeing women telling their stories regarding leaving the Middle East instead of men? They spoke about the printing of photographs, why they did it, which ones they chose and why they placed them where they did throughout the book. They discussed the unsettlement within the book in both the past and the present. Brigitte and Lewis talked about the government issued poisoned grain that was within the story. They then turned to when Briggitte began drawing, their collaborative process, the other books they worked on, the pacing of a joke, subtle bit of info that is important, but not highlighted and why Lewis chose to do it that way. Brigitte revealed how extreme the antisemitism was in Iraq. The danger there was in France when she first moved there, how poor kids in Iraq are expected to help clean the school but the rich kids are not, what country they now consider to be "home" and both Lewis and Brigitte wanted the audience to know that Poppies for Iraq is a happy book.

Joe Staton Spotlight (47:49, 44.8mb)
Paul Levitz interviews Joe about his career. Joe revealed that his bought some early Marvel age comics off the stands as a kid. He talked about starting at Charlton, E-Man and why he was created, working with Gill Kane on Spider-Man, inking Sal Buscema and then Herb Trimpe. Paul revealed that he hired Joe to work at DC and what for. They then went through the books he worked on at DC, JSA, the creation of Huntress, doing Marvel books, working with Brian Bolland, children comics regarding various diseases and drawing Dick Tracy. He also revealed he co-created Kilowog and said he was now working on a successful kickstarter campaign to reprint Family Man, a Paradox book that was not printed very well the first time around.

Spotlight on Arthur Adams and Joyce Chin (46:48, 43.9mb)
The moderator was Kirk Thatcher. Both Joyce and Arthur received Inkpot Awards. They talked about a wide variety of topics, including a toy package design he did, Arthur's love of Godzilla, how they work under the same roof, splitting of domestic duties, what pushed them to become artists, Joyce talked about how her mother learned to read English via comics and read them to her, their parents reaction to wanting to be artists, Joyce talked about working on Green Lantern, they both talked about working on scripts, their influences, movie work, designing characters, Monkeyman and O'Brien, their most unusual project, the toys they surround themselves with and inking their own work.

That 70s Panel (1:20:21, 75.3mb)
On the panel was Keith Pollard, Marv Wolfman, Joe Staton, Ron Wilson, Elliot S! Maggin, Mike Grell, Paul Levitz and moderator Mark Evanier. Mark began by asking them what assignment did they get that made them really feel like they were a comic professional. Elliot told a story about selling a school assignment story to DC Comics, he also told stories about Curt Swan. The artists told how they felt about other people inking their work, Mike Grell told how he broke in, Paul told a funny story about Grell being unhappy with his current inker and inking his own pencils before sending in the pages, Paul also talked about push back from the 2nd generation of artists regarding certain inkers. Everyone discussed who's work they admired. Mark told a story about Jerry Siegel and the change with him over the years in regards to DC Comics. They all told a story about the worst deadline crisis they've had, Paul talked about the DC Implosion and both Paul and Marv Wolfman discussed having to let people go.

John Stanley: Giving Life to Little Lulu (49:33, 46.5mb)
Bill Schelly and Gary Groth talked about Bill's new book on John Stanley. The revealed what characters that Stanley created for the Little Lulu comic title, what John did before he worked in comics, they revealed why he was listed as F4 and couldn't serve in the military, they spoke about Tubby and fantasy stories, how Carl Barks and John Stanley felt about each other was discussed, the horror stories that John liked and did, the scrutiny that Stanley came under when he got a new editor and Dell Comics were using the "Dell Comics are Good Comics" pledge, Stanley being hired to create a line of titles for Dell after the split, what he did after working for Dell, Stanley's personal demons and what work he did when he couldn't do comics anymore, John's only convention appearance and interview and the commissions he did towards the end of his life.

James Hudnall Spotlight (49:51, 46.7mb)
James was running behind so the panel started with moderator Dr. Terry Cronin talking about his love of Eclipse Comics, which was followed by David Lloyd discussing how he came about working with James on ESPers and why he liked the book. Lloyd also spoke about John N. Burnes, who is a hero of his. When James came in Jackie Estrada gave him an Inkpot Award. James spoke about getting to work with David Lloyd, his getting work at Marvel, going from Strikeforce: Morituri to Alpha Flight, then over to DC where he wrote Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography. James discussed many of the books that James worked on over his career. Hudnall and Lloyd spoke about John Ridgway and why he loved talking on the phone so much. They also spoke about Malibu's Ultraverse and his books Hardcase and The Solution.

Comics Art Conference #15: Fangirls (1:14:55, 70.2mb)
Moderated by Kate McClancy, Angelica Kalika, Angela Chiarmonte and Caitln O'Shea spoke about their academic work on different aspects of fangirls. Angela talked about Ms. Marvel and David Gabriel's statement about diverse characters, why Millennials love Ms. Marvel, what elements of Ms. Marvel appeal to Millennials. Caitlin spoke about harassment of female fans, particularly in comic shops, she read some quotes from interviews she conducted from a number of female fans, comic store employees and store owners, then gave some conclusions and recommendations. Angelica spoke about Spider-Gwen and why she is successful and the community built up around her, she went into Speech Codes Theory, Millennials and Feminists, why Spider-Gwen loves the series and conclusion from her research.

Comics Art Conference #16: The Culture of Comic Con: Field Studies of Fans and Marketing (50:09, 47mb)
Peter Coogan started by giving an introduction to the panel. Matthew J. Smith moderated a large panel of young, mostly first time Comic Con attendee's academic students who were all studying an aspect of comic con. They were: Blythe Bull, Jesse Booker, Sarah Irby, Carlos Flores, Kristi Fleetwood, Kyle Hanners, Borin Chep, Morgan Mitchell, Conner DuRose and DeAnna Volz. They all introduced themselves, what they were studying and how they were examining it. They also spoke about how being a part of comic con affected them and possibly their work and how they might have affected comic con.

Pro Vs Fan Comic Trivia (40:13, 37.7mb)
The Fans were: Peter Svensson, David Oakes and Tom Galloway, The Pro's were Glenn Hauman, Elliot S! Maggin and Len Wein. The very hard questions asked by David McCaw involved Thor, Ghost Rider, Luke Cage, Demon, Black Lighting, Black Panther, The Thing, Boy Commandos, Spider-Man, Machine Man, Atlas, Captain America and more. Some members from the audience also participated in answering some questions.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2017 (May 12 - 14) - 68 Photos

Note: Friday May 12th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 13-14th.

When Big Bears Attack Book Launch (35:44, 33.5mb)
Writer Alexander Finbow and Artist Nyco Rudolph present their new all ages picture book. Alex talks about immigrating to Canada and becoming a Canadian citizen and why he did this book. The two talk about Canadian cities. They did a reading of the book with Alex and mainly Nyco doing sound effects (they also got some audience participation), they did a Q&A after where they talked about which Canadian cities they did and didn’t destroy and why.
Note: This took place on Thursday, May 11th.

The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen (12:35, 11.85mb)
Hope Nicholson spoke about why she did a comic history book about female characters. She spoke about her admiration for Trina Robbins for her work in showcasing the often overlooked female involvement in the comic industry. Hope talked about her love of doing research and how it affects her writing. The floor was opened for Q&A and people talked about their favorite female superhero, her views on Robert Crumbs underground work and her next book.
Note: This took place on Thursday, May 11th.

Charlie Adlard: My Life as Comics Laureate (1:10:35, 66.2mb)
This began with an introduction by Andrew Woodrow-Butcher and Lindsay Gibb, then an introduction of Charles Adlard was done by Barbara Postema. Charles spoke about the first comic he read, showed his first published art, he went through his early career from working on 2000AD and doing Judge Dredd, his getting work in America working on X-Files comics, self publishing a graphic novel (White Death) and then bouncing around from job to job doing Batman and other "big two" characters. He spoke about meeting Robert Kirkman and starting on the Walking Dead. He explained what his role as Laureate encompasses, who his audience is, his presentations for different age groups, his motivation. He discussed the snobbery he's encountered over comic books, his dyslexic son and how comics helped him, points he tries to make, having an impact, He then opened it up for Q&A.

Learn Manga, Teach Manga (51:08, 47.9mb)
Presented by Christine Rentschler. Christine started off by comparing Manga to North American Comics. She then went into Manga more specifically by addressing movies influence, format & genres, how Manga tells stories, how characters look & their visual short forms, visual metaphors, action and sound effects, panel transitions, speech and thought balloons, themes and aspects to study. She went into details about what books would be good for what grades and classes and then took questions from the audience.

No Boys Allowed: The Subtle Ways we Gender Books and Cut Boys off from Reading (56:25, 52.9mb)
Author Shannon Hale talked about her experience at schools and signings when it comes to male readers, the how and why children get gender coded, phrases she hears all the time and what they mean, how to argue for Graphic Novels with people who don't think they are "real books", she spoke about her book Austenland, female representatives in movies and animated films, her graphic novel Real Friends and where it comes from.

More than Words: The Appeal of Silent Comics (41:54, 39.3mb)
Barbara Postema gives a number of examples of silent comics from various authors over the last century. Among them was Marta Chudolinska who was there to talk about making silent comics from a creative perspective. She spoke about why she chose to do wordless comics, relying on peoples assumptions to tell the story and the good and bad of that, she also spoke of the difficulty of dealing with complicated issues when using only pictures, the need for the reader to absorb more from the photos to understand the story, the power of silent scenes, when people who read their work come up with different interpretations than intended.

LGBT Comics for Kids and Teens: The Time is NOW! (45:17, 42.5mb)
The panelists include Brigid Alverson, Scott Robins, Justin Hall, Andrew Wheeler and Erica Friedman discuss what books are already out there, what they look for in terms of like to see and find problematic, they discussed books for trans kids in middle grade and kids, books with bisexual or asexual characters, putting together a diverse group of creators for an anthology without making it a checklist or bingo card, the reactions to these kinds o books in terms of challenges. At the end they took questions from the audience.

25 Years of Image Comics (1:16:14, 71.5mb)
This panel was moderated by Christopher Butcher and David Brothers. Chris started with an introduction and thanks to the people who help put TCAF together. On the panel was Sana Takeda (and translator), Jeff Lemire, Charles Adlard, Emma Rios, Brandon Graham and Chip Zdarsky. The group talked about when they were first exposed to Image, why they publish through Image, Emma talked about being an editor working through Image, working for Marvel after working for Image, Sana talked about why she changed her art style when she did Monster, Chris and Jeff talked about why they still do Work for Hire comics, if there is an Image house style, where Sana got her influence from when coming up with a new art style, Chip and Brandon talked about their different online interactions, if any of the creators see themselves doing 150+ issues of a single title like Charles has done thus far, how they handle creative differences with their collaborators and why they do comics at all.

Comics and Collaboration (55:57, 52.5mb)
Panelists were Nate Powell, John Jennings, Molly Ostertag, Fanny Britt, Metaphrog (Sandy & John) and the moderator was Erica Friedman. The panelists spoke about why they like to collaborate and the different ways of doing it, the amount of flexibility with a strong voice, working in collaborations within a big and small publishers, how the internet as affected their collaborations, making changes when they need to be made and their biggest challenges.

Spotlight: Katherine Collins (43:19, 40.6mb)
This panel was moderated by Conan Tobias who started off giving a brief history of Neil the Horse comics, Katherine talked about the characters in the book and where they came from, why she incorporated song and dance into the comic, her being self taught in making comics, her learning to dance, her working for the CBC, studying Fred Astaire, her love of old comic strips, not having a consistent format for her work, her transition and how the comic industry reacted to it, her reaction when people from the comics community reached out to her and what she's doing next.

Spotlight: Guy Delisle (36:38, 34.4mb)
Interviewing Guy Delisle was Asmaa Malik. Guy discussed his new comic Hostage which is about Christophe Andre, who was kidnapped and held for a long period of time. They spoke about how long Guy interviewed him about his ordeal, how he was when talking about the experience, asking a lot of mundane questions about how things looked so he could draw them, how involved Christophe was during the making of the book, doing comics journalism and being compared to Joe Sacco, the changes in his art over the years, the colouring of the books, no longer doing travelogue stories as his wife is now out of the NGO, the bits of humor in Hostage and where it came from.

21st Century Webcomics (54:03, 50.75mb)
On the panel was Blue Delliquanti, Priya Huq, Matt Lubchansky, Michael DeForge and moderator Tom Spurgeon. They talked about how online comics culture has changed, how social media driven internet vs old internet, Patreon, The Nib model and how the content of webcomics has changed from 5 years ago, what they would change about Patreon, why Tumblr is no longer a thing that that webcomics people use, selling themselves for Patreon instead of selling their work, they took questions from the audience.

Graphic Medicine (58:24, 54.8mb)
Participating were Ian Williams, MK Czerwic, Kriota Willberg and Gareth Brookes. Ian and MK talked about Moms Cancer as being an inspiring book for them, together they made the Graphic Medicine website and now have had many conferences in several cities regarding using comics in health care, they gave examples of comics being used in health care and why they are great, Gareth Brookes spoke about his book A Thousand Castles, which is about a rare diseaase that causes people to see hallucinations and why he drew the book in crayon. MK Czerwic showed her comic called Taking Turns about her job as a nurse, her working for a notable AIDS care center in Chicago and the history of the place. Kriota Willberg described her comics that come from her years as being a massage therapist and promoting self care before needing medical help. She also spoke of her contribution to a pro-choice comic drawing accurate pictures of embryos, fetuses and babies and did research on when the various religions believe a soul is born and when a fetus can survive outside the womb. Ian Williams talked about his book Bad Doctor, some of which goes into the OCD he had at an earlier age and the humorous medical cartoons he draws now. Within the Q&A they spoke about Jack Black and how they don't define what a Graphic Medicine comic is. Note: I lost the tail end of this panel due to a recorder malfunction.

Darwyn Cooke Tribute (1:12:48, 68.3mb)
On the Panel was Michael Cho, Brian McLachlan, J. Bone, Steve Manale, Sean Phillips, Mark Askwith, Dennis Cooke and his daughter. They started off by reading a letter from Darwyn widow Marsha that went into some detail about what had happened to Darwyn. The panelists described their first meeting Darwyn, how Darwyn drew and worked, his original G.I. Joe collection, his first comic book work. Steve Manale talked about sharing a studio with Darwyn, the group talked about "the Superman club" that sprung up around Darwyn, Dennis Cooke revealed some childhood info about Darwyn, Dennis's daughter spoke about her uncle, the group talked about Darwyn's strong views on what superheroes should be and Darwyn's love of Hal Jordan, his attention to detail and researching the society during the time periods of his story settings, Darwyn's inking, how Darwyn loved kids and giving them free sketches, they told some funny stories about his interactions with fans, Sean Phillips talked about their mutual love of crime stories and their hanging out together, at they all gave their favourite Darwyn story.

Rick Geary Spotlight (59:03, 55.4mb)
Moderated by Heidi MacDonald, Rick Geary talks about what inspired him to be a cartoonist, working for National Lampoon, how he got into Murder stories, his drawing of the San Diego toucan mascot, the early San Diego Comic Cons, the post underground comics community, living in a small town in New Mexico, his new book Black Dahlia, some of his previous books, if he ever comes up with new theories for unsolved murders, why he jumped from doing 19th century murders to 20th century murders, which murder stories he won't do and why, what he chooses to show and not show when it comes to the grisly details, his fictional work, what murder mysteries that he really wants to do, the positive and negative aspects of using the internet for research.

Doug Wright Awards 2017 (March 13th) - 18 Photos

2017 Doug Wright Awards (1:31:50, 86.1mb)
Brad Mackay did the opening and Dustin Harbin hosted the ceremony.
There was a word from the family of Doug Wright.

Pigskin Peters Award (For the best experimental, unconventional or avant-garde comic)
Carpet Sweeper Tales by Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly)
Draw Blood by Ron Hotz
Garbage by Matthew Reichertz (Conundrum Press)
After Land by Chris Taylor (Floating World Comics)
The Palace of Champions by Henriette Valium (Conundrum Press)

Steven Manale does a roast of Annie Koyama to celebrate Koyama Press 10th anniversary.

Doug Wright Spotlight Award (a.k.a. The Nipper) (For a Canadian cartoonist deserving of wider recognition)
Jessica Campbell, Hot or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists (Koyama Press)
GG, “These Days,” “Lapse” (both from š! No. 25 [kuš!]), and an untitled story from Altcomics Magazine 3 (2dcloud)
Nathan Jurevicius, Birthmark (Koyama Press)
Laura Keninš, Alien Beings (kuš!)
Brie Moreno, Dearest, Gift Shop 3D (Oireau), Missy, untitled story from š! No. 6 (kuš!), various web comics
Steve Wolfhard, Cat Rackham (Koyama Press)
Note: My battery ran out during the announcing of the nominee's for this award and picks up right where the winner is announced.

Katherine Collins was inducted to the Giants of the North Canadian cartoonist hall of fame by Conan Tobias.
Julia Pohl-Miranda gave a very emotional and moving tribute to the late artist Geneviève Castrée.

Doug Wright Best Book Award (for the best English-language book published in Canada)
Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus by Chester Brown (Drawn & Quarterly)
Big Kids by Michael DeForge (Drawn & Quarterly)
Burt’s Way Home by John Martz (Koyama Press)
The Envelope Manufacturer by Chris Oliveros (Chris Oliveros)
Bird in a Cage by Rebecca Roher (Conundrum Press)
Brad Mackay closed the ceremony.

King Con 2017 (April 1 & 2) - 16 Photos

Introduction to Cosplay (48:57, 45.9mb)
Heather Brennan gives an introduction to Cosplay. She spoke about what Cosplay is and is not, the terms and history of Cosplay, controversies within the community, etiquette, the diversity, transporting costumes to conventions, books on cosplay, needing an escape route for your costume so you can use the bathroom or in case of heat stroke, cosplay medic, cosplay events and competitions.

Anime for Parents (1:34:48, 88.8mb)
Heather Brennan talked about the history of anime, the various sources of anime, the various terms and their meaning, different genres it covers, Recommendations, animated child porn in Japan and gender roles.

San Diego Comic Con 2016 (July 20 - 24) - 104 Photos

Peter David Spotlight (52:06, 47.7mb)
Peter got an Inkpot Award from San Diego Comic Con. He started off reading a part of Chapter 1 from his new Pyramid Schemes. He also revealed he wrote the Marvel Future Fight. He told a story about his stroke, Stephen King visiting him in the hospital, how that lead to more Dark Tower work and flying on Stephen King's personal plane. Peter also spoke about the 3rd Hidden Earth Book, Fallen Angel, Star Trek Novels and the comic book adaptation of his screen play. He told a story about his hanging out with Tom Galloway and pissing off one fan. He gave his thoughts on the new Star Trek movies, the new TV show and told a funny story about getting Sulu's first name into the movies. He discussed meeting David Tennant, Harlan Ellison, Leonard Kirk, She Hulk, Spider-man 2099 and the Hulk.

Howard Chaykin Spotlight (50:19, 46.1mb)
Howard walked around with a microphone talking about his early career and what he believes is a realistic assessment of his skill set back in the 1970s. He spoke of where his love of comics came from, his love of Gil Kane, his influences, why he dislikes the term fan and prefers enthusiasts, why he's still active in comics, American Flagg, politics, upcoming work and what comics he reads. He also discussed how he's adapted his art and his changing views of Photoshop, superhero movies, Wally Wood, Alex Toth, John Severin. He gave recommendations and he sang a song at the end.

We Need Diverse Comics (57:51, 53mb)
On the panel was Raina Telgemeier, Nilah Magruder, Ron Wimberly, Ben Hatke, Nidhi Chanani and moderator Glen Weldon. Among the topics discussed were: Diversity as a trend and not a buzzword, it being turned into a commodity and sold commercially without diverse creators working on them (EG Marvel's Hip Hop variant covers), Raina and Ben talked about adding people of colour into their books and how they do it, the group talked about how important it is to see characters like themselves in comics, Ron discussed needing to create a new visual language because traditional comics sometimes doesn't have anything established on how to portray some ethnicities which is new and exciting, how reviewers miss the storytelling in the art, who should be held accountable when whitewashing happens because sometimes the creative team is now allowed to be diverse, why are there no people of colour in the backgrounds of comics, online movements like Trans rights and Black Lives Matter and do they feel they should represent that in their comics.

Christopher J. Priest: Adventures in the Funnybook Game (52:25, 48mb)
The panel began with Priest receiving an Inkpot Award for his work in comics. Priest gave his history with Marvel and DC saying which books he edited and wrote, how he gave Joe Quesada and many other creators their first work and why, things that happened that were demoralizing, writing Green Lantern Sleepers prose books and how that made him want to write prose. He said somehow over his career he went from being a writer who worked on Spider-Man and Batman to a "black writer" and was only offered jobs on writing black characters. He talked about how today he is writing the new Deathstroke (who is not black) and went into some detail on how he's writing him as a villain, which characters will appear in the comic and more. He spoke about the difference between Marvel and DC, what it was like working at Marvel in the 80s and what caused him to get fired. He revealed what he did for Milestone as it was being formed and what he's doing for them now. He also said what characters he still wants to write and he talked about Green Lantern Emerald Dawn.

The New Comics Journalism: Representation for All (47:45, 43.7mb)
On the panel was moderator Heidi MacDonald (ComicsBeat.com), Brett Schenker (GraphicPolicy.com), Megan Purdy (WomenWriteAboutComics.com) and Mark Stack (ComicsBulletin.com). The group talked about what day jobs they were doing when they decided to write about comics, the history of their respective websites and how they get contributors, the attitudes of news sites now and how it compares to early TCJ, them looking at other sites and how they cover comics, how they deal with interviews that are given under the condition that they focus on upcoming product, the ethics in covering comics and working in them, why they keep writing about comics and where do they want comics journalism to go.

It Gets Geekier: How being Gay and Nerdy Turned out for the Best (52:22, 48mb)
Moderated by Joshua Yehl, the panelists were: James Tynion IV, Steve Orlando, Kris Anka, Noelle Stevenson and Brett White. Joshua started off on his campaign to get an openly gay character in Star Wars and have them named after his departed friend Christopher Andrew "Drew" Leinonen. Other topics discussed were when they felt scared to come out in comics, characters they liked growing up because they believed them to be gay or imagined them as gay, which comic stories affected them as gay people, characters they'd like to be gay, how they deal with homophobic creators and how that changes their relationship with their work.

George Clayton Johnson Memorial Panel (1:21:35, 74.6mb)
On the panel was Scott Smith, Clayton Moore, Floyd Norman, Jimmy Diggs, Craig Miller, Anthony Keith, Gene Henderson and moderator Greg Koudoulian. The group told funny stories about George, including one where Timothy Leary showed up at comic con and on TV he and George got into a discussion about the future with each one trying to outdo the other with more radical predictions. They said George was very smart and did a lot of research into the topics that he was interested in. Jimmy Diggs talked about meeting George and just thinking he was a cool guy and it wasn't until his 3rd time at Comic Con after he revealed he got a job interning for Star Trek: TNG that George revealed he had written for the original series. Others also confirmed George was very low key about his important professional accomplishments. They also said George was very supportive of people, he was constantly meeting new fans, was genuinely interested in what they were doing, he would also talk positively to friends about you and your work. They talked about his writing an episode of Kung Fu and David Carradine directed it, many people in the audience also knew George and told stories about him. They also talked about the advice that George would give.

Comics Arts Conference #7: The Twisted Roots of Comics: Pulp Magazines (50:51, 46.6mb)
Panelists included Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, Gerard Jones, Nathan Vernon Madison, Brad Ricca and Michael Uslan. Peter Coogan gave an introduction. The group gave a general introduction to what Pulp Magazines were and why many Jews worked in the industry and in comics. Among the topics discussed were: Max Gaines, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, the origin of the pulps, the plagiarism of the pulps for early Superhero characters, they also revealed a new public database at PulpMags.org that has information on the pulps.

Comics Arts Conference #8: Costumes and Copyrights (50:48, 46.5mb)
Introduction was by Peter Coogan. Jeff Trexler questioned Susan Scafidi (Lawyer) and Cindy Levitt (Hot Topic). Susan started off talking about intellectual property law as it applies to fashion and gave several examples of how dress designs can be copied by other companies and the original designers can do very little about it. Susan did reveal where protections do exist and also discussed how one case she's involved in is surprisingly going to the Supreme Court. Cindy discussed getting licensed clothes from companies, how they come up with fashions for them, how the approval process works, and the likelihood of doing mashups between two different properties in today's environment. There was also discussion about how all this affects cosplay, what would be illegal and if companies would act on it to sue somebody.

Acquiring Distribution through Diamond Comics (41:34, 38.1mb)
The panelists had Jay Spence and Trevor Richardson, both brand managers at Diamond. The first talked about what Diamond is. They then discussed different methods of comics distribution and why you would submit to Diamond vs using other methods. They went through the submission process, what Diamond is looking for, creating comics vs publishing comics, the benefits of using a publisher - even a small one, researching the market, starting off with ongoing or limited series, the submission sheet details, having a marketing plan, things not to include, what Diamond is looking for, what to avoid, they said 9 brand managers reviews the comics and the decision is made by majority vote. They also talked about the tough sells, what's been popular and the math of making and selling a comic. The panel was cut short due to IT issues.

Spy Vixens and the Master of Kung Fu: Paul Gulacy (50:52, 46.6mb)
Paul Gulacy answered questions from Steve Mattsson and from the audience. Paul first talked about his early influences, meeting other pro's who lived In his area, breaking in comics, The Master of Kung Fu, Sabre, him quitting Marvel, Six from Sirius and working with paint. They talked briefly about a large number of characters he worked on including Batman, Deathlok, Shanna the She Devil, James Bond, Turok, Star Wars, Catwoman, Jonah Hex, Time Bomb and mentioned he was doing the Rook. Within this was discussion about frequent partner Doug Moench, Star Wars Toys and some proposals that almost went through.

Daniel Clowes Spotlight (42:35, 39mb)
Eric Reynolds talks with Daniel Clowes. Among the topics discussed are: His views on success, his first con and first panel, his son, future predictions, book cohesion, why he did his current book (Patience) as a spread, his books as movies, writing screen plays, looking back on his work, how he refines his process over time, how he comes up with dialogue, his original art, how he chooses which idea to make into a comic, a part of Wilson appearing in the New Yorker, getting the voices of the characters, a book that he abandoned and his views on collaboration. [Note: I came in about 5 minutes late for this panel]

Comics Arts Conference #11: Trina Robbins Spotlight (51:29, 47.1mb)
Kathleen McClancy gave an introduction and Jennifer K. Stuller interviewed Trina Robbins about her career. They started with Trina's youth, her time in LA as a fashion designer, an acid trip that lead to her being published, getting published in the East Village Other, Trina meeting Joni Mitchel and how one of Joni's songs references Trina, moving to San Francisco, It Ain't Me Babe, Wimmen's Comix, Obscenity Laws and how they shut down the headshops, Paper Dolls, Vampirella's costume, books she worked on, Wonder Woman, Meet Misty, Barbie, Go Girl and Honey West. She talked about her women history books, Friends of Lulu, her collection of original art by female cartoonists that is in museums, what work she's proudest of and a reprint of work she did in the 80s that will be coming out soon.

Celebrating 40 years of Fantagraphics (43:15, 39.6mb)
On the panel was Gary Groth, Eric Reynolds, Daniel Clowes, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez and Simon Hanselmann. Among the topics discussed are how they survived 40 years, how their readers have changed during that time, the decision to have the characters in Love and Rockets grow older, the appeal of Love and Rockets to female readers, what "makes" a book a Fantagraphics book, surprise hits, Gary's relationship with Charles Shultz and Peanuts in particular and how the books helped stabilized the company financially. Simon discussed growing up loving Fantagraphic books and becoming part of the family, Clowes said he submits his books finished and the only thing Fantagraphic changes if fix a few typos, Jaime talked about letting the characters write the story, Clowes and the Hernandez Bros discussed if they thought they'd still be doing comics all these years later, Gary told a funny story about a submission from an 87 year old man. The group also talked about Kim Thompson, how he got involved with the company, what he brought to it and some funny stories about him.

Mike Baron Spotlight (38:35, 35.3mb)
Mike discussed defining what your story is as it helps when doing your proposal, the purpose of the story, creating a protagonist, doing an outline before writing, needing to surprise yourself in order to surprise the reader, needing to be entertaining and original and dragging your protagonist through hell. He spoke about what characters and books he loved growing up. He compared music and comics saying where the two are similar. He also spoke about his Flash run and what he would do with the Punisher if he was writing him today. Mike revealed what he's writing now in terms of prose books and said a new Badger Comic was coming out soon.

The Best and Worst Manga of 2016 (49:43, 45.5mb)
Moderated by Chris Butcher, panelists included Deb Aoki, David Brothers, Eva Volin and Brigid Alverson. The group went through several categories: Best New Manga for Kids and Teens, Best New Manga for Grown Ups, Best Continuing Manga for Kids and Teens, Best Continuing Manga for Adults, Worst Manga for Everybody, Underrated but Great Manga, Most Anticipated New Manga and Most Wanted Manga. They limited their discussion of the specific books to under a minute (with an alarm going off if they went over) for a fast and furious roundtable of the past year's manga.

Darwyn Cook Tribute (51:21, 47mb)
The panelists included many of Darwyn's friends including: Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Bruce Timm, Cully Hamner, Frank Tieri, Mark Chiarello, Mike Allred, Scott Dunbier, Shelly Bond and Laura Allred. They started off reading a letter from Darwyn's wife Marsha who couldn't be there. The group talked about his work on Catwoman, Bruce Timm talked about him working for Batman: The Animated Series, lots of funny stories were told about Darwyn as he was a character. Mark Chiarello talked about finding Darwyn's work in a slush pile and trying to hire him but he just accepted animation work. Mike and Laura Allred talked about doing conventions with Darwyn. Scott Dunbier talked about editing Darwyn on the Spirit, his loyalty and attending his Wedding, Shelly Bond talked about setting up Darwyn and Gilbert Hernandez working together at Vertigo.

The Complete Wimmen's Comix: A Her-story (48:08, 44.1mb)
On this panel were a number of founders and contributors of the underground All Wimmen's Comix anthology. They were Trina Robbins, Terre Richards, Sharon Rudahl, Lee Marrs, Rebecka Wright, Mary Fleener, Joan Hilty and Barbara "Willy" Mendes. Trina started off by reading an introduction, Terre talked about how inclusive the group was to beginner comic artists and how many of them spread off into the mainstream, they discussed being welcomed at San Diego Comic Con, each panelist discussed what they were doing prior to Wimmen's Comix and what they are doing now, the International contributors to the book and how it was reprinted outside of the US, reactions from men in the underground movement, they specifically called out Spain Rodriguez as being supportive as his mother was an artist, they also said how they were told Gay comic creators have since followed their lead in doing their own books.

YA? Why Not? The Importance of Teen and Young Adult Comics (46:47, 42.8mb)
Sierra Hahn moderated this panel with Hope Larson, Raina Telgemeier, Cecil Castellucci, James Dashner and Brenden Fletcher. The group introduced themselves and talked about the power that comics had on them, writing for Young Adults, they discussed the differences between the bookstore and direct market for YA books, where to shelve books in stores and libraries, Adult readers of YA books, inspiring kids to read and write, how they decide what content is too adult for YA books and what backlash they've received and the digital market for YA books.

Emily Carroll Spotlight (46:52, 42.9mb)
Adam Conover interviewed Emily Carroll. They talked about Emily growing up, learning art, her first webcomic, the pacing of webcomics and adaptations into print, which ideas for comics she peruses based on her abilities, learning how to write horror, what the forest is doing in her comics, her love of horror movies, scary fairy tales, her work on a video game, artistic tools she uses, the desire to do long form comics, how to work through the feeling that the comic is not working out right, her influences, not having an editor on webcomics vs having one on a print book, her graphic design sense and her lettering.

Fan vs Pro Comic Book Trivia Contest (34:09, 31.1mb)
Tom Galloway was the moderator. The fan team consisted of Derek McCaw, Peter S. Svensson and from the audience David Crowe. The Pro's were Len Wein, Paul Levitz and Glenn Hauman. The questions were about Watchmen, Jimmy Olsen, Captain America, Blackhawk, Black Canary, Speedster heroes, Captain Comet, Justice Society of America, Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Mr. Miracle, The Aton, Space Ghost, Wonder Woman, Justice League of America, Hawkman, Plastic Man and Green Arrow.

Making a Living in Manga: From Fan to Pro (53:31, 49mb)
[Panel Recording and Picture by Deb Aoki of MangaComicsManga.com] It’s one thing to cosplay at a con and draw fan art, but how can you turn your passion for manga, anime, and cosplay into a real career? Get the real deal on what it takes to make the leap from fan to pro from people who know what it takes to succeed, as well as the common pitfalls to avoid. Join Lillian Diaz-Pryzbyl (head of comics, Sparkler Monthly), Christopher Butcher (director, Toronto Comic Arts Festival), Mark DeVera (publishing sales manager, VIZ Media), Misaki C. Kido (marketing director, Kodansha Advanced Media), Mari Morimoto (translator, Naruto), Marlene First (editor, VIZ Media), Erik Ko (director, Udon Entertainment) and Maria Victoria Robado (artist/letterer/ colorist, Jem) as they talk about how they turned their passion for manga, anime and cosplay into a career and what they look for when they’re hiring artists, writers and editors. Discussion and Q&A session moderated by Deb Aoki (Publishers Weekly, Anime News Network)

Manga Publishing Pros Industry Roundtable (56:14, 51.4mb)
[Panel Recording and Picture by Deb Aoki of MangaComicsManga.com] After a few years of fading fortunes, manga publishing is catching its second wind. More manga and light novels are hitting the shelves in bookstores and comic shops, and more titles than ever are available in digital formats the same day/date as in Japan. So have things truly turned around for Japanese comics in North America? Get a taste of what's hot, what's not, and what's next for manga in North America and Japan from top publishing pros, including Kurt Hassler (publisher and managing director, Yen Press), Michael Gombos (director of international publishing and licensing, Dark Horse Comics), Ben Applegate (associate director, publisher services, Penguin Random House), Erik Ko (chief of operations, Udon Entertainment) and Stu Levy (TOKYOPOP). Moderated by Deb Aoki (Publishers Weekly, Anime News Network).

