Mad Dogs and Canadians

I was slightly drunk when I concocted this but at the urging of Brad Mackay I am posting it.

Isn't it funny how many of us had our first exposure to classic Tin Pan Alley songs and showtunes through Mad Magazine? Inspired by the Wright Awards and the presence there of the Tony-winning Drowsy Chaperone composers Don McKellar and Greg Morrison (pictured above), I present this travesty:


Made in Canada Comic Book Publications
(sung to the tune of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Noonday Sun")

In northern climes
There are certain kinds
of gay
and bohemian engravers
who rebel against your New York-based
comic book enslavers.
They are some of the fools
Who work their tools
All day
Because the need to publish comics
Must ignore the economics
and pay.

The natives blink
When the cartoonists
sling their ink
Because they're obviously,
Definitely
Nuts.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book
Publications!

The Japanese have manga,
and Tezuka is lingua franca.
Belgians and Americans
Have Herge and Obama
But Canadians
Just love their
Koyama.

In the Philippines
They have Nino and Alcala
To provide Marvel books with ink.
The United States
Has work-for-hire rates
and the legacy of Kitchen Sink.
In Montreal
With love for all
We have Drawn and Quarterly.
With Doucets and Chester Bruns.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book PublicationS!

Such a surprise
For the eastern eyes
To see,
That though the cartoonist are effete,
They won't admit to defeat.
When Andy Brown arrives,
Every Maritimer hides
In glee.
Because the simple creatures hope for
a Conundrum CORNICOPIA
of arteests.

It seems such a shame
When Canadians claim
The Earth,
That they give rise
To such hilarity
And mirth.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,
He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,
Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book Publications!

The toughest DC bandit
Can never understand it.
In Italy
the practioners of BD
Are just what the natives shun,
They put their pens
Or brush down
And rush down.
To the place
where comics are made on ice.
In the age of La Pasteque
The comics that we peck
are decidedly magnifique
and put to shame the scribblings
of Groth's Fantagraphic middlings.
In New York
to stroke Disney's cock
Marvel foams at the mouth and comes.

Made in Can-a-da
Comic Book Publications!

etc

TCAF 2011 Photos

2011 Wright Award Winners

Girard, DeForge, Fellows earn top nods at 2011 Doug Wright Awards

Toronto, May 8, 2011 — The star power was sky-high at Toronto’s Jackman Hall last night as Canada’s finest comics and graphic novels were honoured at the 7th annual Doug Wright Awards.



Hosted by Tony Award-winning writer, actor and filmmaker Don McKellar, the event drew a capacity crowd of the cartooning world's luminaries and fans, including the Gemini Award-winning star of Being Erica, Erin Karpluk.

This year’s top honours included:



Bigfoot by Pascal Girard (BEST BOOK)




Alex Fellows for Spain and Morocco (BEST EMERGING TALENT)



Spotting Deer by Michael DeForge (PIGSKIN PETERS AWARD for experimental and abstract comics)



Held in conjunction with the 2011 Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), the ceremony also saw legendary Vancouver cartoonist David Boswell inducted into The Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame.



The creator of the influential alternative comic Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman, Boswell's work made him a favourite of underground and alternative comics fans in the 1980s and he subsequently was a major influence on a generation of alt-comix cartoonists.

The 2011 Wright Awards were decided by a jury comprised of musician Sara Quin (of Tegan and Sara), Michael Redhill (poet, author of Consolation, Martin Sloane, and publisher of the literary journal Brick), artist and award-winning illustrator Anita Kunz, Marc Bell (artist, cartoonist of Hot Potatoe and winner of the 2010 Pigskin Peters Award) and National Post books editor Mark Medley.



Speaking about Alex Fellow's work the jury said:



“Fellows' illustrations not only perfectly capture the languid Spanish afternoons, sun-soaked beaches, and cramped hostels, which any backpacker will recognize, but the fleeting nature of a one-night stand, and the rude awakening of a hangover. Spain and Morocco is a story about love, friendship, and, most of all, life. With an artist's eye and a poet's tongue Fellows chronicles the strange journey of two lost men without ever losing the reader's attention. He is unquestionably deserving of this year's Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent.”



