REVIEW: THE ESSENTIAL BOOTLEG COMICS & STORIES by MEL TAYLOR

 

The Essential Bootleg Comics & Stories
by Mel Taylor
illustrated by R.G. Taylor
Studio Comix Press
2026

review by BK Munn

Because I'm embracing "all things Waterloo," the only new comic I picked up this week was this fluorescent banana yellow (picture doesn't do it justice) collection of fugitive pieces by Mel Taylor and R.G. Taylor. All these short stories are written by Mel Taylor, a local beatnik type, and illustrated by his cousin R.G. Taylor, who comic book fans might recognize as the artist behind the exquisite 1980s series Wordsmith, about a 1930s pulp magazine writer, and a short but beautiful early run on the Sandman Mystery Theatre comic series ("The Brute"). The short stories in this book are polished autobiographical reflections on personal heroes, childhood memories, and being down and out; bite-sized, slice-of-life haikus. The narration is poetic in an unpretentious, quotidian style, and the artwork is on point, with R.G.'s expressive (photo-referenced?) linework getting at the heart of things. I was pleased to learn the cousins grew up in Fergus, Ontario, along the Grand River, where I also spent part of my childhood, and in addition to Mel's memories of reading Jack Kirby Fantastic Four comics as a kid, there are two short strips about the local comic shops in the K-W region, the long-gone Now & Then Books, where I bought the first issue of Wordsmith back in the 80s, and the shop where I bought this book, Carry-On Comics.

REVIEW: PALOOKAVILLE #25 BY SETH

Palookaville #25

by Seth

(Drawn & Quarterly, April 2026)

review by BK Munn

The new issue of Palookaville is a master class in comics page design, pacing, and letting a story breathe. The latest issue of this long running hardcover "comic book" from Seth features another gorgeous chapter of the graphic memoir "Nothing Lasts" and a new short story about forgotten painter, "Owen Moore," originally serialized in The Walrus magazine, presented here along with the prelim sketch version of the story from Seth's notebooks; a rare glimpse behind the covers! More process stuff includes a middle section of photographs and drawings detailing the creation of his life-size sculpture "Living Room Suite" which I drive by everyday outside the Art Gallery of Guelph. Fascinating!

I talked with Seth recently about comics page design and he compared the narratively driven, almost stream-of-consciousness/speed-of-thought panel transitions of Kirby to those of Kurtzman's more laboured, thoughtful triptychs balanced with single long panels, praising both, but noting his own approach to rhythm and beats hews closer to Kurtzman's. He joked about a  frequent Joe Matt maxim ("The next panel could be anything!") and talked about his own formal conservatism and dedication to page design and thinking about the page (and double pages) as a storytelling unit, in comparison to both Matt and Chester Brown, noting that Brown still draws each panel individually and pastes them down, with seemingly only the vaguest design in mind. Seth also contrasted Chris Ware's information dense pages with Dan Clowes' Ditko-esque simplicity and grids, and confessed that the pure cartoonist ideal of "show, don't tell" that Chester still sticks to has slowly given way in his own work to more and more exposition and narrative text. All very interesting comments to keep in mind when reading "Nothing Lasts" which is a heady, mesmerizing combination of attacks: time jumps, silent panels, wordy panels, narration, differently-sized panels, and a relaxed decompressed rhythm that lets the pages breathe. Really, a master-class in the potentials of comics page design.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: THE MOON PRINCE BY KEVIN FRASER MUTCH

 

The Moon Prince
by Kevin Fraser Mutch
(Fantagraphics Books, 2025)

review by BK Munn

I just devoured this big beautiful epic of a graphic novel that combines some of the best aspects of HG Welles, Hergé, Flash Gordon, and The Wizard of Oz in a science fiction tale about a pair of Dickensian orphans on a quest to discover their origins and save enslaved humanity. Kevin Mutch has made a name for himself as a graphic designer and gallery artist with a couple of well-received Lynchian semi-autobiographical graphic novels under his belt, but this all-ages, full-colour romp, 15 years in the making, is quite the departure and is sure to come as a pleasant surprise to readers of his previous work. Drawn in his patented clear-line, semi-realistic style, with an eye-popping colour palette that makes the absurd science-fantasy palatable, the book is action-packed and takes big swings, with plot reversals and twists worthy of classic adventures I loved as a kid by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Jules Verne. Great fun!