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2016 (July 22) - 100 Photos

2016 Will Eisner Awards (3:13:23, 177mb)
The 2016 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator. The Awards were hosted by John Barrowman. Among the presenters were Lynda Barry, Matt Groening, Mike and Laura Allred, Michael Trucco, Annie Wersching, Bill Morrison, Kayre Morrison, Anina Bennett, Phil LaMarr, Drew Roy, Chris Gorham, Beau Smith and the cast of Wyatt Earp, Ron Wimberly, Jason Latour, Andrew Aydin, Congressman John Lewis and Nate Powell. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Hall of Fame was presented by Sergio Aragonés. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam. The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2016 (May 13 - 15) - 80 Photos

Note: Friday May 13th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 14-15th.
Keynote Speech by Ryan North (1:02:06, 56.8mb)
Introduction by Kalervo Sinervo. Ryan talked about the desire to go back in time and make changes. He spoke about technology and when things were discovered, but were not utilized for many years later. Among these were writing, then comics and particularly the word balloon. He spoke about how the word balloon changed and evolved over the years. Ryan also showed examples about how when humanity really wants people to understand something, they use comics to say it. This could be in the form of promotional or informative comics to warning labels. There was a Q&A where Biff, Bam, Pow articles get discussed, graphic novels being racked in bookstores together instead of the by genre with other books, Dinosaur comics and continuing to write it, working for Marvel and their characters and writing for a specific audience.

Touchy Subjects (1:03:17, 57.9mb)
Moderated by Scott Robins, panelists include Cory Silverberg, Matt Holm and Fatma Faraj. Cory talked about Sex is a Funny Word and it’s touchy subjects of showing naked bodies, masturbation and sexual abuse. Matt discussed Sunny Side Up which deals with Sunny’s older brother having drug and behavioral problems, plus her grandfather who is still smoking despite having “quit” and how these things affect the family. Fatma talked about her experience as a Librarian stocking these titles and the discussion they bring about. The group talked about paranoid parents and kids being their own censors and questions coming from kids regarding their books. Scott and Fatma spoke about Amulet, Drama, Child Soldier, Chiggers, In Real Life, Yummy and gave a should out to This One Summer and how each of those books have dealt with touchy subjects. Q&A was about triggers for kids with problems, librarians being too strong when they self censor and how they combat it.

Comics and Mental Health (51:00, 46.6mb)
Cory Silverberg was the moderator, panelists included jes sachse, Tory Woollcott, Jason Bradshaw and Jenn Woodall. The group started by introducing themselves and their books, all of them had self published a book about their particular issue. Cory then asked about terminology, what they find offensive and what terms they prefer. They discussed what annoys them about depictions of mental health in pop culture and why possibly they are presented that way. During Q&A they talked about mental health as a plot device and something that can be “fixed.” They panelists had suggestions for what was needed for more stories to be published about mental health.

Reformation (58:33, 53.6mb)
Moderated by Naomi Bain, on the panel was Krystal Tabujara, Amelia Ruthven Nelson, Fadia Jerome-Smith and David Brothers. The group first defined what diversity was and showed the new Ontario Guidelines for making schools more diverse. They gave some stats showing how teaching staff and published authors do not match the diversity of the general population. David talked about the black superhero characters he was exposed to growing up and also Milestone Media and why that was important to him. The panel then broke the audience into groups based on what age group they dealt with (or wanted to focus on) and the panelists spoke to those groups about which books would be good for those groups. They engages in a discussion with the audience in this manner. At the end they all came back for a quick Q&A. During the breakout session I traveled from group to group and while there is some background chatter you can usually hear the main speaker(s) okay.

Manga for Adults (1:09:46, 63.8mb)
On this panel was Brigid Alverson, David Brothers, Peggy Burns and Christopher Butcher and showing up late was Calvin Reed. The group talked about good manga books for adult readers. They said some of the manga audience are in adulthood and this panel was suggestions for which books to use to keep them reading. They started with The Pushman & Other Stories and a Drifting Life. Peggy said they published those reading left to right (ie “flipped”) in order to get non Manga adult readers to read the books. They said this was done with creator Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s permission (as he had a hard time reading the opposite way when it comes to North American comics) and he helped in rearranging the artwork. Among the other books discussed were Onward To Our Nobel Deaths, Showa: A History of Japan – 1926-1989, Vegabond, Real, Emma, A Bride’s Story, Vinland Saga, Planetes, OPUS, Ghost in the Shell, Pluto, Children of the Sea, Solannin, Nijigahara Holograph, Goodnight Punpun, Gensiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture, Tekkonkinkreet: Black and White, Sunny, Not Simple, Nana, Helter Skelter: Fashion Unfriendly, Pink, Ooku: the Inner Chambers, Sakuran, In Clothes Called Fat, Oishinbo ala Carte, What Did You Eat Yesterday and Massive. Peggy revealed that she though Vertical published really good Manga for Adults and when Drawn and Quarterly started publishing Manga they based themselves off what Vertical was doing.

The Graphic Novel Revolution and How it Changed Comics (1:24:58, 77.7mb)
The introduction was done by Christopher Butcher. The moderator was Heidi MacDonald and on the panel was Brian K. Vaughan, Annie Koyama, Andy Brown and Mark Siegel. The group started off telling their origin of becoming publishers and what made them want to do it. They explained what books were their storytelling idol and how submissions have changed. Brian spoke about how creators can do more with comics now, particularly with Image. Mark said when he started First Second he published books for all age groups and tries to sell them in all markets, which is very unusual for New York Publishing imprints. He said American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang was a major breakthrough for the publisher and after it won the Printz Award (which means a lot of Library sales for years and years) suddenly other major book publishers started doing Graphic Novels. Andy Brown talked about Michel Rabagliati and Annie spoke about Michael DeForge and Jesse Jacobs. Brian said he worked on TV shows for about a year and his wife ordered him to start writing comic books again so he’d have an outlet for his not acceptable to TV ideas. The group also spoke of the next big challenge in comics. Within the Q&A Mark said which markets are harder to crack, which lead to Annie and Andy talking about the Direct Market and how the Diamond Comics minimums forced indy publishers to do Graphic Novels. Brian revealed that Digital distribution helped Saga. They group also discussed taking the increased awareness about comics and converting it into sales.

Spotlight: Brian K. Vaughan and Steve Skroce: We Stand On Guard (51:08, 46.8mb)
This panel was moderated by Barry Hertz. Among the topics discussed were how the Brian and Steve met, adding the Canadian flavour to the work, the depiction of why the war happened, doing a torture scene with virtual reality, Steve designing robots, doing additional stories, killing characters, Brian’s writing and his politics, Ottawa being destroyed, working with Image, adaptation of the book into other media, Brian and Steve discuss working in comics vs working in TV/Film, Brian’s lack of knowledge of French, how Brian works with artists, Brian’s advice on breaking into comics, avoiding stereotypes, comics being an artists medium, the reaction from people in the letter pages.

Black Comics: Comics and Race (1:00:15, 55.1mb)
On the panel was Marguerite Abouet (and her translator), Bill Rosarium, Taneka Stotts, Spike C. Trotman, Richie Pope and the panel was moderated by David Brothers. The group spoke about why they got into comics, Bill’s recent super successful Indiegogo campaign to raise money to publish comics, Spike’s seeing the evolution of opinions on Kickstarter, Marguerite’s unexpected success of the Aya series, collaboration and working with other people, they talked about how cartoons that apply race to things that do not need it (My Little Pony among them), growing up as a minority among white people and then being called “not black enough.”

Spotlight: Jennifer Hayden (54:08, 49.5mb)
Brigid Alverson moderated this panel. They first talked about the title to Jennifer’s book, The Story of My Tits. They discussed the humor in the book, the positives of her experience, the goddess image and how she used it, her mothers breast cancer, the deer motif in the book, how her “cartoony” style works for the serious chapters, the big balancing act between seriousness and light heartedness parts of the story, her family’s reaction to the book, Jennifer’s love of Charles Dickens and how his work influenced the book, how she learned to write and draw, her other books, both out now and coming soon, her method of working and there was a back and forth with her editor Leigh Walton regarding working with Top Shelf.

Spotlight: Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra (53:32, 49mb)
Moderated by Mark Medley, this panel featured the original Y: The Last Man editor Heidi MacDonald, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. Heidi talked about Brian pitching the series and how Pia joined as the artist. Brian spoke about coming up with Y and Pia explained what she was working on when she got hired for Y. Heidi said she knew Brian was ready for something big after reading his last issue of Swamp Thing. The group all talked about the Y world, what reaction they were expecting, the other creators on the book (inker, letterer, etc..), how the series progressed, changes they might have made if the series were being done today, how 911 affected the book, how Yorick was based on Brian, being invested in the series until the end, possible multimedia adaptations, among other topics.

Small Press (57:19, 52.4mb)
On the panel was Tucker Stone (NoBrow), Box Brown (retrofit), Patrick Crotty (Peow) and Raighne (2dcloud). Heidi MacDonald was the moderator. The group started with the how and why they started doing small press books. There was lots of talk about the difficulty of getting distribution and Diamond, the group also talked about the amount of sacrifice they’ve gone through and the lack of money. They also spoke about what makes all the struggle worthwhile. The various formats they published and why, how they find artists and what pitfalls to avoid were the other topics discussed.

Spotlight: Marguerite Abouet (55:05, 50.4mb)
Brigid Alverson interviewed Marguerite through translator Nathalie Atkinson. They discussed what other books beside Aya she’s done, how close Aya was to her life, how she created the characters, why it was set in the 1970s, the multiculturalism in the area, why the women appear to be smarter than the men, the African proverbs within the story, how homosexuality was treated in Africa back then, Women getting respect and awards in the French comics community, her journey to become a writer and getting Aya published which includes a funny story involving Joann Sfar, the voices in the Aya animated film and what medium she prefers to work in and why.

Spotlight: Chester Brown (47:34, 43.5mb)
The panel was moderated by sex worker and activist Alex Tigchelarr. Chester started with a reading of the Hymn of the Pearl which was in the Drawn and Quarterly 25 Anniversary book that was published a year ago, he then read from his new book Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus. He spoke about what started his interest in the stories, sex work and Mary Magdalene, Chester’s process of creating this book, STDs, the criminalization of sex work & the catholic church and Chester’s research into the alternative interpretations for these biblical stories.

The Doug Wright Awards 2016 (May 14) - 22 Photos

Full 12th Annual Doug Wright Awards (1:07:45, 62mb)
The Awards were presented by Dustin Harbin, Seth, Jeet Heer, Joe Ollmann, Chester Brown, Heidi MacDonald, Chris Kuzma, Maurice Vellekoop, Nathalie Atkinson and Betty Liang.

The nominees for the 2016 Doug Wright Award for Best Book are:
Dressing by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press) - Winner
Melody by Sylvie Rancourt (Drawn & Quarterly)
Palookaville #22 by Seth (Drawn & Quarterly)
Step Aside, Pops! by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)
Stroppy by Marc Bell (Drawn & Quarterly)
SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

The nominees for the 2016 Doug Wright Spotlight Award ("The Nipper") which recognizes Canadian cartoonists deserving of wider recognition are:
Ted Gudlat for Funny Ha-Has (Roads Publishing)
Dakota McFadzean for Don't Get Eaten By Anything (Conundrum Press) - Winner
Rebecca Roher for Mom Body (The Nib)
Sabrina Scott for Witchbody (Self-Published)
Kat Verhoeven for Towerkind (Conundrum Press)

The nominees for the 2016 Pigskin Peters Award, which recognizes unconventional, experimental, or avant-garde Canadian comics are:
Leather Vest by Michael Comeau
New Comics #6-7 by Patrick Kyle - Winner
Intelligent Sentient? by Luke Ramsey (Drawn & Quarterly)
We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians by Tin Can Forest and Geoff Berner
Agalma by Stanley Wany (Éditions Trip)

James Simpkins was inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, aka “Giants of the North” by Seth. The award was accepted by his grandson.
There was a remembrance of Alvin Buenaventura and Darwyn Cooke who both passed away recently.
Jury statements on the Award winners have been made available.

King Con 2016 (March 12 - 13) - 29 Photos

Dan Parent Panel (56:56, 52.1mb)
This panel was moderated by Adam Pottier. Dan talked about going to the Joe Kubert School and getting work at Archie. He spoke all the changes at Archie over the years and where they came from. Dan discussed the various Archie comics from the marriage, the odd crossovers (Kiss, Predator, Sharknado), various characters in the Archie world, how different Archie books are aimed at different markets and demographics, Archie's cartoons and upcoming live action pilot for a TV show, the Die Kitty Die comics that he funded on Kickstarter and the status of it. He also spoke of his love of Harvey Comics.

In Conversation with Seth (1:01:00, 55.9mb)
This panel was moderated by Justine Scala. They started by showing The Creek, one of the cartoons in the Seth documentary. Among the topics Seth talked about are why he does books, how digital has both helped and hurt printed books, why he works in blue/gray monochrome colours, his upcoming memoir called Nothing Lasts, what comics he read as a kid and what inspired him to buy comic books. He also spoke of his love for Peanuts, how he and his contemporaries did comic book history research, his creating imaginary worlds and working for the New Yorker. He said he is trying to art direct his world and he is trying to keep out the modern world. Seth revealed what book he is proudest of and why, his love of design and collaborating with talented people who can make his design come to life, how his float for the St. Catherines Parade created some controversy, why he does books instead of serialized comics, He also discussed the animation within the documentary, where he went to art school, why he created a model city (seen in the documentary), the picture language of comics, his views on memories and why he moved to Guelph.

San Diego Comic Con 2015 (July 8 - 11) - 72 Photos

Comics Arts Conference: Scholars Lost and Found (47:14, 42.2mb)
On this panel was Carol Tilley and Brad Ricca. Brad start off talking about an academic paper done in 1942 by Paul Cassidy, who was also an artist at the Siegel and Shuster shop and was assisting/ghosting Joe Shuster in drawing Superman comics. The paper was about the use of Ghost Artists. He conducted a questionnaire about the use of ghost artists in the industry and wrote about his own experience. Carol talked about a few other early academic papers she's come across. One from 1932 about kids reading Sunday Comic strips, 1933 on comic strips artists and their level of art training, 1938 on comics as children's literature and along the way also put together circulation figures of all Sunday Comic strips. The last two papers talked about was a 1942 one about Kids understanding editorial cartoons and a 1949 paper about comic book sales figures between 1935 and 1949. It was done by Charles Cridland who was the treasurer of comic book publisher David Mckay. He reveals his own companies numbers and gives estimates for his competitors.

Kevin Nowlan Spotlight (48:38, 44.5mb)
Jai Nitz interviews Kevin Nowlan after he receives an Inkpot award. They talked about how they two met and their friendship, there was a slide show of Kevin's work and discussed it. Among the topics discussed was his attention to detail, his breaking into comics with a Dr. Strange fill in under Al Milgrom, working on Marvel Fanfare, his colouring work, the hate mail generated when he did Defenders in a different style, Bruce Timm being influenced by him - which in turn was used for Batman: The Animated Series and other Bruce Tim cartoon series and movies, Nowlan inking Joe Quesada, a Batman story that was killed, his Superman covers and a new Conan story they are doing together.

Skottie Young Spotlight (55:08, 50.4mb)
Moderating this panel was Jim Viscardi. Among the topics discussed were his desire to draw and when he wanted to do it for a living, his influences, his early non-comics jobs, his run on Human Torch, finding his boundaries artistically, how drawing for animation changed his work, The Wizard of Oz, his favourite character to draw, the transition to writing, his upcoming creator owned book for Image, meeting Todd McFarlane and doing a Spawn cover.

Comic Con How To: Art Theft and the Law (51:29, 47.1mb)
On this panel was law professor Jack Lerner, Deviant Art's Josh Wattles and creator DJ Welch. Josh Wattles announced that Deviant Art is very aware of Art Theft being a problem for its users and announced Deviantart.com/arttheft as a new resource in how to combat it. They explained the differences between Art Theft, Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, Tracing, Copy/Mimicking, Appropriation, Fair Use and Resolving Disputes. DJ Welch talked about having his art used without his permission and how his fans were a big help in combating that. They also discussed Tumblr. As requested, the Q&A portion of this panel was not recorded so that artists asking about their specific situations could speak freely.

Comics Journalism: It's about Ethics in Comics Journalism (51:32, 47.1mb)
On the panel was Heidi MacDonald, Donna Dickens, James Viscardi, Casey Gilly, Joe Ilidge and Brett Schenker. The panel was moderated by Jeff Trexler. Jeff asked the question if neutral Comic reporting is dead? The group spoke about doing news from a personal point of view vs a straight reporting of the facts. They also talked about social media controversies, if they have any limits to what they report on, the comments they get from their readers and diversity in comics.

Will Eisner: The Champion of the Graphic Novel (51:11, 46.8mb)
This panel consisted of Paul Levitz, Jeff Smith, Sergio Aragonés, Denis Kitchen and Danny Fingeroth. Paul asked the group if Eisner's series of Graphic Novels is a more important influence on the comics industry than the Spirit, the group discussed Will's desire for respect for both himself and the comics medium. They said Will treated everybody as equals. Jeff Smith told a few funny stories about Will, they also talked about Burne Hogarth and answered questions about how Will's Graphic Novels did when they first came out and the difficulty for the market to rack and sell them.

The Twisted Root of Comics (49:57, 45.7mb)
On the panel were Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, Michael Uslan, Danny Fingeroth, Gerard Jones and Brad Ricca. Nicky had a slide show of pictures and the panellists jumped into identifying the places and people. The group talked about how there was a political crack down on the 'Spicy' books which drove some of the publishers into doing comic books. At the same time pulp books publishers were also getting into comic books too. Michael Uslan told a funny origin story of how Little Archie came about from a poker game among the publishers. They talked about how the early comic publishers knew each other, worked together and hung out socially. They discussed how the titles of some of the pulps and spicy books were used for comics. Nicky said the Major wanted to originally do comic strip adaptations of children's literature. They discussed how the early Superman & Batman characters borrowed/swiped from pulp characters. Nicky explained why the Major used original material for New Fun. They debated among themselves about the Superman discovery story and there is suspicion that the official story is not accurate. The group revealed information about The Major's being forced out of what would become DC comics and it's possible relation to Superman.

Bob Layton Spotlight (46:39, 42.7mb)
Bob Layton is interviewed by Michael Uslan. They first discussed their early friendship, Bob receiving a standing ovation at Hall H on an Iron Man panel, the group of comic creators to come out of Indiana and contributed to Bobs CPL fanzine, which included Roger Stern, John Byrne, Roger Slifer, Steven Grant (who was in the audience) and others. They talked about the group also doing Charlton's fanzine and then Bob being Wally Wood's assistant and later Dick Giordano's. Bob spoke passionately about Dick and how he was a father figure to him and really helped him out when he was young. He also spoke of being there with Dick during his last days. Michael Uslan told a story about how he met a young Sam Ramni at a comic convention that Bob put on in 1975. Bob told the story of how he broke into Marvel, how he went to DC and how he convinced David Michelinie to come over to Marvel with him and work on Iron Man. Bob revealed that Iron Man was slated for cancelation and how he and David saved it from cancellation. The Demon in the Bottle story was brought up. Bob also said what happened to inker Jack Able after his stroke affected him and his career. Valiant Comics and Future Comics were also discussed about.

MARCH with Congressman John Lewis (57:04, 52.2mb)
An introduction was done by Leigh Walton and on the panel was Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powel. After the introduction Lewis gave a powerful speech about getting into 'good' trouble. He spoke about his youth raising chickens on a farm and preaching to them. He also spoke about the movement for equal rights, the fight against white and coloured only areas and called on the youth to learn the tactics and use them towards non-violent progress. Andrew talked about his pestering John to write a comic. He revealed that he learned that Martin Luther King had edited the Martin Luther King comic that inspired this comic. They discussed the success of getting March in schools and teachers using it to teach children this part of American history. There was also talk of the need for free post-secondary education, raising of the minimum wage, removal of voting restrictions, the confederate flag and other topics. Nate spoke about them making the book as historically accurate as possible so that it couldn't be challenged on that ground in schools and said they were even able to fill in some gaps of history through the process of making this book. He spoke about their process of making this book and the effects it's had on him and his kids.

Irwin Hasen Tribute (51:23, 47mb)
On this panel was Danny Fingeroth, Chelle Mayer, David Armstrong, Arie Kaplan, Michael Uslan and coming in late was Jim Salicrup. David started off about talking about a story about Irwin and Carmine Infantino. The entire panel told their story about meeting Irwin for the first time. They dicussed his early work and creating Wildcat. A video of a Jules Feiffer interview regarding Irwin was played. David Armstrong explained the mutual admiration Irwin and Tooth had for each other with Tooth saying Irwin was a major influence on him. The group also talked about Irwin getting into the Will Esiner Hall of Fame and receiving the Award at New York Comic Con. Towards the end, the group shared stories of Irwin.

The Best and Worst Manga of 2015 (46:50, 42.8mb)
Moderated by Deb Aoki on the panel was David Brothers, Brigid Alverson, Eva Volin and Christopher Butcher. After introductions the group started with discussing their picks for the Best New Books for Kids and Teens, Best New Books for Adults, Best Continuing Books for Kids and Best Continuing Books for Adults. They then discussed the Worst Manga for any age, Underrated but Great Manga, their most Anticipated New Manga and their Most Wanted Manga.

The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel (1:04:05, 58.6mb)
Mark Evanier, J. David Spurlock, Marv Wolfman, Rob Liefeld and Paul S Levine discussed Jack Kirby. Mark started off with getting people in the audience to make their new announcements relating to Kirby's work. Mark then talked about the lawsuit being over and he, Jack's family and he feels, Jack and Roz would be very happy with the settlement. Mark said he was at the first X-men movie with Stan Lee and stayed until the very end and was very angry that Jack's name was in very small type at the end of the film and has refused to watch Marvel films since. Mark also said that during his time of hearing Jacks version of events and talking with many other people who were at Marvel at the time (Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Dick Ayers, Stan Lee, etc..) he is convinced that Jack's version of events is accurate and Jack was an honest man who wasn't trying to take credit for thing he did not do. Rob Liefeld talked about meeting Jack, his love of Jack and doing Phantom Force. Mark said Jack and Roz was very happy for the large amount of money they received from Image for that work and it meant more to them than many tributes given to them in other non-monetary ways. Mark and Spurlock spoke of the mutual respect that Kirby and Wood had for each other and Spurlock confirmed Jack's honesty. Spurlock spoke about Wally Wood, saying he left around the same time Ditko did and felt Jack would have left too if he wasn't blacklisted at DC and had a family to feed. Mark said Jack and Wood would keep in touch after Wood left Marvel and encouraged him in his projects. Marv Wolfman talked about meeting Jack as a kid and his love of Kamandi. Everybody (Except Paul Levine) spoke about the one comic they thought that best represented Jack Kirby. Rob in particular mentioned the Galactus Saga in Fantastic Four. He also told a story about how Jim Valentino, when the two had a studio together, ordered Rob to read FF 1 - 100, which he did and was very thankful for. He said earlier in his career he was trying to draw like George Perez, but would later switch to Jack.

From Comics to Animation (55:32, 50.8mb)
Moderator Mark Waid talks with Jhonen Vasquez, Jill Thompson, Reginald Hudlin, Michael DeForge, Jerry Beck and eventually Lalo Alcaraz who came in a bit late. Jerry Beck talked a bit about the early relationship between comics and animation going back to Windsor McKay. The group discussed how working in one field influenced their work in the other. Jill Thompson told us about the history of her Scary Godmother book first being adapted into a play and then into animation. The group discussed dealing with decisions made from higher ups and how frustrating they are and Reginald talked about the view point from the executive position. Reginald also spoke about how the Black Panther cartoon came about. Lalo spoke of his transition into animation and how he now had a new found appreciation for cartoonists. Jhonen said he taking Invader Zim back into comics and it's strange how people want the character to suddenly go 'dark' and be different than his animation personality. Regarding comics and animation Michael said what he liked about both formats. Jerry expressed that we are currently in a golden age for comic creators working in animation. Jill expressed that because of new software, one doesn't need to know as much about animation in order to create a cartoon. There was also an audience Q&A where the panel answered questions on working in other mediums, motion comics and pitching projects.

Chip Zdarsky: A Life (47:24, 43.4mb)
Chip Zdarsky is interviewed by Juliette Capra. Among the topics of Chips career were talked about are his art school, his early self published books Monster Cops and Prison Funnies, his starting a studio with Kagan Mcleod and Cameron Stewart, real people appearing in his comics and him appearing in Marvel comics, the letters page in Sex Criminals, Jughead, working within a shared universe, Sex Criminals #11 and the random sketch covers, how Sex Criminals came about, Mark Waid made a surprise appearance to ask Chip what's his favourite Justice Society of America character is, Chip's dream project at Marvel, what he can get away with while writing for Marvel, Sex Criminals translated into other languages, Comixology not being able to offer #3 because of Apple restrictions, his working for the National Post newspaper - particularly the Todd Diamond video skits and running for Mayor of Toronto. There was constant laughter from the audience throughout this panel.

Pro vs. Fan Trivia Match (44:28, 40.7mb)
Moderated by Derek McCaw. The Fan side is Tom Galloway, Peter S. Svensson and David Oakes. The Pro side is Len Wein, Anthony Tollin and Mark Waid. The questions range from 1956 to 1985 and are about The Joker, The Spectre, Hydra, The X-Men, Justice Society of America, Robin, Catwoman, Captain America, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Metamorpho, Dr. Fate and the Elongated Man.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2015 (July 10) - 91 Photos

2015 Will Eisner Awards (2:31:45, 138mb)
The 2015 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator. Among the presenters were Bill and Kayrne Morrison, Anina Bennett, Edward James Olmos, Shane West, Tara Ochs, Michael and Laura Allred, Katrina Law, Megan Hayes, J. Michael Trautmann, Kandyse McClure, Tahmoh Penikett, Orlando Jones, Michael Davis, Scott McCloud, Jill Thompson, Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman and Jonathan Ross. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Hall of Fame was presented by Sergio Aragonés. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam. The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2015 (May 8 - 10) - 226 Photos

Note: Friday May 8th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 9-10th.

Protecting Comics: Graphic Novel Challenges in Today's Libraries (54:27, 48.9mb)
Presented by Charles Brownstein of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Charles starts off with a small history of how comics became thought of as being only for children. He then gave some statistics of Challenged and Banned Graphic Novels in both Canada and the US. He explained the path to censorship, why people try to ban comics, a list of top challenged books in both countries, the book challenges they are dealing with right now (This One Summer, Palomar, The Graveyard Book, Bone, Fun Home & Persepolis), how libraries can cope with challengers, managing the challenges and the resources available. They did a Q & A with the audience and addressed issues with cultural differences, particularly with European views on nudity books marked for children, older books with offensive depictions of race and how to respond to that.

Do it yourself Comic Con (1:02:45, 57.4mb)
This panel had Eva Volin, Liz Coates (Librarians) and Sven Larsen (Papercutz) talk about doing Comic Cons within a Library. Eva and Liz spoke about their Comic Con like events they held at their Libraries, with very little in ways of staff or money. Eva talked about first deciding who the convention is for in terms of demographics, she recommended partnering with the local comic book store for advice and assistance. She spoke of passive programming that can be done and gave examples, getting free comics, getting creators to visit via Skype, finding people in the community who can be a resource and borrowing ideas from other events, she also said afterwards it's good to promote the event by putting up pictures of it as it helps affirm it's success and helps it grow. Liz talked about the recent King Con even in Kingston, ON. She talked about the programming, funding, partnering with local stores, challenges she faced and the creators she was able to bring in. Sven spoke about helping these events from the publisher side. He said publishers are willing to give free stuff to help the event, but not likely books as they are trying to sell them. He said you may not get publishers co-operation on getting creators to go to the events because they want the creator working on their books so he recommended going to the creators themselves. He also gave some advice about dealing with publishers, saying not all publishers are equal when it comes to supporting these types of events. He advised in when you contact them and what information you should give the publisher about your show. Charles Brownstein came up and talked about how CBLDF is putting together of resources of creators who are willing to do Library visits. Sven also suggested using local publishers to assist with the show. There was Q&A and among the topics were School Libraries doing similar type events, how to approach your supervisor with the idea and having your paperwork ready in terms of by-laws and permits.

Big Comics Q&A: Classrooms (52:46, 48.3mb)
On this panel was Leslie Holwerda and Glen Downey. Leslie talked about introducing comic activities through her Library classes. Kids love using comics to learn and it shows the popularity of Graphic Novels beyond circulation numbers. Among the things her lessons include is having kids find particular things within the comics, she gave 3 Canadian Graphic Novels that she uses and she has the kids find things within the comic, discussion questions, assessment opportunities and feedback. She also talked about a Superhero Battle program that kids were excited for. She had the kids read just beyond the white male heroes for diversity. Glen Downey spoke about 3 principals for Comics in the Classroom, Tradition, Vocabulary and Applying what they learn. On Tradition he talks about the history of the comic form from Cave Paintings to today. He says this is important as it gives the art form legitimacy and helps make the medium as important as Literature and Art. He says that some people see Comics as a part of just literature which he thinks is limiting and not fully accurate. He says vocabulary is important because kids will talk about comics in the same way they will books and are not able to express what they are seeing. He says we should teach the terms (GNs and Comics) and their conflict. Doug also explained how studying comics helps kids with their writing.

Book Talk: Diverse Graphic Novels (57:06, 52.2mb)
The presenter was Andrew Woodrow-Butcher. Along with him were creators Tory Woollcott (Mirror Mind), Kat Verhoeven (Towerkind) and Beguiling Employee Rebecca Scoble. Both Tory and Kat talked about their books and what makes them different. Rebecca discussed Mahou Josei Chumaka and Offbeat, two books who feature diverse characters. Andrew then talked about a number of books including, Luz, Hidden, Where Babies Comic From, Lola, Drama, Rainy Day Recess, Kevin Keller, El Deafo, A Game For Swallows, Adventure Time, The Bravest Warrior, Runaways, A Graphic Guide adventure series and many others. He also gave reasons for each one and usually their target age groups.

TCAF 2015 Kick-Off Event: D&Q 25! (1:13:15, 67mb)
Chris Butcher started off the kick-off event and gave thanks to various people who help put the convention together. He talked about his first exposure to Drawn and Quarterly comics when he was young and working for a different retailer. He also talked about the company's growth. Chris Oliveros came up and spoke about TCAF, how important they are and how they've supported the company. Then the panel started with Sean Rogers interviewing an all star line up of Jillian Tamaki, Jason Lutes, Seth, Adrian Tomine and Lynda Barry. The group first talked about their latest books, then went into when they joined Drawn and Quarterly. Seth gave his early history with the company and his first impressions of Charles, Jillian spoke of the sense of community with the publisher, Adrian said he loved the D & Q line and wanted to be a part of it, Jason talked about his coming out of art school, not really sure of what to do with himself, interning at Fantagraphics and finding the indy comics scene to be very sombre. He began to self-publish, then a smiling Chris wanted to publish him. Lynda gave her sad but funny history of working in comics prior to working with Chris. Seth and others talked about one of the first major creators D&Q published, Julie Doucette and her impact on comics, particularly women doing comics. The group also spoke about digital and print versions of books, limitations and how they can learn from them. Peter Birkemoe also spoke about Drawn and Quarterly.

The New Mainstream (1:03:44, 58.3mb)
Moderated by Chris Butcher, this panels line up was Ryan North, Karl Kerschl, Brenden Fletcher, Babs Tarr, Ray Fawkes, Cameron Stewart and Chip Zdarsky. The group spoke about the experience of going from indy comics to "mainstream" comics, getting push back on their work while working on their books, universe continuity getting involved in their stories, the different audience and people not liking their work, creating different costumes for the characters and the reactions they get from them, a characters long history and how they deal with it, keeping characters in their iconic state for long term readability purposes, being Canadian (except Babs Tarr) and is there a reason they are now all doing mainstream comics, their goals for their books, the benefits of working with editors, writing single issues and writing for a trade at the same time, stuff they want to sneak into the books and writing for a specific audience.

Spotlight: Gurihiru (1:03:38, 58.2mb)
Deb Aoki talks to the Japanese art team of Guihiru. They are Chifuyu Sasaki and Naoko Kawano and have been working on North American comics for a number of years now. Through their translator they talked about their work on Avatar the Airbender, A Babies vs X Babies and how they and Scottie Young created the babies version of the characters. They also revealed which baby character they did not like drawing and why. They fondly reminisced of their time on Thor and the Warriors Four. They revealed why they started working for North American publishers, their preference to work in colour, their work prior to North American publishers and the adjustments they had to make. They revealed the had created a Star Wars Japanese - English dictionary, a picture book for an Australian publisher and mentioned their colouring of Raina Telegmeier's Smile. The conversation shifted to their process from layout sketches to a finished page, working in pen and ink and in digital, how they collaborate when they work, how they schedule their way of working on a book and juggling multiple projects at once, arguments they have and how they resolve them, why they decided to work under a single name and how they met. It was requested that no pictures be taken of them, as many Japanese creators like to keep their privacy. The influences of US comics on Japan was brought up, with them mentioning Spawn, Neal Adams, Frank Frazatta were very popular in Japan. The audience asked if they were interested in writing, the number of female artists in Japan and their reaction to the amount in North America.

What do Women Want? Writing Comics for a female audience (1:03:26, 58mb)
On this panel was Brenden Fletcher, Sam Maggs, Sydney Padua, Sandra Bell-Lundy, Svetlana Chmakova and the panel was moderated by Lianne Sentar. Topics discussed were pitching comics aimed at female readers and the reaction they get from that, web comics and female readers, female fans and their feedback, why female lead books are seen as 'female' books but books with male leads are seen as 'universal', how writing for a female audience affects their writing, books they recommend for female readers, what proportions they decide to use when designing and drawing the female figure and their favourite female characters.

Truth & Intimacy in Graphic Memoir (52:00, 47.6mb)
Moderated by Johanna Draper Carlson, panelists included Raina Telgemeier, Dustin Harbin, Etienne Davodeau and joining part way through was John Porcellino. The group started off describing their work, then they discussed how true are their stories, what they include and exclude, how people who've been depicted in their books reacted, why they started doing graphic memoir, the most difficult part of doing the work, whether people respond more to sad or happy stories and what other artists doing graphic memoir were they influenced by.

Drawn and Quarterly: Ask Me Anything (52:02, 47.6mb)
Chris Oliveros, Peggy Burns and Tom Devlin answers Heidi MacDonald's questions on a variety of topics including what role Chris now plays within the company now that he's stepping down, what Peggy and Tom will be doing and what will happen to their old roles, why Chris started publishing comics, doing the D&Q anthology and what inspired it, former publisher Vortex and wooing Chester Brown away from them, Peggy's history of working at DC and moving to D&Q, Tom history with his former Highwater Comics company and how he ended up working for D&Q, the company's surviving the 90s and their transition to publishing Graphic Novels & adapting to the book market, their first big successful Graphic Novel, the amount of Good cartoonists and keeping up with them all, the title of Chris's new book and when it's coming out, how the group works when picking what they publish, which new book they are all excited about, how long it took for D&Q to make money, the cost of living in Montreal, their future goals, Kim Thompsons death and how Chris wanted his company to outlive him not only to a 2nd generation but to a 3rd as well.

