And to all you fans out there! Thanks for supporting our site and featured creators with insight to their work! Your feedback on the upcoming The Sundry Seven, was very encouraging and we hope that you enjoy the story as much as I love writing, and Jay loves drawing it! Our official launch announcement will be this Monday, May 10th! so be sure to check out and discover more juicy details of the story and The Sundry Seven crew!

I’ll give a few plugs to our creative friends this year since they were kind enough to save a few copies of art books and new issues of other cool creative work!

So check out Wild Gunmen, a local zine aimed at Geek Culture (yeah admit it. Your a geek too!) They’ve been online for a while now and just launched their premiere print issue! Thanks to Ed Osborne for giving us a copy!

Another shout out to Sean L. Lefebvre, a former Games Cafe resident, and published game developer, now working on a very interesting video game project with Bella Mechina Studios called, Empires of the Mist.

Also Thanks to Mike Boldt, of Boldtman Studios, an accomplished illustrator. He stopped by and handed us a pristine copy of his sketchbook, which cover valued at $0.25, we’re very proud to have this priceless piece in our collection! Thanks Mike!

Another one goes out to our friends at Blacksheep Studios! Hilary, Tyler Jenkins, & the Vehicle Magazine team is launching their 3rd issue! All locally drawn comics, stories, and advertisements related to comics and comic culture. They’ve also released a video on their youtube showing a very cool animated graphic novel! Thanks for providing The Fabler with quartly issues of such great independent work!

And one last one out to my friend J. Korim, artist on The Sundry Seven, who was so gracious to buy me a copy of, “The Tick, The Complete Edlund.” 400 pages and 12 original issues of pure unadulterated greatness! If you have not read this yet I won’t spoil it for you but after spending two evenings blasting through it, I assure you, that you will not be disappointed! Oh and if you check out Jay’s site be sure to look top left of the page for the best rock riffs, this side of the galaxy!

The exact amount of published art that I have distributed is zero, and I have yet to write a comic of my own.

With these qualifications in mind, I am now going to presume to tell you how to be successful in comic books.

Well, I’m not actually going to tell you that. No one can tell you that. If there was a magical club secret to finding success in sequential art and storytelling, it would have been leaked on a messageboard somewhere long ago. Then flamed. Then defended, flamed again, and, if it this hypothetical leak occurred anytime in the last year or so, tweeted.

Then it would have gone from tweeting to trending, and been retweeted and subsequently reposted across the blogosphere. The indie comic scene would have exploded overnight in a glorious flash of social-media-fuelled industry enlightenment.

…But, seeing as how that did not in fact occur, we’ll assume that if there ever was such a secret, it died sometime before the age of digital technology.

Instead, I would like to take this opportunity to spout some thoughts at you, the reader, regarding observations I’ve made about the industry. With the disclaimer intact that I am neither a successful writer of comics nor an artist myself, I daresay that some of these observations might still be helpful to those aspiring to be the above.

(Don’t worry, the creator interviews are still an ongoing feature – posts like this aren’t the new exclusive standard for The Fabler Blog. In fact, in the coming weeks we’ll have some lovely interviews posted with such talent as Michael Cho and Jordyn Bochon.)

In my opinion, one of the single most impressive things about the Canadian comic book industry is its ability to generate self-sustaining communities. Be they online forums like Canadiangeek.com or Maple Ink Comics, collectives such Transmission X, or simply groups of artists getting together for their local Comic Jams – community is at the heart of Canadian indie comics.

Rightly so. It makes sense for individuals with any form of shared interest to find ways to grow through interaction with each other. Writers’ circles meet to bounce ideas off of each other when hammering out new prose, structural engineers rub shoulders at conventions to network, and anarchists hold book fairs to exchange perspectives. Well, anarchists of the Western post-modern variety, at least.

With indie comics, community is less of a supplementary tool, and more of a basic necessity. Independent comic books still lack the large, varied market that, say, indie music or even small press novels attracts. Without that market, and without an adequate distribution system beyond Diamond, (which is balanced very much against new indie creators) it’s no easy task to get your work out there and seen. This is especially difficult for those looking to produce traditional, physical copies of their work rather than operate solely in a digital medium.

The best route an aspiring indie comic artist can take, (providing that artist is set on paper copy publication) is to find other artists and collaborate on an anthology. A comic anthology is easy to flip through, relatively cheap to mass produce when you have a group of people pooling funds, and it introduces you to other local writers/artists, opening the door for future collaborations. Regular collaborations with the same individuals might lead to the founding of a local publishing company, like Calgary’s Vicious Ambitious.

