There are some genuinely interesting items making headlines on the sequential front this month, and I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on a few of them here. From professional perspectives on a call to boycott one of the two major publishers (hint: not DC) to the wildly successful endeavours of a group of female artists and writers to kickstart their own new anthology, and finally to the birth of a new Canadian Comic Festival.

First, about this boycott business – Steve Bisette is a name you may or may not already be familiar with, probably depending on if you’ve read Alan Moore’s much-lauded run on Swamp Thing (on which Bisette was artist). A name you might be more familiar with is Jack Kirby, who famously co-created such Marvel characters as Captain America, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four.

Kirby, who sadly passed away in 1994, has since become the subject of some controversy regarding those same characters. At least where Marvel is concerned. The long and short of it is, the heir’s to the Kirby estate brought  a lawsuit to Marvel’s front door seeking partial rights and royalties to all those great properties Jack Kirby had a hand in creating. Marvel adamantly denied any entitlement that the Kirby estate may have had to the copyright claims on those characters, claiming that Kirby’s creations were “work for hire”.

In July, much to the chagrin of Kirby fans everywhere, the courts ruled in favour of Marvel.

This is where Steve Bisette comes in. In response to this ruling, near the end of July he called for a boycott of Marvel products until they re-evaluate their treatment of Kirby and his legacy.

Some very interesting individuals in the comic industry have since weighed in on the matter, including Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter:

“What remains most troubling about what Marvel has done and continues to do to many of its contributors and their families is how deeply unnecessary all of it seems. Marvel has resources out the wazoo. They have plenty of publishing money to provide royalties to a creator or an estate on work republished…

… For these companies that traffic in heroism and trumpet going the extra mile to do good to cling to a strict legalism that keeps the money flowing in certain directions should trouble even the most accepting, enthusiastic fan.”

Also, Seth:

“The corporate lie about Kirby’s role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent. It’s a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it’s a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn’t right…

… I would encourage anyone reading this to refrain from supporting the corporation until some form of justice is brought forth for Mr. Kirby. Might I suggest that money usually spent on Marvel products be redirected into the back issue market –buy some of those charming early 60s comics. That’s the real stuff anyway. Not the decades of vulgar elaboration that followed.”

Even Scott McCloud had a brief weigh-in on the subject (via Google+):

“I’m sure this particular case has plenty of gray areas…

But hardly any artist in that end of the business was treated fairly in those days (much like in the music industry) and Kirby in particular deserved far more compensation — and RESPECT — than he received over the years from a royal procession of lawyers, asshole execs, and two-faced colleagues.

Anyone contesting that Marvel was largely built on Kirby’s ideas just doesn’t know their comics history.”

The good news is that the Kirby estate’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, isn’t about to give up so easily.  Just a couple of days ago, he announced that his intentions to appeal the ruling were going forward.  Time will tell where this one ends up…

On a brighter note, here are two items of news worth getting excited for:

First, Womanthology. If you haven’t followed this story, a group of female comic artists and writers came together with the hopes of  creating a ‘large scale anthology comic showcasing the works of women in comics’. With such names as Gail Simone, Camille de’Errico, Fiona Staples, and a host of other talented professionals attached to the project, the folks behind Womanthology decided to use Kickstarter to raise funds for a goal of $25,000.00.

They put out the rallying cry to any and all friends or supporters that might be willing to help provide incentives for contributors, and came up with such nifty rewards as: receiving a hand-drawn postcard in the mail from Neil Gaiman; having Kevin Smith call you on his podcast for a quick chat; having one of several professional writers critique your script and, as an ‘UBER SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY’, one lucky contributor of $1,500 is going to have his 22 page script drawn by Bryan Denham (Marvel Artist for Iron Man, Avengers, Nova and more)!

Naturally, they blew away their $25,000 target. By the time they reached their August 7th deadline, they hit the absolutely astonishing landmark of just over $100,000.00 raised!

A wonderful success story, and one that reaffirms much of my faith in the same industry that produced the Marvel-Kirby lawsuit.

Oh hey, and here’s something else that’s pretty cool:

Major Canadian Comic Art Festivals look out! There’s a new kid on the block.

So VanCAF, the Vancouver Comics Arts Festival, has been announced as a new show modeled after TCAF which will be debuting in May in 2012.

Their website’s description lists the event as “a week-long celebration of comics…(featuring) galleries, readings, panels, and workshops before culminating in a two-day convention for cartoonists from across the country and down the coast to connect with their readers and peddle their wares”.

The West rises!