The Doug Wright Awards 2015 (May 9) - 28 Photos

Full 11th Annual Doug Wright Awards (1:10:24, 46.4mb)
The Awards were presented by David Collier, Don McKellar, Lynda Barry, Seth, Brad Mackay, Conan Tobias and Zach Worton.

The nominees for the 2015 Doug Wright Award for Best Book are:
Ant Colony by Michael DeForge (Drawn & Quarterly)
Fatherland by Nina Bunjevac (Jonathan Cape/Random House)- Winner
Safari Honeymoon by Jesse Jacobs (Koyama Press)
The People Inside by Ray Fawkes (Oni Press)
This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (Groundwood)

The nominees for the 2015 Doug Wright Spotlight Award (a.k.a. “The Nipper”) which recognizes Canadian cartoonists deserving of wider recognition are:
Aaron Costain for Entropy #10
Elisabeth Belliveau for One Year in America (Conundrum Press)
Julie Delporte for Everywhere Antennas (Drawn & Quarterly)
Meags Fitzgerald for Photobooth: A Biography (Conundrum Press) - Winner
Simon Roy for Tiger Lung (Dark Horse)
Sophie Yanow for War of Streets and Houses (Uncivilized Books)

And the nominees for the 2015 Pigskin Peters Award, which recognizes unconventional, experimental, or avant-garde Canadian comics are:
Comics Collection 2010-2013 and Less than Dust by Julien Ceccaldi
Great Success! 1983-2013 by Henriette Valium (Crna Hronika)
New Comics #3-5 by Patrick Kyle (Mother Books)
Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention by Tings Chak (The Architecture Observer)
“Swinespritzen” by Connor Willumsen - Winner

The evening also saw long-time London Free Press editorial cartoonist Merle “Ting” Tingley inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, aka “Giants of the North”.
His award was accepted by his son Cameron Tingley

Emerald City Comic Con 2015 (March 27 - 29) - 48 Photos

Making Money with Creator Owned Comics (50:41, 46.4mb)
This panel was Jason Brubaker talking about the various ways of making money with creator owned comics. Among the topics discussed are: Giving away your work, Kickstarter unexpected expenses and depression, 1,000 true fans, focus on building a career, having a day job, publishing in print and in digital, doing exclusives in various forms of publishing, conventions, the various ways of making passive income, print on demand, licensing & merchadising, patreon, deviant art & tumbler vs your own website, monthly comics vs graphic novels, website ads & advertising, fanslaters translating his work and international publishing deals.

The Ins and Outs of Self Publishing with Kickstarter (54:08, 49.5mb)
On the panel was Paul Roman Martinez, Daniel Davis, Travis Hanson and Craig Engler (Kickstarter employee and also successful Kickstarter). They spoke about the following topics: E-mailing Kickstarter and getting advice before starting your campaign, creating an e-mail lists of fans, how much to ask for, what your biggest expenses are, how much to pad out your time and money requests due to unforeseen problems, how much are kickstarter and credit card processing fee's, paying an artist, the design and layout of the Kickstarter page, putting images and videos on your page, getting background music for your video, when you should start your campaign, for how long you campaigns should be and what to avoid, what awards to offer, the emotional rollercoaster that comes with a kickstarter campaign, social media advertising, the logistics of mailing out all the books and more.

How To Run a Comics Anthology and Not Screw It Up (52:33, 48.1mb)
Moderated by Kel McDonald, the panelists were Taneka Stotts, Sfe Monster and Spike Trotman. The group talked about how they got started doing anthologies, their successes, creating the types of anthologies that people want to buy, various ways of paying contributors, doing a mix of inviting friends to submit work and open call submissions, how to prepare for when people don't submit their work, rejecting submissions - including your friends and how some people handle that, the importance of a contract, exclusive and reprint rights for the stories, editing the work that was submitted were among the topics covered.

World Building in Comics (51:00, 46.7mb)
Panelists were Evan Dahm, Carla Speed McNeil and Greg Rucka. The moderator was Professor Ben Saunders. The group talked about the advantages that the comics medium has over prose and film with world building and they used a page of Carla's Finder to demonstrate this point. Rucka explained the difficulty of doing this in prose. Rucka also linked cosplay to people wanting to live in other worlds for a while. The group talked a bit about the world building in the original Star Wars. They agreed that establishing a mood is important to world building. Rucka said as an author you can get lost in your word building and you need to know when to stop building the world and move on with the story. Carla gave an example how in Finder a character ended up shaping the world in the series. They discussed other people reading into the world they created and gave what their worlds say about their real world view. They also discussed very wordy fantasy prose novels and the group recommended books for people to read.

Being Non-Compliant (46:24, 42.4mb)
Moderator was Patrick Reed from ComicsAlliance. On the panel were Noelle Stevenson, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Erika Moen, Kate Leth and eventually Spike Trotman. The group was asked what was Non Complaint and Kelly Sue gave a strong answer. Kate Leth talked about introducing queer characters to her all ages comic work, Erika Moen talked about teaching and dropping it of her own accord and just focusing on adult comics, Spike talked about how artists can do adult and kids material at the same time - something those that do kids material are afraid of doing. She said some artists do the adult material under a pseudonym so that it doesn't show up when a kid googles their name. The group spoke about diversity and men feeling threatened by it. They all talked about a twitter asshole who sends them all rape threats, but Noelle had a funny story of messing with the guy. They say it's weird how guys will love superhero ideas espoused by Captain America, then be mean towards women. They started talking about their heroes and the women going through gamergate hell are among them. Spike talked about how Dave Sim was her hero until issue 186 where she went into a tailspin going from loving and hating him at the same time. They spoke about the criticism of how women's stories are all about feelings which lead into about men's work having feelings too, but somehow that doesn't count. Spike talked about the success of her Smut Peddler anthology. The group also said what is uplifting to them. Note: There is swearing during this panel. I also spliced out my asking people permission for recording during the introduction.

Strip Tease: Adult Comics and the Perverts who draw them (1:31:17, 83.5mb)
On the panel was Blue Delliquanti, Leia Weathington, Spike Trotman and the panel was moderated by Erika Moen. Spike started off telling a story about how a former co-worker of hers stole somebody's credit card and used it to buy a bunch of stuff and they got arrested. The group introduced themselves and explained why they do porn. Blue talked about being Hetro on paper until she submitted a lesbian porn comic for the Smut Peddler anthology. The group talked about their sex education, their parents reactions to sex and how it affected them. There was talk about how, in general, men write porn and how video porn affected them. The group also discussion around Erotic Fan Fiction and how the pressure for Men to be "Men" is very limiting when it comes to exploring sexuality. They all revealed the weirdest porn they've ever seen. People wanted to know what Erika does with her sex toys that she reviews. The group discussed tumbler as a good place to get realistic body types. The audience had asked about long form Erotica stories and Spike revealed she is doing one and it's successful, she will be publishing more under the name Smut Peddler Presents. The group talked about accepting their own bodies. This panel was able to on longer than normal as it was the last panel for that room that day. Note: This panel has swearing.

Comics in the Real World: The Non-Fiction Revolution (50:13, 45.9mb)
Meryl Jaffe moderated this panel with Otis Frampton, Mike Maihack, Royden Lepp, Eric Kallenborn, Nick Dragotta and Kazu Kibuishi. Meryl asked who was a big influence on them growing up and almost all of them spoke about a teacher who gave them encouragement at an early age. The group talked about the growth of comics and combating skepticism about the medium. Eric talked about how he wished publishers would put a "teachers edition" of some books that covered up nudity because he's certain they could sell hundreds of those books easily to the teacher market. He gave Blankets and The Sculptor (new Scott McCloud book) as examples of books he and other teachers would love to teach from but because of the nudity, a teacher could lose their career if they used it. One thing comic creators wanted to combat was that comics were only a gateway to reading prose. Comics is a different and valid form of literature all on it's own. The group talked about the many lessons that having kids made comics teaches them. They spoke of how visual literacy is becoming more important skill for people to have. They talked about doing comics digitally vs print and also plugged what they have that either just came out or is about to be released.

Celebrating Will Eisner's The Spirit at 75 (46:44, 42.7mb)
Professor Ben Saunders and panelists Kurt Busiek, Carla Speed McNeil & Tim Sale talked about the Spirit and Eisner's work while looking at slides. Among the things discussed were: How much work Eisner did when running a studio as he had multiple artists involved, Eisner's designs on his splash pages, his stories and use of silent panels, the Spirit story 10 minutes, the Ebony character, they also said what quality from Eisner they took away and apply to their own work.

Convention Horror Stories (46:14, 42.3mb)
This is an ECCC tradition of where Jim Zub and another guests tell convention stories, both good and bad about themselves and their fans. This year Katie Cook was on the panel. Jim started off with his story of being weird around Neil Gaiman when he first met him and Katie spoke about a similar experience with Stan Sakai. They said even though they are pro's, they are still fans and their awkwardness around some of them never goes away. Both of them talked about strange sketch requests that they either did or turned down, including from people at ECCC. They also both spoke about a good fan encounter. Then ended the panel by saying they do love comic fans and that the bad ones are a tiny fraction of their fan encounters. Note: There is Swearing on this panel.

Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created MAD (48:54, 44.7mb)
Author Bill Schelly and publisher Gary Groth go through some slides showing work throughout Kurtzman's career and talk about the various points of his career. Among these are: His early work in comics, his work while in the Army, his Hey Look 1 pagers at Marvel Comics, his EC work, starting with his horror and sci-fi work and then his Anti-War War Comics, MAD, the Mad paperbacks, the other MAD cartoonists and how Kurtzman knew them, Harvey as an editor, the Superduper Man story that set the course for MAD that lasts until today, Alfred E. Newman, MAD becoming a magazine, Harvey's dislike of the comics industry, why Harvey left MAD, his work for Trump, Humbug and Help! magazines, who some of the staff that worked there that went on to do great things (including Terry Gilliam from Monty Python fame who wrote the introduction), the Goodman Beaver story, Little Annie Fannie and Harvey being the grandfather of underground comics and the numerous people whom he influenced.

In Brief: Writing Short Comics (52:33, 48.1mb)
Moderated by Jody Houser, on the panel was Marta Tanrikulu, Amy Chu, James Tynion IV, and James Asmus. They all gave an introduction to themselves and what they do. They talked about how they started doing comics and if short stories were their way into the comics industry. Regarding doing short stories for the purpose of breaking in, it was recommended people write 10 of them and get somebody else to pick out the best ones and ask an artist to draw them. They all agreed it was easier to write long form comics. With short stories you can focus on 1 element of writing like dialogue, pacing, etc.. they warn against trying to compress too much into a short story, something they see people who finally get a crack at doing comics do. One advantage to a short story is it's easier to get an artist to squeeze it into their schedule. The group talked about using short stories to branch into longer ones. They mentioned how writing a short story can influence their choice on weather to pursue a large, creator owned story. They talked a lot about anthologies via kickstarter and the opportunities there, as well as opportunities in regular publishing. They say using short stories is a good way to develop your skills, particularly ones you are not naturally strong at. They said for artists, crisp clean storytelling is super important and especially the ability to pack a lot of info into a panel, particularly with facial expressions and body language as it can save the writer from having to explain things in dialogue. They talked about the differences of using licensed characters over original work. How much direction they give an artist and how to find which anthologies are taking submissions.

Heartbreakers: Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen (48:34, 44.4mb)
On the panel was Matt Wilson, Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillen and Andrew Wheeler was the moderator. Topics covered were: How they met both online and in person, their early work both with each other and other creative partners, how Phonogram was pitched to Image, their collaboration process, them continuing to work together after all this time, what they thought the best and worst qualities about each other were, Jamie talked about how he designs characters, Kieren talked about how he writes characters, making them suffer and what he's trying to say, Kieren also talked about Young Avengers and how he gets mad at the suggestion he did it for the money, Jamie talked about fashion design and how he brings in the real world into his work, Matt discussed the colouring and how they start with the cover and follow that into the interior of the book, they then revealed when the new Phonogram comic is set and if they were to do more Young Avengers what would they do.

Science Fact in Comics (49:44, 45.5mb)
This panel consisted of Charles Soule, Patrick Meaney, Darick Robertson and moderator Matt Pizzolo. Each gave an introduction and then talked about the current trend of sci-fi stories when it comes to science fact. Charles spoke about how he met a NASA Engineer who reached out to him and helped his Letter 44 book. Charles also told other NASA stories as he got access to their mission control and how they run projects. Darick talked about future technology and how it's amazing the level of technology that we have today. They talked about take downs by actual scientists like Neal Degrassi Tyson vs Gravity. Interstellar was a topic as well as how far they go towards telling science fact vs telling a story. They discussed how much science research reading they do. Another topic was how their science fiction becomes science fact, with Darick giving Spider's glasses as an example towards google glasses. There was questions on if the science research comes before, during or after they do their world building. The group talked about the Mars Mission and traveling to Mars. They talked about how some science fiction ideas they have thaat sound cool, but in real world would be very bad. They gave their favourite sci-fi authors, talked about climate change and about getting 2nd or 3rd level science in their books correct. Darick and Charles talked about the science behind Wolverines bones and healing factor.

Image Comics: Something for Everyone (49:29, 45.3mb)
This was a large panel with Jay Faerber, Jeff Lemire, Ivan Brandon, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Megan Levens, Landry Walker, Kurt Busiek, Joe Keating. The panel was moderated by David Brothers. This panel was mainly Q&A with the audience. Among the topics discussed are: Executing their ideas, the lack of editing at Image and the pitching processes, the level of control creators have - right down to the paper stock, how they stay on schedule between work for hire and creator owned work, conflicts with work for hire in terms of editoral direction, if they self sensor and where they get their ideas from, how much detail the writer gives their artist, if they write for the audience or not, would they turn over their creator owned work to other creators to continue with, how they avoid or use stereotypes within their work.

By Design: Fantagraphic Books (50:07, 45.8mb)
On the panel was Gary Groth, Keeli McCarthy and Jacob Covey. Gary went through some slides showing his early graphic design sense, from his earliest fanzines to books he published. He said their book designe improved in the late 80s when he hired a designer for them. Jacob felt Fantagraphic book design took a real leap of improvement when Seth designed the Peanuts books and they also showed how influential it was by showing other books that used extemely similar designs. Jacob and Keeli talked about the freedom they have to come up with designs and working with creators, whom are often artists and may have their own illustration based design ideas. They talked about some of their recent books that the two designers worked on, including the Gahan Wilson 50 years of Playboy cartoons book, The Popeye book, Love and Rockets, Angry Youth Comics, Milton Caniff biography. They also talked about the difficulty of book design with the Harvey Kurtzman biography, in terms of using the MAD logo to sell the book, the size of MAD vs Harvey's name, getting approval from MAD lawyers. They also talked a bit about market consideration on the design, mentioning they have to put the barcode on the cover somewhere.

King Con 2015 (March 13 - 15) - 16 Photos

Cecil Castellucci Panel (45:37, 41.7mb)
Cecil introduced her self and her books, giving each a brief summary. She also talked about her work in other media, particularly a comic book opera. Tin Star was her latest book and she revealed how the book was inspired by the movie Casablanca and also how her picture book Odd Duck came about. Cecil spoke of her upbringing and who were major influences on her road to being an artist. She gave some stories of her youth and previous experience doing ballet dancing, indy rock band and working for a punk rock record company. She discussed how she writes Novels and open and closed way of writing comic strips and gave examples of each. Cecil also announced that she will be writing an upcoming Star Wars novel and answered questions from the audience.

Scott Chantler Panel (1:00:29, 55.3mb)
Scott gave a presentation, mainly about his book Two Generals. The book is about his grandfather and his friend who served in WWII. While Scott talked there were pictures on the screen. He showed the back of a photograph of his grandfather and his friend, where they described themselves as 2 Generals (jokingly) which is where he got the name of the book. He said that his grandfathers division was to use bicycles to go into little downs and secure them, but the roads were so full of glass and other debris that they never used them. Scott spoke of other people who had information that really helped him tell this story, from friends of his grandfather to relatives to people who were close to his grandfather. Scott also talked a lot about writing non fiction, from how much time he spent on research, to eventually having too much information and the method he used to decide what to use to create his book. Other topics covered was the 9 panel grid he chose, the colours of the book, people getting in touch with him after the book was published, and his 3 Thieves series and where he's at with those books.

Joe Shuster Awards 2014 (September 22) - 19 Photos

Full 2014 Joe Shuster Awards Ceremony (1:13:35, 67.3mb)
Presented at the Back Space Toronto, 587A College Street, Toronto, Ontario.
The awards start off with a video of Stan Lee who congratulating a 2007 Joe Shuster Awards. The Awards had flashed 2014 on the screen for comedic effect.
The presenters were Kevin Boyd, Jennifer Haines, Robert Haines, Anthony Falcone & Scott VanderPloeg, Robert Pincombe, Andrew Walsh, Ivan Kocmarek and Scott Chantler.
Awards went to:

Writer:
Ed Brisson – Sheltered 1-5, Comeback 3-5, Dia De Los Muertos 2 “The Skinny One” (Image), Secret Avengers 10-11 (Marvel)
Maryse Dubuc avec Marc Delafontaine – Les Nombrils T.06 : Un été trop mortel (Dupuis)
Ray Fawkes – Batgirl 17-18, Constantine 5-9 (w/Jeff Lemire) 1-4, Justice League Dark (w/Jeff Lemire) 16-21, Legends of the Dark Knight 9 “Tap Tap”, Trinity of Sin: Pandora 1-6, Young Romance “Dreamer” (DC Comics), Time Warp “00:00:03? (DC/Vertigo) Creepy 14 “Black Feathers” (Dark Horse), Pathfinder: Goblins 3 “The Way of the Goblin” (Dynamite)
Jeff Lemire – Animal Man 16-26, Annual 2, Constantine (w/Ray Fawkes) 1-5, Batman: Black and White 2 “Winter’s End”, Green Arrow 17-16, Justice League of America (w/Geoff Johns) 6-7, Justice League Dark (w/Ray Fawkes) 16-21, Swamp Thing (w/Scott Snyder) 17 (DC Comics), American Vampire Anthology 1 “Canadian Vampire” (DC/Vertigo)
Ryan North – Adventure Time 12-23, Midas Flesh 1 (Boom!)
Ami Vaillancourt – Kissinger & nous T.01, Charlebois & l’Osstidgang (Glénat Québec)
Kurtis Wiebe – Rat Queens 1-3, Peter Panzerfaust 8-15, Dia De Los Muertos 3 “Lonesome” (Image)

Cartoonist / Auteur:
Darwyn Cooke – Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground (IDW)
Ray Fawkes – The Spectral Engine (McClelland & Stewart)
Réal Godbout – Amérique ou le disparu (La Pastèque) / Amerika (Conundrum Press, 2014)
Jeff Lemire – Trillium 1-5 (DC/Vertigo), Adventures of Superman 1 “Fortress” (DC Comics)
Francis Manapul – The Flash (with Brian Buccelato, USA) 16-17, 19-25 (DC Comics)
Joe Ollmann – Science Fiction (Conundrum Press)
Zviane – les Deuxièmes (Pow Pow)

Artist / Dessinateur:
Nick Bradshaw – Wolverine and the X-Men 23, 31-25, Annual 1 (Marvel Comics)
Delaf – Les Nombrils 06 : Un été trop mortel (Dupuis)
Djief – Le crépuscule des Dieux T.07: Grand hiver (Soleil)
Jason Fabok – Detective Comics 16-20. 22-25 (DC Comics)
Stuart Immonen – All-New X-Men 5, 9-14, 16-18, X-Men: Battle for the Atom 1 (Marvel Comics)
Julie Rocheleau – Colère de Fantômas T.01: Les bois de justice (Dargaud)
Chip Zdarsky – Sex Criminals 1-3 (Image)
Fiona Staples – Saga 9-17 (Image)

Cover Artist / Dessinateur Couvertures:
Kalman Andrasofszky
Nick Bradshaw
Mike Del Mundo
Djief
Ken Lashley
Michael Walsh
Julie Rocheleau

Webcomics Creator / Créateur de Bandes Dessinées Web:
Attila Adorjany – Metaphysical Neuroma
Olivier Carpentier and Gautier Langevin - Far Out
Emily Carroll – The Three Snake Leaves, Grave of the Lizard Queen, Out of Skin
Kadi Fedoruk – Blindsprings
Canaan Grall – Max Overacts
Dakota McFadzean – The Dailies and Chilblains
Ty Templeton – Bun Toons
Jayd Aït-Kaci (with Christina Strain) – The Fox Sister

The Dragon Award (Comics for Kids) / Le Prix Dragon (Bandes Dessinées pour Enfants):
The Advenures of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks (Dark Horse)
L’Agent Jean tomes 4 et 5 by Alex A. (Presses Aventure)
Bigfoot Boy Vol.2 by J. Torres and Faith Erin Hicks (Kids Can Press)
Guiby tome 1 by Sampar (Michel Quintin)
Hocus Pocus Takes the Train by Sylvie Desrosiers and Remy Simard (Kids Can Press)
Odd Duck by Cecil Castelucci and (Sara Varon) (First Second)
Spera Vol.2 by Josh Tierney and Kyla Vanderklugt (with various non-Canadian artists) (Archaia)
Couette tomes 2 et 3 by (Severin Gauthier) and Minikim (Dargaud)

Gene Day Award (Self-Publishers) / Prix Gene Day (Auto-éditeurs):
Jordyn Bochon – The Terrible Death of Finnegan Strappe: The Claw of the Earth #2
Antonin Buisson – garder le rythme
Stephen Burger – TALK!
James Edward Clark – Evil Issue 2
Cloudscape Comics Collective – Waterlogged: Tales from the Seventh Sea
Mike Myhre – Barbaric Sword of Savagery
Diana Tamblyn – Gerald Bull and the Supergun Vol. 1
Steven Gilbert – The Journal of the Main Street Secret Lodge

Harry Kremer Award (Retailers) / Prix Harry Kremer (Détaillants):
Amazing Stories (Saskatoon, SK)
Comic Readers (Regina, SK)
Another Dimension (Calgary, AB)
Timemasters (St. John’s, NL)
The Comic Shop (Vancouver, BC)

New Award! The T.M. Maple Award / Prix T.M. Maple:
Jim Burke (1956-1994) (A.K.A. T.M. Maple) & Debra Jane Shelly (1974-2014)

Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame / Temple de la renommée Créateur Canadien de Bandes Dessinées:
Cy Bell (1904-197?), Edmond Good (1910-1991), Ty Templeton (1962-)

San Diego Comic Con 2014 (July 23-27) - 53 Photos

Graphic Novel Programming At Your Library (47:43, 43.6mb)
On the panel was creator Greg Evans, retailer Joe Field and Librarian Hillary W. Chang. Hillary had organized a Hawaii tour for Greg Evans around a number of Libraries. She talked about reaching out to creators to get them to do visits. Greg talked about how much lead time is required for creators and the difficulties of agreeing to a visit either too far out or too soon. Joe talked about the amount of time needed to successfully plan the event and needing at least 2-3 months of lead time. Joe also gave a origin of FCBD and how he and other libraries use it to do events. Hillary explained why Librarians should get involved and the best way to do it. Evans gave the differences between doing an event at a Library vs a book store. Hillary told a humorous story about internal difficulties in planning the event, but said the visit is well worth any problems that can come up. A lot of Librarians were in the audience and asked questions about their situation and doing programming. I came in a few minutes late to this panel.

Spotlight On Bill Finger: The co-creator of Batman (47:10, 43.1mb)
The panel was moderated by Dr. Travis Langley and on it was Benjamin and Athena Finger, Lee Meriwether, Michael Uslan, Marc Tyler Nobleman, Mark Evanier, Jens Robinson and Tom Andrae. Part way through the panel Writer/Editor Denny O'Neil came up on stage and talked about his meeting and spending an evening with Bill Finger. They showed a video montage of some of the things Bill co-created, from Batman characters, Wildcat and the original Green Lantern. Part way through the panel a Neal Adams video was played where he talked about the importance of Bill Finger. Michael Uslan talked about meeting Bill twice as a kid and taking Athena and Jerry Robinson to the Dark Knight movie premiere and introduced them to the director and actors who played the major characters. Tom said when he co-wrote the Batman and Me book with Bob Kane he tried getting as much about Bill Finger in there as he could. He also revealed that Orson Wells was a fan of Batman comics and used a bit of a Batman story Bill wrote for a movie. Athena said she was in hiding and how people didn't believe her when she spoke about her grandfather being the co-creator of Batman. She thanked Marc for finding her and slowly bringing her out. Benjamin also said the same thing, kids didn't believe him until Marc's book was in his school and he could show it to them. Lee Meriwether talked about meeting Batman fans and what makes them different. She was also really happy to be a part of the "Batman family." Jens Robinson discussed his father Jerry Robinson and his role in working on Batman. Mark Evanier gave the origin on the Bill Finger award, Jerry Robinson's role and his own experience of meeting Bill Finger.

Spotlight on Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin (49:47, 45.5mb)
The two talked about their body of work with the covers on a screen. They started off with The Fringe and went through Small Favors, Banana Sunday, Marvel Adventures, X-Men First Class, Gingerbread Girl, Prepare to Die, Bandette, Colder, Batman 66, Adventure Time: The flip side mini-series, The Witcher and then announced books that were upcoming from them. This included Angry Birds, I was the Cat, an Aliens, Prometheus and Predator book that ties all 3 worlds together, Colder The Bad Seed, a new print collection of Bandette that reprints issues 6 to 9 and a new 5 book deal Paul sold to Bloomsbury for a middle age book series. Along the way the two of them talked about things in particular to a title or just in general. Both of them worked in comic shops and for a while Paul worked at Powell's bookstore, which had a perk of being able to borrow books for a long time or buy them at an employee discount. Paul discussed making Marvel Adventures an all ages book, meaning adults can enjoy it too, he didn't like that often All Ages is thought of as kids only comics. Paul said he liked writing stories from a variety of genres to keep him fresh as it helps him to be a better all-around writer than just sticking to one genre would. In particular he liked doing stories other than event type comics, taking something small and making it an event for that particular character. He laughed about once turning in an issue of Marvel Adventures that had an 18 page fight scene in response to an editor who was always asking for more action, only the have the editor still ask for more action. Both Colleen and Paul chatted about Bandette, the online comic from Monkey Brain and how they liked the freedom of being able to tell the story without a publisher mandated page count, if the story required less or more pages, they can do it. Paul has been doing a bunch of video game related comics, which he said was messing with his video game downtime as he sometimes can't take his mind off comics while playing them now. Colleen said she wanted her characters to have fun in her stories. The Aliens/Prometheus/Predator book all has writers living in Portland, which is says is great for getting together and hashing out stuff between them.

Jules Feiffer Goes Noir (54:17, 49.7mb)
Panel was with Mark Evanier, Paul Levitz and William Menaker, from Liveright, a subdivision of WW Norton. Jules Fifer was supposed to be at San Diego but had to decline due to recent health issues. Paul discussed doing an interview with Jules for his upcoming book about Will Eisner. Jules revealed he was working on a new book called Kill My Mother and it's a noir book, something he held off doing for a very long time because he felt his noir storytelling was not as good as Will Eisners. Jules now felt confident enough to give it a try. They had a couple of Kill My Mother books there and passed them around the audience. Mark and Paul talked about the importance of Jules the Great Comic Book Heroes book. They said he had brought a lot of respectability to comics because Jules was incredibly respected for his comics and other award winning written works. So if Jules said these Golden Age comic artists were good, then people who had dismissed them began re-examining them with a different perspective. Part of the book was printed in Playboy and this lead to Bill Everett getting work in comics again as he was called a genius in that excerpt. Mark said the book was like the opposite of Seduction of the Innocent. Paul mentioned that Jules grew up in the same neighbourhoods with the same income and education level as most comic artists of the golden age but managed to bring himself up to much higher heights in terms of diversity and respectability, but Jules always owned up and never shied away about his past in working in the comic book industry. William also talked about Jules and how WW Norton wanted to publish anything Jules would create. The group talked about how Jules was doing new and experimental work, which at his age (83) was very surprising. Mark talked about seeing a play that had dancers holding the pose of a Jules dancing drawing, while people in street clothes came in and read dialogue from his comics. It was a very entertaining play to watch both those things and he's surprised it's still not in production somewhere because it's a very cheap play to put on. They took Q&A from the audience and revealed which Golden Age artists influenced Jules.

Teaching Content Through Comics: Math, Science and History (54:37, 50.0mb)
On the panel was Jason Batterson, Tracy Edmunds, Geoffrey Golden, Josh Elder, Nick Dragotta and Jonathan Hennessey. This panel started a few minutes early. Jason talked about his math book taught in comic book form where the characters are monsters and how girls have been "caught" secretly reading it on the playground. Geoffery Golden discussed his book Probamon, a pokemon parody that shows kids how to solve math/logic problems. It's very much inspired by Square 1 and Sesame Street. Nick Dragotta does Howtoons, a science comic about building things out of local household items. It encourages kids to learn by playing, following the instructions of the book. He mentioned he has 1 page showing kids how to use a hacksaw and as a result some Libraries put the book into the adult section. He disagrees with this as he thinks kids need to learn how to use tools in order to get into the nitty gritty of building things. He has a 2nd book coming out. Fred Van Lente announced his new books, Action Presidents (US). It is a follow up to his Action Philosophers series. Jonathan Hennessey showed his The Comic Book History of Beer and said it's his goal to bring ideas that have been floating around in academia out into a more mainstream audience via the graphic novel format. In particular this looks at the theory that early humans learned to do agriculture in order to create beer and not to feed themselves. At the end Josh Elder plugged his Mail Order Ninja book.

Manga: Lost in Translation (49:20, 45.1mb)
The moderator was Jonathan Tarbox, on the panel was Ed Chavez, Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, Nathan Collins and Stephan Paul. Lillian talked about trying to find the origin on Glomp and things it could be a Matt Thorn created sound effect. They took questions and said that sound effects are a difficult thing to translate from Japan. They have 2 different types of sound effects and some of them make noise for things that don't make noise, like the reaching of a hand. They also said Japanese puns are also very difficult and have to come up with a US equivalent that gets the spirit of the joke across. The group discussed problems generated for them by bad scalations causing fans to get mad at them for "getting it wrong" when they have a better knowledge of the Japanese language than the scanlators. They also revealed sometimes their "wrong" translations are due to Japanese editors who can't read English (and likely got an intern who barely understands English to translate for them) demand changes to something incorrect because they feel they need to change something to justify their job. Most of them talked about doing translation on a freelance basis, which many of the panelists were. Editors on the panels said it's in their interest to have a number translators working for them part time. They fear if they rely on a few key people and one gets sick it can make the books late. They also said using the same translators creates a sameness across the line in terms of the voice of the comics. The more translators working reduce that. The group didn't like editors that paid extremely low rates or in 1 case nothing at all as they asked scanalators to do the work for free. They gave $10 a page as being a very, very good rate for a translator. They also said the negotiating part for a page rate is difficult, too high you don't get the work, too low and you have a difficult time getting better rates down the road. They also talked about translator should technically be invisible so that it's a seamless reading experience but they'd like to get credit, copyright and royalties for their work. The group also discussed using Japanese terms vs American ones and said sometimes you should keep things more on the Japanese side like when it's a historical story.

Will Eisner Teacher And Mentor (47:41, 43.6mb)
On the panel was moderator Paul Levitz, Joe Quesada, Batton Lash, Drew Friedman, and Mike Carlin. The panel was about Esiner's time teaching at the New York School of Visual Arts. Batton talked about how he and a friend talked the principal into starting a comic book art course. The principal said if 30 students signed up they would do it. He asked what teachers they would like and as a perfect wish list they suggested Will Esiner and Harvey Kurtzman. They were flabbergasted when they both agreed to become teachers. Paul asked who would be a good teacher today and Mike Carlin suggested panellist Joe Quesada (who said he couldn't due to professional time constraints). Drew said when he was there, only a few students in the class know the importance of the teachers they had. Quesada talked about while he was there he had a 2 hour conversations with Eisner and how much he learned from him. He also talked about prior going to the school he was trying to draw like Mike Mignola and when he met him, Mike knew who he was, told him he was aping him wrong and spent 5 hours helping him out, which was huge for him. They discussed Gallery Magazine, which was a magazine Will put out with the students work. Drew was the editor of it for 1 year. Will was big on not just how to draw, but also how to manage yourself in the business end of being an artist. He was big on the artist being in charge of their own work. At one point Will would bring in other artists to teach a class like Neal Adams. Will very strongly insisted that comics would not die, despite the naysayers. He promoted the medium and believed it would always survive. Quesada said while the business goes up and down, if the business survived Wertham and the Senate Hearings then comics aren't going away. Drew said his father worked for Magazine Management Inc (the owner of Marvel comics - that published magazines). He said got Marvel comics from him back in the early 60s. Mike Carlin said he learned about storytelling from Eisner. Paul said Will knew that everything on the comic page was there for a reason and he would big and finding and explaining that reason. The group talked about Eisner's Sequential Art books and other good books out there now. They also discussed comics now being done digitally and how they think he would react to that. The group revealed how both Eisner and Kurtzman would pay students for jokes for their books.

CBLDF: Graphic Novels and their Turbulent Past: Now Classroom Tools of Tolerance (54:32, 49.9mb)
On the panel was Charles Brownstein, Meryl Jaffe, Royden Lepp, Betsy Gomez, JenniferL. Holm, Matt Holm and Matt Phelam. They first talked briefly about Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent. Matt Phelan talked about publishers originally not wanting his GN because GNs "weren't for kids" until Schoolastic published Bone. Royden Lepp discussed pulling back on what he shows in terms of violence in his work. The group also discussed drugs and violence, diversity, how to depict violence, giving kids a book to doodle in as an alternative to causing problems in class, but also how to create a safe space as kids do get into trouble for drawing violent imagery, how that a drawing can be a better way to learn something. They also recommended books to a new librarian who sought advice on what to rack for her graphic novel selection.

CBLDF: Dr. Wertham's War on Comics (50:59, 46.6mb)
Charles Brownstein did an introduction for Carol Tilley. Carol started by reading a great letter sent to by a young woman in response to the Readers Digest except of Seduction of the Innocent. Carol gave some comic industry marketplace info, particularly in comparison to traditional children's books. She also gave stats on how popular comics were with the general audience. She talked about the ACMP and the in house advisory committees, particularly Dr. Laura Bender and Josette Frank. She revealed that a group Bender & Franks were involved in gave a bad review to a particular authors children's book, who then introduced Senator Kefauver and Wertham and convinced Kefauver to look into comic books. Carol talked about comic pro's that talked with Wertham and some that agreed with him. She went over briefly of the hearings and the CCMA. Carol then gave several examples of Wertham distorting and falsifying evidence in order to make the case against comic books.

