The word ‘international’, however,  might seem a little inconsistent with the content we’ve predominantly featured here on The Fabler Blog.

I’ll be the first to admit that in The Fabler Blog’s first year of life, I’ve maintained a strong emphasis on Canadian talent in the profiles and interviews I’ve posted.  This, I believe, is rightly so – with the exception of very few news blogs, such as Sequential and the Joe Shuster Awards Blog, Canadian comickers don’t often receive a load of media coverage.

My contributions to The Fabler Blog have largely been an attempt to increase that load, while also providing  content relevant to the interests of a growing online community of comic artists.

The Fabler Blog’s contribution to the figurative Canadian load, however, may distract some from the true international nature of the site. (Whew, what a mouthful!)

So here’s my pitch: I’m moving all existing profiles, interviews, and news updates about Canadian comickers into a whole new category – a column which I will continue to contribute to regularly.

The title of this column? “The Canadian Load”, naturally.

Ahhh, but I jest. In fact, we’ll be calling it “Canadian Comics“.

The mission statement of the Canadian Comics column will be to continue showcasing and promoting a varied catalogue of Canadian comic book talent. The subjects, as they have always been, will be predominantly indie – but at the same time we’re not at all against showcasing ‘big label’ Canucks as well.

Separate sections of the blog will continue to be about the site, the industry in general, and increasingly we’ll also be featuring profiles of international talent. A while back we profiled some of the contributors on the Fabler Blog, and I think we’d like to start doing that again.

As for now, are some Canadian artists, writers, and organizations you may have missed so far from 2010:

Gibson Twist (of Pictures of You and Our Time in Eden)

Kelly Tindall (of Archie Snow)

Ben Steeves (of Zom-Ben and Our Time in Eden)

Aaron Leighton (professional illustrator and member of the artist collective, Trio Magnus)

Colleen MacIsaac (indie comic artist and writer)

Marta Chudolinksa (of Back + Forth: A Novel in 90 Linocuts)

Eric Vedder (of Aardehn and Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors)

Adam Bourret (of I’m Crazy)

Ryan Sohmer (of Least I Could Do and Looking for Group)

James Turner (on the Warlord of Io graphic novel)

Nick Thornborrow (of The Anthology Project)

Ethan Rilly (of Pope Hats)

Jenny Romanchuk (of The Zombie Hunters)

Evan Munday (of Quarter-Life Crisis)

Damian Willcox (of dorkboy Comics)

Jason Loo and Arthur Dela Cruz (of The 3 Second Rule)

Robin Thompson (Vancouver Comic Art teacher and artist on Champions of Hell)

Jonathon Dalton (of A Mad Tea-Party and Lords of Death and Life)

Angela Melick (of Wasted Talent)

Cloudscape Comics (Vancouver comic collective – we talked to a number of individuals involved)

Jim Zubkavich (project manager of UDON Entertainment, writer on Skullkickers)

Eric Kim (of Streta and The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare)

As always, thanks for reading!

-Kevin de Vlaming

Twist (not his real name, though it is the handle through which all of his creative content is released) is a New Brunswicker who has been active in webcomics for several years. In February of this year, he will be celebrating the three year anniversary of his primary ongoing series, Pictures of You.

Twist describes Pictures of You, of which he is writer and artist, as “a story about the best friends you’ll ever lose”. I would add to that description that it’s a compelling trip down someone else’s memory lane, packed with believable, well-developed characters and just the right amount of nostalgia.

I  say ‘just the right amount’ in that the narrative never becomes burdened in nostalgic sentiment – it’s a spice that Gibson uses to flavor his dish, rather than a base that drowns out the rest of the recipe. Quaint metaphor for the win, no?

Though Gibson has only been active in webcomics for a few years, he used to be involved with paper zine publishing back around the early-to-mid nineties.

“I did that for several years actually,” he says, “and kind of drifted away from it and got into other kinds of writing. I guess I was away for probably about ten years before I got the impetus to do Pictures of You.”