Forums such as the ones I listed above are making it far easier to track down local creators than ever before; as are individual blogs, Facebook groups, and collectively maintained news blogs such as Sequential. As more and more artists realize the importance of maintaining an online presence, it’s near impossible to find comic creators that are totally unreachable via the web

As comic artists increasingly turn towards webcomics as a more financially viable mode of publishing effectively, you might think that the importance of community lessens. It doesn’t cost a ton of money to get a website up and running, complete with a unique domain name and a decent amount of server space. And once it’s up there, it’s there to be searched the world over, transcending the geographical limitations of small press print runs.

This is, of course, incomplete logic. Why would people search for it in the first place? How would you pull in enough initial traffic to generate buzz about your webcomic and get that initial word of mouth going?

The talented artists over at Transmission X have found a collective approach to solving this problem. In 2007, a pool of top-notch Canadian illustrators and cartoonists founded the organization to jointly promote each other’s work on the internet. Many of them, such as Karl Kerschl and Cameron Stewart, had already achieved a significant level of popularity in the industry – but by joining up with other creators to form the Transmission X webcomics portal, they combined their individual fan bases into a larger audience.

In this case, the fans themselves benefit just as much as the comic creators. Where once they would have had to rely on word of mouth to discover new artists and their work, by visiting any one of the TX artists’ sites they now gain access to a full range of varied, quality webcomics served up on a virtual platter.

You may have noticed that I’m pretty optimistic about the sense of community in Canadian comics these days. Examples like the Transmission X collective, social media bridging ties between artists, the increasing popularity of regional cons and expos, and the ongoing dedication of blogs like the Shuster Awards and Sequential make a pretty good case for a positive perspective of the industry. But don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all daffodils and shiny pennies. (Is that even an expression?)

In fact, if you wanted to hear another point of view about the industry, I could direct you over to The Comic Book Bin to a post Hervé St-Louis wrote last October titled, “The State of the Canadian Comic Book Industry“. In it, St-Louis laments a lack of unity between the individual, geographically divided communities across the country. There is definitely some truth to this, as well as to his assertion that there is still a sense of division between Anglophone and Francophone comic networks.

I guess my optimism comes from the unabashed enthusiasm I often hear from Canadian artists when the subject of community comes up. After all, that’s where my views in this column are largely coming from – the impressions I’ve been getting from the talented Canadian illustrators and cartoonists that I’ve talked to who are trying to make some niche for themselves in the comic book industry.

Whether you’re in Gatineau, Guelph, Victoria, or Edmonton, and whether you’re printing small run minicomics or e-marketing your webcomic, community is an important ingredient to your success. In Canada, it seems to me that we’re lucky to already have a number of successful comic-related communities, and a growing number of tools and resources to help build more.

Jay Bardyla loves comic books. You can tell this much from just a few minutes of conversation with the comic shop owner/Alberta comic scene supporter.

The former Ontario local has been involved in the comic book community in Alberta since he first moved to Edmonton in 1996. In 1999, he opened the first Happy Harbor Comics, which was original a Direct Sales Outlet rather than a full retail store. By 2009, Happy Harbor expanded to encompass four retail stores across Edmonton, winning such distinctions as the 2007 Joe Shuster award for Best Canadian Comic Store and 2008 Finalist for the Will Eisner Retailer of the Year award.

“Every day I wake up, I go to work,” says Jay, “I hang out with people who are customers, I tend to always talk comics when I’m at home watching T.V… I had career paths that I had tried in my life before, and they didn’t pan out. I made this life for myself now, and I’m pretty happy with it. I can’t for a minute think of what I’d be doing right now if I wasn’t involved in this business.”

Up to this point I’ve focused this column on comic creators and publishers – and while Jay could be considered both, as he is a writer himself and has (through Happy Harbor) published a number of anthologies, the reason I approached Jay for an interview was due to his contributions to the province’s comic scene.

It seems to be impossible to hold a conversation about the comic community in Alberta without either Jay’s name or Happy Harbor coming up. In the decade that he has been running Happy Harbor, his efforts in co-running the online forum Canadiangeek.org, publishing the open submission anthology Tales from the Harbor (Vol. 1 -4), organizing a shwack of annual community events, and establishing a support system for local creative talent, have led to Jay’s name becoming almost synonymous with Alberta comic book culture.