Comics Arts Conference Session #8: Who Created Batman? (51:10, 46.8mb)
Kathleen McClancy gave a brief introduction and the panel was moderated by Dr. Travis Langley. On the panel was Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, Marc Tyler Nobleman, Tom Andre, Arlen Schumer, Jens Robinson, Athena Finger, Denny O'Neil and Brad Ricca. The panel started with a video of Kane giving a version of story of where he created Batman and Robin. Afterwards Marc Tyler Nobelman talked about the many parts of the Batman mythos that Finger was responsible for. There was some information about Bill and his family given. They also talked about the inspirations of Batman and in particular the large amount of crime that was going on in New York at the time. They also discussed the Joker and Robin's creation.

Spotlight on Don Rosa (57:34, 52.7mb)
This was moderated by Gary Groth. Don talked about his father owning a construction company and his sister`s comic collection which he inherited when she moved out of the house. He said the first cheque he ever wrote was to Gary Groth for his Fantastic fanzine. He spoke about his love of the Dell and Archie comics (and dislike of Harvey comics) and movies. He said he got much of his storytelling from movie directors and he was making paper movies. He revealed that Will Elder, Mort Wiesinger superman stories and Robert Crumb were among his artist influences. He said he went to college to be a civil engineer and while he was there he did a strip in his college newspaper. They wanted him to be political, but at that time he wasn't very political at all, so he ended up doing Carl Barks like stories. His other influences were Hal Foster and Walt Kelly. He said he once did an underground Uncle Scrooge story. He said he has a massive comic collection. He did go into the family business but didn't find it very rewarding. He got into drawing duck stories when he came across Gladstone publishing them and told them he had to be the one to do new duck stories and they agreed to let him do one. He quit Gladstone and comics when Disney demanded all his original art. He wasn't getting paid much to do the stories so he was counting on the sale of the art pages to keep him afloat. Don ended up quitting comics for a year but wound up working on Tail Spin cartoon, writing a couple of episodes. He then discovered Disney books was being published in Europe and were super popular there so he sent them a telegram about doing some work for them. After a couple of funny phone calls he got the job. He thinks people were hungry for new good duck stories, which he provided. He talked about how popular the ducks are over in Europe. He said after WWII the European economy was devastated and comics were a cheap mass market entertainment to that people could afford and enjoy. He talked about his meeting Carl Barks once. He said he doesn't have a website, said there are some good fan ones that is even better than what he could come up with. He said how he's not a fan of Disney because they bully small companies. His favourite stories involve glittering gold. He likes to have complete control of his work, which is why he didn't stay very long in animation. He revealed he puts the work DUCK in every story and why he draws black noses on everybody. He also talked about liking always being compared to Carl Barks.

Spotlight on Jim Steranko (54:52, 50.2mb)
[Note: The audio file is hosted on SoundCloud where the file can be heard but not downloaded, as per Jim Steranko and J. David Spurlock wishes] Moderated by J. David Spurlock, Jim Steranko talks about his growing up poor and a very mean art teacher he had as a child who would rip up his artwork, telling him he was no good. He also told his story about meeting Bob Kane and slapping him across the face, after Bob had slapped him the previous day. There was an applause vote as to which story he should tell towards the end and the winner was how he left Marvel, he also elaborated some of his funny arguments with Stan Lee and his winning them. This audio recording is copyright © Jim Steranko and J. David Spurlock.

30 Years of Usagi Yojimbo! (40:16, 36.8mb)
Stan Sakai talks about why he chose a Rabbit for Usagi Yojimbo, his hatred of drawing horses (which is why Usagi is always walking everywhere), he also goes into how he chooses animals for his characters. There is an update on Sharon, Stan's wife who is dealing with a brain tumour at this time and the Sakai Project, a book featuring drawings of Usagi Yojimbo by many of the top artists in the industry that will go towards Sharon's care. Diana had asked for some questions via facebook prior to the panel and asked some of them at the panel. They also talked about Stan's other work, including his Usagi Yojimbo: Senso, which puts Usagi 20 years in the future.

Comic Journalism: The Hulk Tales a Butt Selfie and You Won't Believe What Happens Next (53:35, 49.0mb)
This panel had Jill Pantozzi (TheMarySue.com), Joshua Yehi (ign.com) Matt Meyliknov (MultiversityComics.com), Rich Johnston (BleedingCool.com) and Tom Spurgeon (ComicsReporter.com). It was moderated by Heidi MacDonald (ComicsBeat.com). The group talked about what was different in 2014 for comics journalism. There was a back and forth about what constituted a 'real' news story and writing what you are passionate about. They also discussed stories they felt were under reported and the use of social media.

The Best and Worst Manga of 2014 (45:48, 41.9mb)
Moderated by Deb Aoki (MangaComicsManga.com), on the panel was Brigid Alverson (Mangablog.MangaBookshelf.com), David Brothers (4thletter.net), and Christopher Butcher (UdonEntertainment.com). The group goes through their picks on the best manga of the year by various age categories, the worst manga for any age, the under rated but great manga, most anticipated new manga, most wanted manga and favourite digital only manga. Each person has a minute to talk about their picks with Deb using a dinger to let them know their time is up and to finish. There was a draw at the end for some Manga that Chris bought that I've edited out.

Spotlight: Chuck Dixon (52:41, 48.2mb)
Chuck Dixon did a brief introduction to himself and his work and opened it up to Q&A. Recently Chuck Dixon talked about how Marvel and DC editors have blacklisted him because he is a conservative and appeared on Fox News. He started off talking about how he's always been conservative and was able to professionally work with Denny O'Neil and Cat Yronwode, both editors are known for being very far left in their political views. Chuck says he writes escapist entertainment and keeps his personal views out of his writing and can write either left or right wing views if required. He was questioned by audience members regarding other well-known conservatives who still get work by Marvel and DC, he gave examples on how certain conservative creators were denied work and believes that some issues editors don't mind you being conservative on, but if you touch the third rail, like he did, you are blacklisted. He said there were a lot of conservative creators who have e-mailed him in support of his views but were afraid of coming out about their politics in fear of it costing them work. Chuck also answered questions about books and characters he worked on or created. He said he loved working on the Punisher and Batman, he gave an origin of the Birds of Prey book and the Batman villain Bane. He also talked about Nightwing, revealed details about Azrael and how his story was cut short by 6 months. Chuck revealed his love of the 1966 Batman TV show and how he would sneak small references in Batman to tease his editor Denny O'Neil who hated it, also that he loved the 90s animated series. He gave his opinion of DC's new 52. He said he loved doing the Batman/Punisher crossover and told us who would win in a fight. He also revealed he was on tap to write the Expendables 2 movie but walked away when they offered him comic book rates instead of movie rates. He talked about meeting and recommending Dan Slott to editors for writing jobs and he also gave a run down on his work, both in comics and in prose he is doing now.

Spotlight on Michelle Nolan (46:57, 42.9mb)
On the panel was Michelle Nolan, long time comic dealer Bud Plant and moderator Maggie Thompson. Maggie had asked Michelle 5 ways comics have changed over the years. Bud talked about Michelle's evolution from fan that used to buy books off him to professional. Michelle discussed her writing about comics and felt that teen humour and Archie comics in particular don't get enough historical focus. Bud and Michelle talked about their fanzine and also starting what they felt was the first free standing comic book store along with 4 other partners. They revealed they only old sold back issues because nobody would sell them new comics. They discussed Phil Suiling, inventor of the Direct Market and how Bud was the west coast distributor for his books. Regarding Phil, they talked about his comic conventions and Michelle revealed she bought a car just for the purpose of driving to the convention and using it to buy and take back a large collection of comics they bought. Michelle told what it was like for her growing up buying old comics and how she found and got them. She held up a Patsy Walker comic she just bought and talked about what was in that she liked. She said she had 37,000 comics and still wants 10,000 more. She very much enjoyed writing columns for Comic Book Marketplace and Comics Buyers Guide and said she was very resistant to e-mail to first but eventually had to join the internet.

Spotlight on Brian Haberlin (51:06, 46.7mb)
Brian went through his history in comics, his working for Marvel, Top Cow, co-creating several characters including Witchblade, doing digital colouring, having his own studio, getting into publishing and movie deals and the lesson he learned from it, then working for Todd McFarlane as EIC of his comics, he said he started publishing the TPD collections of the Spawn books when he was there. He also revealed how Todd ended up hiring him to draw Spawn for a while. Brian then left, starting his own studio again. Brian revealed how he had a movie deal with Sony, but then Columbine happened and felt his movie was too violent. So they then started to repurposes it as a children's cartoon, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to him. He promoted his new book called Anomaly, which is interactive with mobile phones and tablets. He showed how if you have one with the camera on aimed at the book animated characters come out that you can see on your mobile device. The characters will also interact if you do things like poke at them too much. He used this same technology on post cards that he put out to promote the book. He also has built into the book a game you can play via the mobile device and said he's done 3 updates to add new stuff for the mobile application. He also showed his 3D printed models. There was a draw at the end of the panel which I removed from the audio.

Fan vs Pro Comic Trivia Match (49:32, 45.3mb)
On the Pro side was Len Wein, Anthony Tollin and eventually Michael Davis. Filling in for Michael for a bit was Derek McCaw, who upon Michael showing up joined his usual fan team of David Oakes and Peter Svensson. Tom Galloway was the moderator this year. The topic of this year's match was characters celebrating their 75th, 50th and 40th year anniversary. Len Wein who is known for not being able to answer questions regarding the books he's written got a standing ovation for answering his 2nd ever. Michael Davis made a lot of black related jokes, one of which was accepted as an answer to a question to great humour. Among the characters that have questions about them were Batman, Hawk and Dove, Metamorpho, Avengers and JSA.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2014 (July 25) - 75 Photos

2014 Will Eisner Awards (2:35:01, 141mb)
The 2014 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator. Among the presenters Bill Morrison, Vanessa Marshall, Orlando Jones, Jonathan Ross, Batton Lash, Terry Moore, Kevin Eastman, Phil LaMarr, Thomas Lennon, Reginald Hudlin, Kelly Hu, François Schuiten, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Sergio Aragonés and others. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier and Athena Finger. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam. The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2014 (May 9 - 11) - 210 Photos

Note: Friday May 9th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 10-11th.

The Brinkley Girls, WWI and American Patriotism in Women's Comics: A talk by Trina Robbins. (38:58, 35.6mb)
The Introduction is by Dr. Barbara Postema. Trina talked about Nell Brinkley with a big touch screen TV (which she liked). She also talked about Nell's work, what it was saying, ran through some highlights of some stories she told with her art and talked about her politics and humour, among other aspects. Trina then answered a variety of question about Nell, rediscovering her, why traditional comics history don't touch on female cartoonists and Nell's original art.

Great Creator Visits! (50:05, 45.8mb)
Moderated by Scott Robins, this panel featured Lynn Johnston and Raina Telgemeier talking about their visits to schools and libraries. Lynn opened up about not liking to do schools where the kids are forced to be there. She said they can be disruptive, a lot like she was at that age. She prefers events where those in attendance want to be there. Raina talked about having to deal with rowdy kids. Lynn said she doesn't like overly long introductions because they drain the energy of the room. They gave a list of don't for events and among them were staff not aware of the event, no advertising, not being able to sell their books after the show, no bathroom or coffee breaks between events and friends of the organizer wanting to dominate your time after the show. They also talked about good creator visits they did. Both of them spoke about the struggle to make deadlines while doing visits, the age level they prefer talking to, doing visits on Skype and interviews via twitter. The audience asked questions about their gay characters and what response they got from them. Lynn also talked about her decision to age the characters as the strip went on and how that affected merchandising. Lynn said she really liked Rania's book Smile and gave Rania a big public stamp of approval for her work as a cartoonist.

Collection Maintenance. (1:05:38, 60.1mb)
On the panel was Robin Brenner, Scott Robins and Max Dionisio. It was moderated by Lindsay Gibb. They started by talking about their libraries, what they carry and what moves really well. Each gave which websites they follow for keeping up with comic news. The method in which they house their collection was discussed. They spoke about how they handle Manga and buying series (full series or the first few volumes). They talked about weeding out books that just don't circulate, something they all have to do. They discussed how to avoid pigeon holding their Libraries collection. Max talked about his unique situation in an all-boys school in handling GLBT books. He finds them scattered around the library all the time so he knows they are being read, but they don't get taken out because kids are afraid of outing themselves or just getting teased/bullied when others see their name on the Library card. They also discussed how digital access to comics has affected their circulation.

Comics and Undergrads. (53:33, 49mb)
Moderated by Lindsay Gibb, the panellists where Marta Chudolinska, Dr. Dale Jacobs and Dr. Barbara Postema. They started off talking about how they got involved in comics and how it relates to their current academic work. They discussed what they like about comics, specific books they use in their teachings, how wordless comics are good for education, assignments they use comics to teach, how much they use their library for their lessons, if they got any pushback to their work and how some of the theory between comics and picture books have a lot of overlap. Barbara mentioned that sometimes wordless comics get called picture books. Marta talked about how the Library she works for tries to provide access to things that is out of reach for many people due to cost or scarcity, like artists editions books and comics criticism.

2014 Book Talk: Kids. (34:36, 31.6mb)
Andrew Woodrow-Butcher spoke about some upcoming kids books that would be good for libraries. Among the books he mentioned were the new Amulet Vol 6, Cleopatra in Space, Salem Hyde, Star Wars Jedi Academy, the Hilda series, Zita the Spacegirl, Jellaby (now back in print), A Cat Named Tim, Cat Dad King of the Goblins, new Amelia Rules books, The Dumbest Idea Ever, a new Battling Boy book, Anna and Froga, Courtney Crumrin Vol 5, a new Lego book, A Regular Show book, a bigger, full colour reprinting of Dragon Ball Z, the Marvel Digests, itty bitty Hellboy and Aw Yeah Comics, Samurai Jack, Power Lunch, the Sonic the Hedgehog and Megaman crossover book, Mermin, Dinosaurs, The Kings Dragon, Hidden, Gajin, Maddy Kettle, new Adventure Time books and WWE collections of their comics. Within the panel was Kazu Kibuishi talking about Amulet and it's evolution. Kazu also revealed his serious health problems prior to doing the book where he got so sick he went into a coma. John Martz talked about a Cat Named Tim and Jim Zub talked about Samurai Jack going from a mini-series to ongoing. Note: I cut out about 4 minutes from the audio where they do a door prize giveaway.

In Conversation: Kate Beaton and Lynn Johnston. (1:11:11, 65.1mb)
This was moderated by Raina Telgemeier. Chris Butcher started the evening off with small talk about TCAF and how they try to be inclusive of all genders and show a diversity of people from different backgrounds. He mentioned this year they are getting international press coverage and have artists from 20 different countries this year, which he's really happy about. He made a sly Rob Ford joke about being sorry he named it the Toronto Comics Art Festival. Chris also thanked their sponsors of the show as well. Rania asked a variety of questions and they started with how the two of them got started in comics. Lynn talked about her and Jim Davis (of Garfield fame) starting out at the same time. Throughout the show she talked about her previous jobs working in animation and a medical artist. Kate talked about starting her web comic at a fortunate time when there was a lot less competition for people's attention on the internet. The two talked about their role models and particularly female role models. Kate said Lynn was one for her. Raina mentioned that Lynn was the first female and Canadian winner of the Reuben Award and asked her what that was like. Lynn said it was very stressful because at the time some people wanted Jim Davis to win (and some didn't) and she felt she was too young and hadn't really done anything yet to deserve the award at the time. In particular she mentioned a lot of MAD artists (like Mort Drucker) who hadn't won the award yet and should have gotten it before her. She also told a funny story about how she handled other cartoonists when she was president of the Cartoonists Society. The two talked about criticism from men. Family was a topic with how far you go, if they regret putting something out there and if they felt later that they overshared information. They talked about how fans shared personal stories with them. This lead into Lynn talking about the outing of a gay character in For Better Or For Worse and the reaction she got from readers and newspapers. She thinks it was the best story she did and the one she's the most proud of. They talked about their efforts to help out young artists. Lynn mentioned how when she has something personally bad happen to her she's thinks it will be turned into a great story. Rania asked if they still love comics as much now as they did when starting out. Kate said she still does. Lynn talked about how her father loved the comics and comedy in general and would read comics to her, point out the details in them, and would run films back and forth to show how it was all choreographed. Lynn also revealed she loves comedians and wanted to be one. Rania asked what keeps them coming back to the drawing board. She also asked each of them what she is doing now. They also took some questions from the audience. Lynn said she really enjoyed working on the animated For Better Or For Worse cartoon, said it was great working with all those people doing different things (music, artists, sound effects, etc..). She also revealed from working on the cartoon she drew her strip with more detail as the animators needed detailed everything about her strip in order to make the cartoon. Kate talked about her growing up in small town and being like the only artist there.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips Spotlight. (55:48, 51mb)
Heidi MacDonald moderated this panel. They started off with how the two ended up working together and in particular how Sleeper came about. Ed was very outspoken during the panel, saying he wished he had retained ownership of it. Sean talked about his art and where digital is used to create it. The two spoke about their process of working together today. They revealed they hadn't seen each other in person in 5 years, but e-mailed each other daily. Ed said that he signed on to work with Marvel to publish through their Icon imprint. He also said the imprint was started for Bendis but they brought on David Mack's book so it didn't appear that way. He revealed that he got just got the rights back to Criminal a week ago and will be moving the series over to Image. He said that Icon was a imprint that was used as a favour to people who did their superhero books and didn't want his career to be at the mercy of favours from other people. He also revealed that Dan Buckley had to justify Icon to the shareholders as Marvel doesn't make much money from it. Ed said for a while he was paying creators out of pocket for a while on Criminal. Regarding his writing, Ed likes adding subtext in his stories so people get a lot out of it and it's not a quick read. He wants people to get something new out of the story when it gets re-read. Ed expressed appreciation for something Sean does that he sees no other penciler do is actually write in where the lettering would go to ensure that there is room there for the word balloon. So many other artists don't do that, which leaves not enough room for the dialogue and that leads to production issues. They also went over how Sean doesn't do splash pages very often. Ed brought up the "Archie" story within Criminal and what he was reacting too when he wrote it. He revealed he's been talking to Joe Hill about horror and wants to delve into that. Ed discussed the reason he does crime stories because when he was on the wrong side of the law in his youth, involved in shoplifting, doing and selling drugs to other kids in his school and he likes the stories about the desperation of committing a crime and the twisted version of the American Dream. Ed revealed there is a new book coming about the 1940s+ Hollywood with blacklists, the studio system and other issues. He said he had family that was working in Hollywood at the time and he wants to incorporate that information into the book.

Michael DeForge and Friends. (55:15, 50.5mb)
On the panel were Jillian Tamaki, Annie Koyama, Patrick Kyle, Michael DeForge and Ryan Sands. The creators (everybody but Annie) are involved in Youth in Decline. They revealed there is a Lose collection coming about that collects issues #2 to #5. Michael said #1 does not fit in with the rest of the stories so he's not putting it into this book. The group talked about how and what they choose to put online vs. what's for print. They talked about collaborating with others and how they handle differences of opinion. Doing anthologies and their growing popularity, Jillian also asked questions to Michael and kind of co-moderated the panel. Annie revealed she has seen creators online that she was interested in publishing, but there was no contact info for the creator so she moved on. Michael was credited as being a good writer by Jillian and wondered if the change in his drawing style has affected how he writes stories. They talked about a new book that is coming out, took questions from the audience, and talked quite a bit about the need for validation among their peers. They also talked about needing a trusted another set of eyes to look at their work and give feedback prior to publication.

Trina Robbins Spotlight. (57:44, 52.8mb)
During this panel Trina went though some parts of Pretty in Ink, her final book about female comic artists. She went through some of the earliest comic artists, starting with the first comic strip drawn by a female and ending with the Women Comix anthology and a photo of the 40th reunion of the Women Comix anthology. After that Johanna Draper Carlson interviewed her about why she did the new book. She had revealed she was very unhappy with her last book due to all the typos. She was really unhappy with her editor on that book and was not shy in saying so. Gary Groth of Fantagraphics asked her to do this book and she had a lot of new information and wanted to correct some bad information in her previous books. She said Gary worked with her to make sure there wasn't a single typo in this book. The audience also asked questions and she revealed that she would love to write Wonder Woman but DC would never hire her. She also felt that DC/Marvel female editors did not support female creators, but would say they did in order to sell that there was no sexism in comics - in order to keep their jobs.

History/Nonfiction Comics. (58:33, 53.6mb)
This panel was moderated by Brigid Alverson. On the panel was Nick Bertozzi, Nick Abadzis, Diana Tamblyn, Nate Powell, Meags Fitzgerald and Tyrell Cannon. The group talked about why they choose to do Nonfiction works, how doing it helps them as creators, how they deal with the facts getting in the way of telling a good story, the visual research and how important it is, if the subject is still alive and do they reach out to them, if they worry about their audience reaction to the book, how they deal with direct quotes when it doesn't work with the script.

Ed Brubaker: Writing Comics Noir. (55:22, 50.6mb)
Andrew Murray and Adam Hines from Guys with Pencils podcast moderated the panel. Ed talked about how he got involved with Noir as a child. He also talked about his past, saying one story from Lowlife was actually autobiography. He revealed that his parents worked in the Navy and when he was young he lived in Guantanamo Bay for a couple of years. He explained what Noir means to him and if he thought Noir characters had to be bad people. He discussed what TV shows he likes (or liked), mentioning the Sopranos and a Canadian show called Intelligence that he said was cancelled because of politics, specifically citing Prime Minister Stephen Harper as being the reason. Ed said his uncle was a CIA operative that was outed in the 70s (presumably in Inside the Company: CIA Diary book). The Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie came up and he said what it was like being an extra on it and being happy it was a good film. Ed mentioned that he spends half his time writing TVs and movie screenplays, saying he wrote a remake of Maniac Cop. Regarding Criminal, they are now hiring cast for it. There were questions from the audience and he told us who inspires him today to be a better writer.

Stuart Immonen and Sean Phillips in Conversation. (1:01:10, 56.0mb)
While the two talked there was a slide show of art going on in the background which sometimes came up in the conversation. They started off with some very early work and how they got published. Sean talked about inking, painting covers, photo-referencing & design. Stuart talked about using 3D models; both said they looked at other peoples sketchbooks to keep with what younger artists are doing. They discussed the tools they used to make art with, they showed some work outside of comics that Sean did and got into page/panel design. This brought out questions from Ed Brubaker who was in the audience, asking about the grid design used in their books (which got some laughs from the audience). Stuart talked about doing digital comics in that the entire thing was designed to be read on a tablet or phone, and the amount of re-thinking about the effects of reading comics this way that it took, both in terms of the size of the screen and the non-traditional gutter space. There were other creators in the audience that also began talking about contributing to digital comics (the panel became a round table discussion for a couple of minutes), Sean talked about a job he had to turn down, Stuart talked about a small Pirates of the Caribbean story that he did in a completely different style and how it lead to the work he did on Nextwave.

The Doug Wright Awards 2014 (May 10) - 26 Photos

The Doug Wright Awards 2014. (1:20:18, 73.5mb)
The ceremony went as follows:
Introduction of the nominee's and sponsor appreciation by Brad Mackay.
Doug Wright's youngest son Ken Wright spoke on behalf of the family.
Opening monologue by Scott Thompson.
Pigskin Peters Hat/Award: Emily Carroll for Out of Skin.
Jeet Heer explains why the jury chose Carol's work.
Don McKellar (minus 1 tooth) read the nominee's for the Spotlight Award.
Spotlight Award (AKA "The Nipper"): Steven Gilbert for The Journal of the Main Street Secret Lodge.
Nick Maandag explains why the Jury picked Gilbert's book.
Michael Hirsh gave his history in recovering and preserving the archives of the Canadian Whites.
Induction of all 200+ creators of the Canadian Whites into the Giants of the North Hall of Fame.
The last two surviving cartoonists Gerry Lazare and Jack Tramblay were there and gave their acceptance speech. They were followed by Adrian Dingles youngest son Christpher.
Best Book: Paul Joins the Scouts, Michel Rabagliati (Conundrum Press).
Closing by Brad Mackay. Then Hope Nichols and Rachel Riley talk about the just published Nelvana of the North (created by Adrian Dingle) Collection.

New York Comic Con 2013 (October 9 - 13) - 54 Photos

Note: October 9th was a Professional only day hosted by ICv2 and sponsored by Heidi MacDonald's The Beat, Publisher's Weekly and Valiant Entertainment. The first 2 panels below are from that day.

Graphic Novels - Growing in a Digital World. (1:01:51, 56.6mb)
This was moderated by Calvin Reid (Publisher's Weekly). On the panel was Trudy Knudsen (Manger eContent Acquisitions, Follett), Dallas Middaugh (Director, Publisher Services) Barry Nalebuff (author, Mission in a Bottle), Rich Johnson (Founder, Brick Road Media), Greg Goldstein (President & COO, IDW) and Leyla Aker (Vice President Publishing, Viz). The group talked about digital comics in libraries. Trudy said they are very popular and they need more of them. It was said that comics are great for reluctant readers and manga is the most popular form of comics in libraries. The publishers on the panel discussed getting comics into libraries. Leyla mentioned when going digital Viz decided to build their own App instead of selling through the usual channels, because none of them could do right to left reading method digitally and also so they would get the data on their customers reading habits. IDW said they've been making books like the Artists Edition line to give people a reason to buy print as you can't replicate full sized art digitally. Leyla said Viz had worked to get day and date translations released at the same time as the Japanese publishers as a way of combating free scanlations that were coming out on the web before their version was released. Barry said Scott McCloud's book (Understanding Comics) was very useful when they hired and illustrator for his book. He also talked about the difficulties with getting media coverage because it's a business book told via comics format. Both the business and graphic novel media see it as belonging to the other and not covering it. The group had discussed the diversity of comics out there. They said comics for kids has seen a great deal of growth recently, particularly My Little Pony. Scholastic had ordered more My Little Pony books than anything they've ordered previously. The group had answered questions on how they sell a new type of product they haven't sold before and how they come up with a price point. They talked about getting journalists to cover their work. At the end they spoke about Manga by non-Japanese creators too.

The Rise of Geek Culture. (1:06:31, 60.9mb)
On the panel was Ed Catto (co-founder Bonfire Agency), Shawn Kirkham (Director, Business Development Skybound), Gerry Gladstone (Co-Owner Midtown Comics), Steve Rotterdam (co-founder Bonfire Agency), Rob Salkowitz (Author, Comic Con and the Business of Pop Culture) and the moderator was Milton Greipp (ICV2). The panel started off with Ed Catto giving a presentation of some numbers of how many people are involved in Geek Culture and how much money is spent. He explained the effect of Geeks opinion and how geeks become taste makers for others to follow, then how that influences the media. New Apple and Samsung commercials that incorporates geek culture within their ads were shown to demonstrate how geek culture has entered into the mainstream. They spoke about marketing to the different type of fans and went through some good and bad examples of companies trying to market to geeks (the touched on this topic a couple more times throughout the panel). Another topic that came up is if we have reached "peak geek" or not. Gary was concerned about too many bad superhero movies could hurt the comics industry and said we were not too big to fail. Shawn had talked about the success and new/odd cross promotions of the Walking Dead (including a new debt card). The group discussed efforts in getting movie/tv watchers to buy the comics. Towards the end the group had spoke about the growth in geek girls and cosplay in particular.

Protect It and Publish It! Creating and Protecting Your Comic Book Property. (1:56:04, 106mb)
This is a 2 part panel that I've merged into a single file. Moderated by Thomas Crowell Esq. (Entertainment Attorney) with him were 2 other entertainment attorneys, Matthew Tynan and Sheafe Walker Esq. Also with them was 3 creators, Allan Norico, David Gallaher and Alan Robert. The legal team gave a disclaimer that what they say during the panel is not legal advice. They first talked about copyright, what those rights are, when you get those rights, what the benefits are to registering the copyright and how you can do that. They presented information about contracts, the Chain of Title, why you would want a contract between collaborators, the legal distinction of who the author of the work is and how that is determined legally, the potential pitfalls of joint authorship, exclusive and non exclusive rights, how ideas in themselves can't be copyrighted and what work for hire is. They also talked about the benefits of setting up an LLC, hiring an artist and work for hire agreements. Major comic book cases were touched on briefly and they gave an intellectual properties rules of thumb. The 2nd part of the panel was more about the creative end. They went into issues of promoting what you created in terms of pitching it to publishers and gave a run down of do's and don'ts during a pitch. They mentioned networking with publishers (and their editors) at conventions and tips about establishing a relationship with them at the con. They spoke about negotiating a publishing deal, online submissions, tips on working with the publisher after the deal has been made. They went into royalties and talked about how the current royalty pool works in terms of what creative role (writer, artist, inker, etc..) gets what percentage of the royalties. They quickly addressed DIY (Do It Yourself) publishing in terms of printing, distributing and digital publishing. Then they gave a contracts rule of thumb. After both sessions they took questions from the audience. Much of the audience were creative people. Those involved at the panel worked together on a book titled The Pocket Lawyer for Comic Book Creators, which will be out March of 2014.

Comics, Hollywood and What Creators Need to Know. (1:24:47, 77.6mb)
This panel was moderated by Buddy Scalera. On the panel was Mike Richardson (Dark Horse), freelance writer/inker Jimmy Palmiotti and Ross Richie (Boom!) Jimmy talked about his experience licensing Ash and Painkiller Jane. Mike talked about Dark Horse licensing comics and how his licensed work became Movies (Predator 2 is an example) and his own work being licensed into movies. He told many stories from licensing the Mask, Time Cop and other movies. Ross explained his history of working for Malibu Comics and going away to work for Hollywood. He ran away screaming from Hollywood and started up his own comic book publishing. Because Hollywood reads comics, they recognized his name and came after him for Boom! books. Jimmy explained what breaking down a series means for a TV show. Ross helped manage a talk about what certain terms mean in Hollywood and the various roles that Agents, Producers, Managers and Entertainment Lawyers play and where/why you would need one. Somebody asked about people stealing their ideas and Jimmy and Mike says it actually happens all the time. They wouldn't name names but Jimmy talked about ideas that he had pitched to particular directors suddenly done without his involvement. He said he had a really hard lesson in a company admitting they stole the idea but to successfully litigate it would cost him 2 million dollars. Since he couldn't afford that he had to walk away. Mike talked about getting sued for movies like the Mask and Time Cop. The talked about shopping the property around. Mike and Ross talked about first look deals what they are and the pro's and con's of the deal. Ross Ritchie had to leave part way through. Jimmy spoke about why he's doing a lot more written work as of late and wanting to raise his profile. Mike talked about giving Carla Speed McNeil more spotlight. Mike said thanks to the internet if you have talent it is much easier to get noticed as people are looking for talented artists. Jimmy and Mike said you can't do a comic that is a movie pitch as you recognize right away and it's makes a bad comic. Mike said publishers that try the comic to movie business model usually fail because it takes a long time for the movie to get made, if it gets made at all. Mike said comic creators want to keep the certain comic book related rights and you want an entertainment lawyer and they should get involved in with rest of the movie as much as possible. Mike said Dark Horse got the rights to do Prometheus comics and he's very happy about it. Mike gave advise on how to pitch to him and recommended the Mystery Box Ted Talk. At the end Buddy spoke against downloading comics.

Editors on Editing. (1:11:43, 65.6mb)
This panel was more about how to break into comics via pitching to editors. On the panel was Warren Simons (Valiant), Scott Allie (Dark Horse) and Chris Ryall (IDW). Moderating the panel was Buddy Scalera. They first talked about their recent books. They then went through the do's and don'ts of pitching as a writer or artist. They talked about pitching at a con, establishing relationships, using the online submission process. The audience asked some questions and they answered questions on how to become an editor and how to become an intern. They spoke briefly about licensing issues and what happens when a deadline gets missed. At the end they plugged other upcoming books and Buddy asked fans not to download/torrent comic books.

CBLDF: Secret History of Comic Book Censorship. (1:00:11, 55.1mb)
On the panel was Charles Kochman (Abrams Art), Carol Tilly (Teacher/Researcher/Librarian) and Charles Brownstein (CBLDF). Carol started off the panel with reading a letter written to Wertham from a kid who disagreed with his articles. She revealed which comic creators reached out and talked to Wertham, giving him industry related information. She delved into the first version of the ACMP code and a couple of the people on DC's advisory committee. She said that Wertham had a particular dislike for those on the advisory committee and revealed how an unrelated negative book review caused an angry author to link Wertham with Senator Kefauver. Carol spoke of how Gaines asked his readers to write to the Senate to defend the comic books they enjoyed and Carol found and read some of those letters. She also revealed that 200 letters were sent to the Senate and they are within the National Archives. She talked a bit about the code and the reaction to it and surprised the audience by revealing Carl Barks was seemingly in favor of CCA censorship. She showed how Wertham altered and just made up answers to questions that his patients gave in regards to comic books to further his agenda. She ended off talking about how censorship of comics is still alive and ongoing in her home town with books being challenged and taken out of libraries. Charles Brownstein explained how censorship was still ongoing in schools and libraries and comic shops were still being persecuted for selling comics for adults. He talked about Manga being attacked and Ryan Matheson being held up at the Canadian border for it due to ignorance of the artform. He also said there is now a book that helps people understand Manga. Charles Kochman revealed that Cathy Gaines is in the audience and Brownstein said they were selling a Gaines was right t-shirt with her permission. Charles Kochman said they have a book about some of the non-EC horror comics that Wertham was not in favour of called The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You To Read.

IDW: The Ultimate Panel (1:01:01, 55.8mb)
On the panel was Dirk Wood (moderator), Chris Ryall, Greg Goldstein, Darwyn Cooke and Scott Dunbier. Part way through the panel was the surprise guest Jim Steranko. They started off the panel announcing the new Parker book is called Slayground. Darwyn said it's a short book that is one of his favourites in the Parker series and recommended it as a place to start. Because it's a shorter story, he is also including a The Seventh, a short Eisner winning story that has not been collected yet. They also announced IDW is republishing the print version of Parker books in hardcover format with Darwyn doing 10 full colour chapter illustrations and covers. Among the other announcements were: Artists Edition Peanuts, Kirby New Gods (issues 2, 5-8) and Dave Gibbons made a pre-recorded video to announce Watchmen - in colour but not the full story. After Jim Steranko showed up, they announced 2 books, a bigger sized Steranko done Agents of Shield stories from Strange Tales, then a Nick Fury / Captain America book at a slightly smaller size because the size of the paper the artists drew on shrank. Also within the Nick Fury / Captain America book will be a Steranko romance story. Jim mentioned that he did 29 comics and they've all have been kept in print. He says he seems to have made a big impact in comics for a small amount of work. Jim told a few stories about wanting to do new work for Marvel and DC over the last 5 years but was always turned down either because he wanted to do comics in a new format, something in his story violated the their universe or because they decided they didn't need him working on that particular character. Darwyn mentioned said one nice thing about IDW is how quick they are in getting an answer to you. He said when Scott Dunbier started with IDW he told him about wanting to do the Parker books adaptation and 2 weeks later Scott called back, saying they got the rights and they were working on it. With DC it took them 4 years to approve the New Frontier story. There were questions from the audience about IDW licensing properties, doing more work with John Byrne, how Darwyn adapts a book to Graphic Novel format.