Gibson says that when he started the project, he only intended for it to be around six to seven hundred pages.

“But then as I started rewriting and developing the story and characters further”, he explains, “it more than doubled its length. I envision it now to be more like fifteen to eighteen hundred pages when it’s done.”

Despite his epic ambitions for the page count, Pictures of You is a highly accessible read. Not only is it very possible to jump in at the beginning of any one of the chapters written to date, (though you obviously won’t get as much out of it as otherwise) but Twist has successfully created something that a wide variety of readers could find compelling.

“You know, I always envisioned the story as something that would appeal to people around my age,” says Twist, “that is, mid-thirties, maybe even late twenties. What I’ve been finding more and more however,  is that it also holds a lot of appeal for a younger demographic, like teenagers to early twentysomethings.”

To really get an idea of the unique sort of charm that Twist magically weaves through believable dialogue and sincere character interaction, you’d have to stop by the webcomic’s host site and look through a few panels yourself. Actually, I strongly recommend doing this now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

….

See?  See what I mean?

Depending on where you may have randomly decided to begin reading, you may have noticed that some of the art from Pictures of You is in color, while in other instances it’s entirely black and white.

Gibson started the comic entirely in monochrome, only deciding to add color to new panels as recently as last year. Since then, he has decided to go back and color the original books, one chapter at a time.

“It’s actually been quite interesting to go back and look at not only what I was doing back then, but also how the style changed throughout,” Gibson says of his experience coloring the older pages, “Like seeing the difference, for instance, between what I was doing with black and white at the beginning of Book One, and what I was doing with it at the end of Book Two. It’s also been interesting to see how well the color applied to what was always intended originally to be black and white.”

Twist, whose other activities included (until recently) managing a record store in the town he lives in just outside of Fredericton, is also currently involved with a comic adaptation of a story he had written previously, titled “Our Time in Eden“.

Unlike Pictures of You, Gibson is not behind the art for Our Time in Eden. Instead he recruited Ben Steeves to illustrate the comparatively much heavier, mature-themed comic about loss of childhood innocence.

“It was something I never thought I could turn into a comic,” says Gibson, “Just from the nature of the way I’d written the novel, I’d never really figured it would translate properly into sequential art. I honestly couldn’t say what changed. I was just thinking one day about the story and different graphic aspects of it and it just came to me how I could trim a little here, and add a little there to make it work in a graphic setting.”

As it turns out, Gibson was right – Our Time in Eden works beautifully as a comic. Steeves does a fantastic job of capturing the mood and emotions of the two central characters – the disenfranchised, apathetic protagonist Tim and his long-estranged childhood companion, Ellis.

“With Ben, we have this sort of unusual synergy where we each understand what the other one is thinking and are able to build on the other one’s strengths,” says Gibson of the partnership, “It’s just one of those magical, cohesive kind of relationships that you don’t really find very often, and he’s been a dream to work with.”

The synergy he mentions really does come through in the panels of Our Time in Eden. As a disclaimer to those interested in perusing the comic, be prepared for a story that does not shy away from heightened emotion – reading Our Time in Eden can be a visceral experience, especially in its ability to resonate with those who have ever lost/screwed up a relationship that was important to them. And really, show me the picture perfect android of a person who hasn’t.

Between creating new strips for Pictures of You, coloring the older chapters of that same title, and working with Ben Steeves on Our Time in Eden, Gibson (by necessity) commits a large portion of time to his ventures in online comics.

“I’m motivated by the people who come and visit the sites when they really have no reason to,” says Twist, “as well as the people who have shown me a lot of support and love – a lot of my readers are very loyal. I just feel like I need to live up to their trust in me that I give them a good story without taking too long to tell it. That’s the kind of thing you don’t want to let your readers down with.”