Recent Reviews: May

Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse

I laughed. I cried. Beautiful sentences. Beautiful paragraphs. Beautiful chapters. Beautiful novel.  5/5

Criminal, Vol. 7: Wrong Time, Wrong Place

by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

At this point I know what I'm getting with these: a bit of quick and dirty fun. This one is a two-part graphic novel, or two short stories, one told from the p.o.v. of recurring Brubaker character, career criminal Teeg Lawless, and one told from the viewpoint of his preteen son (and getaway driver), which has some bittersweet nostalgic touches. Of course I liked the fact that both father and son read comic books and they are incorporated into the story, dimly echoing an aspect of the characters' psyche. The dad reads a black-and-white pastiche of Savage Sword of Conan with lots of naked women in it, and the kid gets hooked on old issues of a Werewolf-by-Night/Chang-chi mash-up called Kung-fu Werewolf, both published by something like the short-lived 1970s Skywald outfit. 3/5

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates

I loved the Nineties-ness of this whole package, from the book jacket design, to the serial-killer p.o.v., to the inclusion of the narrator's hand-drawn doodles. Tightly-written with some suspenseful structure. 3/5

Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium and Discovery

by Amitav Ghosh

Complex, funny, hallucinatory sci-fi horror-thriller about an immortal cult of anti-science scientists that may or may not exist. I liked the jumbled structure, with two different time-periods and point-of-views, investigating a mystery going forward and backward, with epistolary and other classic novelistic devices. Open-ended and baffling, but in a good way. 3/5

The Mysterious Underground Men (Ten-cent Manga)

by Osamu Tezuka,  Ryan Holmberg (Translator)

Tezuka's first longform "story manga" is a charming children's science fiction tale of a boy inventor and an anthropomorphic rabbit on a quest to tunnel through the earth in their rocket train. Equal parts Jules Verne, Tom Swift, and Floyd Gottfredson, the feverish plot revolves around an apocalyptic war with the titular subterranean civilization. The common Tezuka theme of what it means to be human is embodied in the highly capable Mimio, the rabbit character given intelligence by a cadre of Frankenstein-esque scientists, who must prove his worth by saving his friends and humanity. In his Pinocchio-like agonizing, Mimio anticipates later heroes in the Tezuka pantheon like Astroboy. 3/5

________

More of my books on Goodreads

Graphic Novel Review: Palookaville #24

Palookaville #24

by Seth
(D&Q, 2023)
112 pages, Hardcover

review by BK Munn

This latest issue of the semi-annual hardcover version of Seth's long-running comic is chockfull of value for money: the fourth chapter of his teenage memoir, a selection of five gorgeous themed short stories from his sketchbook, and a photo essay section devoted to the making of Luc Chamberland's film of "The Apology of Albert Batch," a puppet show created by Seth, included as a dvd with this issue.

Graphic Novel Review: Abysmalation by Josh Bayer

 

Abysmalation

by Josh Bayer

(Birdcage Bottom, 2022)

148pgs

review by BK Munn

Fantastic collection of fugitive pieces by this punk cartoonist includes the very funny "Bloggers" series of strips, some autobiographical shorts and playful explorations of comics history, and the epic centrepiece "I'm Drawing Garfield." It's a showcase for Bayer's expressive, gestural, beautifully "messy" cartooning; an intense style with a radical personal approach to everything from page design, to figure drawing, to lettering. Recommended!

What Was the Best Comic of 1961?

by BK Munn

I've seen some press for an upcoming repackaging of Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #1, the comic book that arguably launched the Marvel brand of superheroes. The new book tries to place FF1 in its historical context by reprinting it alongside the other Marvel/Atlas comics that were published in the same month, presumably to show what a major departure the title was. Of course, comics historians who have studied the period know that the Fantastic Four is not really a major departure for Kirby, being an extension and articulation of several themes from his previous superhero, science fiction, and romance comics work. Far from being revolutionary, there's a case to be made that the Fantastic Four isn't even the most interesting comic book Kirby himself created that year! Sure, its importance in paving the way for the revival of superheroes at Marvel can't be understated, but most would agree it's not the greatest comic book, even for a kids' comic, and it would be awhile before the title of "World's Greatest Comic Magazine" would even be remotely applicable. Which leads me to ask, what was the best comic of 1961?