Beyond the Webcomics. (1:00:12, 55.1mb)
The moderator was agent Seth Fishman. On the panel was Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics), Chris Hastings (Dr. McNinja) and Kate Beaton ( Hark A Vagrant). The room was full and was standing room only. The group talked about why they are starting to do work outside of webcomics. Ryan mentioned webcomics becomes a wacky resume. Chris said he once used his comic to try and get dates on Myspace. They took a show of hands and saw plenty of people in the audience do webcomics. They all spoke about prioritizing their webcomics with other work and projects they had to turn down. Ryan discovered that with Kickstarter what you write on there is legally binding, so he's now doing more choose your adventure books. Kate is doing a picture book for Scholastic. Kate also spoke about why she got an Agent. Chris talked about his Longshot mini-series for Marvel and he's doing a Dr. McNinja card game. He revealed he does a live comedy show at a nearby theatre, but he never speaks about it online because he wants to get good at it first. They all revealed a dream project they'd like to do. They also talked about Networking in Person vs. Online and working on multiple properties, including ones you don't own. They advised webcomic creators that it's best to wait until you have enough material to hook people (like a month's worth) before you start advertising it.

Yoe! Books Presents: Fiends, Ghouls & Haunted Horror!. (50:23, 46.1mb)
Craig Yoe gave a rousing speech about the 1950's pre-code comics. Along the way he showed a number of horror comics and specific panels that was used to criticize comics. He also gave an overview of comic book history from the 1950s in regards to Wertham and the Comics Code. He also talked about Bob Wood, Jack Cole and Wally Wood, all of whom are comic creators that had their life cut short by either suicide or murder. He talked about the content of his books are often in the public domain, but he does respect the artists and pays them or their estate. He revealed he will be working on book of Stanley P. Morse published comics, which were among the most gruesome of the 1950's comics.

New Transmedia Story Worlds. (56:10, 51.4mb)
I had joined the panel just after it had started. The panel was made up primarily of Starlight Runner Entertainment employees. The moderator was Jeff Gomez (CEO), on the panel was Mark Pensavalle (COO), Chip Brown (Harper Collins Sr. VP & Publisher), Fabian Nicieza (CIO), Chrysoula Artemis (COO) and Darren Sanchez (Production Manager). Chip talked about the bible being a transmedia property and how it's been used in a variety of media. Fabian said their proof of concept was their Hot Wheels contract. He explained Mattel came to them about how they could sell more toys. Fabian wrote 8 page mini comics for each car, giving them a driver and self-contained but interconnected story. The story was the basis of the Hot Wheels video game and cartoon show and the show was then sold on DVD. He said they generated an additional 200 million dollars for Mattel. The group talked about working directly with James Cameron on Avatar and how James helped Fox see them as not just a marketing expense. They said their work on Avatar won't be seen until the 2nd and 3rd movie comes out. They mentioned that large companies like Disney are not transmedia friendly as they have multiple departments and the work gets bounced around and back to them. They talked about difficulties they have working with publishers as they are not getting the transmedia thing. They revealed they went to San Diego one year and pretended they had a product to sell just to generate some interest in what they are doing. Currently they are doing bible related transmedia work. An audience member had brought up Marvel and they said they do get transmedia and are doing it well, but said the stories/characters are not consistent across the mediums. They said the movie version, the comic and cartoon versions of the characters are all different. They took questions from the audience and Fabian said creators should focus on selling to a publisher a story, and if successful then work in the transmedia. He said all transmedia has a core media that it starts from.

Creative Graphic Novels for Kids. (58:25, 53.4mb)
The panel was moderated by Chris Duffy. On the panel was Jimmy Gownley, Sheila Keenan, Nathon Fox, Paul Pope, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Andrew Arnold and Jon Chad. They talked about what goes on before they do the first draft of the Graphic Novel. The creators said the idea being something they are so in love/obsessed with they can spend 1 or 2 years working on it full time. Sheila's book involved a lot of research as it involves 3 wars. Also mentioned was needing to like their collaborations because they'll be working together daily the entire time. Other topics they talked about was keeping the art the same throughout the book, creators moving from traditional comic book publishers to traditional bookstore aimed publishers who are used to marketing kids comics, if they tested their ideas on kids prior to writing or finishing the book. Jimmy mentioned when he started Amelia Rules the traditional comic industry was actively hostile to kids comics. He said he really needed to reach out to kids to market his books. Paul talked about how he is now interacting with all ages when in libraries and schools promoting his book. They also talked about if the hero of the book needs to be the same age as the intended readership. Paul said he hates it when an editor imposes rules because of the way things have worked in the past. He said you are just asking for them to be broken. They spoke about influences on their current book and what book they love that they think everybody should read. Another topic was how much dialogue they can use in kids books and if there are things they can do in kids book that they can't in adult books.

Joe Shuster Awards 2013 (August 24) - 23 Photos

Full 2013 Joe Shuster Awards Ceremony. (59:52, 54.8mb)
Presented at the Ontario Art Museum - Jackson Hall, The awards were hosted by Ty Templeton and Rob Salem.
The awards start off with a video of Stan Lee who congratulating a 2007 Joe Shuster Awards. The Awards had flashed 2013 on the screen for comedic effect.
In order of presentation:
Presented by Kevin Boyd, Outstanding Cover Artist: Mike Del Mundo for A+X #2B, Amazing Spider-Man #678-679, 683B, Incredible Hulk #4B, Ka by Cirque de Soleil #1, Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1-5, Max Payne 3 #3, New Avengers #24B, Scarlet Spider #1B, 4B, Uncanny X-Men #17, Untold Tales of Punisher Max #5, Venom #16-17, 20, 22B, Wolverine #314-317, X-Men Legacy #1-2 (Marvel)
Presented by Anthony Falcone & Scott VanderPloeg, Harry Kremer Award for Canadian Comic Book Retailer: Heroes in London, Ontario
Inducted by Robert Pincombe into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame: Vernon Miller (1912-1974)
Presented by Andrew Walsh, Outstanding Web Comic Creator: Michael DeForge: Ant Comic
The Gene Day Award, presented by Rachel Richey: The Pig Sleep: A Mr. Monitor Case by Cory McCallum and Matthew Daley
Inducted by Hope Nicholson and Rachel Richey into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame: Murray Karn (1924-)
The Dragon Award (Comics for Kids), presented by Amy Chop and Jennifer Haines: Cat’s Cradle Volume 1: The Golden Twine (Kids Can Press): Jo Rioux
Presented by Anthony Del Col, Outstanding Writer: Fanny Britt: Jane, le renard & moi (La Pastèque)/Jane, The Fox and Me (Groundwood Books)
Inducted by Ken Steacy into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame: Arn Saba (Katherine Collins) (1947-)
Presented by Ty Templeton and Rob Salem, Outstanding Artist: Isabelle Arsenault: Jane, le renard & moi (La Pastèque)/Jane, The Fox and Me (Groundwood Books)
Also presented by Ty Templeton and Rob Salem, Outstanding Cartoonists: Jeff Lemire: Sweet Tooth #29-40 (DC Comics), The Underwater Welder (Top Shelf)
Details about the awards can be found JoeShusterAwards.com

San Diego Comic Con 2013 (July 17-21) - 157 Photos

How to Get News Coverage for Small Press Publishers (50:52, 46.5mb)
This was moderated by Rik Offenberger from the First Comic News website. On the panel was Albert Ching (Newsarma), Glenn Hauman (ComicMix), Tanya Tate (Justa Lotta Tanya), Rich Johnston (Bleeding Cool), Alan Kistler (AlanKistler.com), Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), Chris Thompson (Pop Culture Hound), Holly Golightly (Jim Balent Studios), Josh Waldrop (M1W Entertainment), J.C. Vaughn (The Scoop) and Bryan Young (Big Shiny Robot). The group was there mainly to answer questions for creators/publishers in the audience. They started off by going down the line to explain the best way to be contacted if you are looking to get your work promoted. They also gave advice on what not to do like using exclamation points in a press release. They had talked about when not to be contacted (eg right now, as they are at a convention and theirs are piling up) and how much lead time is required for types of coverage. Kickstarter was a big topic as everybody gets swamped with pleas to promote Kickstarter campaigns and why they rarely do them. They also talked a bit about sending them PDF files.

Dan Parent Spotlight (46:48, 42.8mb)
This was an interview of Dan Parent by Rik Offenberger and Chris Thompson. Parent started by talking about reading comics as a kid, how we went to the Kubert school and how that lead to a job in the Archie Comics production office. He said he worked there for 10 years getting a good on the job education, including the switch to a more digital form of producing comics. He talked about pitching stories while at Archie and how many of them were rejected at first (and for good reason). Eventually he started getting stories approved and he talked about some of the stories that got a lot of mainstream media coverage. Regarding stories they talked about the move to doing longer stories and using the parent characters more. Regarding art Parent talked about working with Dan DeCarlo and drawing clothes on the female characters. They also talked about the Veronica solo series he pitched and has been successful with Archie and the Kevin Keller character and how he came about. His work outside of Archie was talked about, including Felix the Cat, Barbie Comics, Carney Comics and Bratz. The audience asked questions about Archie's Madhouse, his favorite Archie characters, artists outside of Archie he's currently reading. Dan mentioned Archie's 50th Anniversary year is coming up. Some outside of comics stuff has come up, including his being on the Weakest Link and Who Wants to be a Millionaire TV shows. He also told a funny story about being in Tijuana once.

Roman Dirge REBUILT! (42:40, 39.0mb)
This was moderated by Titan Comics senior editor Steve White. The reason Roman was "REBUILT" was due a bad accident he was in about a year ago. He was hit very hard by an SUV and said they measured the distance he flew to be 15 feet. His leg was broken and had to be reattached to him. He has lost some of the bone in his leg and now needs a walking stick to get around. Roman talked about the time it took him to recover. He says since being hit has made him more motivated to get work done. He showed art on 3 new projects he is currently working on, this including a graphic novel called Monocle, a superhero book called Stringbean (it's very dark and strange) and a TV show called Battleboy. He had also talked about Lenore and upcoming plans for her and any other media possibilities with the character. He revealed that other strange things have been happening to him that could have seriously injured or killed him since the accident.

8th Annual All Star Podcasters Panel (53:35, 49.0mb)
On this panel was a who's who of long running podcasters. Moderating the panel was John Siuntres (Word Balloon), on it was fellow podcasters Brian Christman (Comic Geek Speak), John Mayo (Comic Book Page, Heidi MacDonald (Publishers Weekly Comics World), Jimmy Aquino (Comic News Insider), Conor Kilpatrick (iFanboy) and Ben Blacker (Nerdist). The group had talked about digital comics and argued about digital vs print sales. They had also talked about comic book movies. Heidi brought up at the big 2 are not creating major artists anymore. They also talked about 'event' comics. The group talked about sponsorships (one major sponsor was there in the audience) in terms of making money from the podcast, the length of their shows, how open podcasting is now and how professional one has to be to do the show. The group ended the panel by talking about what comics they are enjoying now.

Family Feud: The Comics Blogging Panel (53:38, 49.1mb)
The panel was moderated by a very hungry Tom Spurgeon (The Comics Reporter). On the panel was Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), Tony Isabella (Tony Isabella's Bloggy Thing), Alexa Dickman (Ladies Making Comics), Rich Johnston (Bleeding Cool), and Graeme McMillan (Many different sites). There was a very large audience and Tom joked about the panel being a pre-show for the next panel (Mega64: Decade of Perfection) which got the audience laughing. The group introduced themselves particularly to the crowd who were not familiar with them. Tom had received some questions from his readers and asked them. Among the topics talked about writing in a way to generate hits from search engines, (eg using words like exclusive, which generate traffic) or topics that they might not normally cover and how it may compromises their writing. Lots of discussion was around those that have writers contributing to their blog. Among the topics for them were letting contributors develop their voice, how much they pay their writers and if it's hypocritical to write negatively about companies exploiting their talent while they pay their own writers little to nothing. The amounts being paid to contributors was revealed and what other forms of compensation they are getting. For those that work (or had worked) in print how writers got paid was discussed. The group also talked about creator rights issues, gender issues, creators in need and they also took questions from the audience.

Tony Isabella Spotlight (51:39, 47.2mb)
Mark Evanier interviewed Tony about his career in comics. They talked about his getting involved in comic fandom, his comic reading as a kid, particularly FF annual #1, his love of giant monsters, his living in New York City and the seedy hotel on Times Square he lived in. He spoke about his editorial work at Marvel, writing books under tight deadlines when other people blew them, his favorite artists to work with, in particular Frank Robins and Eddie Newell, him getting a chance to work with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. Tony revealed that he wrote a large, multi issue Captain America story only to later find out that Kirby had already been hired to take over the book after a few issues. He also spoke a bit about co-writing with Bob Ingersol. He said said he would have loved to have more time on Daredevil and Ghost Rider. He said his original champions pitch was Iceman and Angel buddy book with them on the road getting involved in certain situations. Said he would still liked to have written that. Tony also won an inkwell award for his work in comics and Tony gave his love to the convention for having him as a guest.

Jose Delbo Spotlight (52:58, 48.4mb)
Moderated by his daughter/agent Silvana Frontera. Jose talked about differences between European and US comics. How he worked on superheroes except for the Flash. He didn't want to draw him. He loves doing Westerns and the Lone Ranger in particular. He did a number of other media type adaptations over many years, including the Beatles Yellow Submarine, Monkee's Comic Book, Transformers and NFL Superpro among others. He said he liked working on the Monkee's because he can be comical and not be so strictly on model as he was with other books. Jose revealed that his father wanted him to be a lawyer and was worried that he would be poor as an artist. When he got his first cheque he gave it to his father and he never cashed it, he saved it as a symbol of his son having made it and making good living. Jose talked about learning under Carlos Clemen (a famous Argentina artist). He would move to Brazil to work. His wife had a uncle who was an US citizen and asked him if he'd like to come to USA, he said yes and came over. He also told a story about almost getting drafted to go to Vietnam, he told them he was married with 2 kids and they put him at the bottom of the list to put into service. He said he is happy for comic book conventions because 8 year olds do not know what comic books are, that blew his mind and he knew comics were in trouble then. He said he finds artists today too similar in style and colourists don't believe that white is a colour. He talked about his love of Joe Kubert and working as a teacher in his school. He talked about his former Dell editor/writer DJ Arneson. He said Dell/Western destroyed all the original art, but he knew a kid who spoke Spanish in the production dept and he snuck him some of his art back, he mentioned getting some of his Turok art, but he didn't get any of his Lone Ranger which is disappointing for him. He also said credits were not allowed in those books but he would sneak his name in the rocks of Turok. Jose was asked about his relationship with editors. He mentioned Paul Levitz came by and asked him how he was doing earlier which he thought was very nice. He told a funny story about a kid who wanted a transformers sketch at a convention but he couldn't remember how to draw the character. As he was drawing the kid kept correcting him and a reporter was nearby and wrote a story in the paper about a kid teaching him how to draw, which was embarrassing at the time. He said when he was drawing Transformers he was given the toys to help towards refrence but he had to keep his grandkids from playing with them. He felt the superheroes today have bodies that are too super. Said Superman gets his powers from another planet and doesn't need Arnold Schwarzenegger's body and Batman is an intelligent detective. Said they have him flying and super strong now. In regards to working digital, he only uses computers for reference photos. Regarding inkers he liked, in named Al Williamson in particular. He said for a while he wasn't inking his work and Al called him and asked why. He said he didn't know why and it wasn't his decision, but he would ask that his pencils would go to him. So he called his editor and asked for Al and then Al got Transformers pages to ink. Al hated them, only did 5 or 6 pages and quit. Jose would have liked to ink his own work but he couldn't justify the time to do it. He mentioned doing some work on a new Transformer book but couldn't say what. Jose also got an inkpot award from the Comic Con organization.

Kim Thompson Tribute (46:55, 42.9mb)
Kim Thompson was a long time co-owner/editor of Fantagraphics who recently passed away due to cancer. On the panel was Eric Reynolds, Gary Groth, Diana Schutz, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Gary talked about Kim first getting involved with Fantagraphics. Diana talked about first meeting Gary and Kim. She said Kim would later reach out to her and other women, asking them to contribute to the Amazing Hero magazine, which was very rare at the time. Hernandez Bros and Eric talked about meeting Kim and working with him. Gary talked about how he, Kim and Harlan Ellison met in order to try and make up after the lawsuit, but Harlan did not like Kim's review of Frank Millers work and they instead got into a huge argument over it. Diana talked about working with Kim over the last few years doing translations. Gary talked about how they all lived in the Fantagraphics house and Kim used to regularly work in his bathrobe. He would always be wearing shorts or sweatpants unless it was something super formal. Gary said Kim had knowledge about what was good cartooning. The group talked about Kim not having any guilty pleasures and loved Brian De Palma movies. They all said he was always working, including late at night or very early in the morning. Gilbert thinks there would be no Vertigo or many independent publishers around if it was not for Kim's groundbreaking work wih Fantagraphics. Eric talked about Kim championing some artists, including Jason which he wasn't convinced would do so well.

Carmine Infantino Tribute (49:22, 45.1mb)
On the panel were Jon B, Cooke, Elliot S! Maggin, Paul Levitz, Martin Pasko and moderating the panel was J. David Spurlock. Carmine Infantino was a long time extremely important artist, editor and publisher, much of his work for DC Comics. Elliot talked about Carmine patching up the many fights he and Julie Schwartz had. Both he and Martin said Carmine wasn't pretentious. Elliot told a story about Carmine and Julie getting into an argument and Julie said "I was here before you and I'll be here after your gone!" and Carmine just laughed, he didn't let stuff said during heated arguments bother him. Paul talked about how after the 1966 Batman show started to drop in ratings nobody at DC had any idea of where to take the company. Carmine provided DC with a direction and really experimented in ways that publishers didn't do prior to that. Today publisher's experiment the ways Carmine did back then, trying all sorts of new ideas with different creators. Martin talked about Carmine's cover design and David said all the DC covers were pretty much laid out by Carmine from when he was art director and on up. David mentioned that as Carmine moved up the ladder at DC, he kept doing his old jobs. One time an HR person within the company was reviewing who did what within the organization and they told Carmine he did the work of 5 people. David revealed that Stan Lee had offered Carmine a job in the mid 1960s and DC promoted him in order to keep him. Martin and David talked about the many behind the scene changes that Carmine was responsible for that he doesn't get credit for, both small and large. David said one of them was ordering his artists to update their swipe files so that females were not drawn with 1950's style clothing. They talked about how many artists got their start at DC comics, with Carmine liking their art and telling editors to get the artist a script. Paul talked about how when Carmine took over, he broke down the BS formality at DC at the time and made it much more open and about creating good comics. He said Carmine made DC more open to fans and solicited their opinions, much more than Marvel did at the time. Elliot talked about him suggesting DC do a Superman movie and writing a pitch, Julie disagreed, thinking superheroes were over and he went to Carmine. Carmine sent Elliot and another writer to talk with Mario Puzo about it. Paul revealed that in the early 60s, Carmine won the best artist in fandom awards 4 times in a row and people don't realize how popular he was with fans during that time. David said Carmine really went to bat to hire Kirby back, despite resistance within DC and he went to bat for many other artists as well. David and Martin said Carmine was really influential and that Bernie Krigstein and John Romita learned from him.

Jeffery Brown Spotlight (49:18, 45.1mb)
This was moderated by Leigh Walton. Jeff talked about getting into comics, his autobiographical books and how they started. He said people in his life don't appear to be too bothered by their depiction because he makes himself look very unflattering. He talked about the style of art he chooses for which project. He talked about Bighead and how it came about. Leigh gave the reason for the small sized Jeffery Brown books and why they are all different sizes. They then talked about his Star Wars books, Darth Vader and Son, Star Wars: Vader's Little Princess and they revealed a new Star Wars: Jedi Academy book and showed a video trailer for it. His next autobiographical book is about his wife's pregnancy and his relationship with his father. His father is a minister but he is no longer practicing religion. They talked about his use of colour on the books. They gave a handout showing a sample of his upcoming work to those the audience that asked questions. Jeff revealed he wants to do a book about the business side of comic art. He is also a teacher and those types of questions get asked a lot by his students.

Joe Kubert Tribute (48:58, 44.8mb)
Moderated by Mark Evanier. On the panel was Sergio Aragonés, Paul Levitz, Marv Wolfman, Tom Yeates, Jon B. Cooke and Russ Heath. The panelists signed 3 books about Joe Kubert by Bill Schelley which would be auctioned off for Hero Initiative. The panelists talked about Joe and what they liked about him. Sergio was always amazed on how fast Kubert drew and he was drawing realistically. Paul said his funeral drew such a large crowd they had to borrow police from 2 nearby towns, considering the burial was done by Jewish traditions (where it's done fairly quickly) it was an amazing crowd of people that showed up. Many more would have showed up if there was more notice. Marv talked about Joe teaching him about how to pace a story by taking one of his stories and ignoring his art direction and drawing it his way. He said Joe went over the art and explained what he was doing and why and that was an enormous eye opener for Marv and it taught him a lot about writing. Marv also told a story about art that needed to be inked right away to make deadline and the only pen in the area was a lettering pen, which has a very fat nub and is not something you draw or ink with. Joe made that pen sing and did a great job of inking despite the tool not being fit for the job. Marv also talked about when he was an assistant editor under Kubert he would often have to completely re-write Bob Kanigher stories for Joe. Tom Yeates said he met Joe before he started the school and connected with him right away, Joe then called him up when he was starting his school. While Tom was there he started getting work and tried to draw like Joe in terms of surface detail, but found it wasn't working and he learned from Joe about the under the surface detail that makes his drawings work. Jon talked about Joe using the school to give back to creators as Joe had started when he was 11 and learned from multiple artists while sweeping floors at a comic sweatshop. Russ mentioned Joe gave hard backslaps and told some funny stories about Joe. He also said that inking Joe was very hard. Sergio told a funny story about how Joe said he was going to take his 5 kids, wife and mobile home and go on vacation. Sergio told him he should go to Mexico and drew him a map of Mexico and everywhere they should go and how they would get there. A few months later Joe told Sergio that he had actually used his map to go into Mexico and thanked him for it being so accurate. Sergio was stunned that he would go into Mexico with his family just based on his drawn map. Mark Evanier told an early San Diego con story about Joe doing a fund raising sketch for the con and a friend of his was too late to bid on it and lost it (price $300), Mark talked to Joe and he quickly did another sketch that was even better than the first one and the winner of the previous sketch wanted the new one instead. Marv and Paul said Joe was also a very good businessman too, something that was pretty rare back in those days.

Russ Heath Spotlight (55:38, 50.9mb)
This was moderated by Mark Waid. Russ talked about where he grew up and his early influences. He mentioned his father was a cowboy among his many other jobs, but as a result he watched a lot of western related serials. His father would tell him that if the actor was wearing a flowery shirt or something that the character wasn't a real cowboy. Russ took from that that when writing/drawing fiction you need to be true to whatever you are depicting. He said he got started in comics when at 16 his father took him to Holyoke and he was given a script, but was told he couldn't draw it in pen. He had to buy a brush and after a few days he figured out how to use it. This stunned Mark as some artists take years to figure out how to use a brush. Russ talked about joining the air force. He mentioned he was in and out of high school as he did not have good marks. He said prior to drawing for a living he was a lifeguard and ran a scuba diving club. He did some advertising work, but then had a wife and kid and needed more money. The advertising paid $35 a week, he was looking for work during lunch hour and found Stan still working. Stan offered him $75 a week to draw for him, which he did. Russ liked doing westerns but didn't like doing Batman because of all the straight lines on the buildings. Said he knew Harvey Kurtzman from Marvel as he was doing the 1 page Hey Look! gags. They had lunch together a couple of times and that lead to Harvey giving him some work at EC comics. Russ talked about Kanigher and not in a positive way. He said he was also friends with Ross Andru and Gray Morrow. He talked about moving to California in the 70s and working in animation. He also worked on Annie Fanny for Playboy while in the Playboy mansion. He was going to quit Annie when Hugh called him up, doubled his salary and offered to pay him to move to Chicago, which he did. He also told a funny story about sabotaging Will Elder's paint pants. He talked about Archie Goodwin and said he was a very good editor and visual writer. He mentioned on an script Archie drew stick figure layouts of his story. Russ didn't look at them and drew his own stick figure layouts. When he was done he compared the two and found all but 1 of the layouts matched exactly and there was about 40 panels. Of newer artists he likes Adam Hughes. Russ also answered questions on National Lampoon, inking Micheal Golden and other artists in general. He also told about becoming fast friends with Dave Stevens when they worked together at Hanna-Barbera. He said they both caused chaos there.

Gerry Conway Spotlight (53:09, 48.6mb)
This was Conway doing a Q&A with the audience. Among the topics he answered questions on were the creation of the Punisher, the bridge Gwen Stacy was thrown off and the snap sound effect, how he got into Marvel, DC comics being like Mad Men TV Show in the 60s, how he broke into DC comics, how he then got into Marvel comics and some of his reasons for going back and forth between the companies. He revealed after Gwen's death he didn't read any fan mail or do conventions for a long time, why Gwen never came back, the Clone storyline, villains who were often throw aways like The Grizzly, the issues comics are facing today, how Phantom Stranger at DC was his first regular gig, his moving into writing TV and films. He also said that after writing Law and Order Hollywood thinks he can't write superhero movies. He is now writing a YA novel, he also told a funny story about the Spider-Mobile, both how it came about and it coming back one day in an unexpected way.

That 70's Panel (1:20:25, 73.6mb)
Moderated by Mark Evanier. On the panel was Tony Isabella, Val Mayerik, Elliot S! Maggin, Martin Pasko and George Perez. They talked about their 1st pro sale, when they felt they made it, "Oh Wow!" moments on working with their heroes. They explained was different about their generation from the previous one. Martin talked about a sad story of meeting a poor Bill Finger who told him to "always get the credit." The group talked about royalties. Mark Evanier told a funny story about being the 1st person to use express mail for DC. The group talked about how express mail changed the industry in both good and bad ways. Mark also told a funny story about being in a strip club with other artists that were also using Fed Ex. The group also talked about sexism in the industry back then.

The Best and Worst Manga in 2013 (47:47, 43.7mb)
Moderated by Deb Aoki, on the panel was Brigid Alverson, David Brothers, Chris Butcher and Shaenon Garrity. The group talked about the best manga in various categories and where it could be bought at the con (or seen online). They were fairly quick as they ran through the titles and Deb had a dinger if the people talked too long. They had all taken turns talking about their favourite books, sometimes 2 people would talk about the same book. They had pointed out that Fantagraphics is not publishing any bad manga right now. When they went through the worst list some of the best books were on that list too which generated a crowd reaction and debate among the panelists. They also had an under rated section too. Towards he end they were short of time and really rushed through the last of the books. You can find this list online here.

Comic Arts Conference Session #22: Superman On Trial: The Secret History of the Siegel and Shuster Lawsuits (50:36, 46.3mb)
Moderated by Heidi MacDonald, on the panel was Jeff Trexler and Brad Ricca. They talked about how the lawsuits became part of the superman mythos now. Ricca talked about how Donenfeld actually had published the Lone Ranger but the creator took it back and thinks that had a lot to do with Donenfeld wanting to own and keep Superman. The group talked about what if scenarios. Jeff talked about the early 90s settlements between Siegel and Shuster families that are at this time in effect (and might remain that way). Brad also talked about Joe Shuster's last years and how it wasn't all doom and gloom. He had been married once (but divorced, his wife was into a cult) and had a girlfriend. Also on the panel and spoke towards the end was Peter M. Coogan, who said he had some some research for the DC side. Also in the audience was Wayne Smith, Senior Vice President, Senior Litigation & Chief Patent Counsel at Warner Bros. Entertainment Group of Companies and Lillian Laserson, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of DC Comics Inc. Lillian gave a what if senario at the end of the panel believing that if Siegel and Shuster not sued DC in 1947 they would have been treated the same way Bob Kane was treated and Bob died a very wealthy man. [Jamie's note: This is bullshit in my opinion and other comic historians I've talked to also do not agree with this scenario.]

Jerry Ordway Spotlight (52:36, 48.1mb)
DC Editor Mike Carlin moderated the panel and joked at the beginning it was the spotlight on Dan Jurgens panel (who was in the audience). Jerry talked about where he grew up, his doing finishes on other artists pencils, getting penciling work, also inking John Byrne's pencils, always needing to be working and says it throws you off your rhythm to take a few days break. He talked about periods where he got really swamped, one time he had to do Fantastic Four, Superman and Crisis of Infinite Earths #5 at once. He talked about working on the Superman relaunch with Byrne and Marv Wolfman. How he took an active role in plotting Superman, then took over writing it. Carlin said the 'weekly' Superman books were a real team effort where everybody pitched in, he mentioned Roger Stern was really strong and keeping continuity straight and clear for everybody across all the books. Ordway revealed that Byrne was originally going to do Shazam. He had done colouring for the books and used watercolour on the covers. He also explained his process for creating a comic.

Dan Jurgens Spotlight (52:53, 48.4mb)
This was also moderated by Mike Carlin, who again joked this was the Jon Bogdamov panel. Jurgens talked about growing up in a small town and occasionally hanging out wiht Curt Swan. He loved the 60's Batman TV show and was introduced to comics by seeing his friends read some after it. The first comic he bought was Superman. They talked about his family's reaction to becoming an artist. He said when he was a teenager he loved Simonson's Manhunter and wrote and drew a Manhunter story. He sent it to DC and somebody sent it to Simonson. Walt wrote Jurgens a letter asking if he could keep the story in exchange for a Manhunter drawing. He agreed and Simonson sent him a really great full colour large sized drawing. Jurgens revealed he showed his work to Mike Grell when he was in the area, and Grell suggested him to DC as a replacement for him on Warlord. DC had him and another artist do a 5 page tryout and he won the job. He talked about how he got to start writing and how he got the Superman job. He also talked about the creation of Booster Gold. They then talked about the Death of Superman and one of the reasons it was done was do to a negative reaction to not getting to do the Lois Lane marriage and the popularity of Image Comics. They said that all the drew designs for Doomsday and voted and Jurgens design had won the vote. They talked about the major media coverage the story got and how they originally planned to bring Superman backed got changed to something more epic in nature. The destruction of Coast City was volunteered by the editor of Green Lantern who very much wanted to tie into what was happening with Superman. Louise Simonson suggested doing the different Superman when they did the return and Jurgens agreed to let his Cyborg version become the bad guy. Jurgens talked about what it's like seeing Booster Gold on TV and also his Marvel work. Along them was Superman with long hair after he returned, the red underwear, if death of Superman will be adapted into other media Armegeddon 2001 with Monarch and working digitally. He says he still sends the physical boards to inkers to work on and will continue to do so until he can't any longer.

Fans vs Pros Trivia Challenge (47:43, 43.6mb)
The fans were Peter Svensson, David Oates and Tom Galloway and the pro's were Len Wein, Elliot S! Maggin and Martin Pasko. The question asker was Derek McCaw. I was asked to be the official score keeper. The topic was characters celebrating their 50th anniversary. Tom Galloway was in top form this panel and answered a lot of the questions single handedly. Len answered some correct questions on the Pro side and Elliot S! Maggin answered one question in a hilarious, not the answer we were looking for way, but we took as true. All throughout the panel the jokes were flying fast and furious. In the end the Fan side one 360 to 110.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2013 (July 19) - 170 Photos

Full 2013 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (2:40:55, 147mb)
The 2013 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator. Among the presenters are Kayre and Bill Morrison, Maurice LaMarchie, Lauren Tom & David Herman, Chris Hardwick, Milestone Media founders Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle, Edward James Olmos, Becky Cloonan, Ellen Forney, James Marsters, Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Ross. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam. The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) 2013 (May 10-12) - 241 Photos

Note: Friday May 10th was Librarian & Educator day. For the general public TCAF was May 11-12th.

Comics Defense 101 (1:10:03, 64.1mb)
Moderated by Robin Brenner and on the panel was Gene Ambaum, Charles Brownstein, Diana Maliszewski, Rebecca Scoble and Eva Volin. This panel was about challenges to Graphic Novels, which if successful can result in the book being removed them from the library or School. They started off talking about their more bizarre challenges, everything from Jeff Smith's Bone to Phoebe Gloeckner's A Child's Life. They also talked about push back against comics both from the communities they are in and from staff within the library or school. The librarians and teachers in the audience asked questions on how to deal with situations they are currently facing. One librarian told a funny story about how a child in her middle school had the Walking Dead TPDs and was renting them out to his classmates to read at $2 a book, but wanted to house them in the library.

Bill Amend and Raina Telgemeier conversation (54:46, 50.1mb)
This was mainly Raina interviewing Bill but Bill also asked Raina some questions about her career. The panel started with Bill explaining he did a comic strip in a thing called a newspaper (and showed a really old newspaper, like it's something most people don't know about, which generated laughs). He had a sample of his strips that he put on screen and read them in voices. He did this because he learned not to assume that everybody knows his comic strip. Among the topics discussed was pitches prior to Foxtrot. Bill's education and his original career plan. He talked about the Foxtrot children's book called AAAA! and the reason why it was published. Bill also talked about his self published collection of strips formatted for the iPad. Bill revealed how much of Foxtrot he is creating now and what else he is doing with his time. He answered some questions from the audience and spoke about exchanging letters with Bill Watterson. Raina talked about how comic strips were her artistic influence and how when she was 10 a local teacher handed her a bunch of early Foxtrot comics he photocopied and she had the opportunity to have her art reviewed by Bill but never followed up on it.

The State of YA (Young Adult) Comcs (54:18, 49.7mb)
Moderated by Gina Gagliano, Eva Volin, Robin Brenner, Cecil Castellucci, Svetlana Chmakova, Faith Erin Hicks and John Green talks about problems with the YA comics market and what they thought the market needed. They talked about a trend of publishers doing adaptations instead of original work. They all mentioned they like to see more ethnic diversity in the lead characters in YA, and they are hoping for a watershed book that really hits it big that will convince publishers to invest more in doing original work and supporting it. Other topics discussed was how in YA prose they can do things like a sex scene that they can't do in a YA comic. The topic of Manga came up a lot in regards to it's content and it's limitations. They also took questions from the audience.

Comics and Accessibility (47:06, 43.1mb)
Tory Woollcott was the presenter of this panel. She talked about literacy and how she thinks it's should be about our ability to understand vs. our ability to read. She read from her book Mirror Mind which is about her experience growing up and being dyslexic. She talked about her experience with kids with a learning disability and explains the label of being illiterate (and by extension, stupid) creates life long self esteem issues that prevents kids from reaching their full potential in life. She also says it's important to try find these kids and reach out to help them because they won't talk about their problem. She gave examples of books that help kids with leaning disabilities like wordless books for various age groups and graphic novel adaptations of more famous books. She answered questions from the audience about dealing with people who feel that reading comics isn't “real” reading and other stereotypes about comics. She also talked about her 5 ticks on what moves a book out of all ages category and into a higher age bracket.

Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez interview by Tom Spurgeon (1:38:35, 90.2mb)
This was a special ticketed event held on Friday night. It was a Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez interview by Tom Spurgeon. To start off the night Ab Velasco of the Toronto Reference Library talked about why the library hosts TCAF and why they think the event is great. Then TCAF organizer Chris Butcher came on and talked a bit about his history with the Beguiling and TCAF. Tom then proceeded with the interview. While Tom spoke he showed pictures of the Hernandez brothers art and a few pictures of them. Among the topics they talked about was when they knew they would be doing comics for a living, changing the format of Love and Rockets while it was being published, their place in comics when they started eg, not underground or mainstream, doing longer stories within Love and Rockets, their work outside of Love and Rockets and why they did them, Love and Rocket covers, character design, drawing with a 6 panel grid, being at this for 30 years and how it's like to be the older established pro in comics industry. They also answered some questions from the audience.

Comics Adaptations (58:06, 53.2mb)
On the panel were creators who had adapted a book (or book series) into a graphic novel. The creators were Hope Larson, Raina Telgemeier, Daniel Lafrance and Svetlana Chmakova. The panel was moderated by Scott Robins. The group had talked about what makes a good adaptation, why they chose to adapt somebody else's work, the positive and challenging parts of doing comic adaptations, working with the author or their estate if they are no longer alive, editing the book as they are adapting it in particular with modifying dialogue, what they learn and take to their own works after adapting somebody else's story and if they would let somebody adapt their own creator owned work into another medium.

Michel Rabagliati Spotlight (42:51, 39.2mb)
Brigid Alverson interviews Michel Rabagliati on his series of Graphic Novels. The two talked about the new book Paul joins the Scouts. He mentions that it takes place when the FLQ (a Quebec Terrorist group) were bombing mailboxes and that environment is the backdrop of the story. He also talks about the catholic aspect of the book and they are highly involved with the scouting organization. Rabagliati also talked about his work in general, saying the stories are 80% autobiographical. He revealed his process of how he creates his books, going from writing to drawing. He explained where computers take part in the creative process and how he got his daughter involved in doing the toning of the book. He also talked about the books being translated from Quebec French to different languages. Rabagliati revealed a bit about his 8th book that he is working on now.

Writing Life (55:41, 50.9mb)
On this panel were creators that did autobiographical non-fiction Graphic Novels. They were Derf, Lucy Knisley, Ulli Lust and Raina Telgemeier. The group talked about their books. They felt there was a difference between non-fiction and memoir books and spoke about how different people remember events differently. Derf spoke about how he was able to go back and talk to his high school friends about events with Jeffery Dahmer and revealed that people usually remembered things pretty much the same way. They also talked about depicting other people they know (eg family members) and if their reaction to it changes the way they tell a story. The group talked about if they leave stuff out of their comics and if some personal stories are "not for sale." This panel was moderated by Robin Brenner.

Michael Kupperman Spotlight (49:58, 45.7mb)
Michael Kupperman entertains the crowd by reading some of his comics and showed an animated short. Among the comic he read from was one that was supposed to be in the Greatest American Comics series, but was rejected due to legal concerns. Kupperman answers questions from moderator Jacquelene Cohen and the audience. Among the topics discussed was his children affecting his humor, his stand up comedy, how "dream logic" affects his work, pop culture influences, characters he likes to use, the changes in his art over the years.

Doug Wright Awards 2013 (May 11) - 15 Photos

The Doug Wright Awards (1:30:52, 83.1mb)
The ceremony went as follows:
Introduction of nominee's and sponsor appreciation by Brad Mackay.
Opening monologue by Scott Thompson.
Pigskin Peters Hat/Award: David Collier for Hamilton Illustrated (Wolsak & Wynn).
Seth gives an appreciation of David's work (until David stops him by smacking him with a seat cushion).
Spotlight Award (AKA "The Nipper"): Nina Bunjevac for Heartless (Conundrum Press).
Julie Delporte gives an appreciation of Nina Bunjevac's book.
Albert Chartier was inducted into The Giants Of The North hall of fame.
An appreciation was done by Jimmy Beaulieu and Guy Badeaux (Bado).
Best Book: The Song of Roland by Michel Rabagliati (Conundrum Press).
Joe Ollmann gives an appreciation of Michel Rabagliati and explains why the jury chose his book.
Closing by Brad Mackay.

C2E2 2013 (April 26-28) - 141 Photos

Integrating Comics into the Common Core (48:57, 44.8mb)
Moderating the panel was Josh Elder who is involved with Reading with Pictures.com On the panel was Carol Tilley from University of Illinois and Jim McClain. Josh talked about Reading with Pictures and how it's purpose is to make graphic novel text books that could be used in class. He showed examples already done, one part by Roger Landridge of Muppets fame. Jim McClain is a math teacher who often heard that GNs could teach any subject except math. Challenge accepted he said. He produced a comic book at his expense that had a team with math names and type powers and they get into problems that require math to resolve. He was selling the print edition at his booth, but a digital version is on Comixology. The book is called Solution Squad. Carol Tilley talked about her role as a teacher for Librarians trying to expand the use of graphic novels in classrooms and libraries. Questions were asked and answered towards the end of the panel.

Silver Age Trivia Challenge! (45:51, 41.9mb)
Mr. Silver Age Craig Shutt moderates an Silver Age Trivia Challenge between Mark Waid and 5 fans. The fans are: Mike Chary, Jason Fliegel, Mike Sangiacomo, Jim Caldwell and Doug Tonks. The microphone is by the 5 fans so you can hear them deliberate their answers. A mix of Marvel and DC questions were asked about a wide area of topics, from identifying the a villain by their first line if dialogue in a comic to whether a DC story was true, imaginary, a dream or a hoax. Do you know who Sif's brother is? Who is the first super villain Daredevil fought? Who was the first DC Silver Age Superhero to debut in their own ongoing title? Or What does Superman have to write on the blackboard when he's called into court? The answers are are revealed along with other brain devouring bits of Silver Age comic trivia. This was conduction on a stange located on the showroom floor, so some background noise is present.

Digital First Comics: The New Trend (56:57, 52.1mb)
On the panel are John D. Roberts co-founder of Comixology, writer Mark Waid, artists Peter Krouse, James Tynnion IV, and Reilley Brown. They talk about the new trend which is comics appearing digitally first, be it for free or for sale, then in print if the creators want to. Waid talked about seeing the print costs of monthly comics while working at Boom! and deciding to sell his print collection and start up Thrillbent, his online comics website. He and the artists talk about doing comics in a landscape format and also using the web's technology to change how they tell stories. Particularly they mentioned horror comics can be done better as there are more chances to surprise people. John D. Roberts talked about Comixology's new indy/self publishers portal where people can submit their own comics to be published on Comixology. They showed a number of books that are already on available for purchase on their site now. Waid also announced that Thrillbent is starting a kids comic section on his site, with the comics being done by the Aw Yeah Comics group (Franco Aureliani, Art Baltazar, and Marc Hammond).

Comix Chix with Kate Kotler - LIVE (1:00:42, 55.5mb)
Moderated by Katie Kotler, on the panel was artist Amy Reader, Game Developer Jen Aprahamian, editor & blogger Heidi McDonald, blogger Jill Pantozzi, artist Jenny Frison, and actress & entrepreneur Ashley Eckstein. The group first talked about getting into comics and eventually the controversies involving women in comics particularly in fandom and the way women are portrayed in comics and games. A point hit on at the end was the lack information on the demographic of those purchasing their comics. Those within the comic industry mentioned that their editors have told them they don't know who is buying their comics today, they only know what sold well recently. The audience also asked questions as well.

I Have No Sewing Machine, but I Must Cosplay! (1:02:44, 57.4mb)
On the panel was Chris Troy (cosplayer), Meryle Idzerda and Lyndsey Cepak (both costume makers). They had talked about not being ashamed about buying or having a costume made for you. They said cosplaying is about having fun and not to let other peoples opinions about the "proper" way to cosplay get in the way of that. They gave lots of advise on where to get costumes or parts of costumes, the pitfalls of buying costumes and places where there are great do it yourself tutorials. They also went into the types of materials to use that look good, are light and easy to work with. Lyndsay also advised when starting to cosplay to do something simple and progress there (if you want to). She told a horror story of trying to do a full Iron Man costume saying how much time and money she spent on it and eventually had to give up on it. The group also answered questions and gave tips to the cosplayers in the audience.

The CHEW Panel (1:00:58, 55.8mb)
John Layman and Rob Guillory start of the panel by announcing the TV deal is dead, knowing that's what everybody wants to know. He explained what happened with it and why he thinks Chew won't be done as a Live Action TV series. They spend the hour answering questions from the audience and explaining what they plan on doing with Chew outside of comics. John goes into how Chew started and the how he ended up hiring Rob to draw it. John revealed when the series is going to end and at least 1 character who will live to the end. The group talked about funny comic industry in jokes that's within the series. Rob also talks a bit about his history working in the comic industry prior to Chew. The two also answered questions from the audience.

Derf Backderk on My Friend Dahmer (54:03, 49.4mb)
Derf Backderf talked about his Graphic Novel My Friend Dahmer. He explained he was a friend and a fan of Dahmer in high school in the 1970s. He showed lots of pictures of Dahmer back then. He talked about the strange antics that Dahmer in high school that was (then) funny to him and his friends. He also talked about how the media, from the top to the bottom of the respectability scale were leaving messages on his answering machine and were parked outside his home and banging on his door at 6AM to get an interview. Backderf talked also about the history of the book and how he spent 20 years researching the book, from talking to his old high school classmates to going back to his high school and getting into Dahmer's old house. Derf answered questions from the audience. The last bit of the panel got cut off due to space on the recorder.

Exorcising the Spectore of the Fake Geek Girl: Discussing Geek Culture, Gate-Keeping and Sexism (1:01:30, 56.3mb)
Sponsored by ChicagoNerds.com and moderated by Carlye Frank, Michi Trota, Dawn Xiana Moon, Erin Tipton, Laura Koroski & Karlyn Meyer talk about the supposed fake geek girl and why people are so focused on the topic as of late. The group talks about "Gate Keeping", the process where other geeks try to determine who can and can't call themselves a geek. The group had asked the women in the audience how many "geek credentials" questioned and almost all of them raised their hands. They also talked about it not just happening by men to women, but how other women did it too (with one of the panelists admitting having done it in the past). They also went into how really attractive people go through this as well.

HobbyStar Toronto ComiCON 2013 (March 9 - 10) - 73 Photos

Ty Templeton's How To Write a Graphic Novel (47:32, 43.5mb)
Ty talked about Jim Shooter's theory of the triage of storytelling. With Information, Change and Emotion. He first disabused that people want to read your GN unless it was really compelling and told people new information in some manner. He laid out 5 types of stories, and 6 flavours of fiction. He used several volunteers from the audience to represent the flavours and with the crowd they can up with 3 ideas, that they ran through the flavours to see if there was enough of them to make an interesting story. Throughout the panel Ty walked around and engaged the audience. This was a shortened version of lesson he gives at his Comic Book Boot Camp.

Mike Zeck Spotlight (40:00, 36.6mb)
Moderated by Fred Kennedy, Mike Zeck explained what he has been doing over the last 20 years. He said he is doing licensing work for DC comics and he explains what is involved in doing that type of work. Mike talked about how he broke in, at first doing work at Charlton, then meeting Stan Lee who recommended that Marvel hire him. Zeck further gets into which Marvel editor finally hired him, what books he worked on and under what conditions. Kraven's Last Hunt was asked about and Mike talked about his admiration for the story. He also told who's his favorite character is to draw. Zeck also explained why he preferred working in licencing vs drawing comic book stories. He touched on some of his forgotten 90s work and Jerry Ordway's recent blog post about Agism within the comics industry.

Sketch Duel: Mike McKone and Lee Weeks (50:34, 46.3mb)
Mike McKone and Lee Weeks decided to they wanted to draw the Hulk for the sketch duel but people in the audience gave out suggestions to what the Hulk would be doing. While the sketching was going on they answered some questions for the audience, talked about other artists they loved, characters they wanted to work on, working with writers and how much input they get on a story among other topics. There were tickets drawn for the sketches and two people won the sketches at the end. The panel was moderated by Fred Kennedy.

Sketch Panel: Joe Jusko (53:03, 48.6mb)
This was supposed to be a sketch duel between Joe Jusko and Mark Texeira but Texeira did not show up for some reason. Joe had no problem doing the panel by himself, he took the suggestion of drawing Vampirella for the audience. As he drew, he answered questions for the audience and occasionally stopped to show his progress with the drawing. About 10 minutes into the panel Renee Witterstaetter (former Marvel editor and now agent) came in and began moderating the panel, taking questions from the audience and asking questions of her own. Jusko about talked about being at the Joe Kubert school and winning a DC award of most promising new talent. He talked about how after school he immediately decided to paint and learned how to do it via trial and error. Joe said he was an assistant to Howard Chaykin and explained how he helped him get started at Heavy Metal and Marvel Comics. He also talked about how early in his career he was also a police officer. He gave advise on what artists should and shouldn't do when learning to draw. He also talked about the Marvel Cards he's known for and why a new set hasn't been done yet. He talked about the market for painted work and what his favorite work is to date.

New York Comic Con 2012 (October 11 - 14) - 82 Photos

Irwin Hasen Spotlight (51:21, 47mb)
On the panel was Irwin Hasen, Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth and Paul Levitz. The panel was moderated by Danny Fingeroth. Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth told funnies stories about Irwin, Paul Levitz talked about Irwin and Jack Kirby were two golden age artists who knew how to draw a fight and why. Irwin was funny and spoke a lot about his past and didn't pull any punches about his feelings for former publisher MC Gaines who died in a boating accident. J. David Spurlock came on the stage briefly to tell stories about Irwin. Along the way Irwin's book The LoverBoy was plugged. Note: There is some adult language spoken on the panel.

Brian Wood & Dark Horse (56:20, 51.5mb)
Interviewed by Dark Horse editor Jeremy Atkins, Brian Wood talks about his new series The Massive as well as his upcoming Star Wars work. He mentioned going to a recent Star Wars convention and how the diverse fans and their easy going ways had a big impact on him. Brian answers questions from the audience and talks about his other work from Conan, DMZ, the Couriers and more. He also answers questions on writing and other topics.

Grant Morrison Spotlight (53:21, 48.8mb)
Interviewed by Kim Alexander of SiriusXM, Grant talks about his new creator owned projects called Happy, Multiversity and Annihilator. He answers questions from the audience about superheroes, particularly Superman, Batman and Jeff Lemire's run on Animal Man, movie scripts he's written, Jack Kirby and his ideas, also how he doesn't turn down work and juggles multiple projects at the same time.

Joe Simon Memorial (57:13, 52.3mb)
On the panel was Emily Groben (Joe Simons Grand Daughter), Jim Simon (Joe's son), Dave Gibbons, Paul Levitz, and Angelo Torres. The panel was moderated by Steve Saffel. Angelo talked about working with Joe on The Fly and the humor magazine Sick. Paul Levitz talked about getting to read and having to write a column about Prez #1 that matched the hype DC editors were giving the book. Levitz later talked about how Joe Simon and Will Eisner were two creators from the Golden Age that had business smarts. Dave Gibbons talked about being a fan of Joe's and being able to speak to him on the phone during last year's San Diego Comic Con. Emily, who looked after Joe during the last few years of his life talked about waking him up and with the news of his collection of Crime stories made the New York Times best seller list. Jim Simon talked about working with Joe and how it could be difficult, but also spoke of how wonderful of a father Joe was. Steve Saffel spoke of how Simon fought to get Kirby's name as a creator on the recent Captain America movie (something Marvel was against) and also negotiated to get Kirby's heirs some money on their shared work that is now being reprinted. Towards the end Mark Waid showed up and apologized for not making it to the panel on time and talked about meeting Joe Simon.

The Image Comics Experience (57:33, 52.7mb)
A group of male image comic creators were on this panel to talk about their upcoming work and other books being announced. On the panel was Kieron Gillen, Andy Diggle, James Asmus, Jim Festante, Jim McCann and Jonathan Hickman. The panel was moderated by Eric Stephenson. After the announcements they went straight to the audience for questions. Among the things the panelists talked about were breaking into Image, how to work through when parts of a story when it isn't working, they broke down how to make a full story into a comic book issue by issue. They also revealed what they read to generate new ideas and what they are usually doing when ideas come to them.

Garth Ennis & Avatar (44:18, 40.5mb)
Moderated by Avatar owner William Christensen. Announced is an Crossed movie that will be made by Avatar themselves. Garth talked about coming back to write more Crossed and then the answered questions from the audience. He talked a bit about doing more work for Avatar and Dynamite, talked about the Boys, why Preacher is unlikely to migrate to film, his religious views, why he doesn't love superheroes and what he thinks of their dominance of the comics industry. He also talked about Alan Moore's work and how it kept him reading comics.

Hellboy in Hell with Mike Mignola (56:32, 51.7mb)
Panelists include Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, James Harren and Tyler Crook. Announcements were made about Mignola coming back to write and draw Hellboy comics. Then they answered questions from the audience, most of which were aimed at Mignola. Among the topics were more Hellboy movies both live action and animated, the Comics crossing over with other characters, creating monsters, comic and non-comic influences, the benefits of having other artists draw Hellboy. James and Tyler talked about getting to work on stories that followed up on stuff they enjoyed reading as fans. All of the artists talked about working digitally.

Image Comics - Female Creators (58:16, 53.3mb)
Moderated by Jennifer de Guzman. On the panel was Christine Larsen, Alex de Campi, Amy Reeder, Fiona Staples, Ming Doyle and Jordie Bellaire. They started off telling their origin stories on how they got into comics either as a fan and/or as a professional. The group talked a lot about women body types and beauty in comics. They also answered questions from the audience about working with male collaborators, gave advise about writing female characters and all plugged works by other female creators. Note: There is some adult language spoken on the panel.

San Diego Comic Con 2012 (July 20-24) - 177 Photos

How to Get News Coverage (53:51, 49.3mb)
Moderated by Rik Offenberger, a bunch of comic news sites writers talk about how to get coverage on their sites. One the panel was Rich Johnston, Alan Kistler, Bryan Young, Dan Manser, Holly Golightly, Chris Thompson, J.C. Vaughn, Josh Waldrop, Heidi MacDonald and Glenn Hauman. They taled about what e-mails they did and did not read, what information should be in the e-mail, things that people shouldn't do which will ensure you get ignored, they also talked about smaller sites vs bigger sites when it comes to promoting a project.

Spotlight on Geof Darrow (100:30, 55.3mb)
Geof Darrow wins an Inkpot award and talks about how he got started in comics with Moebius, Frank Miller and the Wachowski Brothers. He showed a partly worked on Shaolin Cowboy Anime that had no audio, but gave funny commentary as it played. He talked in detail about trying to get the anime created and some road bumps he encountered along the way. Geof took the unusual step of asking the audience questions and giving them some signed prints for answering them. The audience did ask him some questions and the Geof talked about good movies the audience should see towards the end.

Bleeding Alliance of Beat Reporters (47:51, 43.8mb)
On this panel was Andy Khouri, Rich Johnston, Heidi MacDonald and Tom Spurgeon. The panel was moderated by Douglas Wolk. The group talked about making a living with their blogs, how they deal with commentators, how much they write vs editing their contributors, what type of stories get under reported, why they got into comics journalism and they took questions from the audience.

ComicsPro: Retail Optimism (54:31, 49.9mb)
A cross section of retailers talked about reasons to be Optimistic in the current comic market. On the panel was Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics, Concord, CA), Carr D'Angelo (Earth-2 Comics, Sherman Oaks, CA), Thomas Gaul (Corner Store Comics, Anaheim, CA), and Calum Johnston (Strange Adventures Bookshop, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). From the back Amanda Emmert (Muse Comics + Games, Colorado Springs, CO) asked questions. They revealed some very good news about how the market has rebounded in 2012 and also trades stories with the audience of primarily retailers on cheap, easy promotions that created big sales. They talked about the demographics of readers now and how digital comics market is affecting them, among other topics.

Spotlight on Larry Hama (51:52, 47.4mb)
Larry Hama got an inkpot award to start off the panel. He then began taking questions from the audience. He talked about how his service in Vietnam influenced GI Joe. How old Japanese influenced the ninja aspect of GI Joe. How much long term planning he puts into his stories. Larry spoke about The Baroness and how she was a breakthrough for girl action figures as Hasbro thought boys wouldn't buy those characters at first. He talked about the animated ads for the GI Joe comic books, said they were really a way around using the animation limit to advertise the toys. Larry also talked a bit about his Wolverine run. editing the Nam (a very realistic Marvel book about the war) and how it won an award.

Comic Book Entrepreneurs (50:24, 46.1mb)
Moderated by Rob Salkowitz, on the panel were 4 Comic book Entrepreneurs in different areas of the industry. They were David Steinberger (ComiXology), Mike Richardson (Dark Horse Comics), Peter Levin (Nerdist) and Joe Field (Flying Colors). They all talked about how they started their own businesses and gave tips for doing so to the audience. Other topics were the hardest part of starting their business and fighting back against those that doubt your ability.

A Tribute to Richard Alf (49:20, 45.1mb)
Richard Alf was one of the co-founders of the San Diego Comic Con and was it's chairman in the early years. Moderated by Mike Towry, friends of Richard Ed Cormier, Earl Bookhammer, David Clark, Bob Beerbohm, William Clausen, Paul Sammon, George Clayton Johnson, Greg Koudoulian, David McClone, Denis Smith, Clayton Moore, David Glanzer and Rob Ray from San Diego University gather to talk about meeting Richard, what he was like, how he helped the convention and more.

comiXology Open Discussion: Everything Digital (48:16, 44.2mb)
comiXology co-founders David Steinberger and John D. Roberts give a short history of their 5 year old company and then answer questions from the floor. They announced that Bongo and Abrams are now going to be selling their books digitally through their website. Among the questions they answered were about release times for their new comic books and doing 3D Comics for 3D monitors.

Comics Arts Conference Session #10: Focus on Steve Englehart (49:09, 45mb)
Travis Langley moderated this Q&A with Steve Englehart. They talked about Engleharts formal education and getting into the comic business, working in the Marvel bullpen, the reason he stopped writing the Avengers, his writing for DC Comics, bouncing in and out of the comic industry, his work on the Nightman TV show (a character he created for Malibu), how he got Stan Lee's okay to do a God character in Dr. Strange (funny bit of deception), Marvel vs. DC competition, his views on academic reviews of his work among other topics.

CBLDF: The Fight To Defend Manga (49:20, 45.1mb)
Charles Brownstein gives a bit of history of comics and censorship and what the CBDLF does to fight it. He talks about specific issues with the problems of crossing the Canadian Boarder. With him was Ryan Matheson who talked about his horrendous ordeal when the border authorities deemed an manga chibi parody on his laptop to be child porn and tried to get him to confess to the "crime." Matheson talks about the various head games that were played on him while in custody and how eventually all charges were dropped when it was clear they didn't have a case.

Will Eisner and the Graphic Novel (46:14, 42.3mb)
Klaus Janson, Denis Kitchen, Charles Kochman and Diana Schutz talk about Will Einser and his influence on the Graphic Novel. They talked about what underground comics influenced Eisner, Klaus talked about he reacted to Eisner's Graphic Novels when they came out and how Einser influenced him and Frank Miller. The Denis and Diana talked about how it took some time for the format to catch on and even talked a bit about the term itself. The panel was moderated by Charles Brownstein.

Spotlight on Gilbert Shelton (1:78:01, 70.5mb)
Moderator Gary Groth does an interview with Gilbert Shelton and talks about his career. He had a number of pieces of artwork and got Gary to talk about them throughout the interview. Among the topics were origins of Wonder Worthog and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, talked about working with Harvey Kurtzman and how he knew Janis Joplin, said he used to do graphitti and had a potty character he would spray on billboards, and the how and why he ended up living in France. Shelton also answered questions from the audience.

Ted Naifeh and the 10th Anniversary of Courtney Crumrin (53:26, 48.9mb)
Ted Naifeh talks about what comics he loved as a kid (and still does with one particular character), how he got private art lessons as a kid, talked a bit about his parents and where they worked, his artist influences. Ted spoke a lot about Courtney and designing her as well as the new colour editions of her books. The audience also asked questions about various aspects of Courtney and her world, from particular characters reappearing and potential stories about Courtney as an adult. The panel was moderated by editor Jill Beaton.

Digital Comics Price Fight (51:35, 47.2mb)
Moderated by Chip Mosher, Mark Waid, Jeff Webber, Scott Kurtz, Chris Ross talk about how to price digital comics. Mark Waid was late getting to the panel which lead to Chip calling his cell and leaving a voice message with the audience participation. The group talked about what price a digital comic should be and a bit about how much comics they should get for that price. Scott Kurtz was not shy about talking about his issues with the way ComiXology business works, those on the panel asked the audience some question about pricing structures for digital comics. DRM (digital rights management) was also an issue that was brought up too.

The Fine Line of Inking (50:47, 46.4mb)
On this panel we have a few inker/artists who talk about their work and inking. The panelists are Mark Schultz, Rudy Nebres, Gary Gianni and Andrew Farago was the moderator. Klaus Janson was supposed to be on the panel but was not able to make it for some reason. The group talked about how they got into the industry and their influences. Part way through Rudy was given an inkpot award. A large number of the audience were artists themselves who asked technical questions about inking which the panelists, particularly Rudy, answered for them.

Super Secrets: Lifting the Curtain on the Man of Steel (55:28, 50.7mb)
Larry Tye, author of Superman (a new book about the history of the character) and Mark Waid talk about Jerry Siegel in particular, his father, the origins of the Superman. Waid talks about finding the K-Metal story that Jerry wrote that introduces an early version of Kryptonite and has Superman revealing his secret identity to Lois Lane. Tye talks about George Reeves suicide and the conspiracy theory around it. Waid also talks about the 100 page memoir that Jerry wrote and the lawsuit between the Siegel heirs and Warner Brothers. Tye and Waid gave their opinions on what they think needs to happen for resolution to the case.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2012 (July 13) - 105 Photos

Full 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (2:19:47, 127mb)
The 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator. Among the presenters are Kayre and Bill Morrison, Tricia Helfer and Michael Trucco, Lynn Johnston and Alison Bechdel, Michael and Laura Allred, George R.R. Martin, Jonathan Ross, RC Harvey, Erin Gray and Michael Uslan, Debbi Derriberri and Phil LaMarr. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam. The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Ottawa Comic Con 2012 (May 12-13) - 120 Photos

Focus on Web Comics with Ryan Sohmer & Lar DeSouza (49:20, 45.1mb)
They are best known for doing the Least I Could Do and Looking for Group webcomics. This was a Q and A about them and webcomics in general. The two (mainly Ryan) answered a bunch of question and told some stories about their experiences and also talked a bit about The Gutters , another webcomic that Ryan writes and Lar occasionally contributes too. Specifically Ryan talked about Dan Didio (who's has been made fun of in the strip) greeting him at a convention and his reaction to the strips. Other topics include newspaper syndication, Ryan's writing work in other mediums, and his love for Red Bull.

Hobby Star Toronto ComiCON 2012 (March 10-11) - 54 Photos

Exploring the Dark Corners of the DCU (56:00, 51.2mb)
Jeff Lemire, Yanick Paquette and Marco Rudy talk about their dark books of the new DCU. The panel is moderated by Tyler Jirik of the The Dragon (Guelph, ON comic book store). Jeff goes into detail about Animal Man and talks a bit about the upcoming Swamp thing crossover and his taking over of Justice League Dark. Yanick and Marco talk about Swamp Thing and their artistic influences and the group altogether talked about working on non-superhero books. The audience also asked questions as well.

Mark Bagley Spotlight (49:28, 45.3mb)
Mark Bagley goes through his career in some depth in this panel moderated by Writer Jason Shayer. He talks about winning the Marvel Try-Out contest and meeting Jim Shooter, to working on New Warriors, Spider-Man, Thunderbolts, Ultimate Spider-Man, a bit about his time at DC and coming back to Ultimate Spider-Man. Along the way he is very open in talking about who helped his career and who tried to hurt it.

George Perez Spotlight (1:01:18, 56.1mb)
Writer Jason Shayer talks to George Perez about his career in comics running through the more popular runs including Teen Titans, Crisis, Wonder Woman, Avengers and JLA/Avengers. George does talk about the first JLA/Avengers crossover from the 80s that didn't go through. Perez also talked about his love of drawing and how he thinks that's kept him popular over the years. He also did not shy away from talking about his problems with editorial and writing committees and the havoc they have created in the new DCU.

San Diego Comic Con 2011 (July 20-24) - 150 Photos

Maggie Thompson Spotlight (48:46, 44.6mb)
Valerie Thompson interviews her mother about her early involvement with Sci-fi fandom and how that bridged into comic fandom. In particular she talks about starting up a network of comic fans back in the 1960s and how that lead to the starting of some key fanzines such as The Comic Buyers Guide and eventually The Comic Reader.

Roy Thomas Spotlight (53:37, 49mb)
Roy Thomas is interviewed by Mark Evanier about his career. Among the things they talked about are Roy's editing style, Conan, Barry Windsor Smith, Star Wars, Mort Weisinger, Dracula, Alter Ego, Stan Lee and more.

Indie Comics Marketing 101 (54:03, 49.4mb)
On the panel is Sam Humphries, Laura Hudson, Ben McCool, J.K. Parkin and it's moderated by Chip Mosher. They talk about Sam Humphries successful launch of Our Love is Real and Ben McCool's cross country signing tour. Chip Mosher, Laura Hudson and J.K. Parkin with advise on how to market to comic book news sites.

The Black Panel - Dwayne McDuffie Tribute (1:19:39, 72.9mb)
Dwayne McDuffie was a very intelligent well loved writer, editor, producer of comic books and animation. He is best known for Milestone Media, Static Shock, Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10, Damage Control, Deathlok and more. He died suddenly earlier this year and this panel comprised of his friends and colleagues to talk about Dwayne. On the panel were the co-founders of Milestone Media Denys Cowan, Derrick Dingle and moderator Michael Davis. Also on was Peter David, Keith Knight, Reggie Hudlin, Phil LaMarr and Matt Wayne. They all talked about Dwayne's intelligence, generosity and creativity. Towards the end they invited fans who's had experiences with Dwayne to speak about them and a few people who are now professional writers spoke of how Dwayne took hours of his time to critique their work and how he helped them become the professional writers they are today.

Gene Colan Tribute (44:56, 41.1mb)
Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Dean Mullaney, Andrew Farago, Steve Leialoha, Glen David Gold and moderator Mark Evanier gather to talk about Silver Age artist Gene Colan who passed away earlier this year. The panelists talked about those that inked him, his drawing style, him working as Austin Adams at Marvel and more.

The Golden Age of Fanzines (1:14:35, 68.2mb)
On this panel are the pioneers of comic fanzines and organized fandom. Panelists include Maggie Thompson, Richard and Pat Lupoff, Richard Kyle, Paul Levitz, Roy Thomas, Jean Bailes and moderated by Bill Schelley. Each talk about how they started their fanzines started. A lot of the audience were fanzine publishers as well and they asked questions about other fanzines (Rocket Blast Comic Collector in particular) and thanked the group for doing fanzines and welcoming them into their world.

That 70's Panel (45:24, 41.5mb)
Creators from the 70s gather to talk about their work at that time. Moderated by Mark Evanier, the panelist are Roy Thomas, Walter & Louise Simonson, Len Wein, Mike Royer and Joe Staton. Mark asked about their first work in comics, how long they felt the comic industry was going to last (many assumed it would be dead in 5 years), what career they might have pursued if the comic industry did collapse, their views on older artists that was still working, Warren Publishing (Jim Warren in particular), Star Wars, Manhunter and more.

ComicsPro: So You Want To Be A Comic Book Retailer? (1:21:24, 74.5mb)
Moderated by Joe Field, retailers Portyln Polston, Jennifer Haines, Chris Brady and Diamond outside Sales Manager Dave Hawksworth give a brief rundown of their experience and answer questions from existing and aspiring retailers on starting up a comic store or improve a store. Among the topics covered are getting female readers, stocking back issues, digital comics, percentage of sales on comics vs trades and other topics.

50 Years of Comic Fandom (1:17:18, 70.7mb)
Roy Thomas, Bill Schelley, Maggie Thompson, Richard & Pat Lupoff, Richard Kyle and Jean Bailes talk to Mark Evanier about their start in organizing fandom. Richard (Dick) & Pat Lupoff and Bill Schelley receive inkpot awards from the Comic-con organization. They also talked about the reaction of sci-fi fandom towards comic fandom. The panelists reveal the first comic convention they've ever attended and the first fanzine they contributed to.

Is the Comic Book Doomed? (46:01, 42.1mb)
Douglas Wolk brings together a number of people in the industry to talk about the lifespan of the 32 page comic book. On the panel is Amanda Emmert (Retailer, ComicsPro), Laura Hudson (Media, Comic Alliance), Vijaya Iyer (Co-Publisher, Cartoon Books) and Mark Waid (Long time writer & editor). Emmert and Waid go back and forth about the viability of the monthly comic with Iyer discussing how Bone would be done if it were launched today. There is a bit of talk about why digital would replace the monthly as well.

CBLDF: 25 Years of Protecting Creativity (52:01, 47.6mb)
Charles Brownstein gives a history comic book censorship and the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund. He outlines the major cases the fund has been involved in over the years and their results. Charles mentions that there is a worrying trend of censors targeting readers instead of retailers and publishers, but wrapping up their objections as child pornography to tarnish the reputations of those who purchase the books of which they do not approve of.

Walter and Louise Simonson Spotlight (1:16:13, 69.7mb)
Scott Dunbier interviews Walter and Louise Simonson about their careers. Walter talks about drawing and eventually writing and in particular talk about the Alien adaptation Graphic Novel/Album with Archie Goodwin published by Heavy Metal. Louise talks about her time as editor of Warren Publishing and Marvel. She also talks about Power Pack. At the end of the panel one lucky fan wins an Artists Edition of Walt Simonson's Thor.

Jack Kirby Tribute (1:04:15, 58.8mb)
The annual Jack Kirby Tribute panel has Walter Simonson, Erik Larsen, Mike Royer, Richard Kyle and UK Celebrity Jonathan Ross. Moderated by Mark Evanier, the group talk about Jack and his inkers. Among them was Vinnie Colletta, Mike Royer, Joe Sinnott and Steve Ditko. Jonathan talks about his love of Jack Kirby and his desire to do a documentary on him (talk of his documentary on Steve Ditko popped up). They also talk about his DC work and the redrawing of Superman. Several people made announcements of upcoming Jack Kirby work coming out, including a movie about the time Jack helped the CIA rescue American hostages in Iran.