Not that anybody cares about that whole West vs East culture conflict in Canada anymore…just sayin’.

Anyway, how cool is that? If you’d like a more thorough look at what VanCAF is all about, BK Munn over on Sequential Spiltink has posted an interview with Shannon Campbell, the event’s organizer.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

- Kevin

Which doesn’t mean we’re a newsblog. If anything, we’re an expositoryblog – or a selectively focused varietyblog. Maybe a comic-centric infoblog.

But what’s in a name anyway? Definitions only detract from the potential of any form of medium. For all intents and purposes, The Fabler Blog is The Fabler Blog. Nothing more and nothing less.

Although, for the record, we’re not a newsblog.

Right-O, with that established, a few things:
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1.) I would be remiss if I didn’t mention first and foremost the latest aesthetic overhaul to TheFabler.com. That’s right folks,  our home in this here little corner of the internet is evolving.

Click on over to observe the beauty – nay, the majesty – of The Fabler’s latest iteration. I’ll understand if it takes you a few minutes of breathless wonder before you return to peruse the rest of this comparatively humble post.
We even have some sneak peeks into the future of The Fabler posted on our brand-spanking-new About page. Also worthy of mention is the addition of Groups to the site, which you can learn more on at that same link above.

2.) Free Comic Book Day is right around the corner, and coming up fast! Of course, the figurative ‘corner’ here is actually a measure of roughly two months time, but still – I’m sure May 1st will be here before any of us knows it.

In fact, the day (which I personally believe Canadians should petition for to become a nationally recognized holiday) is so fast approaching, the official Free Comic Book Day website now has previews up for this year’s slate of comics.

The lineup is decently impressive. Marvel has an Iron Man/Thor comic written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by John Romita jr. on there, while DC and Top Cow are each using the opportunity to launch major imprint events. DC has War of the Supermen # 0 up, while Top Cow is releasing Artifacts: First Look.

One of the highlights looks to be Dynamite’s Green Hornet # 1, featuring Kevin Smith’s debut take on the legendary character. Another would be the Mouse Guard/Fraggle Rock double feature (the second title I’m oddly excited for), and another still is Fractured Fables – a kid-friendly collection of fairy tales turned upside down by a wildly talented collection of artists/authors. Alex Grecian, Doug TenNapel, and Camilla d’Errico are among the names associated with that last project.

Victoria Day is a fairly cumbersome Canadian holiday that could use the axe. A holiday celebrating the birth day of the current British monarch? The Canada Act was so twenty-eight years ago, people.

Free comics is a much more culturally relevant subject of celebration for modern Canadians.

3.) Back in January I made a post about the lawsuits currently brewing between Marvel and the heirs of Jack Kirby. Somewhere amidst the senseless gibbering I made reference to the ongoing legal woes between Jerry Siegel (original co-creator of Superman) and Warner Bros./DC.

In the latest piece of news regarding the Siegel/Warner Bros. litigation, it seems that WB has chosen to replace its existing outside counsel with Daniel Petrocelli.

Petrocelli made his name originally representing the father of victim Ronald Goldman in the infamous O.J. Simpson murder case. He’s also represented Disney in a licensing battle over the rights of Winnie the Pooh.

If there were a witty correlation I could find between the three cases, you would be reading it right now. Sadly, not the case.

What this means for the trial is that Warner Bros. is essentially baring its teeth and bringing out the big guns. Marc Toberoff, who is representing the Siegel estate in this matter as well as the Kirby family in the aforementioned case, is going to have his hands full in the coming months.

4.) If you’ve scoped around The Fabler Blog before, (and chances are if you’ve read to the end of this post you probably have) you’ve probably heard me gush adoringly about Scott McCloud at some point or another.  My fascination with the works and ideas of Mr. McCloud is so great, it probably even rivals the level of contempt I feel for Boise, Idaho.

Well, that may just be hyperbole.

In any case, Graphic NYC posted on Monday what just might be the definitive profile of Scott McCloud.

Christopher Irving, who wrote the article, is meticulously thorough in detailing the career and ideas of the Understanding Comics’ author. McCloud himself gives ample insight throughout into the background processes behind everything from Zot! to his upcoming 2012 graphic novel, tentatively titled The Sculptor.

Seth Kushner also provides some nifty photos of Scott looking all professorly in front of a blackboard covered in diagrams and doodles.

Why should you read this profile? Because Scott McCloud is one of the most influential minds in comics today, and has vested more time in deconstructing and explaining the nuances of the medium than possibly anyone else alive.