“It wasn’t necessarily something that I thought that I needed to try and build,” says Jay about his efforts to help cultivate a healthy comic community, “it was something that I wanted to be a part of. For my own personal benefit, I wanted to learn how to become a better writer and I wanted to make comics and meet artists, so ingraining myself in the community was a matter of personal benefit.  Being that it was something important to me, and I had the space and the opportunity to provide the conduit/forums for people to come together, why shouldn’t I do that? It’s beneficial to everyone, the community as a whole.”

Jay says that his initiatives to help build a community out of Edmonton fell into the grander scheme of Happy Harbor’s business model.

“I thought, ‘what can I do that’s cool and different, and that will keep people engaged in their hobby?’ We wanted to transcend just being a store, and being involved in the community was an important part of that for us.”

These days, the community is thriving. To Jay, one big indicator of this is a shift in community interaction from the virtual world to becoming more ‘face to face’.

“In today’s society that’s the inverse of how things seem to work,” says Jay, “Things tend to start with a handshake face to face and then break down into nothing but virtual contact and communication, whereas the Alberta community has gone in reverse. People have been learning about each other virtually through forums (Canadian Geek in particular) and then connecting in person.”

Canadian Geek was created as a starting point for locals to begin communicating with each other. Jay realized that you can only have so many people coming through the Happy Harbor stores at one time, and getting everyone together all at once was generally not a realistic goal.

Jay also credits the Tales from the Harbor anthologies as being an important component in bringing together members of the current comic community.

“People who were involved in the book were obviously picking up a copy for themselves,” says Jay, “and they were now getting exposed to everyone else’s work. So first you have the forum, which is the virtual world, then you’ve got actual published material that people can see and get an idea where the other creators are coming from, and now you have the final step where we’ve moved into the realm of people coming face to face and beginning to pitch ideas and critiquing each other’s work and that kind of stuff.”

It would be difficult to deny that Alberta’s comic community has reached an impressive level of cohesiveness.  This is something that Jay acknowledges enthusiastically, adding that the benefits to having this kind of community are numerous.

“It’s that, ‘hey – I’m not alone’ feeling these days. These people all know each other, and they’re all supporting each other. Another thing we’re accomplishing through this is legitimizing the past time in the eyes of the general public. The average person doesn’t look at someone who says ‘I make comics’ with a whole lot of seriousness, and they might potentially be a little dismissive of them. But now you can go back and say, ‘I make comics’, and they’re like ‘oh are you part of that collective that helped raise thousands of dollars for big brothers and big sisters?’ – ‘why, yes I am’. So you’ve got a little bit of validation, and it’s nice to get that every once in a while.”

When asked about whether he plans to open a Happy Harbor location in Calgary, Jay’s response is tentative.

“We do, though obviously with the change in the economy there’s a lot of positives and negatives to consider before moving forward with something like that. We’re still just discussing things, and being careful about what we want to do.”

He explains that taking a tentative approach isn’t just a matter of being fiscally responsible, but also based out of a desire not to aggressively barge in to a market that already has many longstanding comic retailers.

“That’s just bad business. The analogy often is, ‘the pie is only so big and everyone has a slice, and the only way you expand is by taking someone else’s slice’.  Happy Harbor’s approach has always been, well, why don’t we just make a bigger pie? One of our biggest business objectives is to try to find ways to grow the market. How do we get people who aren’t reading comics, or who don’t know about comics, or who stopped reading comics – how do we bring them in?”

Over the course of the past year, many comic shop owners like Jay have received a boost in this department from a source that might previously have been considered unlikely – Hollywood. Jay refers to the recent surge in comic-to-movie adaptations as ‘free advertising’, using the example of the Watchmen trailer’s impact on sales last summer.

Jay says that prior to the release of the trailer, Happy Harbor sold 3- 5 copies of the seminal Alan Moore graphic novel a month. After the trailer hit theatres, that number increased to 3-5 copies a day. Interestingly enough, he says that the comics which have benefited most from the Hollywood comic adaptations are, like Watchmen, mostly properties that moviegoers were initially unfamiliar with. This means movies like Iron Man, the Hulk, or Spider-man don’t necessarily increase sales of the respective matching franchises. Often instead, the attention presently afforded to comics in the media will bring fans into shops looking for something new.