In the sphere of U.S. children's comic books, there were many contenders in 1961. Dell published all-time classic stories by John Stanley and Carl Barks (Stanley's "Around the Block with Dunc and Loo" premiered the same month as FF #1), and had many good-looking adventure comics like Tarzan. National was cranking out handsome and entertaining comics drawn by the likes of Curt Swan, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth and Carmine Infantino. Archie had Dan DeCarlo and Harry Lucey. The list goes on.

And what about comics intended for an older or more general audience? There weren't many graphic novels published in 1961 (although there were some), but the world of U.S. magazine and newspaper comic strips was having a banner year. Harvey Kurtzman's Help! magazine was going strong in '61 and you could walk into any bookstore and buy a collection of great comics by immortals like Charles Schulz (Peanuts Every Sunday) and Walt Kelly (Pogo a la Sundae). Any daily newspaper was chock-full of masterful soap opera and adventure storylines by greats like Milt Canniff, Frank Robbins, Harold Gray, Chester Gould, and many more. Johnny Hart's "B.C." had just started to hit its stride and Jules Feiffer, a graphic novel pioneer, had just published a new collection of his decidedly-adult Village Voice strips, "Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl." And don't forget, Jack Kirby was winding up his "Sky Masters" sci-fi strip at the same time as FF#1 was hitting the stands.

Looking further afield, Franco-Belgian comics were having a good year. The first Asterix album by Goscinny & Uderzo came out in 1961. Herge was serializing masterwork "The Castafiore Emerald" in his Tintin magazine, having just released the sublime children's classic "Tintin in Tibet" the previous year. Franquin had put out a new Spirou: "Z comme Zorglub." There were also a ton of lush adventure strip albums by the likes of Uderzo, Jijé (assisted by Jean Giraud), Jean Graton, and others. Elsewhere, Argentine artists like Alberto Breccia, Solano Lopez, and Hugo Pratt were breaking new ground in work for various UK and Spanish-language publishers. In Japan, the gekiga movement was underway, with Yoshihiro Tatsumi creating gritty noirish manga in a new style. Hideko Mizuno published her breakthrough shojo manga “Gin no habira” (Silver Petals), Leiji Matsumoto published his first sci-fi epic, "Denko Ozma," and among many other things Tezuka published his "Captain Ozma" (no relation!) in 1961.

CHRISTMAS COMICS REVIEW: LON CHANEY SPEAKS

LON CHANEY SPEAKS
BY PAT DORIAN
(PENGUIN)

review by BK Munn

From "Lon Chaney Speaks" by Pat Dorian, a more-or-less straight bio of the great silent film actor (Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame) told in comics form. I picked up the book because of its striking cover, thinking for a minute it was the work of the cartoonist Seth. Dorian's style only has a surface similarity to Seth, and reads like Syd Hoff or some other 1930s cartoonist dashed this off. It was one of the few graphic novels I managed to read in 2020, perhaps because of its brevity and simple style, and looking back on my comics reading here at the end of the year, I remembered it has this Christmas-themed sequence that neatly encapsulates the tragic aspect of Chaney's fame and is representative of the book as a whole.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: ALL THE ANSWERS BY MICHAEL KUPPERMAN

All the Answers

by Michael Kupperman
(Simon & Schuster, 2018)

review by BK Munn

Surrealist humourist Kupperman brings his trademark deadpan cartooning style to the serious story of his father's life, focusing on Joel Kupperman's bizarre career as a child prodigy and star of the 1940s radio and tv show Quiz Kids. The elder Kupperman rarely discussed his childhood with his son, and the book comes across as something of an investigative report into these mysteries, equal parts reckoning and quest, filled with ellipses and unanswered questions, fitting for a biography about a genius skilled in solving puzzles but unskilled in relating to other people, especially his own children. In the sense that the book is the story of a Jewish son probing a recalcitrant father about his life during wartime, I like to think of the book as an anhedonic Maus, but where Spiegleman's book chronicled his father's survival of the Holocaust in microscopic detail, in a scratchy, agonized, diagrammatic style, Kupperman's homefront tale is as cold and distant as his subject matter, the expressionless characters more like cardboard stand-ins, clipped out of old scrapbooks and newspaper articles, that Kupperman is desperately trying to fill up with personality, meaning and answers. A brilliant book!