Also because you’ve already wasted at least five minutes of your life reading  this comparatively shallow post, and you will be roughly twenty times more enriched for spending another ten minutes learning about Scott McCloud.
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That’s all for this Wednesday. We have another double-feature of interviews in the works for the next couple of weeks, so check back soon for that double-dip of artist insight.

I now find myself oddly craving Dunk-a-roos.

This is Kevin@thefabler, signing out.

-Written by Kevin de Vlaming

Vancouver-based artist Jason Turner has been working in webcomics for longer than many even knew the industry existed.

Turner, whose online work gained first gained attention thanks to early endorsement by Scott McCloud, (of Zot! and Understanding Comics fame) is perhaps best known for the graphic novel True Loves. The two volumes of True Loves, which were originally published as weekly webcomics, tell the story of a modern romance between two Vancouverites. Both volumes were co-authored with his wife, Manien Bothma, and published by New Reliable Press.

The second volume can currently be seen in its entirety on Turner’s website, the jason turner project – alongside an impressive array of additional comics that he has published exclusively online.

When Turner began posting his first comics online back in 2000, titled Down at the Black Box, webcomics were far from the mainstream-celebrated that phenomenon they are today. The concept had been around since the early nineties, though for the better part of the decade the audience was largely peer-based, and the online communities growing around them were still relatively small.

At the time, Turner had been independently producing comics for already almost a decade. His body of work consisted of fifty or so zine comics, many of which he often exchanged with others in the zine community via mail. His leap from offline to online comic publishing came roughly at the same time as Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics, which led to Turner’s involvement in the online community surrounding McCloud’s experiments in webcomics. Sharing links to his work with that community are what originally brought him McCloud’s attention, and subsequent ongoing encouragement.

Since then, as webcomics have grown into the pop culture mainstay that they presently are, Turner has had ample opportunity to build on his own ideas about webcomics and carve a niche for himself in the world of digital sequential art.

Turner was kind enough to indulge The Fabler with an interview about (among other things) the release of the second True Loves graphic novel, how he manages to keep the digital content he churns out fresh, and what we can expect next from the prolific creator.

The interview is below:

KD: To start somewhere recent, you just finished your collection of online two-panel comic strips titled ‘Another One Hundred Page Project‘. Can you tell me a little bit about the One Hundred Page projects, and the idea behind them?

JT: In general I enjoy doing these projects, doing “x” each day. It is a way to get myself to do something, and gives a structure for me to work within. So for instance at one point I did these tarot-ish cards, and would draw one each day on my break at work, about the general themes of my day, and I kept going until I had a deck’s worth of them.

The One Hundred Page Project came out of seeing a nice little sketchbook at an art store, noticing it was 100 pages, and thinking it would be perfect for a “project”, as 100 pages is a good amount. Substantial, but not impossible. I didn’t really have a clear plan of what I would draw, just whatever came into my head when I sat down to draw. Like many of my projects, I draw straight into ink, which is a little like drawing without a net. Often I would just draw things that happened to be around me. Or like with my card project, try to draw something to represent the essence of important events from the day. Later on I got on a roll of drawing ideas from a comic story I was building in my head.

KD: The Another One Hundred Page Project and its predecessor are obviously just two parts of a bigger body of online work you’ve been building with ‘the jason turner project’.

Say someone who isn’t familiar with your work expresses an interest in what you do, and asks you what webcomic you would recommend they start with. What do you tell them?

JT: Well, some of the older autobiographical things I did are pretty accessible, like Cooler, the Cottage or My Stupid Week. I suspect quite a few people end up starting with the two Blue comics – Bright Morning Blue and Blue Double Double, due to Scott McCloud’s endorsing them. I am pretty happy with how those two came out (although I always pictured them as being just the first two parts of a larger epic). Or something like the 24hr comic Ditched, which has a self-contained complete narrative. And people tend to enjoy True Loves, though only the second volume is currently online.

KD: Looking back at the sizeable collection of webcomics you’ve created over the past few years, the first word that comes to mind about your approach to online publishing is ‘relentless’. (This is followed closely by ‘inspired’).

Where do you turn to for inspiration? How do you keep churning out fresh ideas for comic content?

JT: I certainly don’t feel relentless! I am always feeling like I haven’t been drawing nearly enough! Also, I have quite a few things from my old site that I haven’t transferred over…

For inspiration I look at the things around me. I roll things around in my head when I walk especially, so my walking to work is a fertile time for me (especially if I have already had some coffee). The story I mentioned drawing scenes from in Another One Hundred Page Project was inspired by my fascination with alleyways. I walk down the one behind my house each day on my way to work, and so that is more or less where this fantastical story would take place. I enjoy twisting and transmuting things in my life into a more fantastic form.