As for future plans, Gibson is currently working on several other comics with other artists that he hopes to see come together in the near future. He’s also working on a releasing a physical, grayscale version of the first two books from Our Time in Eden as well as securing a publisher for the eventual release of Our Time in Eden as a graphic novel.

For more from Gibson Twist, you can find links to his work on his profile over at Smack Jeeves.

-Written by Kevin de Vlaming

‘Janitorial espionage’ may initially strike you as an odd niche to write a comic about.

I mean, who wants to read about lowly cleaners, when everyone knows that full-fledged spies are the proverbial meat and potatoes of the covert action world?

This is, sadly, a misconception that many individuals share. Individuals not familiar with the Intelligence Cleaner Agency (I.C.A.), and everything that it stands for. Individuals who have yet to read about the adventures of one Eben07.

This week, The Fabler Blog is profiling one of its own – Eben Burgoon, writer of the webcomic Eben07, which you can find a preview of posted up on the Fabler itself.

This is the first in a series of profiles we’ll be doing on comic creators affiliated with the growing Fabler comic community. Mr. Burgoon, you sir are a lucky man indeed!

Now, let’s look at exactly what the role of an Assigned Cleaner Agent (A.C.A.) such as Eben07 actually entails.

The I.C.A. was founded to keep super-secret government missions from being exposed to the general public. Every time a Secret Agent is assigned to a new operation, an A.C.A. is also assigned to clean up whatever mess might be left behind and prevent any possible future complications.

Eben Burgoon’s comic Eben07 focuses primarily on chronicling the adventures of the titular I.C.A. Agent and his stealthy cohort, Ninja Dan. The comic was originally created by Eben himself, who writes the scripts for the episodic I.C.A. operations, alongside artist and long-time collaborator Dan Bethel.

“We created the characters a long time ago,” says Burgoon, “back when we were in high school. For sentimental reasons we kept them with the names that we originally gave them. It kind of gets confusing, because my name’s Eben and the main character’s name is Eben, but we’re really nothing alike. People often wonder if there’s really an Eben Burgoon or if it’s just Dan doing both roles.”

Eben, who is based in Sacramento, California, doesn’t seem to mind the confusion surrounding the comic – actually, you’d swear he enjoys it. After all, Eben and Dan did decide to build the entire Eben07 website ‘in character’, complete with dossiers about the not-so-secret government organization and a blog with postings by Eben07 himself.

“We thought it would be a lot more fun for readers to do it this way,” says Burgoon, “In terms of interviews and media stuff, we’ve decided to break our fourth wall, but in terms of fans – well, fans can email Eben07, and actually get a reply from that character. They can read his tweets.”

The story of how Burgoon and Bethel came to be producing comics about Eben07 and Ninja Dan is an interesting one itself. According to Eben, they met in a high school chemistry class when boredom with the content of the class drove them to talking and finding common ground in their interests.

“Dan drew my likeness for the first time for a band that I was in called Water Closet,” Eben says, “That was ages ago. We’re both out of college now and Dan’s working on his Master’s degree and I’m basically writing this comic and kind of getting health insurance through doing a grocery store gig.”

Eben himself has a Bachelor’s in International Relations, where he took classes on intelligence work and terrorism to explore is own interests in espionage.

“Spy stuff has always appealed to me,” says Eben, ” My Dad fed me a lot of James Bond when I was younger, so I was really into the Connery Bond films growing up.  Actually, to this day, I haven’t seen Titanic because it came out the same week as Golden Eye and I boycotted it, and I stuck to that.” (he laughs)

When asked about his favorite Bond movie, Eben is hesitant to single just one out.

“You could ask me any day, and I’d probably change my mind… But usually it’s either Goldfinger or From Russia with Love. I really do like Casino Royale a lot, that was really well done. ”

Outside of spy films and the original Ian Fleming Bond novels, Eben credits Tin Tin books as being a significant influence on his work:

“…because though they aren’t really about spies, they still have that unique ‘adventure’ quality about them.”