Nominees for The 2011 Doug Wright Awards

Finalists for 7th Annual Doug Wright Awards

Toronto, ON —The Doug Wright Awards, Canada’s premier comics awards, are proud to announce their 2011 finalists.

The nominees for Best Book are:

Bigfoot by Pascal Girard (Drawn and Quarterly)
Chimo by David Collier (Conundrum Press)
Lose #2 by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press)
Moving Pictures by Kathryn Immonen, Stuart Immonen (Top Shelf Productions)
Streakers by Nick Maandag

The nominees for Best Emerging Talent are:

Aaron Costain, Entropy # 5
Alex Fellows, Spain and Morocco (www.spainandmorocco.com)
Keith Jones, Catland Empire (Drawn and Quarterly)
James Stokoe, Orc Stain Volume One (Image)
Tin Can Forest (aka Marek Colek and Pat Shewchuk), Baba Yaga and the Wolf (Koyama Press)

The nominees for the Pigskin Peters Award (which recognizes non-traditional and avant-garde comics) are:

Indoor Voice by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn and Quarterly)
Stooge Pile by Seth Scriver (Drawn and Quarterly)
So I’ve Been Told by Maryanna Hardy (Conundrum Press)
Spotting Deer by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press)
Wowee Zonk #3 edited by Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme and Chris Kuzma (Koyama Press)

In addition, this year’s inductee into The Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame, will be legendary Vancouver cartoonist David Boswell, the creator of the influential alternative comic Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman.

Founded in 2004, The Doug Wright Awards recognize the best in English-language comics (or translations of French) by Canadians living at home and abroad. The 2011 nominees were chosen by a committee from a long list of works and submissions published during the 2010 calendar year, which for the first year officially included web comics. This year’s committee included Chester Brown, Seth, Jerry Ciccoritti, Bryan Munn and Sean Rogers.

The 2011 winners will be decided by a five-member jury and will be announced at a gala ceremony as part of the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF). The jury will include Sara Quin (musician; one-half of Tegan and Sara), Michael Redhill (poet; author of Consolation and Martin Sloane; publisher of the literary journal Brick), Anita Kunz (artist, award-winning illustrator), Marc Bell (artist, cartoonist of Hot Potatoe; winner of the 2010 Pigskin Peters Award) and Mark Medley (National Post books editor).

The 7th annual Doug Wright Awards, a feature event of the 2011 Toronto Comics Arts Festival, will be held in Toronto on Saturday May 7, 2011.

For more information, visit www.wrightawards.ca.

Bus Griffiths Interview CJ 187

For Brad Mackay:

Bus Griffiths is the missing link of Canadian comics history, connecting 1920s comics with the Canadian Whites 1940s comic books, to graphic novels, with his Now Your Logging, as we see here in this classic Comics Journal interview with Shawn Conner.

Griffiths had a great fluid lettering style coupled with that sexy inky outlining and shading technique that made his figures jump out at you, like a sort of porno woodsman icon.




Lots of unanswered questions, like what other comic stories did he have published, what work is still out there (ie, not stole by those damn fool babysitters), and, generally, What the fuck?! is this not the craziest Canadian comic ever????!!!???.

Sequential at Word on the Street, 2009

Wow, actual video of Max and myself interviewing Brad Mackay and Kevin Boyd at WOTs in Toronto last year. Fantastic sound and crystal clear images for the panelfocusing on Canadian comics awards (Brad is head of the Doug Wright Awards and Kevin is one of the founders of the Joe Shuster Awards). Representing Sequential!

Part 1


Part 2

2010 Doug Wright Award Nominees

So, the list of nominees for the Wright Awards was released today. I was on the nominating committee again this year which was alot of fun and a great privilege. The newest member of the committee was Sean Rogers who writes about comics for The Walrus magazine and provided the Wrights with a necessary kick in the ass in terms of his wide-ranging comics and cultural interests, youthful exuberance, and superfine taste. These skills came in handy for the long discussions we had about the potential nominees, what books to include in what category, and what exactly qualifies as comics. The result is a very diverse list of awesome books and cartoonists, some of whom were unknown to me before the deliberations began. I'm also pretty excited about the new location for the awards this year, the brand-spanking new Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, located on the top floor of the Toronto Reference Library where TCAF is being held.