The Philippine Invasion (41:16, 37.7mb)
Philippino artists Ernie Chan, Alex Nino, Tony DeZuniga and Gerry Alanguilan are interviewed by Mark Waid about their getting started at DC Comics. Nino talks about switching from DC to Marvel in order to get the "real" page rate for artists at the time. He also talks about the freedom they at DC because his work was more suited to horror, which wasn't popular in their local comic market. They discuss how the comic industry reacted to the Philippino artists when they started. Gerry talks about his working for DC today. They also talked about Nestor Redondo and how he influenced all of them.

Richard and Pat Lupoff Spotlight (47:04, 43mb)
Moderated by Maggie Thompson, Richard and Pat Lupoff talk about their lives before getting in comic fandom. Pat reveals about how they met and became a couple. Richard (Dick) talks about his life prior to fanzines, being an Army Lieutenant and working for IBM. He also talks about the productions of the fanzines. How he met Otto Binder and also a great story about mystery writer Don Westlake gave him an essay to print in which he told off the science fiction editors that he had worked for previously. I should note that Donald Westlake is the writer of the Richard Stark's Parker stories that Darywn Cooke is adapting for IDW.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2011 (July 22) - 102 Photos

2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (3:09:55, 173mb)
The 2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.
Introduction by Masters of Ceremonies Bill Morrison. He was assisted by the lovely Kayre Morrison.
The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator.
Presenters included Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon, Joëlle Jones, Gerry Alanguilan, Jill Thompson, Phil LaMarr, Dave Gibbons & Jonathan Ross, Lance Henriksen, Anina Bennett & Paul Guinan, Glen David Gold & Patrick McDonnell, Ian Boothby, Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez, Greg Rucka and Walter & Louise Simonson.
The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award was presented by Chris Bailey. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Sergio Aragones presented the Hall of Fame and Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam.
The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) 2011 (May 7-8) - 219 Photos

David Boswell Spotlight (38:51, 35.5mb)
David Boswell talks about his career and a lot about his most famous creation Reid Fleming: The Worlds Toughest Milkman. Boswell explains how and why he got into doing comics, some of the inspiration behind Reid Fleming, why what was originally supposed to be a one page joke became an ongoing comic. Boswell spoke about the making of the Graphic Novel reprinting the Reid Fleming stories and what went into it. He goes into the new Reid Fleming Graphic Novel that's currently being created. He also talks about the proposed Reid Fleming movie, the script he wrote and the big name actors that attempted to get it made and more. The panel was moderated by Tom Spurgeon

Telling True Stories (45:55, 42.0mb)
This panel includes a number of non-fiction writers spanning from autobiographical, history to biographies on other people. On it are David Collier, Tory Woolcott, Jim Ottaviani, GB Tran and Zach Worton. The panel was moderated by Greg Means. The group talked about writing about people who are alive and would likely read the work vs. people who are dead and gave reactions that they've received from family members to their subjects. They talked about how their behaviour changes when they are regularly doing autobiographic comics, also how they depict themselves in their works. Just about everybody admitted to fictionalizing their work in some manner and went into the how and why of doing that. Researching their topics was also discussed.

Usamaru Furuya Spotlight (1:03:41, 58.3mb)
Manga creator Usamaru Furuya is interviewed by Chris Butcher on this spotlight. Chris starts off by explaining how Furuya's work was translated to English 10 years ago and it was among the only book that dealt with the Japanese youth culture of the time. Through an interpreter, Furuya answers questions about why he has changed his style from project to project, his breaking the 4th wall in earlier works and letting the readers know what is going on with him as he's drawing the story, his work on a Japanese Earthquake and how it relates to the catastrophe that had recently occurred in Japan. He also answers questions from the audience about his work and the Internet.

Doug Wright Awards 2011 (May 7) - 11 Photos

The Doug Wright Awards (1:25:50, 78.5mb)
The awards were hosted by Don McKellar
Among the presenters are: Erin Karpluk, Mark Medley & Michael Redhill
The ceremony was as follows:
Introduction of nominee's and sponsor appreciation by Brad Mackay
Pigskin Peters Hat/Award: Spotting Deer by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press)
Best Emerging Talent: Alex Fellows, Spain and Morocco
Seth interviews Giants of the North Hall of Fame inductee David Boswell, who is then inducted by Chester Brown
Best Book: Bigfoot by Pascal Girard (Drawn and Quarterly)
Closing by Brad Mackay

Hobby Star Toronto ComiCON Fan Appreciation Event 2011 (April 9-10) - 62 Photos

Q&A with Geoff Darrow and Bob McCleod (50:34, 46.3mb)
It was moderated by Comic Book Daily's Brent Chittenden. The two talked about how they broke into comics, what they are doing now, the people they worked with in the past including Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Geoff told some funny stories from his time working at the Hanna Barbara animation studio. There was talk about Jack Kirby, Moebius, working under deadlines and more. The audience asked a number of questions. There was about 30 people in the audience for the panel. It was a hilarious panel that became the buzz of the show afterwards.

Sketch Duel: Khoi Pham, Marcus To & Marcio Takara (40:13, 36.8mb)
This was advertised as Khoi Pham and Marcus To, but Marcio Takara was a surprise 3rd addition to the panel. They took suggestions from the crowd and Marcio chose Deadpool for the 3 of them to draw. While drawing there was some Q&A going on with the artists, among the topics were how they broke in, formal art education, previous jobs, inspirations, working in a studio vs. by themselves, dream jobs and other topics. There was 50 people in attendance and at the end 3 winners from the crowd got the Deadpool sketches. Click these links to see Khoi Pham, Marcus To & Marcio Takara sketches and the fans that won them.

Wendy Everett Interview (1:17:09, 70.6mb)
In support of the launch of Fire & Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner & The Birth of Marvel Comics, author Blake Bell reviews Bill Everett's career and talks to Wendy Everett about her father. They go into the creation of Daredevil and her fathers career. Recorded by the staff at Innis College Town Hall in Toronto, ON.

Hobby Star Toronto Fan Expo 2010 (August 27-29) - 183 Photos

Drawing Ahead: The Future of Comics (51:36, 47.2mb)
Moderated by Kill Shakespeare co-writers Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col, Creators Andy Belanger, Ramon Perez, Cameron Stewart, Willow Dawson and Scott Chantler talk about the Future of Comics. More specifically they talk about print comics, digital comics and piracy, the European market, the Direct Market, Digital Markets and middle men, also traditional Comics and Bookstore oriented publishers and they way they market and sell their books.

Stan Lee Q & A (37:11, 34mb)
Stan Lee answers questions from Space Network's Mark Askwith and the audience. Nuff Said!

Marvel: Pint of C. B. (1:01:38, 56.4mb)
Pint of C. B. is Marvel's Senior Vice President, Creator and Content Development C. B. Cebulski filling in for Joe Quesada to answer questions for fans. With him is Spider-Man editor Steve Wacker and Manager of Sales and Communication Arune Singh to help answer questions. They make some announcements, particularly concerning Alpha Flight and other books and open up the floor for questions.

Yoshitaka Amano Spotlight (46:01, 42.1mb)
Yoshitaka Amano is an artist/designer who worked on classic anime such as Speed Racer and Gatchaman, influenced by Western Comics (Neal Adam's Batman among them) he would design characters for anime, movies and video games. He is best known for his work on the Vampire Hunter D franchise. In the US he was the artist for Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and Elektra & Wolverine: The Redeemer (written by Greg Rucka). Through a translator he answers questions about his Manga, Game Design, and working on US Comics. Fan also ask him for his opinions on beauty and how to cosplay his characters.

Hitoshi Ariga Spotlight (45:51, 41.9mb)
Udon's Managing Editor Matt Moylan interviews creator Hitoshi Ariga through Michelle Hayashi, translator and Japanese Liaison. Hitoshi Ariga works on the Mega Man franchise and is the creator of the Mega Man MegaMix manga series. They talk about all things Mega Man, characters, how he draws gutters for the manga, who would win in a fight between Mega Man and Astro Boy, favorites & least favorite characters and more.

San Diego Comic Con International 2010 (July 21-25) - 240 Photos

Comic Arts Conference: New Fun About Siegel and Shuster (1:20:09, 73.3mb)
Moderated by Comic Book writer and Men of Tomorrow Author Gerard Jones, this panel brings together a number of people with new info to reveal about Siegel and Shuster from a variety of different angles. Panelist were Lauren Agostino (Lawyer), Brad Ricca (Author), Mary Wheeler-Nicholson/Brown (Granddaughter of DC founder Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson) and Mel Gordon (Author).
Brad Ricca has gone though the early work of Siegel and Shuster and found a lot of characters that they pulled from real life, from their school teachers, popular movie stars at the time, to specific buildings. He is compiling a book about all of this and had a little slide show with Shuster's art and photo's of the people and places to compare too.
Lauren Agostino was told to throw some old court documents away by an old, long retired ex-lawyer. She found out some of those documents were from the 1947 lawsuit between Siegel and Shuster and DC comics.
Nicky Brown talked about dispelling some myths about her grandfather based on her research into his history and presents evidence that Wheeler-Nicholson gave a very specific and detailed outline on the Slam Bradley character. Her research is ongoing and is looking into what other characters Wheeler-Nicholson might have given a detailed outlines on.
Mel Gordon has written a book about Funny Man, a character created by Siegel and Shuster after Superman. Along the way he talked about Jewish humor and brings up details about Zisha Breitardt, a Polish-Jew strong man that often labeled himself Superman and did lots of true and faked amazing feats to show off his strength. It was also mentioned that he toured in both Toronto and Cleveland around the time the two were growing up. He appears to be a strong likely influence on the creation of Superman.

Spotlight on Jenette Kahn (48:55, 44.7mb)
Jenette Kahn was Publisher, later President and Editor in Chief of DC Comics between 1976 and 2002. She is interviewed by former DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz. They go over her time at DC comics and how she was greeted at first and some of the major projects she had a direct hand in. Specifically they talk about a comic about land mines that was handed out to Children in areas with land mines were still hidden. One of those asking questions was overseas handing those books out and spoke to how effective they were in drawing kids attention, getting them to read and take serious the threat of land mines. There is a lighting round of names and her reactions to them. They also talked about her being a producer of the Clint Eastwood Gran Torino movie. Kahn talks about what was all involved in getting it made and the list of big name actors that turned down the movie. This panel started late due to the previous panel going over it's time.

Spotlight on Robert Kirkman (43:50, 40.1mb)
Sina Grace moderates a spotlight on Robert Kirkman. They talk about Skybound, the new imprint under Image that Kirkman is heading up. They promote the first book coming out called Witch Doctor and bring up it's creators Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner to talk about it. There is a long Q & A with fans where Kirkman goes into Kevin Smith mode answering questions and having snappy conversations with his fans. Anybody that asked questions were also given a free Witch Doctor promo comic. A lot of the questions focus on the upcoming Walking Dead TV show.

Geek Girls Exist (48:43, 44.6mb)
Moderated by Kristin Rielly, this panel includes Bonnie Burton (Star Wars Craft Book), Kiala Kazebee (ThatIsNoMoon.com), Morgan Romine (The Frag Dolls), Kari Byron (Mythbusters), Veronica Belmont (Qore), Jill Pantozzi (Has Boobs, Read Comics), Sarah Kuhn (One Con Glory) and Marian Call (Singer/Songwriter). They talk about when they realized they were geeks, how they got their geek jobs, their role models and give advice for Geek Women looking for Comics and Gaming related jobs. Also during the panel Marian Call sings a song that was cheered by the audience.

Spotlight on Moto Hagio (55:05, 50.4mb)
Moto Hagio was presented with an Inkpot Award. Matt Thorn moderated the panel and did the translating for Moto. They went over her career, highlighting some popular and not so popular works. She was very funny about her work, telling jokes about how she treats her characters and why she did certain series. As they went through the work she would point out which stories are in the new collection of her works from Fantagraphics called A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. She explained which US Sci-Fi authors she read and influenced her. Some of the audience did not need any translating as they were laughing at her jokes before the translation was done. When the Q&A period was going on, some of them spoke to her in Japanese as well, but gave an English translation for the audience too.

Spotlight on Stuart and Kathryn Immonen (48:11, 44.1mb)
This panel was moderated by John Siuntres of WordBalloon.com. It starts off with Stuart being asked about his earliest work and then receiving an Inkpot Award. From there it goes through both Stuart and Kathryn's career in comics, when they worked together and apart. They talk about their most recent work together, Moving Pictures from Top Shelf. They go into what their next book together will be and answer questions from fans, particularly about their superhero work. Kathryn talks about Hellcat and her upcoming work, Stuart talks about Nextwave.

Comics Pro: So You Want To Become A Comic Book Retailer? (1:23:25, 76.3mb)
Comics Pro is an organization dedicated to helping other brick and mortar Direct Market retailers. Moderator and Comics Pro President Joe Field believes the Direct Market can support another 1,000 comic book shops and uses this panel to reach out and help people wanting to open their own stores. On the panel is Diamond Comics Dave Hawksworth, Retailers Thomas Gaul, Derrick Taylor, David Wheeler and Michael Ring. They present a range of newer and established stores who've found success and are willing to share their knowledge. The group gave their comic retailing origin stories and talked about what makes their stores unique. All retailers talked about the importance of creating a sense of community within the store. There was also a lively Q&A with the audience with a lot of questions. Among the topics covered was the Online Market (Amazon, etc..), Kids Market, Buying a store vs. Opening a new one, Doing a Manga style cafe and more.

Spotlight on Peter Bagge (50:04, 45.8mb)
Jason T. Miles moderated this panel. Peter Bagge receives an Inkpot Award at the beginning. The two talk about Bagge editing Weirdo and the differences between them and RAW which was running at the same time. Bagge also explained further about how art spiegelman (then RAW editor) tried to get the fine art world to take comics seriously. Bagge explains why he doesn't like what was called fine art at the time and prefers low brow humor. He also talked about his time at School of Visual Arts and why he dropped out. In terms of new work, he is still working for Reason Magazine and is doing stories about women writers during the 1920s. What is appealing to him is how they ignored societies rules and did what they wanted. He's hoping to have them collected in a book when he is done. The first one is now online.

Comics Criticism Panel (50:10, 45.9mb)
The panelists were R. C. Harvey, Gary Groth, Brian Doherty, Douglas Wolk, R. Fiore and Gerard Jones. Ben Schwartz did the Moderating. They talked about if comics criticism is now in a Golden Age or not. They went into “outsiders” getting involved with comics and comics criticism and the pro's and cons of that. R. Fiore spoke a lot about his disappointment in the intelligence of modern society, likening it to Flowers for Algernon when Charlie goes back to being mentally disabled. At the end they spoke about the influence Harvey Pekar had on comics.

Comics Reprints Panel (49:20, 45.1mb)
Panel moderated by Andrew Farago of the Cartoon Art Museum. Panelists were Craig Yoe!, Dean Mullaney, Daniel Herman, Peggy Burns, Gary Groth (who arrives about 5 minutes in), Steve Saffel and Charles Pelto. The group talked about the cyclical nature of comic reprints. Yoe! brought up the earliest newsstand comics were reprints of comic strips, then comic strips were reprinted again the 60s and 70s in paperback books. Peggy Burns talked about making books for readers vs. collectors. She mentioned how collectors give them negative feedback because they choose to exclude certain things from their books. There was also talk of how the later volumes don't sell as well as the first one, but that they all see it through to the end because they love the material and made the commitment to it. They went into their stories involving having to put out an S.O.S. to fans for missing art and weird stories of finding it. This went into a stories about dealing with families and how they can help and hurt reprinting old comic strips. On the panel Gary Groth announced that they worked out the rights with Disney about publishing the complete Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse.

Bill Everett Panel (50:03, 45.8mb)
Author of Fire and Ice: Bill Everett, Blake Bell interviews Bill's daughter Wendy Everett. Blake showed some early work of Bill's showing how good he was, and actually much better than most if not all golden age comic artists working during that time period. Wendy spoke about what Bill was like as a father. She goes into detail about how hugely creative he was and gives examples of things he was did for them (her and her two brothers). Wendy said her father taught her to letter comics and involved her brothers in comics in different ways. Wendy reveled what the inspiration for Daredevil was and what colour they wanted the costume to be (it wasn't yellow). They also talked about Everett's alcoholism and how it started and that he eventually joined AA. Blake mentioned a couple of comic creators that Everett helped out with their drinking problems as well. Blake revealed that after Everett died the ACBA (Academy of Comic Book Artists) created a Bill Everett foundation and that it has been rolled into HERO Initiative. Blake said 10% of the book proceed will also be going to HERO as well.

Fan vs. Pro Comic Trivia contest (1:16:25, 69.9mb)
Panel was moderated by Peter David wearing a Galactus hat. Fans were Michael Grabois, David Oakes and Tom Galloway. On the Pro's side it was Len Wein, Kurt Busiek and was supposed to be Mark Waid. Mark was unable to make it to the panel, taking his place was Peter Svensson who took his spot 2 years ago. He altered Mark Waid's name tag adding a “Pal” (ala Jimmy Olson) and his name underneath. There was some delay as people were waiting for Mark. Kurt offers his Hershey Kisses to people in the crowd that could answer one of his trivia questions. Kurt also brought a kazoo with him and occasionally played it. The theme this year was Pre-Crisis DC in recognition to thier 75th Anniversary. The questions were unbelievably hard and there were many that nobody on either side got. Everybody agreed that Mark Waid would have been answer some of them though. Still people on the panel wanted to strangle the guy that wrote the questions. Peter David was extremely funny on stage and got the audience involved by having sides say “ooohh” and “aahh” at times and giving which question number they were asking. The “series” between the two was tied 6-6 prior to the start of event. Details on the previous contests can be found here.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2010 (July 23) - 53 Photos

Full 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (2:56:28, 161mb)
The 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.
Introduction by Masters of Ceremonies Bill Morrison and Maurice LaMarche. Assisted by Kayre Morrison.
The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator.
Denis Kitchen made an announcement of Contract with God being made into a movie.
Presenters included James Robinson, Thomas Jane, Phil LaMarr, Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon, Milo Manara and Chris Claremont, Peter Bagge, Dave Gibbons, James Sturm and Jillian Tamaki, C. Tyler, Laurie Sandell, Berkeley Breathed also the entire cast of Scott Pilgrim was on stage and a few of them took turns presenting awards. The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award was presented by Eric Shanower, The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier and Jerry Robinson, The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara, The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Sergio Aragones presented the Hall of Fame and Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam.
The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.

Joe Shuster Awards 2010 (June 5) - 29 Photos

Full 2010 Joe Shuster Awards Ceremony. (1:57:47, 107mb)
Introduction by the Master of Ceremonies Jonathan Llyr, assisted by Sarrah Young
Hall of Fame induction for Serge Gaboury, presented by Robert Pincombe
Harry Kremer Award for Outstanding Comic Book Retailer to The Beguiling, accepted by store manager Chris Butcher, presented by Mark Askwith
Outstanding Comic Book Publisher Award for La Pastque, presented by Jeff Brown
Hall of Fame induction for Dave Darrigo, presented by Joe Kilmartin
Comics for Kids Award to Svetlana Chmakova for Night School Vol 1 & 2 (Yen Press), presented by Jennifer Stewart
Gene Day Award for Self Publishing to Ethan Rilly for Pope Hats 1, presented by Jeff Lemire
Hall of Fame induction for Deni Loubert, presented by Ty Templeton
Outstanding Cover Award to Darwyn Cooke for Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter (IDW), presented by Duane Murray
Outstanding Comic Book Colourist to Nathan Fairbairn, presented by Robin Fisher, accepted by Mike, friend of Mr. Fairbairn
Outstanding Comic Book Artist to Stuart Immonen, presented by David Okum
Hall of Fame induction for Cloude St. Aubin, George Freeman and Richard Comely (The Captain Canuck team), presented by Kalman Andrasofszky, Leslie Livingston and Ron Kasman
Outstanding Comic Book Writer Award to Maryse Dubuc for Les Nombrils, Tome 04: Duels de Belles (Dupris), presented by Robin Fisher
Outstanding Web Comics Creator Award to Karl Kerschl, presented by Duane Murray
Outstanding Comic Book Cartoonist Award to Michel Rabagliati for Paul, Tome 06: Paul A Quebec (La Plasteque), presented by Ty Templeton
Closing by Jonathan Llyr.
Details about the awards can be found JoeShusterAwards.com

Hobby Star Toronto ComiCON 2010 (June 5-6) - 32 Photos

All Panels moderated by Walter Dickinson of Toronto Cartoonists Workshop.

The Zen of Inking with Ernie Chan. (54:30, 49.9mb)
Bronze Age inker and artist Ernie Chan talks about being an artist in the Philippines, how they worked and the tools they used, then coming over to America and working with artists like John Buscema and Gil Kane. He talks about how he inked Marvel and DC books, his penciling work and some of his very recent commissions.
Ernie Chan's art, which is talked about during the panel can be seen here.

Greg Rucka - A Novel Approach. (50:12, 45.9mb)
Greg Rucka answers questions about how he got into comics, writing books, working with various artists and other writers. He also tells a story about being an EMT and how he helped a woman that got stabbed in the throat in New York City. Rucka talks about his changed views on the movie industry after his experiences on the set of Whiteout. Greg also tells us about his upcoming creator owned work as well.

Shop Talk with Philip Tan, Barry Kitson and Francis Manapul. (57:29, 52.6mb)
These 3 artists talk about their art education, the process they use when working with different writers. More specifically Kitson talks about working with Mark Waid, Manapul talks about Geoff Johns and Jim Shooter, and Philip Tan talks about working at Marvel and with Dan DiDio. Kitson talks about Negative Space and leading the readers eye around the page and Manapul joins in. They also talked about the benefits and pitfalls of using Agents among other topics.

Chris Sprouse - From Panel to Page. (54:49, 50.1mb)
Chris Sprouse talks about his process of drawing comics. He takes us through going from thumb nails, to layouts to the finished page. Sprouse also talks about why he sticks to working on paper and when and how he does use a computer. He talks about what programs he does use to help him on certain things. Chris also goes into designing new characters and what he thinks of computer colouring.
Chris Sprouse's art, which is talked about during the panel can be seen here.

Jeff Lemire - Bruisers, Brawlers and Invisible Men. (47:35 43.5mb)
Jeff Lemire explains how he went from being an celebrated indy cartoonist to a monthly superhero writer for DC. He talks about his earliest work and winning the Xeric Grant and how that helped him. Jeff gives insight to the real and not real parts of Essex County trilogy and how the 3 book series came together. He mentions how things are going for him in Vertigo and also his now creating a new origin for The Atom and writing Superboy.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) 2010 (May 8-9) - 152 Photos

Feature: Jim Woodring, Dan Clowes, James Sturm, Seth and Chester Brown. (55:23, 50.7mb)
Moderated by Jeet Heer, these 5 heavyweight cartoonists talk about going from Comic Books to Graphic Novels, choosing their next books subject, they reasons they want (and try) to draw in a different style and autobiographical comics.

Comics and Social Media (52:45, 48.3mb)
Moderated by Robin McConnell, Jeff Rowland, Kate Beaton, Rich Stevens, Ray Fawkes and James Sturm talk about social media, or more generally the internet affects their work. James Sturm talks about his recent decision to cut himself off the Internet for 4 months. Other topics was about dealing with the audience feedback and their own personal privacy, also about when they felt they became legitimate.

Webcomics and Serial Story telling (53:47, 49.2mb)
Ananth Panagariya, Merridith Gran, Spike, Tara Tallan, Cameron Stewart and Ramon Perez talk about doing long form webcomics. The panel is moderated by Holly Post. Without naming it they talk about Jonathan Rosenberg recent blog post about possibly shutting down his long running Goats webcomic and feelings of legitimacy. Other topics include how much of their story they have planned out, how their audience comments changes their stories, having their characters grow, introducing new characters & getting and keeping new readers.

Re-making History: Curating and Packaging Reprints (52:14, 47.8mb)
Dan Nadel, Evan Dorkin, Jeet Heer and Seth talk about the resurgence of comic strips and other old comics. They talk about how the designs of the reprints affects changes how people view the work. Other topics are good and bad design, without naming some people who were doing the bad designs, the ethics of redesigning other peoples work, a bit about Jack Kirby and Siegel & Shuster legal situations.

Doug Wright Awards 2010 (May 8) - 11 Photos

Full 2010 Doug Wright Awards Ceremony. (1:24:09, 77mb)
The awards were hosted by Actor Peter Outerbridge
Among the presenters are Matt Forsythe, Carl Wilson, Jeet Heer and Geoff Pevere.
The ceremony was as follows:
Introduction of nominee's and sponsor appreciation by Brad Mackay
Pigskin Peters Hat/Award: Marc Bell for Hot Potatoe (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Emerging Talent: Michael DeForge Lose #1 (Koyama Press)
Kate Beaton gives a tribute to Giants of the North Hall of Fame inductee Martin Vaughn-James
Best Book: George Sprott: (1894-1975) by Seth (Drawn and Quarterly Books)
Closing by Brad Mackay

C2E2 2010 (April 16-18) - 114 Photos

Burn It! Surviving Graphic Novel Challenges (50:11, 45.9mb)
Deborah Caldwell-Stone from the American Library Association talks about censors that try to get Graphic Novels pulled from Libraries. She talks about specific cases and has with her David Powell who was involved in a famous case of two library staff that was restricting access to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier.

Dark Horse Heroes (56:40, 51.8mb)
Dark Horse is bringing back the Gold Key heroes Turok, Dr. Solar and Magnus the Robot Fighter with Jim Shooter at the helm. This panel has Jim Shooter along with Dark Horse Editor Chris Warner, artists Dennis Calero and Bill Reinhold talk about the books. Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson is in the audience and answers a couple of questions too.

Mr. Silver Age trivia Challenge, Mark Waid vs. 5 Fans (54:06, 49.5mb)
Hosted by Mr. Silver Age (aka "Craig Shutt"), Mark Waid takes on 5 knowledgeable fans in Silver Age trivia. Do you know which JLA member disguised themselves as Wonder Woman before taking on a villain? Spider-Man's first full feature story? The creators of The Parasite? These questions and a ton more are asked and answered.

Old Media, New Media, Comics Media (1:04:23, 58.9mb)
The Beat's Heidi MacDonald moderates a panel of bloggers about the difference between covering comics in print vs. online. On the panel are Lucas Siegel (Newsarama), Bridget Alverson (Manga Blog, Good Comics for Kids), Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading), Noah Berlatsky (The Hooded Utilitarian), Ron Richards (iFanboy), Caleb Goellner (Comics Alliance), and Rick Marshall (MTV Splash). All of them talk about their work in print before working online and the major changes in doing so.

Bill Willingham Spotlight (1:05:04, 59.5mb)
Comic Writer Bill Willingham gets the spotlight with his friend Steven Sullivan and Fans taking turns asking the questions. There are spoilers and secrets revealed about what is coming up in the Fables Universe his other work.

Indie Is In (36:43, 33.6mb)
Mark Waid moderates a panel with Jeff Smith, creator of Bone. They two talk about Dave Sim, somebody trying remove Bone from a Library because they found it offensive and creating comics in general, and how he got retailers to take notice of Bone. Towards the end Jeff Smith has to leave early to catch his flight (at the urging of the audience). Mark Waid answers questions for the remaining 5 minutes of the panel. I was a little late to the start of this panel but they hadn't offically started it yet as they were expecting more people to show up.

Wizard World Toronto 2010 (March 26-28) - 94 Photos

Max Brooks Panel (56:49, 52mb)
Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z author talks humourously about why he wrote his books, gives many real world details behind the World War Z stories. He also talks about the World War Z comic book, tells us about himself and answers questions from the audeince. Note: Max Brooks swears.

Ottawa Comics and Card Show 2009 (November 22) - 10 Photos

Joe Shuster Awards 2009 (September 26) - 55 Photos

Full Joe Shuster Awards Ceremony (92:01, 84.2mb)
Order of Presentation:
Introduction by the Master of Ceremonies, Jonathan Llyr from Hardcorenerdity.com
Co-Executive Director James Waley
Outstanding Cover by a Canadian Comic Book Artist
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Colourist
Hall of Fame - Rèal Godbout
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book &/or Graphic Novel Publisher
Harry Kremer outstanding Canadian Comic Book Retailer
Hall of Face - Ken Steacy
Co-Executive Director Kevin A. Boyd's
Outstanding Canadian WebComics Creator / Creative Team
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist
Hall of Fame - George Menendez Rae
Comics For Kids
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist
Hall of Fame - Diana Schutz
Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishing
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer
Presenters included Robert Pincombe, Ty Templeton, Dave Ross, Bill Paul, Mark Askwith, David Day, Mike Cherkas, Jennifer Stewart, Jessica Frey and others.
Winners can be found here at the Joe Shuster Awards.

Toronto Word on the Street 2009 (September 27) - 32 Photos

Sequential Presents: Oh, Canada. Surveying the Landscape of Canadian Comics. (50:50, 46.5mb)
The panel was hosted by Bryan Munn and Salgood Sam from Sequential. On the panel was Brad Mackay (pronounced Macka-eye) from the Doug Wright Awards and Kevin Boyd from the Joe Shuster Awards. Much of the panel talked about their respective organizations when it comes to a variety of Canadian cartooning topics. Brad Mackay did do much of the talking.

Webcomics! (50:02, 45.8mb)
Hosted by Chris Butcher, the panel consisted of 5 webcomic creators. They were Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics), Andy Belanger (Transmission X), Kean Soo (Jellaby), Faith Erin Hicks (Ice and War at Ellsmare) and Emily Horne (A Softer World). They talked about a variety of webcomics issues, how and why they started, what day has the lowest web traffic, supporting themselves with a web comic, getting into print, etc.. Due to a dead battery lost about the last 5 minutes of the panel.

Hobby Star Toronto Fan Expo 2009 (August 28-30) - 128 Photos

Spotlight on J. Michael Straczynski (73:39, 67.4mb)
JMS answers questions from the crowd about his work and tells some very funny stories about his path to becoming an established writer. Highlights include his encounters with his hero Rod Sterling and his faking his graduation from school to please his parents.

Stanley Cup of Joe (59:42, 54.6mb)
Joe Quesada along with Arune Singh (Manager of Sales Communications), CB Cebulski and Mike Pasciullo answer fan questions about everything Marvel.

Spotlight on Darwyn Cooke (56:21, 51.6mb)
Cartoonist Darwyn Cooke speaks about his Parker: The Hunter Graphic Novel adaptation. He also talks about behind the scenes stories about how a Spirit animated movie almost came to pass, the New Frontier animated movie and future work. Darwyn is very open and candid in this spotlight. The Panel was moderated by Robert Haines. I should note I was a few minutes late for the beginning of the panel.

Writing Comics with Len Wein (51:08, 46.8mb)
Industry Veteran Len Wein does a panel about writing comics and writing in general. He starts off with a small talk about the subject then asks the audience for questions. Much of the audience was interested in becoming writers and asked pretty on topic questions.

Mondo Marvel (52:30, 48mb)
Joe Quesada, Arune Singh, Kathryn Immonen (writer), Tom Brennan (Spider-man Assistant Editor) and CB Cebulski. Off to the side was Mike Pasciullo. They start off promoting some of upcoming books then go into taking questions from the audience. A couple of audience members vent their frustration over One More Day storyline and the recent Marvel Diva's book. The rest of them asked questions about everything Marvel. There was also some good natured ribbing regarding DC doing Wednesday Comics vs their online comics.

San Diego Comic Con 2009 (July 22-26) - 186 Photos

Secret Origins of Comic-Con. (61.8mb, 67:32)
Participants of the first and early San Diego Comic cons tell their stories of how it all began. Panelist include Richard Alf, Greg Bear, Dave Clark, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, Scott Shaw!, Barry Alfonso, Roger Freedman, Ken Krueger, and moderated by William R. Lund. This panel gets cut off before it ends due to a dead battery.

Indie Comics Marketing 101. (41.7mb, 45:33)
How to market your comics if you are not a big publisher. Boom! Marketing director Chip Mosher, The Beat's Heidi MacDonald and filling in for Shanon Wheeler is popular blogger and creator Kevin Church. Chip goes through the mind set and some rules on marketing yourself, Heidi and Kevin goes through some do's and don'ts on the press end. The panel is moderated by the former manager of development and content at MySpace, Sam Humphries.

Spotlight on Jerry Robinson. (41.8mb, 45:43)
Moderator Mark Waid interviews Jerry Robinson about his career in comics, particularly focusing on his early Batman days and his latest work as a guest curator for an exhibition on Superhero comic art.

Golden and Silver Age of Comics. (69.1mb, 75:31)
Panelists include Murphy Anderson, Gene Colan, Ramona Fradon, Russ Heath, Jack Katz, Jerry Robinson and Leonard Starr. The group tells stories about their time in comics. The panel is moderated by Mark Evanier.

COMICSPRO: Selling More Comics and Graphic Novels: A Forum for Publishers. (54.9mb, 60:01)
Joe Field (ComicsPro President and Flying Colours owner), Phil Boyle (Coliseum of Comics chain owner) and Judd D'Angelo (Earth 2 chain co-owner) give instructions to publishers and creators on how to sell more comics.

Spotlight on Dwayne McDuffie. (45.8mb, 50:02)
Dwayne McDuffie receives an inkpot award and just does a straight Q&A with the audience. He answers questions about writing comics and animation. In particular about Fantastic Four, Damage Control, Static Shock and the Milestone Universe, Justice League, Teen Titans and Ben 10.

The Black Panel. (74.1mb, 81:00)
Moderated by Michael Davis. This laugh out loud funny panel's participants include Ludacris, Michael Jai White, Stacey McClain, Kel Mitchell, Prodigal Sunn, Jimmy Diggs, Reggie Hudlin, Denys Cowan, a surprise guest Nichelle Nichols. There was also a performance by a singer Asia Lee, Queen of Cali. Artist Ken Lashley was in the crowd and stood up to participate towards the end. There was much promoting of upcoming projects and some Q&A from the audience.

Spotlight on Sheldon Moldoff. (42.4mb, 46:22)
Mark Waid interviews Sheldon Moldoff about his career, in particular about his time working on Batman. Moldoff also talks about the time he sued DC and won (but still continued to work for them) and his very bad experience with Bill Gaines. I should note I missed about the first 5 minutes of the panel.

Spotlight on Denis Kitchen. (94.5mb, 54:04)
Michael Dooley gave a very long introduction to Denis Kitchen and also ran a quick moving power point showing lots of Kitchen's underground art. They talked a bit about his career, what he's doing now and took questions from the audience.