KD: Earlier this summer you and your wife celebrated the release of a collected edition of True Loves Vol. 2 through New Reliable Press.

I’ve heard True Loves called “one of the most Vancouvereque comics you could ever come across”, and you and Manien yourselves have acknowledged the importance of the locale in the narrative. What is it about Vancouver that makes it such a perfect place to tell the story of (central protagonists) True and Zander?

JT: Actually Vancouver came to True Loves before True and Zander! I had been trying to think of very Vancouver-specific comic to pitch as a weekly strip for a local paper. One day I asked Manien if she wanted to help me come up with characters for this Vancouver romance story I was thinking of, and there our writing collaboration started.

Many people have asked me if the story is autobiographical, and it is not. It is however very much set in the parts of Vancouver we have lived in, the places we enjoy going to, “our Vancouver.” So it is a perfect place for the story because it is a place we know and love.

KD: As I understand it, you’ve already begun writing the third volume of True Loves. With the first volume about True and Zander getting together, and the second about their later-relationship trials living together, can you shed a little light on where yourself and Manien aim to take the next chapter?

JT: We are still pretty early in the scripting right now, and I never like to say too much about what is going to happen. Some life changes occur which will make True and Zander do some stock-taking and soul searching.

I will say that as we continue writing together our stories are getting better, and each time in we get to know the characters better. We are also trying to have a clearer idea of the overall shape of the book this time.

KD: Based on your own experience working with webcomics, what are some ways that you would say the transition from physical minicomic to online webcomic has affected the average Canadian indie comic creator?

JT: It just allows more people access to your work, and makes it easier to connect with like-minded people. In the zine days the connections were through magazines, or reviews in other people’s zines, or zine fairs. It was all much slower! And so with the internet it is easier to find comics to read, though a little overwhelming, since there are so many out there. Also you can do colour for no extra charge online.

KD: Do you foresee yourself anytime in the future ceasing to produce print versions of your comics altogether?

JT: To a large extent I have. Since I started putting my comics on the internet I have only produced a few zines. Though print versions do allow you reach different people. A lot of folks I know don’t read comics online, and so if I don’t do print editions of things, they lose touch with what I am doing. So it is good to have something in print for local conventions, and for bigger shows like APE, SPX and TCAF. And having the True Loves book out there reaches different people too. People get it from the library, which is exciting to me.

KD: To bring the interview to a close on a note more directly related to your own material, what new directions would you like your work to explore in the future?

JT: Working on True Loves has taken up most of my drawing time for quite a few years now, and so I do have quite a backlog of ideas that I have not been getting to. I have various things from a low key story about comic fans, to a fantasy story, to a science fiction thing, to a Twin Peaks-y story. Many different things! Also Manien and I are always threatening to do a “sexy thriller” after True Loves is done.

To find out more about Jason Turner, check out his webpage at the jason turner project.

Whether you just recently rediscovered comics after watching a blockbuster film like The Dark Knight or Watchmen, or whether you’ve been hooked since you first read Alan Moore’s original Swamp Thing run back in the 80’s – chances are,  there’s a lot you still don’t know about the medium.

Despite being around in one form or another since the end of the 30’s, up until the late twentieth century a lot of people might have assumed there simply wasn’t that much to know.

This is because comic books were assumed to be the exclusive property of adolescents, man-boys, and hopeless dreamers.  A variety of reasons contributed to this general perception, and it took a revolution of sorts in the modern age of comic books to even begin to shake off that negative stigma.

Nowadays, comics are enjoying a sort of ‘intellectual revival’. Movie adaptations like V for Vendetta, American Splendor, and A History of Violence make leaps and bounds towards ‘legitimizing’ their source material in the eyes of the mainstream public, while appearances of major political figures (and in some cases, tv comedians) in comics have been boosting individual issue sales to record numbers.

While all of this is going on the indie comics industry trudges on determinedly, by and large unaffected by the mainstream hype garnered elsewhere in the medium.

Then you have the people who have been writing about the industry.

The dawn of the modern age of comic books (back around the mid-80’s) ushered in a new sense of self-awareness. People looked to document the unseen history of comics; indie creators tended to instill autobiographical content more and more into their work; artists and authors alike started writing about why they do what they do, and it became far easier to find essays defending comic books as literature.