I think Max at Sequential was the first to kick out the press release but you can check out the whole awards site here.

6th annual awards to be handed out as part of Toronto Comics Arts Festival

March 12, 2010 Toronto- Running the gamut from the acclaimed to the unconventional, the 15 finalists for this year's Doug Wright Awards were announced today in Toronto.

Hand-picked by an esteemed panel of comics experts, the 2010 finalists represent the finest, most thought-provoking work produced by Canada's vibrant comics community.

The shortlist contains works that explore diverse subjects, from the legendary life of Kasper Hauser and the fictional life (and death) of a fading TV host, and spans a range of formats, from wordless lino-cuts graphic novels to "manga" inspired by Western Canadian Haida mythology.

The Doug Wright Awards finalists for Best Book are:

* Back + Forth by Marta Chudolinska (The Porcupine's Quill)
* George Sprott: (1894-1975) by Seth (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Hot Potatoe by Marc Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Kaspar by Diane Obomsawin (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Douglas and McIntyre)

The Doug Wright Awards finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:

* Adam Bourret I'm Crazy
* Michael DeForge Lose #1 (Koyama Press), Cold Heat Special #7 (Picturebox)
* Pascal Girard Nicolas (Drawn and Quarterly)
* John Martz It's Snowing Outside. We Should Go For a Walk.
* Sully The Hipless Boy (Conundrum Press)

The finalists for the 2010 Pigskin Peters Award (for unconventional, "nominally-narrative" comics) are:

* Bébête Simon Bossé (L'Oie de Cravan)
* Dirty Dishes by Amy Lockhart (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Hot Potatoes by Marc Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
* Never Learn Anything From History by Kate Beaton
* The Collected Doug Wright Volume One by Doug Wright (Drawn and Quarterly)

Founded in 2004 (in a dimly lit Toronto bar) to celebrate the finest in English-language comics and graphic novels, The Doug Wright Awards have since evolved into one of North America's foremost comics awards and one of its most anticipated events.

Wright Awards finalists defy easy categorization, and include past and present masters of the form and off-the-beaten-path newcomers alike, all vying for one of the most unique and coveted trophies in comics.

This year's nominees were chosen by a five-member panel who chose from works released in the 2009 calendar year. The panel included: comics historian and author Jeet Heer; filmmaker Jerry Ciccoritti; cartoonist Chester Brown; Walrus comics blogger Sean Rogers, and writer and Sequential.ca publisher Bryan Munn.

The winners are chosen by a jury that includes cartoonists, writers, actors, directors, musicians and, on occasion, politicians.

A featured event of the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF), the 2010 Doug Wright Awards ceremony will take place on Sat. May 8, at 7 pm at the Toronto Reference Library's new Bram & Bluma Appel Salon.

2009 Canadian Graphic Novels and Comics: The Long List 1.0

Just putting together my reference list of English-language Canadian comics published in 2009 in preparation for the upcoming Doug Wright Awards nomination meetings. The actual awards are scheduled for Saturday May 8 during TCAF at the Toronto Reference Library.

The list so far, based on the books I've read and/or spotted in the wild:

Angora Napkin, Troy Little (IDW)
Back and Forth, Marta Chudolinska (Porcupine's Quill)
Beast, Marian Churchland (Image)
Bebete by Simon Bosse
Binky the Space Cat, Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)|
Claire and the Water Wish, Janice Poon (Kids Can Press)
The Delicious Bug, Janet Perlman (Kids Can)
Dirty Dishes, Amy Lockhart (D+Q)
George Sprott, Seth (D+Q)
The Hipless Boy, Sully (Conundrum)
Hot Potatoe, Marc Bell (D+Q)
I'm Crazy, Adam Bourret (self)
Jan's Atomic Heart, Simon Roy (New Reliable Press)
Jellaby: Monster in the City (Hyperion)
Kaspar, Diane Obomsawin (D+Q)
Lose, Michael Deforge (Koyama Press)
Mirror Mind by Tory Woollcott (self-published/Maybe Mumkin)
Nightschool: The Weirn Books, Volume 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Yen)
The Nobody, Jeff Lemire (DC/Vertigo)
Papercut Heart, Ian Sullivan Cant (Conundrum)
Parker: The Hunter, Darwyn Cooke (IDW)
Poof! by Line Gamache (Conundrum)
Pope Hats 1, Ethan Rilley (Adhouse)
Quarter-Life Crisis: Only the Good Die Yung, Evan Munday (self)
Red: A Haida Manga, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Douglas and McIntyre)
Rex Libris, Vol 2, James Turner (SLG)
The Road to God Knows, Von Allan (self)
Scaredy Squirrel At Night, Melanie Watt (Kids Can Press)
Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe (Scott Pilgrim Vol 5), Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
Sword Of My Mouth #1, Jim Munroe and Shannon Gerard, (IDW)
Spot 12: The Story of a Birth by Jenny Jaeckel (self/mini)
Taddle Creek Summer 2009 (anthology)
True Loves Vol. 2: Trouble in Paradise anthology, ed Jason Turner (New Reliable Press)
Tyranny, Lesley Fairfield (Tundra Books)
The Undertaking, Michael J.Hind (Conundrum Press)
A Very Kraftwerk Summer, Christopher Hutsul (Koyama Press)
Warlod of Io & Other Stories (One-Shot), James Turner (SLG)

For those rare serialized "floppy" comics by established creators, like Dave Sim's Glamourpuss which I'm quite enjoying, I'm "waiting for the book." I'd appreciate any suggestions for additions. The Wright Awards are mainly a book award, so suggestions for consideration should generally be in book form. We also consider comic books and mini-comics, especially for the Best Emerging Talent and Pigskin Peters prizes.

On to 2010...

Finally got around to slapping together my 2009 in review post for Sequential, summing up the major events and themes in the anglo side of Canadian comics over the past year. Rather than talk about the economy (boring!) as the major story, I decided to go with a look at Seth's success and how the reception of his books can be read as a positive story for our comix culture in general. I went with Seth even though other cartoonists seemed to get just as much attention for individual projects. The giant edition of Jeff Lemire's collected Essex County opus, his new Vertigo series, and the Nobody graphic novel were certainly big news and say quite a bit about comics publishing and the place of young cartoonists today. Ditto the hype around the latest Scott Pilgrim graphic novel and the upcoming film project starring Michael Cera. Bryan Lee O'Malley feels like the hot cartoonist of the moment, but I think his star will burn even brighter in 2010. Nope, for 2009 it was definitely our man in the chapeau and his bevy of books...

Most Expensive Comic Book Ever, Part III

Following hot on the heels of Taschen's massive Crumb Sex book, comes news (via Tom Spurgeon) of a signed, limited edition of Crumb's new Genesis book, available from his publisher WW Norton. The special edition retails for $390 Canadian. Even if the suggested retail price is $625, the book is still no match for the reigning champ, the $1000 slipcased Gary Panter book I wrote about earlier.

I read a preview of Crumb's Genesis in the New Yorker last week. His retelling of the Garden of Eden story was about what I expected: a gorgeous, meticulously-rendered and masterful word-for-word adaptation of the Bible story. The story has the standard Crumb sexiness (how could it not?) but doesn't seem to have that extra touch of depth that a less-literal version might have. Chester Brown's Gospel adaptations are a case in point. They are weird and off-model enough that they actually make you think about the intellectual content of the time-worn source material. Likewise, Basil Wolverton's illustrated Bible is so weird and passionate that it approaches from a distance a sort of Blakeian artistry. Of course, Genesis is a fucking weird, schizophrenic book to begin with, and Crumb's crystal translation only makes this more obvious. Crumb doesn't have to add anything. Plus, his Eve is hot.

The book comes out in October.

2009 Wright Award Winners

Winners of 5th annual Doug Wright Awards announced in Toronto ceremony


Toronto, ON, May 10, 2009 — The Doug Wright Awards are proud to announce their 2009 winners, which were handed out in a ceremony at the Art Gallery of Ontario last night:

Best Book: Skim, by Jillian & Mariko Tamaki (Published by Groundwood Books)

Best Emerging Talent: Kate Beaton (History Comics, katebeaton.com)

The Pigskin Peters Award: Ojingogo, Matthew Forsythe (Published by Drawn & Quarterly)

The annual Doug Wright Awards (DWAs) represent the best and brightest English-language comics and graphic novels, and are decided on by a five-member jury. The 2009 DWA jurists included Bob Rae, Andrew Coyne, Martin Levin, Joe Ollmann, and Diana Tamblyn.

