The Munn Wired Envelope Company

I think I've found my new business card.

(thanks to cartoonist Ethan Rilly for sending me this image. Check out Rilly's delightful new comic book, Pope Hats #2)

The Munn Wired Envelope Company
manufacturers of the Munn Envelope
(patented)
133-135-137 Mulberry Street, New York
Artemas Ward, President
Frank E. Munn, Vice-President
William Gow, treasurer and secretary

I love how the company is located on Mulberry Street, site of so many amazing spectacles in the world of that notorious socialist, Dr. Seuss.

New look for Sequential!

Publisher Max Douglas has updated the look of Sequential. The newsblog of Canadian comic book news and cilture bow has an updated, more magazine-y look, in keeping with our status as an annual print journal and more varied webcontent (look for more interviews and reviews in the near future). Check out the new wordpress-o-rific site.

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...

Obit Writing

So I posted an obit for Barry Blair over at Sequential. I didn't like his art. It was ugly and kind of creepy. He was a graphic novel creator, publisher, and pornographer, sure, but was he technically a producer of kiddie porn because he drew erotica about youths? Dave Cooper seems to have based a creepy molester character on him in his "Dan and Larry" graphic novel. Anyway, I tried to write an objective bio, but it's hard when your not into the subject.