This attention has been a large factor in helping the comic industry cope with the recession, though Jay says the economy has still taken its toll on how Happy Harbor approaches ordering new material.

“It’s always a delicate balancing act, because of the slow creeping of cover prices and the amount of additional titles that the big two (Marvel and DC) keep introducing to the market. You have to be savvy about what you bring in, and what you push onto your customers. While the comic industry is still relatively healthy and stable these days, it’s taken a lot more work these past eight to ten months to maintain that balancing act.”

Jay cites the volume of comics being sold on eBay and through auction houses like Heritage, as well as the fact that more and more key books are breaking sales records, as indicators that people are still willing to spend money on comic books despite the economic downturn.

He says that it’s becoming easier to focus on the business side of things these days, thanks to other members of the community stepping up to lead new initiatives.

“It’s getting so that all I have to do is pretty much keep the door of my store open so that people can come in and sit down and have the space as a community to use. Instead of being the idea guy and the provider, I’m more and more the provider – when I’m needed. Which is pretty cool, since that also means I can start looking at making comics myself again.”

Fiona Staples is a  fast-rising name in comic books these days. An artist based out of Calgary, Alberta, Fiona is currently most well-known for her pencils/colors on The Secret History of the Authority: Hawksmoor. Since breaking onto the scene in 2006 with Done to Death, a limited series she worked on alongside Edmonton-based writer Andrew Foley, Fiona has built an impressive work resume of comics published both independently and by such major players as Image and Wildstorm

In addition to TSHOTA: Hawksmoor, this list includes colouring several issues of Proof, doing covers for Sheena: Queen of the Jungle (as well as a recent Wolverine cover for War Machine # 5), and penciling an issue of Amazing Tales featuring Spider-Woman.

Her latest work is on North 40, another Wildstorm title due out this July. Written by Aaron Williams, (the Chronicles of Nodwick, PS238) Fiona is responsible for all of the pencils and colours on its six-issue run.

I caught up with Fiona over coffee here in Calgary, where the incredibly talented Ms. Staples shared her insights about success, working with Aaron Williams, and why her favourite North 40 character is the surly old Sherriff.

KD: To say that you have a lot going on these days would be a bit of an understatement. In April alone, you had the Hawksmoor trade paperback release, your variant cover for War Machine hit the shelves, and the Vicious Ambitious anthology featuring your comic strip Teens in Love in Space dropped. Then of course you have North 40 coming up, and you’ve been generating a tonne of buzz both in local press and major comic media sources like Newsarama.

What’s it like for you, being at the center of this recent whirlwind of activity?

FS: It’s a little bit daunting, but at the same time I’d rather be too busy than not busy enough. I’m pretty lucky that I’ve had pretty steady work since I started freelancing full time. I don’t feel like I could really complain about my situation too much. Like, it’s exciting, I get to do a lot of different things, which keeps it interesting. My main project right now, and for the last several months, has been North 40. That’s taken up 90% of my time. But there are certain other things I just can’t say ‘no’ to, like doing a Wolverine cover. Or doing something for a Vicious Ambitious book.

KD:  From how I understand it, you first really got involved in the comic industry three years ago with a comic called ‘Done to Death’. Three years isn’t a super long time in the grand scheme of things, but a significant amount has happened for you in that time. How do you feel your life has changed from then to now, in terms of where you’re at and what you’re doing with yourself?

FS: Well, when Done to Death came out in 2006, the first issue came out right as I was graduating from Art College. So I was still holding down part-time jobs at the time, and freelancing full time. I worked at a local comic shop called Comic-Kazi for a few years. I was a cook for a while… I don’t cook very much anymore. (laughs) That’s one way my lifestyle has changed. More take-out.

KD:  Is there a surreal element to it all?

FS: Yeah, while there’s definitely moments where sometimes I just get caught up in what I’m doing and lose perspective, there are definitely times where I just have to pause and think, “Wow, I can’t believe I’m getting paid to draw a cowboy fighting a bunch of zombies at a high school dance. I can’t believe there’s money in this.”

KD:  When you put it like that, it certainly sounds like you’re living the dream.

To date, what’s been your most humbling moment in the comic book industry?

FS: Probably any time that I look at my work from over six months ago, I feel kind of humbled. I guess I’m fairly self-critical, like most artists are. I feel like this glow of pride whenever I finish something and send it off. But then when it comes out like a few months later, when I look at some of my old stuff that’s been printed, I think like – oh god, that’s not nearly as good as I thought it was at first. But that’s a sign of growth, I suppose.