This year's jury praised Best-Book winner Skim as "ravishingly beautiful," adding that:

"A jury far from being made up of teenage girls was won over by the elegance, sweep and detail of the art and by the unsentimental, often funny telling of this contemporary tale of young people trying to figure out who they are in a world that's often too exciting and too complex. Illustrations and story merge seamlessly as the mood and intensity of the black-and-white art vary according to the mood and intensity of the story. Unique and unforgettable."

Of Kate Beaton's work, the jury said:

"Beaton's superficially simple drawings can mask a considerable sophistication of line and expression. She also offers a very winning blend of historical literacy and range, from Diogenes to Diefenbaker, from Robin Hood to Riel; and all this in concert with a youthful insouciance, a skillful application of comic-book tropes such as superheroes to historical events and characters, and often laugh-out-loud funny dialogue.

For instance, her sketch of the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard has him obsessing over his characterization in the press as a hunchback. Or her heritage minute rewrite of Pierre Trudeau has him arguing with Margaret, who's wearing a dress with decollete a la Julie Couillard, about turning Canada from 'Boresville to Party Country.' Her work is assured, impressive, hilarious."


The DWA nominating committee, which chooses the annual Pigskin Peters Award, said of Ojingogo:

"With his lushly imagined book, Montrealer Matt Forsythe joins a distinguished tradition, that includes Winsor McCay and Art Spiegelman, of cartoonists exploring dream imagery. Like Oz or Wonderland, and equally populated with strange creatures and bizarre happenings, Forsythe's impressive debut puts forth a wonderfully imagined universe, rich with oddity and wonder. Forsythe excels in the difficult art of world-creation – creating here and imaginary landscape that is both dense with life and as unsettling as a dream."

The awards were handed out at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Saturday May 9, 2009, at a gala ceremony hosted by filmmaker Don McKellar.

The event also featured a moving tribute to cartoonist Jimmy Frise, who was posthumously inducted into the Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, in a talk delivered by CBC Radio's Stuart McLean.

In addition, this year's event also served as the official launch of The Collected Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist, the first of two lavish books published by Drawn and Quarterly that will re-introduce Canadians to one of their country's greatest cartooning talents.

Founded in 2004 to recognize the best Canadian comics published in English, The Doug Wright Awards have grown to become one of Canada's most-anticipated comics events.

Saturday: The Doug Wright Awards!!!!!

Finally, after a long nomination process, jury selection, and tons of planning, the 2009 Wright Awards are here. They will be held at Jackman Hall at the AGO in Toronto, Saturday, May 9. 7pm to 9pm. Free Admission! Don McKellar is hosting and there will be lots of new stuff this year.

An all-star jury this year, including Joe Ollman and Diana Tamblyn (and some famous people who aren't cartoonists).

The nominees are stellar, too:

Best Book

Burma Chronicles Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
Drop-in Dave Lapp (Conundrum Press)
Paul Goes Fishing Michel Rabagliati (Drawn & Quarterly)
Skim Jillian & Mariko Tamaki (Groundwood Books)

Best Emerging Talent

Kate Beaton (History Comics)
Caitlin Black (Maids of the Mist)
Jesse Jacobs (Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow)
Jason Kieffer (Kieffer #2)
Nick Maandag (Jack & Mandy)

The Pigskin Peters Award

Hall of Best Knowledge Ray Fenwick (Fantagraphics)
Ojingogo Matthew Forsythe (Drawn & Quarterly)
All We Ever Do is Talk About Wood Tom Horacek (Drawn & Quarterly)
Small Victories Jesse Jacobs (self-published)

Graphic Novel Review: Tamara Drewe

Part 1 of The Best of 2008
(see the full list here)