Speaking about Pascal Girard's work the jury said:



“Pascal Girard's Bigfoot is a generous and funny coming-of-age story about growing up in a small Quebec town with a big heart. Jimmy is in love, his best friend has humiliated him via YouTube, and the adults in his life are around the bend. Add to this a rumour of Bigfoot at large in the Saguenay woods, and what you get is a wonderfully warm and comic portrait of life as it is lived. Expressively and crisply drawn figures fill the pages of BIGFOOT, and Girard's bright colours--something he has become justly celebrated for---give it all a gorgeous depth. Wry, rueful, and profoundly honest, Bigfoot is a triumph of cartooning and is surely deserves to win the 2011 Doug Wright Award for Best Book.”



Speaking about Michael DeForge's work the Wright Awards nominating committee, which chooses the annual Pigskin Peters Award, said:



“Like a lost episode of the Audubon Wildlife Theatre broadcast from the Twilight Zone, Michael DeForge’s Spotting Deer is an otherworldly travelogue on the habits, habitat and culture of a species of large Canadian slugs which physically resemble deer. Typical of Deforge's distinctive and rapidly growing body of work, Spotting Deer deftly combines the beautiful with the repellent into a truly original comic.”



The Best Book and Best Emerging Talent winners received a glass-and-wood trophy made by Guelph, Ontario cartoonist Seth. The Pigskin Peters Award winner receives a unique “wearable” trophy that is comprised of a customized bowler hat and plaque that also serves as a hat hook (also designed by Seth).

In addition, each of the winners received a trophy and a special hard-bound copy of their winning book.

About The Doug Wright Awards
The Doug Wright Awards are a non-profit organization formed in 2004 to honour the lasting legacy of the late, great Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright (1917 – 1983), whose strip Doug Wright's Family ran in newspapers in Canada and around the world from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. Founded in 2004, the annual awards recognize the best and brightest in English-language comics and graphic novels published in the previous calendar year (including first translated editions).

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.

Sequential Magazine

Sequential: the magazine!

I'm very pleased to report that the first issue of the print version of Sequential will be available for free at the Toronto Comics Art Festival this weekend.

Sequential is the daily newsblog about Canadian comics that I contribute to. It has been online since 2002 but for TCAF this year we decided to create a print edition that captures in physical, 3-dimensional form the essence of what we do on a daily basis with the blog. To this end, we enlisted the aid of several cartoonists and writers whose stories and art we have covered and linked to over the years, and the result is a 22-page magazine full of comics, reviews, interviews, and features about every aspect of comics and graphic novels in Canada.

The mag features a cover and a graphic-novel preview by Sequential editor/publisher Max Douglas (aka Salgood Sam), who also worked tirelessly recruiting and riding herd on talent, fielding story-pitches, selling advertising, dealing with the printer, writing, and laying the whole issue out solo. There are also articles by Robin Fisher, Jamie Coville, Jim Munroe, Brad Mackay, Robert Pincombe, and yours truly. As well, there are comics by John Martz, Fiona Smythe, Sean Ward, Dan Zabbal, Willow Dawson, and Mahendra Singh. We cover old strips, new strips, webcomics, bande-dessinee, and everything in-between. And I have to say, the thing looks pretty damn sharp.

Canadian comics is a dynamic culture of wonderful art, artists, writers, readers and publishers (not to mention all the various craftspeople, printers, cosplayers, retailers, and whatever-the-hell Herve St.-Louis is), and we like to think this new incarnation of Sequential captures just a little bit of that magic.

The magazine will be distributed for no charge at TCAF and hopefully will serve as something of a guide to some of the people and events of the weekend. Please drop by and check out the issue and maybe say hi to some of the contributors. I hope to see you there!