And as for Dan’s influences?

“Dan’s background is in animation,” says Burgoon, “He was really inspired by people like Bruce Timm and I know that he really got his fingers wet drawing Jim Lee and his nineties X-Men when he was younger. He’s really found his own style over the years, but his background is definitely in that sort of stuff. That’s kind of what we try to do with Eben07, is try to make it look animated.”

It’s relevant to note that while Eben07 is, indisputably, the central protagonist in Burgoon and Bethel’s ongoing series of comics, every now and then a story pops up featuring the character of Abel – founder of the I.C.A. and Eben07’s great (insert nine more ‘great’s) grandfather.  The latest Eben07 collected release, Operation: Mongoose, is one such story.

“Abel was first featured in this series we did called ‘Clean the Cleaners‘,” says Burgoon, “which takes place after Metal Gear: Solid, and as they’re running around in this jungle and losing track of everything it becomes apparent that Abel is a very over-arching character in the story we’re trying to tell.”

Operation: Mongoose, which follows Abel as he attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and (in the process of doing so) uncovers a shadow conspiracy, was inspired by a scene in one of the previous Eben07 comics.

“There’s a point in For the Love of Russia where he’s confronted by this anorexic vampire queen Vamprexia, who says ‘I haven’t seen you this rattled since Cuba’. As the writer, I always wanted to tell this story about Abel trying to assassinate Castro, and as the world’s most elite janitor, he’s just miserable at actually killing someone. Also, during the 1960’s, there was an actual Operation: Mongoose, and they did try to kill Castro in all of these really absurd ways. Some of the pictures that are in the book are based on actual C.I.A. attempts.”

Operation: Mongoose is geared to be able to bring in readers unfamiliar with Eben07, since not only does it have a neat hook, it doesn’t require a lot of knowledge about the character of Abel to jump right in. In addition, it serves to prep readers for the most recent Eben07 adventure currently being posted on eben07.com, Operation: Three Ring Bound.

That being said, Eben does admit that there is a bit of a learning curve to the Eben07 titles, and for a reader looking to get the most out of them, they would be best off reading through some of the older missions before starting on the newer ones.

Operation: Mongoose also features some new approaches to the regular art of the series, including a decision to do most of the strips in black and white to represent the nature of the story as a flashback.

“I think it turned out really great,” says Eben, “the part where Abel’s at the Abraham Lincoln assassination that Dan did all in pencil I think is also really cool. It was mostly Dan wanting to experiment with his art and wanting to really hone his inking without focusing on coloring. I think it really helped set the mood of a 1960’s covert ops mission.”

The latest Eben07 adventure, Operation: Three Ring Bound, returns the focus to Ninja Dan and Eben07 himself.

“We had talked a lot about how to present Eben07 and Ninja Dan’s backstory,” Burgoon says, “and one thing we’ve always talked about and maintained is that they went through janitor school together and there was a rivalry there. There’s that, and there’s just a lot of other stories there that we wanted to tell, and we thought, ‘what better place to set it than have these older guys go back to try and pose as high school students in a sort of 21 Jump Street homage’.”

Steadfast fans of Eben07 will notice another different element to this operation; a real focus on a villain character.

“We kind of have this bible, where we say we only write scenes where Eben07 or another main I.C.A. character is in the scene. So completely writing the villain without having them around is fun, and though it violates that rule, we’re enjoying it too much to stop yet.”

Remember Care Bears? Those disgustingly cute, fuzzy furballs of moral fibre from the eighties that took the merchandising world by storm?

Chances are, you not only remember the Care Bears but also what they represented to kids; drearily wholesome examples of those values considered essential to a healthy mindset. The likes of Tenderheart Bear, Friend Bear, and Share Bear taught us that with a little compassion, we could overcome anything.

At its root, Care Bears is a concept that is begging to be satirized.

This is where Ottawa-based illustrator Alison Acton comes in, with her weekly webcomic Bear Nuts.