Comic-Con: El Cortez Memories. (45.6mb, 49:51)
Moderated by David Scroggy, this panel includes many early comic con goers and they tell funny stories about the old El Cortez hotel the comic con used to be held in. On the panel was Sergio Aragonés, Mike Friedrich, George Clayton Johnston, Jack Katz, Lee Marrs, Mike Royer, William Stout and Mark Evanier.

Harvey Kurtzman Tribute. (46.9mb, 51:14)
Panelists include Paul Levitz, Denis Kitchen, William Stout, Charles Kochman and Harvey's daughter Nellie Kurtzman. Panel is moderated by Mark Evanier. The group talk about Harvey, his strengths and his career path in an open and honest way.

The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. (51.9mb, 56:42)
Mark Evanier is the moderator. On the panel is Bill Mumy, Mike Royer, Steve Saffel, Paul S Levine and the inspiration for the 5 String Mob from Jimmy Olsen comics, Barry Alfonso, Roger Freedman, William R. Lund, Scott Shaw! and Mike Towry. The panel talks about Jack, point out that several of the audience members also have Jack Kirby connections as well.

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2009 (July 24) - 36 Photos

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2009. (154mb, 169:17)
Categories are in order of appearance:
Best Publication for Kids, Best Publication for Teens/Tweens
Best Coloring
Best Lettering
Best Digital/Web Comic
The Bill Finger Excellence in Comics Writing Awards
Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist
Best Cover Artist
Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
Best Comics-Related Book
Best Publication Design
Best Archival Collection/Project-Strips
Best Archival Collection/Project-Comic Books
Best Humor Publication
Best U.S. Edition of International Material
Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan
The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award
Hall of Fame
In Memoriam
Best Writer
Best Writer/Artist
Best New Series
Best Limited Series
Best Continuing Series
The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award
Best Short Story
Best Anthology
Best Reality-Based Work
Best Graphic Album-Reprint
Best Graphic Album-New
The awards were hosted by Bill Morrison. Neil Gaiman gave the keynote speech. Among the presenters were:
Patton Oswald, Robert Garant & Thomas Lennon, Blair Butler, Jeff Smith & Terry Moore, Jason Lutes & Seth, and Matt Wagner & Amy Reeder Hadley.
There was much humor to be had, poking fun at previous award shows and other creators.
Winners are listed here.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2009 (May 9-10) - 106 Photos

The Secret History of Manga in North America! (46mb, 50:20)
Jason Thompson a long time editor, writer, historian of various Manga related books takes us through Manga's journey in the North American market. He goes through the magazines, comic books, publishers, people and events that have shaped the industry. The panel is both educational and funny as Jason tells some behind the scenes anecdotes that have happened over the years.

International Perspectives on Manga. (46.7mb, 51:01)
Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim), Becky Cloonan (East Coast Rising, Demo) Eric Ko (UDON), Antoine Dodé (Armelle et Mon Oncle) and Jason Thompson (Manga: the Complete Guide) talk about their experiences with Manga. The panel is hosted by About.com Manga guide (and cartoonist) Deb Aoki.

Scott McCloud Panel. (69.4mb, 75:51)
Scott McCloud talks about comics, comics, comics and does so very enthusiastically. The panel is hosted by Mark Askwith. The audience also asks questions as well. Note: Scott occasionally uses foul language, but very politely.

Craig Yoe and Secret Identity: the Fetish Drawings of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster. (35.7mb, 39:03)
Craig Yoe talks about his new controversial book about a previously unknown period in Joe Shusters life where he began drawing dirty comics. The characters bare a very close resemblance to Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and others. Yoe also talks about Frederic Wertham's involvement in the situation and reveals some information regarding correspondence between himself and Shuster's sister. The panel is hosted by Douglas Wolk.

Will Libraries Save Graphic Novels? (50.6mb, 55:21)
Lisa Heggum (Librarian, Toronto Public Library), Diana Malizewski (Teacher, Toronto District School Board), Scott Robins (Blogger Book Comics for Kids/SLJ), Kent Allin (Teacher, Hastings and Price Edward District School Board), Jim Ottavini (Comic Writer, Editor and Publisher) & Douglas Davey (Librarian, Halton Hills Public Library) talk about Graphic Novels in libraries and schools. The panel is hosted by Jason Azzopardi, the Beguiling's Library Services Coordinator.

Comics, Newspapers and the Internet. (68.6, 75:00)
Rich Stevens (Diesel Sweeties), Brendan Buford (Comics Editor for King Features Syndicate), John Martz (Chair of the Canadian Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society and co-creator of Drawn.ca), Stuart Immonen (Artist Ultimate Spider-Man, and webcomic artist) & Scott McCloud (cartoonist, Understanding Comics series, Zot) talk about the webcomics, newspaper print comics, and the Internet. Hosted by the very funny Chip Zdarsky/Steve Murray (cartoonist for National Post and Monster Cops and Prison Funnies). Note: Scott McCloud occasionally swears.

Doug Wright Awards 2009 (May 9) - 19 Photos

Full 2009 Doug Wright Awards. (116mb, 127:38)
The awards were hosted by Actor, Writer and Director Don McKellar.
Among the presenters are Stuart McLean, Andrew Coyne, Jeet Heer, Adrian Tomine and a video from Bob Rae.
The ceremony was as follows: A Burlington City Councilor announces the new Doug Wright Drive.
Pigskin Peters Hat/Award: Matt Forsythe for Ojingogo.
Best Emerging Talent: Kate Beaton for History Comics.
A talk between Brad Mackay, Seth and Chris Oliveros about the new Doug Wright Collection.
A surprise award to Chris Oliveros for 20 year anniversary of Drawn and Quarterly.
A surprise gift from the Doug Wright Family to Seth, Brad Mackay and Chris Oliveros for their work on the Doug Wright Collection.
Giants of the North, Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy Frise.
Best Book: Jillian & Mariko Tamaki for Skim.

Toronto HobbyStar Toronto CoimiCon 2008 (November 30) - 15 Photos

San Diego Comic Con 2008 (July 23-27) - 159 Photos

How Not to Break Into Comics. (50.5mb, 55:13)
Randal C Jarrell (Oni) and Jennifer de Guzman (SLG). The two talked about a bunch of mistakes that the vast majority of beginners make when trying to break into comics. It was quite humorous as they spent about a half hour going down a laundry list of stuff aspiring pro's have done to them. Then they took questions from the audience.

The Future of the Comic Pamphlet. (40.8mb, 44:39)
On this panel was retailer Carr D'Angelo, Image Comics Joe Keatinge, Age of Bronze creator Eric Shanower and it was moderated by author Douglas Wolk. I missed the first 5 minutes rushing between panels but when I came in Eric Shanower was talking about Age of Bronze in comic book vs. Graphic Novel format. Eric admitted the comics don't make him much money and wonders if he should still be doing them. He says he ends up using the left over comics as giveaways and even brought a Diamond box full of various Age of Bronze issues to give away to the audience. Joe Keatinge took exception to the calling a comic a pamphlets and brought some normal 3 way folded pamphlet leaflets to show everybody saying "THIS is a pamphlet!" Towards the end the panelist and audience talked about how to grow comic book sales, with everybody recognizing distribution is a major issue that couldn't be easily or quickly fixed.

Golden Age/Silver Age of Comics Panel. (73.4mb, 80:16)
This was moderated by Mark Evanier and it's panelists were Russ Heath, Al Jaffee, Larry Lieber, Jerry Robinson and Al Feldstein. Mark Evanier asks the panel to tell funny stories about other creators they've worked with, as well as talking about particular stories they were proud of. Jerry Robinson and Larry Lieber did some back and forth joking about the respective Iron Man and Batman movies. Larry Lieber tells a funny story about him attending Premier of the Iron Man movie.

That's 70's (Comics) Panel. (66.7mb, 72:56)
This was also moderated by Mark Evanier. Panelist were Jim Starlin, Joe Staton, Mike Grell, Mike W. Barr, Bernie Wrightson and eventually Len Wein. The group told stories about who their mentors were in the comic industry, works they did they were especially proud of and other topics. There was also some funny stories about how they used colour to get around the Comics Code.

Jim Warren spotlight. (50.8mb, 55:33)
For those that don't know, Jim Warren was a publisher that put out Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and many other titles. He got a huge applause when he showed up which really moved him. On the panel with him was Verne Langdon and it was partially moderated by Phil Kim. Jim said at the beginning that he usually hated panels like this as they were boring a lot of the stuff said on them was not true. Jim spent much of his time standing while speaking. He is hard of hearing now and was just given magazine names to discuss, which he did. Eventually he took questions from the audience. He was very blunt on his dislike of Creepy's first editor Russ Jones.

Colleen Doran's Resources for Creators Panel. (39.9mb, 43:36)
Colleen was a bit late getting the this panel. She had a bunch of info to give out to help freelancers, particularly with the issue of legal assistance, health care, copyright and trademarks. She also brought up her experiences with a bad publisher and discussed the proposed Orphan Works bill.

The Black Panel. (82mb, 89:36)
The panel was moderated by Michael Davis. On the panel was Method Man, Faith Cheltenham, Rusty Cundieff, John Dokes, Denys Cowan and Reggie Hudlin. There was plenty of people asking about support issues within the black community. From the audience Jamal Igle joined when one person asked if the more conservative looking black creators were the ones getting work or not. This was a hilarious panel with several laugh out loud moments.

The World of Steve Ditko. (49.1mb, 53:41)
The panel was moderated by Blake Bell, the author of Strange and Stranger The World of Steve Ditko. This panel was different because it had a wide cross section of panelists. There was underground cartoonist Kim Dietch, Fantagraphics Publisher Gary Groth, creator Jim Starlin, former Marvel editor Carl Potts, and TV host Liana K. They looked at and talked about Blake Bells Top 10 pieces of Ditko art, which spread throughout his early and mid career. There was a lot of talk about what Ditko did well and set him apart from other artists, there was a bit of talk about how his views changed his work. There was also a bit of contention between an audience member and Liana K over Ditko's philosophical views. The panel was educational in terms of describing what Ditko brought to comic art and eventually lost.

Fan vs Pro Trivia Panel. (60.4mb, 66:00)
Peter David moderated and was hilarious. Mark Waid had to leave early and Kurt Busiek wasn't at the show so two audience members took up the Pro side. The name pro's were Len Wein and Robert N. Skir from the animated X-men TV show. Several people called for Peter David to join the pro side but as moderator he had already read all the questions and answers. One of the audience members (Peter Svenson) was really knowledgeable and actually answered most of the questions for the pro side. The other (Jason Luna) made some groan inducing guesses to some questions. Peter was called early in the show to discovered his flight was canceled and he'd have to spend an extra night in San Diego. He joked the winner of the show gets to put him up for the night. Overall the questions were quite heavy on DC related stuff.

Will Eisner Awards 2008 (July 25) - 58 Photos

The Eisner Awards Ceremony. (163mb, 178:06)
The awards were hosted by Bill Morrison. Frank Miller gave the keynote speech. Among the surprise celebrity presenters were Samuel L. Jackson, Jane Weidlin, Gerard Way (who won an award) and the star of The Spirit Gabriel Macht. Awards were given out to a variety of comic industry professionals, most of which were on hand to accept the awards.

Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon 2008 (July 12-13) - 32 Photos

Web Comics, The Future of the Medium? (62.8mb, 68:37)
The creators were Scott Hepburn, Andy Belanger, Karl Kersch, Cameron Stewart, Dan "Jamie" Simon, Jeff Moss, Brian McLaughlin, Tyrone McCarthy, Ramon Perez and Danielle Corsetto. The panel talked about a wide range of general webcomics issues, not really about the panel topic. Most of it was Q&A among fans and talk amongst the creators. A lot of it was pretty funny.

Mark Waid Telephone Interview 2008 (July 9th)

Mark Waid Telephone Interview (18.6mb, 20:23)
Mark Waid is a long time comic book veteran who has taken the Boom EIC position almost a year ago. He's also one of the new Amazing Spider-Man writers. In this telephone interview we talk about his working for Boom, the mini-series he did for them called Potter's Field, his upcoming work on Amazing Spider-Man and in his involvement with the lawsuits against the very stupid deadbeat Rick Olney.

Joe Shuster Awards and Sequential Art Symposium 2008 (June 14) - 72 Photos

Comics & Kids: Teaching with Sequential Art (49.8mb, 54:28)
On the panel was Teacher/Comic Book Retailer Jenn Stewart (The Dragon in Guelph, ON), Scott Chantler (Northwest Passage, Tek Jenson), Erik Kim (Owl Magazine), and Teacher/Artist Dave Watkins. The panel was an excellent talk about the benefits of using comics to teach children. Several studies were brought up about comics vs prose books in stimulating reading. Dave Watkins talked about his experience in using comics in the classroom. Jenn Stewart talked about her Comics in the Classroom project in helping teachers and librarians choose comics. Scott Chantler and Eric Kim talked about their work which is being read by children and about the sequential art in general as compared to other mediums. Some of the audience members were teachers and librarians.

Sequential Art on the Internet: Webcomics (46.2mb, 50:30)
On the panel were webcomic creators Andy B., Ramon Perez, Michael Cho (all from Transmission X) and Lar De Souza (Least I Can Do and Looking for Group). The group talked about making money from webcomics and marveled over Lar De Souza's work that sprung from making webcomics. Cho talked about the benefits of cutting out the middlemen and dealing direct with the consumer. Another topic was about giving the content away for free and if that leads to sales when it comes to print collections. The panel was moderated by Ty Buttars.

Darwyn Cooke's Next Frontier (40.9mb, 44:43)
Darwyn talked his upcoming fill in issue on Jonah Hex and how it came about (it involves alcohol), his year of doing conventions and commissions, a bit about how important San Diego is to a lot of artists is in terms of yearly income, his upcoming personal graphic novel and teases to his future project which will be announced at San Diego. He also talked a bit about the comic market in terms of black and white books vs colour in and outside of the direct market. Panel is moderated by Mark Askwith.

John Bell's Invaders From The North: Canadians and Comics (34.3mb, 37:30)
Author/Historian John Bell talks with two Hall of Fame Inductee's Pierre Fournier and Stanley Berneche about their careers in the Canadian Comics Industry. Pierre Fournier created a satirical superhero comic, Les Aventures Du Capitaine Kebec and worked on magazines Croc and Titanic over a 15 year period. Stanley Berneche worked on a counter culture humor magazine called Fuddle Duddle and created Captain Canada, also a satirical superhero feature.

Joe Shuster Awards 2008 (June 14)

Held at the Lillian H. Smith Library Auditorium.

Awards are in two formats. One recording containing the entire event (80.5mb, 88:01)
and broken into sections.

Part 1. Introduction by Rick Green and James Waley's Opening Remarks (8.72mb, 9:31)
Rick starts off with some humor and explains changes to the awards. James Waley thanks those that contributed to the Awards Ceremony.

Part 2. 3rd Quadrant Comic Shop owner Daryl Collison presents Outstanding Cover by a Canadian Artist (3.46mb, 3:47)
Award went to Steve Skroce for Doc Frankenstein #6 (Burleyman). Daryl accepted the award on Mr. Skroce behalf.

Part 3. Radio DJ Bill Paul presents Outstanding Canadian Comic Book &/or Graphic Novel Publisher (3.78mb, 4:08)
Award went to Drawn and Quarterly and was accepted by creator Chester Brown.

Part 4. Space Channel's Natasha Eloi presents Outstanding Comic Book related Achievement by a Canadian (4.54mb, 4:57)
Award went to David Watkins, History Teacher at Weston Collegiate Institute for using comic books in the classroom to teach kids.

Part 5. Space Channel's Mark Askwith inducts Edwin R. "Ted" McCall to the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame (3.65mb, 3:59)
Mark Askwith accepted the award on his behalf.

Part 6. Author John Bell inducts Stanley Berneche into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame (4.71mb, 5:08)
Stanley Berneche accepts the award.

Part 7. Writer Cecil Castellucci inducts Pierre Fournier into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame (8.37mb, 9:08)
Pierre Fournier accepts the award.

Part 8. Artist Tom Grummett inducts John Byrne into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame (5.45mb, 5:57)
Tom Grummett reads an acceptance speech written by John Byrne and accepts the award on John's behalf.

Part 9. Retailer and Teacher Jenn Stewart presents the Fan voted Favourite Canadian Comic Book Creator - English Language (2.34mb, 2:33)
The award went to Faith Erin Hicks for Zombies Calling (SLG Publishing.) Jenn Stewart accepted the award on her behalf.

Part 10. HOF Inductee Pierre Fournier presents the Fan voted Favourite Canadian Comic Book Creator - French Language (2.13mb, 2:20)
The award went to writer Philippe Girard aka phlppgrrd for La pasteque (Danger Public). Pierre Fournier accepted the award on his behalf.

Part 11. Associate Director Kevin Boyd presents the Fan voted Favourite International Comic Book Creator (3.36mb, 3:40)
Prior to the award Rick Green gets everybody to give Mary Waley an applause for her work during the show. The award went to writer Ed Brubaker. Artist Cameron Stewart accepted the award on his behalf.

Part 12. Rick Green presents the Harry Kremer Outstanding Comic Book Retailer (3.09mb, 3:22)
The award went to Big B Comics (Hamilton, ON) owners Walter Durajlija and Marc Sims. Walter and Sims accepted the award.

Part 13. Gary Butler presents the Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Colourist (4.45mb, 4:51)
The award went to Dave McCaig for his work on various Marvel, DC and Oni Comics. The award was accepted by Gary Butler on his behalf.

Part 14. Jonathan Kuehlein presents the Outstanding Canadian Webcomic Creator/Creative Team (4.51mb, 4:55)
The award went to Ryan Sohmer and Lar De Souza (Least I Can Do and Looking for Group.) Lar De Souza was there to accept the award on the teams behalf.

Part 15. Writer Howard Wong presents the Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist (5.39mb, 5:53)
The award went to Dale Eaglesham for his work on Justice Society of America (DC Comics). Dale Eaglesham accepted the award.

Part 16. Artists Agnes Grabowska and Francis Manapul present the Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer (6.16mb, 6:44)
The award went to Cecil Castellucci for The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (DC/Minx). Cecil accepted the award.

Part 17. Creator Scott Chantler presents Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist (5.05mb, 5:31)
The award went to Jeff Lemire for Essex County Vol. 1 and 2 (Top Shelf). Jeff accepted the award. Then there was the closing of the ceremonies.

Hobby Star Toronto ComiCON 2008 (April 12-13) - 51 Photos

Men of Iron Panel / Sketch off (56mb, 61:03)
David Michelinie, Bob Layton and Mike Grell talk about Iron Man and the role of a freelancer in dealing with editors. Layton and Michelinie had not seen each other for 7 years prior to the panel. While the panel took place, Grell and Layton did sketches of Iron Man which then given away via a draw. Panel was moderated by Blake Bell.

Hobby Star Toronto Fan Expo 2007 (August 24-26) - 74 Photos

Romita Sketch off / Q & A Panel (58mb, 63:03)
John Romita Sr. and Jr. do sketches but also answer question from the audience. The range of questions touched every base, from John Sr.'s earliest days with Stan Lee, Joe Maneely and Bill Everett, to John Jr.'s emotions while working on the 9/11 Amazing Spider-Man book.

DC Comics Panel (47mb, 51:15)
Moderated by Blake Bell, the panel includes a variety of talent working for DC. Included is Dale Eaglesham, Frank Quitely, J. Torres, Karl Kerschl, Chris Sprouse and Paul Dini on the dais for a full-filled hour of talk about the "Company Event" syndrome, deadlines, crowd scenes, and Zuda comics!

Marvel Q & A Panel (44mb, 48:07)
Moderated by CB Cebulski and a short appearance by World War Hulk writer Greg Pak. They open up the floor to the audience for general Q & A. Many answers are given including some interesting information about the level of involvement that Brian Michael Bendis and Warren Ellis have in their books after they've written the script.

Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) 2007 (August 18-19) - 211 Photos

Make Mine Manga! Panel (48mb, 51:54)
Moderated by Lianne Sentaur who is a Manga re-writer and worked for TokyoPop and Viz. Panelist were: Bryan Lee O'Malley, Becky Cloonan, Svetlana Chmakova, Jason Thomson and Paul Gravett. A lively panel with Lianne giving good questions and the panel popped some common beliefs about Manga. Among them was the influence Americans had on the Japanese and how far back the Japanese had influenced American artists. Gravett brought up that Frank Miller is an Manga inspired artist, incorporating Goseki Kojima's work.

WebComics Panel (50mb, 49:03)
Moderated by Ed Mathews. Panelist were: Chris Hastings, R. Stevens, Meredith Gran, Matt Forsythe, Danielle Corsetto, Rob Coughler, Ryan North, Joe Santoro, Jeffrey Rowland. Among the topics were digital vs. print, making money from the web comic, other ways of doing webcomics (Zuda, Groups like ACT-IV-ATE, etc.) how long before they could quit their day job, how helpful are mainstream news articles about webcomics vs small blogs, what it's like having to live directly off their customers and not having any middle men and more.

Spotlight on Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer (56mb, 60:56)
Moderated by Chip Zdarsky. Poor, poor Chip. He did his research, came up with some intelligent questions and tried to do a serious panel. But this is Evan Dorkin we're talking about. He went into stand up comedian mode and started making fun of Chip. He talked a mile a minute and all along his cute little daughter would spit raspberry's into the microphone which made everybody laugh. Toward the end of the panel Dorkin told some funny stories about some run-in's he had with comic retailers.

Spotlight on Paul Pope and James Jean (48mb, 52:21)
Moderated by Chris Butcher. James Jean did a presentation of some of his artwork that will be coming out in a book later this year. Some of it was for an animation project that never got off the ground and some of it was just stuff he drew for himself. Paul Pope talked about illustration as well and they both talked a bit about the comic work they've done.

Graphic Novels in Bookstores Panel (41mb, 44:38)
This was focused on traditional prose book publishers and their entry into the graphic novel market. On the panel was Hope Larson, Carla Speed McNeil, Kean Soo, Raina Telgemeier and it was moderated by Scott Robins. There was a lot of talk about the learning curve book publisher editors are going through with Graphic Novels. Many of them don't realize the amount of time it takes to create one and give artists extremely tight deadlines, which quite often can't realistically be met. They also talked about Agents, new material vs. adaptations and more.

Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon 2007 (June 8-10) - 85 Photos

Women in Comics - Female Editors Panel (58mb, 63:11)
Robin Moore (Terry Moore's wife and business partner), Shelly Bond (Vertigo and MINX editor), Joan Hilty (DC and Johnny DC editor) and Renee Witterstaetter (Former Marvel editor, now Freelance editor, agent, production assistant to Michael Golden). The panel was moderated by long time pro Janet Heatherington.

Women in Comics - Visual Language of Comics Panel (74mb, 80:13)
Panel was moderated by long time industry pro Diana Tamblyn. This panel has 6 female creators. They are Tara McPherson (Cover Artist), Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon - Tokyopop), Janet Heatherington (writer, Elvira - Claypool), Raina Telgemeier (Babysitters Club - Graphix, Scholastic, Inc.), Christine Norrie (artist, Hopeless Savages - Oni, Breaking Up - Graphix, Schoolastic, Inc.) and Faith Erin Hicks (Web Cartoonist).

Kids Comics Panel (54mb, 58:48)
Janet Heatherington moderates a panel full of people involved in kids comics. On the panel was Dan Davis (artist - DC Block Party), Michele LaFramboise (French Graphic Novelist), Joan Hilty (Johnny DC Editor), J. Torres (writer Johnny DC), Mike Choi (artist - Owl Magazine), Bryan McLachlin (writer - Owl Magazine), and Tania Del Rio (artist - Sabrina the Teenage Witch).

Vertigo/MINX Sneak Peak Panel (52mb, 56:25)
Panel hosted by Vertigo/MINX editor Shelly Bond. With her was Cecil Castellucci, writer of the first MINX book The Plane Janes. Part way through DC / Vertigo editor Joan Hilty joins the panel.

Joe Shuster Awards 2007 (June 9) - 62 Photos

Held at the Holiday Inn.

Awards are in two formats. One recording containing the entire event (90mb, 97:51)
and broken into sections.

Part 1. Introduction by Rick Green & Rob Salem and speech by Jerry Robinson. (14mb, 14:42 )
Also very briefly, Stan Lee.
Part 2. Rick Green and James Waley. (8mb, 8:50)
James talks about those that contributed to the Awards Ceremony.
Part 3. Rick Green and Rob Salem present the Best Canadian Publisher Award. (4mb, 3:34)
It was won by Drawn and Quarterly. Award was accepted by cartoonist Chester Brown.
Part 4. Rick Green and Rob Salem, Space Host Natasha Eli, present the Harry Kramer Award for Best Canadian Retailer. (7mb, 6:56)
Jay and Shawna Bardyla from Happy Harbor Comics from Edmonton Alberta get the Award. A very emotional speech follows.
Part 5. Rick Green, Ed the Sock and Liana K. Present the Best Canadian Web Comic Award. (6mb, 6:20)
Winner was Dan Kim for April, May, June. He was there to accept the Award.
Part 6. Rob Salem, Hall of Fame. Inductees are: Albert Chartier, Jacques Hurtubise, Gerry Lazare, Howard Gene Day. (28mb, 30:10)
Presenters are: Francisco Rosa, Gabrielle Morrisette, Blake Bell and Dave Sim. Gene Day's Award was accepted by his brother David Day.
Part 7. Rob Salem, Gail Simone and Nicolla Scott present the Fan Favorite English and French Language Canadian Award. (7mb, 7:10)
The English award went to web cartoonist Dan Kim. It was accepted by Dan Kim. The French Language award went to Michel Rabagliati, it was accepted by Gabrielle Morrisette.
Part 8. Rick Green. Darwyn Cooke presents the Fan Favorite International Creator Award. (4mb, 3:44)
The Award was won by Brian K. Vaughan. It was accepted by Kevin Boyd.
Part 9. Rob Salem and Rick Green. Montage of Fallen Heroes. Then Outstanding Writer Award, presented by Karee Andrews. (7mb, 7:00)
Montage was a visual slide show of now dead heroes, shown with the old Incredible Hulk theme music.
The Writing Award winner was Darwyn Cooke, who accepted it.
Part 10. Rob Salem. Ty Templeton presents the Best Canadian Artist Award. (4mb, 3:40)
The award went to Darywn Cooke and J. Bone who accepted it.
Part 11. Rick Green. Matt Wagner presents the Best Canadian Cartoonist Award. (6mb, 5:45)
The winner was Darywn Cooke, who accepted his 3rd award of the night. James Waley, Rick Green and Rob Salem finish off the awards.

Hobby Star Toronto ComiCON 2007 (April 13-15) - 31 Photos

Dan Slott Panel (92mb, 100:00)
Dan Slott talks about writing comics and breaking into the big two. He also tells some funny stories about his time working for Marvel.

Carmine Infantino Panel (42mb, 45:58)
Comic Legend Carmine Infantino does a Q & A panel answering questions about his career and thoughts on the industry. Also on the panel is J. David Spurlock, publisher of Infantino's biography.

Paradise Comics Super Show 2007 (March 25) - 27 Photos
Paradise Comics Super Show 2006 (November 19) - 26 Photos
Paradise Comics Super Show 2006 (August 20) - 18 Photos

Hobby Star Toronto Fan Expo 2006 (September 1-3) - 123 Photos

Roman Dirge Panel (41 mb, 44:21)
Roman Dirge is the creator behind the cult hit Lenore Comic Book. He gets interviewed, answers some fan questions. He tells a bunch of funny, embarrassing stories about himself. He also talks about his father and how he scared the daylights out of him repeatedly as a child.

Cup of Joe - without Joe Quesada, but with CB Cebulski (50 mb, 53:07)
CB Cebulski answers fan questions for about everything Marvel.

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (40 mb, 43:23)
These two do their back and forth banter, tell some stories and answer some fan questions.

DC Big Guns panel (Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, Terry Dodson and Jim Lee) (37 mb, 40:21)
These four answer questions from the fans.

Phone Interview - Tony Tallarico 2006 (July 2nd). (28 mb, 30:00)
Tony Tallarico is a Golden/Silver Age artist known for some oddball comics. He would co-create the first black solo title comic book title (Lobo, a western comic from Dell) and do some political parody comics that got major mainstream press in the 60s.

A transcript can be read here.

Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon 2006 (April 28-30) - 67 Photos

Ramona Fradon panel. (51 mb, 55:44)
Starts with an introduction by Liana K and with a speech by Heidi MacDonald. Janet Heatherington interviews Silver Age artist Romana Fradon about her work. She's best known for her co-created characters Metamorpho and Aqualad.

East Meets West Manga panel. (50 mb, 54:32)
Hosted by Chris Butcher. The panel stars Svetlana Chmakova, Jill Thompson, J. Torres and others talking about doing manga and their reactions to it.

Joe Shuster Awards 2006 (April 29) - 21 Photos

Held at the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon Convention

I've included audio mp3 recordings of the awards. They are available in two formats:
The entire event (78 mb, 85:26)

Or broken up into pieces:

Rob Salem and Rick Green hosted the awards. They were quite funny and did a great job. Founder of the Joe Shuster Awards James Waley gives a small speech. Then the keynote speaker Gerard Jones spoke a bit about Joe Shusters family origins and a bit about the origins of the comic book industry.
Rob Salem, Rick Green, James Waley and Gerard Jones (16 mb, 17:09)

Sara "Samm" Barnes presented the award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist Award. The Winner was Pia Guerra. Barnes accepted the award on her behalf.
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist Award - Sara "Samm" Barnes (4 mb, 4:28)

Mark Askwith presented the Hall of Fame award to the family of Owen McCarron. Adam McCarron (son) and Dorothy (widow) accepted the award.
Hall of Fame Award - Mark Askwith and McCarron family (6 mb, 5:51)

Jill Thompson presented the Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Publisher Award. The winner was Drawn and Quarterly. The award was accepted by Chester Brown, who gave a small speech about being proud to be published by Drawn and Quarterly.
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Publisher Award, Jill Thompson, Chester Brown (4 mb, 4:28)

Rob Pincombe presented the Hall of Fame award to the family of Jon St. Ables / Stables. It was accepted by his son Jon Stables and his grand-daughter Rosalind.
Hall of Fame Award - Rob Pincombe and Stables Family (9 mb, 9:30)

Ed the Sock and Liana K dressed up as Golden Age Flash and Power Girl. They did it as a joke to the new initials of the the awards: JSA. They did a funny skit and presented the award for Harry Kramer Award for Outstanding Comic Book Retailer Award. The award went to Strange Adventures of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Owner Calum Johnston accepted the award. Honourable mention was given to runner-up Happy Harbour Comics & Toys of Edmonton, Alberta. It's owners are Jay Bardyla & Shawna Roe.
Harry Kramer Award for Outstanding Comic Book Retailer Award - Ed the Sock and Liana K, Calum Johnston (10 mb, 10:47)

Rob Salem and Rick Green presented the Canadian Fans Favourite International (non-Canadian) Comic Book Creator award. The winner was Brian K. Vaughan writer of Runaways, Ex Machina and Y the Last Man. Adrian Alphona (artist for Runaways) had Brian on the cell phone and by holding it up to the microphone, Brian spoke to the crowd. His voice came through loud and clear and it was a neato moment.
Canadian Fans Favourite International (non-Canadian) Comic Book Creator award - Salem and Green, Adrian Alphona and Brian K Vaughan (3 mb, 2:56)

Rob Pincombe presented the Hall of Fame award to the family of Win Mortimer. The award was accepted by his nephew Robert Cutting and his daughter Laura.
Hall of Fame Award - Rob Pincombe, Mortimer Family (9 mb, 9:49)

Tom Grummett presented the Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer Award. The award went to J. Torres, who was there and accepted the award.
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer Award - Tom Grummett, J. Torres.mp3 (6 mb, 5:20)

J. Michael Straczynski presented the Hall of Fame Award to Dave Sim. Dave accepted the award and then sung "My Way."
Hall of Fame Award - J. Michael Straczynski, Dave Sim (10 mb, 9:59)

Dave Sim then presented the award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist. The winner was Bryan Lee O'Malley. Bryan accepted the award. Then the ceremony closed.
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist - Dave Sim, Bryan Lee O'Malley.mp3 (5 mb, 4:43)

Hobby Star Toronto Fan Expo 2005 (Aug 26-28) - 58 Photos

Neal Adams Panel (15 mb, 65:10)
Neal Adams is interviewed by Maggie Thompson from CBG. Among the topics Neal talks about are:

• His thoughts on the Batman Begins movie.
• His work on the X-men and how that influenced the books future.
• Dave Sim meeting Neal in Toronto with a stretch limo.
• His new contract giving him more royalties over his reprinted work.
• How he got Curt Swan (and many other artists) a raise.
• Funny stories on how bad Stan Lee's memory is.
• Advice on how to get publishers to pay you more.
• Funny stories about other artists reactions over learning he drew the Ben Casey Comic Strip.
• The recoloring of his Batman work.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) 2005 (May 28-29) - 36 Photos

Cerebus Speaks! By Dave Sim (15 mb, 62:49)
Dave Sim reads comical excerpts from his Cerebus series, doing voice imitations of the characters from his books.

Jeff Smith presentation (12 mb, 52:39)
Jeff Smith talks while showing a slide show of images about his Bone books. This was attended by a mix of adults and kids.

Doug Wright Awards 2005 (May 28) - 9 Photos

The first Doug Wright Awards (15 mb, 62:04)
Held at the Victory Cafe on Markham Street. Featuring Seth, Doug Wrights family and more.

Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon 2005 (April 29-May 1) - 22 Photos

Warren Ellis panel. He answers questions asked by fans and tells stories.
Warren Ellis On:
Alan Moore (3 mb, 3:03)
Authority after he left (2 mb, 1:38)
Beer and the Garth Ennis Stag Party (5 mb, 5:09)
Excalibur and X-men (2 mb, 2:12)
Hellstrom and Druid (3 mb, 2:30)
His Knee Injury and Cane (2 mb, 2:00)
Picking Artists and Judge Dread (4 mb, 4:00)
San Diego Comicon and Bars (6 mb, 6:08)
Spider Glasses design (1 mb, 0:58)
Why he turned down Deadman (3 mb, 2:18)
Writing Bastards (1 mb, 1:10)
Writing JLA (1 mb, 1:10)
Writing Justice League Cartoon (3 mb, 3:15)
Writing Spider (1 mb, 0:42)

Other Con Photo's:
2005 (1st) Joe Shuster Awards (April 30) - 7 Photos
2004 Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon (June 18-20) - 44 Photos
2004 Toronto HobbyStar Fan Expo (August 27–29) - 90 Photos
2003 Montreal HobbyStar Fan Expo (November 15-16) - 22 Photos
2003 Toronto HobbyStar Fan Expo (August 22-24) - 119 Photos
2003 Toronto Comics Arts Festival (March 29) - 28 Photos
2002 Toronto HobbyStar Fan Expo (August 23-25) - 8 Photos