KD:  I’m going to shift gears a little bit, so we can talk about your upcoming project with Aaron Williams, North 40. The impression that I have of this comic is that it’s going to be sort of a Lovecraftian, sci-fi, Americana Western.

Is that somewhat accurate, or what else would you add to that?

FS: In some ways it’s also sort of a straight up superhero action story. The action is almost played up a bit more than the horror stuff, but there’s still definitely also some freaky monsters, and some scary stuff happening. It’s a combination of so many weird elements. You’ve got a little bit of teen drama going on, then like you said, there’s the western element. There’s the Cthulu-like monster – and then there’s some parts that read almost like a slasher movie. There’s just so many different genres that go into it.

KD: What’s it been like working with Aaron Williams on this?

FS: Aaron has been really great. His scripts are fun to read just on their own. When I read through them, I couldn’t put them down until I was finished. I hope that my artwork can add something to it. His story and his dialogue are really well crafted, and his characters are really fleshed out – even though it’s kind of an ensemble piece, with four or five main protagonists. They all have specific and realistic motivations, and I think that’s important to keep this sort of off-the-wall, wacky story kind of grounded, so it doesn’t just dissolve into absurdity. There’s definitely real heart and real character driving the plot.

KD:  Speaking of those characters, I noticed you mentioned on your blog that your favorite character from North 40 is someone named Sherriff Morgan. Can you speak a little bit more about that character, and what the appeal is to you?

FS: Oh, sure! Morgan is just this tough little guy, he’s been Sherriff of Conover County for as long as anyone can remember. He doesn’t get rattled too easily, and he usually relies on his skills of negotiation to solve conflict – though he’s a pretty good shot as well, when he has to be. I guess I just like how he’s a cool old Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones kind of character – although I’m trying not to make him look too much like either of those guys.

KD:  How long in the making has North 40 been?

FS: A long time, actually. Aaaron and I first pitched it back in December 2007. We pitched it before I even started working on Hawksmoor, and then when they both got approved at the same time, they wanted to put me on Hawksmoor first.  I started drawing North 40 last September, and it’s taking me longer than any other comic ever has. Partly because I’ve been working on a lot of other things at the same time, and partly because I’m taking a lot of care with it, and I’m trying to get a lot more detail into the artwork.

KD:  Building on that, how is your approach to illustrating North 40 different from your work with Hawksmoor, or your recent work on Astonishing Tales?

FS: The approach and the technique is more or less the same, I just have more time to do it. With Hawksmoor I had about four weeks to do each issue, and with this one I have roughly twice that amount of time. So, I’m not skimping so much on backgrounds and details. I guess in some ways the artwork is also more realistic, and maybe a little less stylized.

KD:  With North 40 currently scheduled for its six issue run, how far through the penciling are you now?

FS: I just finished penciling issue four.

KD:  Are you doing all of the coloring on this as well?

FS: I am, yep. My editor even let me write some of the sound effects! It’s my first professional writing gig. (laughs)

KD:  I understand that you’re pretty plugged in to the comic community out here in Alberta. Would that be an inaccurate statement to make?

FS: Well, I hope to be.

KD:  Can you tell me a little about your thoughts on the community of comic creators and artists in Alberta?

FS: We have a pretty unique comic scene out here. I’m sure it exists in some capacity in other cities and provinces, but there’s a very cohesive community here. It’s thanks to things like the weekly drink and draws, all the local anthologies that are put out, message boards like Canadian Geek and Maple Ink… and it all happened very organically.

Sometimes people try to give it a boost, or they come up with an elaborate plan to start a company, or start an official studio, but for the most part it just managed to come together on its own. I think it’s a sign of how enthused and optimistic everybody feels about it.

KD:  Awesome! Finally, what can you tell me about any future projects that you currently have in the works?

FS: As far as professional work goes, I just have a lot of stuff in the pitch stage right now. So nothing for sure. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing after North 40, to be honest. I’d also like to do Teens in Love in Space (from the recent Vicious Ambitious-published anthology, ‘Rocket Juice’) as a webcomic. That’s something I’ve been working on in my spare time, so when I’m done drawing comics for the day, I just sit down and draw more comics.

North 40 # 1 releases on July 8th, 2009. For more from Fiona Staples, you can check out her blog over at http://www.fionastaples.com/ .