Bear Nuts follows an assortment of dysfunctional cartoon bears as they attempt to eke out an existence in front of hordes of gawking youngsters at the Discount Zoo.

Gone are Friend Bear, Tenderheart and the rest -  in their place would be the sadistic Evil Bear, the self-medicated Prozac Bear, and the flamboyant Gay Bear. Alison draws these unique personalities (alongside a handful of their other similarly ‘unique’ bear peers) with a polished, lively art style that bounces off the panels and sticks in your head for days.

The high quality of art on Bear Nuts should come as no surprise – Acton, who has been drawing as long as she can remember, started drawing the strip after completing post-secondary studies in traditional animation and working for several Ottawa-based studios.

She founded the website Dooomcat Studios with her husband, artist Jim Charalampidis, and created Bear Nuts under the Dooomcat banner. Bear Nuts is, artistically, a collaborative effort between the two – Alison draws, and Jim colors.

Outside of Dooomcat and the webcomic, Acton is a part-time Jiu Jitsu teacher, and a professional animator/illustrator with an impressive array of completed projects under her belt. The most notable of which would likely be her work on Tokyopop’s The Faerie Path, a manga adaptation of the British series of young adult novels by the same name.

Topping off her busy schedule is Acton’s role as a new full-time Mom.

I talked to Alison about balancing illustration with mom-hood, the origins of Dooomcat, and why her next Faerie Path book might not see the light of day (despite the illustration being fully complete).

The interview is below:

KD: What does a typical day in the life of Alison Acton look like?

AA: A typical day now is a lot different than before the baby arrived and something we’re still adjusting to.  I’m lucky that Jim, my husband, also works at home so I have a lot of help.

Right now, I’m not really working on anything but the webcomic, Bear Nuts, and that’s only when Sammy lets me.  I can see routine starting to establish itself as he’s almost 6 weeks now, but I still have way less time than I used to and it did surprise me how much time he needs.  I have lots of ambitious plans of other comics and things I’d like to start but right now it’s all I can do to keep to my update schedule on Bear Nuts.

KD: It mentions on your Dooomcat profile that you work (or worked, since I imagine the whole ‘childbirth’ thing affected this) evenings at a Jiu Jitsu Dojo. Can you tell me a little about that?

AA: I am on mat leave now but I’ve worked part time teaching and doing admin stuff at two local schools for almost 10 years now I guess, holy I’m getting old…

The dojo is great as it gets me out of the house for a bit and gets me some physical activity, all pretty important when you work at home and wouldn’t otherwise get away from the computer or the drawing table!  I also love teaching kids; they can be so much fun and I’ve learned a lot I can put into raising my own little boy.  I also can’t wait until he’s old enough to get in a gi himself.  And I can’t wait to get back into that routine as I haven’t thrown anyone or been thrown in over 9 months and childbirth destroyed my abs.

KD: What was the original logic behind founding Dooomcat with Jim?

AA: Studio Dooomcat was originally a three artist team but plans fell through somewhat.  Jim and I use it as our online portfolio gallery/web site and we list at conventions under that name as we mainly sell art that we create together.  We have a series of prints called “Melees” that’s supposed to be ongoing but baby stopped that too.  I will eventually get back to them as I have grand plans to print some kind of art book some day.  You can see them at dooomcat.com in my gallery.

I’d like to have multiple web comics running at some point, all tied into the studio banner.

KD: Why Dooomcat? Why not Happpycat, or Dooomcow?

AA: I really like Dooomcow, I’ll have to draw that sometime!  I’ve always been good at drawing cute stuff, though there needs to be some kind of edge so it’s not boring.   Plus we like cats so it just fit.  I also have a comic idea for Dooom, but that’s on the pile of stuff I likely won’t get to for a long, long time.

KD: Could you draw correlations between any of the bears and personalities of people you know in real life?