Tamara Drewe
by Posy Simmonds
(Jonathan Cape/Random House)

review by BK Munn


Posy Simmonds draws the best cows of any living cartoonist and her ability is ably demonstrated in this pastoral farce that reads like Leah McClaren as drawn by Frank Thorne (or maybe David Lodge meets Colleen Doran?) --and is in reality an homage to Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (which was originally illustrated by another woman, Helen Paterson, way back in the 1800s). The book has a wonderful polyvocal narrative centred around the goings-on at a writers' retreat in the English countryside. The titular heroine, a zaftig columnist-turned-novelist, is the catalyst for a series of romantic and literary calamities that befall a small group of creative types forced into close quarters in the wide-open spaces. For a comic, Tamara Drewe has relatively large chunks of text, and the book feels very writer-ly, as befits its source, subject matter, episodic plot, and original serial publication, but it actually has a very tight structure built on a foundation of humour, beauty, and skilled storytelling.

Graphic Novel Review: Skim

Skim
words by Mariko Tamaki
drawings by Jillian Tamaki
Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press
143 pages
$18.95

review by BK Munn

This gorgeous new graphic novel answers the question, what if 80s sitcom The Facts of Life was really a drama about Wiccan ceremonies, lesbian crushes, casual racism, and suicide?

Sixteen-year-old diarist Kimberley Keiko Cameron (aka Skim) is already having a hard time negotiating the preppy world of her Catholic all-girls school when she is plunged headfirst into adulthood. For Skim, "being sixteen is officially the worst thing I've ever been." Like every teenager, alternately bored, embarrassed, and confused, Skim tries several strategies to forge a unique identity for herself, with little success. Even the goth subculture Skim imagines as a refuge from the lameness of her middle class surroundings turns out to be one big letdown. In one of Skim's funniest sequences, the cult of adult Wiccans Skim and her best friend Lisa join turns out to be little more than an AA support group for hooking up burned-out ex-druggies.



The suicide of a cheerleader's boyfriend sets the plot of the book in motion and brings into focus the cracks behind the facade of highschool innocence, friendship, and Skim's own ironic distance from her own emerging womanhood and adult awareness. As her school becomes obsessed with death and suicide, Skim argues with and eventually drifts away from her best friend, moving towards new relationships and her first romance (with hippie English teacher Ms. Archer).

Skim is a delicious balancing act between words and pictures, with Skim's studiously deadpan narration contrasted and enlivened by Jillian Tamaki's fluid drawing style. Luxurious panels, alternately spartan and highly detailed, depending on the story's mood and dramatic necessity, take us step-by-step through every moment of Skim's experience. There are almost no false notes in this book, graphically or textually, a difficult performance in any work that strives to capture the nuances of teenage interiority and speech patterns.



One of the book's major themes is the series of disappointments with the adult world that adolescence is fraught with. Skim progresses through disillusionment after disillusionment, but is luckily girded with the twin weapons of sarcasm and a practiced ability to fade into the background. But these tools are almost not enough to guarantee her survival when she is forced to experience firsthand the heartache she has previously only been a sardonic observer to. In the course of the book, Skim is drawn inexorably into adulthood through a gamut of betrayals and epiphanies, all of which she faithfully chronicles for us.

The conceit of the book is that the visual aspect represents a drawn diary --the unconscious working in tandem to give a (literally) well-rounded picture of Skim's experience. Textually, this takes the form of crossed-out confessions, list-making, and subtle, funny observations expressed as Zen equations ("me=seriously screwed"; "my school=goldfish tank of stupid"). Graphically, the pictures often take the story beyond the diaristic, a perfect use of the comics form, showing what Skim can't bring herself to confess verbally through the use of body language and tiny facial expressions; skilled use of black and white, chiaroscuro effects, gray washes, and easy, virtuoso line-work. Certain key scenes are entirely wordless and Jillian Tamaki's visual storytelling skills are utilized to the maximum with almost surreal effect.

An early version of Skim was published by Kiss Machine in 2005 and writer Mariko Tamaki reworked the story as a play before the graphic novel version took its current shape. The minimalist prose, humour, and tight structure of the book seems to be a result of this process, filtered through the eye of Jillian Tamaki. The whole effect is a darkly funny, bittersweet coming of age story.


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Skim Booklaunch
This Is Not A Reading Series
Wednesday, March 26th. 7:30-12pm
The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
Free
Mariko and Jillian Tamaki will be interviewed by Toronto writer Jessica Westhead, with Brad Mackay introducing.

Skim news at Jillian Tamaki's blog.