They represent the voices that we can turn to when we want to learn more about how comic books grew from the pulps of the twenties into the big screen blockbusters of today, how independent artists are constantly striving to redefine their role in the medium, and why any of us should care in the first place.

The following titles are my suggestions for an initial look into the history, culture, and theory behind comic books. These books won’t cue any earth-shattering revelations in the minds of seasoned comic fansters, but they are a great place to start learning more about the medium, for those with any interest in doing so.

Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book

To understand how something fits into the world today, it’s pretty important to know how it got there and where it came from. There are quite a few published histories of comic books in the twentieth century, but few come as well lauded as Gerard Jones‘ richly detailed novel, Men of Tomorrow.

Beginning with the arrival of Harry Donenfeld in New York (who would later come to own National Allied Publications, DC’s grandfather company), Jones manages to weave a narrative into his chronological history of the glory days and shady dealings that hallmarked the early history of comics.

What really sets this book apart from the rest is Jones’ ability to breathe life and character into the major players of comic book history. From his portrayal of the fast-talking, self-made Donenfeld to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster as shamelessly exploited dreamers, his prose comes off as anything but dry.

It’s also worthy of mention that Men of Tomorrow won an Eisner award for Best Comics-Related Book in 2005.

Understanding Comics

That selfsame award won by Jones for Men of Tomorrow was also won a decade prior by the author of Understanding Comics. Scott McCloud, who has been called “the quintessential comic book expert,” won the Eisner in 1994 for this illustrated treatise on the medium.

McCloud had previously built a name for himself in comics with the 1984-1990 series Zot!, about a teenaged superhero from another, more perfect vision of our world and his relationship with an adolescent Earth girl. He also notably co-authored the Creator’s Bill of Rights in 1988, which sought to protect the rights of comic creators from the exploitative practices of corporate publishers.

Suffice it to say, when McCloud sat down to explain his thoughts on the medium of comic books and the untapped potential of visual communication, he was at no loss for things to say.

One of the great things about Understanding Comics, as well as McCloud’s later works Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, is that it’s actually written as a comic book itself. A cartoon Scott McCloud guides the reader panel-by-panel through ideas about what comics have the potential to be, and why he is so passionate about them himself.

Understanding Comics is a remarkably accessible opportunity to expand pretty well anyone’s knowledge of the medium, both as a concept and an art form.

This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature

I’ll be the first to admit that Rocco Versaci ’s layered defence of comic books as a form of literature lacks much of the accessibility that makes Scott McCloud’s work so appealing. But what it lacks in straightforwardness, it makes up for in thoroughness. I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘the Noam Chomsky of literature on comic books’, but Versaci’s points are solid, and extremely well supported.

It’s a sound approach to read Comics as Literature after the other two titles on this list. You would need at least an idea of how comics got to where they are, as well as a pretty decent grasp on some of the nuances of the medium. There’s definitely a bit of redundancy between some of the points McCloud makes and the points that form the basis behind Versaci’s argument, but the latter expands on each of them and ties them together nicely into one overarching, focused idea.

The well-focused thrust of Versaci’s book is probably the reason I keep coming back to it myself whenever I return to the subject of comics as pulp entertainment versus comics as a uniquely positioned form of art.

Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe

You may have noticed that there’s been something noticeably absent so far in this post. If you suggested the link to a Bryan Adams music video, you would be only half right.

There has been no mention of the role of Canadian comic creators in all of this – the history, the theory, or the form behind the medium. This is because, despite all of the literature that has emerged on comics since the eighties, a disproportionately small amount of that has been about the role of Canadians in the industry.

Joe Shuster, the artist who co-created Superman, was born in Toronto. Dave Sim and Chester Brown, both Canadians, are often regarded as two of the most celebrated names in alternative comic books out there. In addition, as Invaders from the North explains, Canuck comics with an emphasis on Canadian identity have had a major presence in the North American comic book industry from the early 70’s to today.

It is extremely fortunate for Canadian comic book fans that we have John Bell, the author of Invaders from the North, fighting the proverbial good fight and documenting Canada’s contributions to the medium. Bell has been writing about Canadian comics for over two decades now, producing a number of published works and articles as well as co-authoring the (now Government of Canada archived) website, Beyond the Funnies: the History of Comics in English Canada and Quebec.

With Invaders from the North, Bell gives a detailed look at what the Canadian market was up to while Gerard Jones’ history of comic books was unfolding.

His chapters elaborating on the significance of Chester Brown to alternative comics is especially enlightening, but the book on a whole receives my strong recommendation as a window to an often under-reported aspect of Canadian pop culture.