I can definitely see bits of people I know in the various bears.  Inevitably, people at cons will say they know someone who’s just like such and such bear, or they’ll be able to match people to each bear.  I always wonder a little when they say they know someone just like Gimp or Tanked…

KD: Have you toyed much with the idea of adding any new bear regulars to the motley assortment you have already?

AA: There are three more fleshed out characters to be added.  I’m hoping to bring the 10th male out in the next book and then book three will introduce the last two.  I get asked all the time why there aren’t any females but really, what girls would want to live with those idiots?

KD: How did the idea of Bear Nuts evolve from a perverse parody of Care Bears to the ongoing, character-driven collection of stories you’ve built and shared online?

AA: I was working at an animation studio that wanted to do a “My Little Pony” short spoof.  We got laid off shortly after but we knew it wouldn’t be a long break.  Since I had some free time I figured “Care Bears” would be the next logical step.  Unfortunately, the studio eventually closed and nothing happened with the concepts we’d made.  I did have a lot of fun coming up with the bear designs and a friend of ours encouraged me to do something with them.  The comic slowly emerged and my friend, Jason from DMF Comics, eventually helped us out with publishing the first book.

KD: Based on fan response, are any of the bears more popular with readers than the others?

AA: Death bear is overwhelmingly the favorite and I don’t really know why as he’s had the smallest role so far. He’s the only one with “powers” and a natural need to fly solo so I don’t tend to use him too much.  This apparently made him mysterious and intriguing, and led to lots of complaints that I didn’t use him enough!

KD: How did you end up getting involved with the Faerie Path? Was manga an area you previously had a desire to work within?

AA: When the animation jobs in Ottawa all went Flash I submitted some comic pitches to Tokyopop, back when they were still looking for great original manga ideas.  My first editor there contacted me because he liked my art and we went through a couple of tests for other books before I got Faerie Path.

I went the manga route as it was a style that seemed closest to mine and Tokyopop was hiring.  I often get told my art is too cartoony for more serious stories and I can see that.  It doesn’t stop me from making my own cartoony stuff as gory as I can at times.

KD: Are you presently working on the second volume of the Faerie Path, or have you completed illustration on the project?

AA: Volume 2 was finished off at the end of the summer but unfortunately I don’t know if it will ever get published.  I had the great misfortune of having my first published work come out during a recession when publishers and distributers were going under or severely cutting their catalogues back.  I don’t think sales on vol 1 were good enough to warrant a vol 3 and thus vol 2 is in the air.  Perhaps it will come out online some day on Harper Collins’ site or on TP, I just don’t know.  Unfortunately that leaves me out of work.  Fortunately, it’s perfect timing for the baby.

KD: How has your experience working on the second volume differed from your experience with the first?

AA: I changed editors twice with all the upheaval in the industry which was disorienting and disappointing.  I did really like everyone I worked with but the overall attitude in the publishing industry was definitely negative and cast a pall over the whole process.  Vol 2 went faster since I knew what I was doing, but I had way more fun on the first one.  It’s still a great feeling of accomplishment when it’s done: 150 pages pencilled, inked, and toned!  Even if no one ever sees it.

Joey Comeau sees more than most people.

At least, this an easy impression to receive after reading any of his work. Whether it’s three lines of text he’s penned for the popular webcomic A Softer World, or six paragraphs he wrote as part of a bogus job application for Overqualified, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that Joey has a gift for reading between the lines.

For those unfamiliar with Comeau’s work, he first gained widespread attention as co-creator and writer of A Softer World – a webcomic in which Joey’s captions provide fictional context to the photographs of Emily Horne.  Joey’s captions vary from subtle insights into the quirks of human relationships to darkly witty cracks about obsession, depravity, and shamelessly egocentric behaviour in general. It’s awesome, and you should read it (if you don’t already).

From A Softer World, the Ontario-based Comeau launched into the realm of short fiction, producing stories and essays for a number of magazines (some of those are here, while others can be found collected in his book, It’s Too Late To Say I’m Sorry). He also wrote a book called Lockpick Pornography, which he has referred to as “a gender-queer adventure story”, that was originally published online and later serialized through Loose Teeth Press.

Comeau has recently been touring select cities along the West Coast of Canada and the US to promote his latest book, Overqualified.

Overqualified, which was released last April through ECW Press,  presents a collection of cover letters sent as job applications by a particularly candid individual who happens to be named ‘Joey Comeau’.

Said character (and he is a character, at least as far as we know – Joey is tight-lipped about the exact amount of fiction present in his letters) is in the midst of experiencing some life-altering events, and consequently, any conscious filter that would usually prevent him from, say, disclosing his sexual fantasies in a cover letter, is notably absent.

As the cover letters pour out to corporation after corporation, a narrative weaves itself through the subtext which is alternatingly heart-wrenching and hilarious, obscene yet familiar.

Where Overqualified succeeds most is in Comeau’s ability to isolate and express those commonalities of the human experience which often go uncommented upon  – to read what’s between the lines, and then take that message and put it into the mouth of a character who is no longer capable of keeping it from spilling out everywhere.

I  caught up with Joey just a few days after he returned from his recent tour, and he was friendly enough to answer a few questions I had about Overqualified. He even had the patience to field several questions about A Softer World, which was just plain decent of him.

The transcript is below:

KD: For starters, tell me about the tour. How was it, and how long were you gone for?

JC: It was three and a half weeks,  and it was good! It was pretty successful, and we sold a lot of books. The turn outs were good even in some of the smaller venues.

KD: That’s great to hear.

Let’s get into a few questions about A Softer World, and then go from there to Overqualified.

You and Emily have been working on A Softer World for over six years now. How do you go about keeping the content fresh, not just for your fans, but also for yourself?

JC: Well, by not limited myself in terms of subject. It’s a matter of writing about things that are of interest to us at the time – so, hopefully, we never run out of things that interest us in our lives. Then we’ve got more troubles than just writing the comic.

KD: When you’re coming up with captions for A Softer World, do you try to consciously maintain a balance between your more introspective, thoughtful comics and the more straight-up humorous ones?

JC: Sometimes we’ll hold off a comic. Like if we come up with a really good, serious one but the last few have been kind of downers, we’ll say, let’s save this one and use it later and instead use one that’s a bit more upbeat.

KD: You recently referred to a collaboration you had in the works with Chris Hemsworth in a post on your blog. Is that something you can talk about at all?

JC: Yeah, we worked on it for a bit but then he just recently was moving, so we had to put it on hold. I hope to get back to it, though.

It’s sort of a more traditional comic, with nine panels  on a page and about seven pages per story. We’ve got a couple of stories already written, it’s just a matter of illustrating them and refining the script.

KD: Is doing a second regular webcomic something that you’ve ever seriously considered?

JC: I haven’t considered really doing a second continuing webcomic. And with Chris it was more a matter of finding a project to work on, and the web just being a good way to display it before making books.

KD: Let’s talk about Overqualified.

As I understand it, Overqualified started as a few job cover letters that you actually sent out to employers, which then became the inspiration for the letters that appeared in the book.

Where do the Overqualified Letters that you have archived on the Softer World website fit into this?

JC: The ones on the Softer World website are the ones that I actually sent. It was sort of an ongoing project. It started off being once a week, and then it became whenever I came up with one. The idea was originally to make a collection of those, but then I had the idea of making a novel that sort of collected them but also told a story through them.

So that involved modifying some of them, and writing whole new ones, and sort of putting it together like that.

KD: I’ve seen a few different things posted about the fact versus fiction content in your letters. Can you comment on how much of the book is purely fictional, and how much is taken directly from your own experiences?

JC: Not too specifically, without ruining the fun of it.

There’s a fair amount of fiction, and a fair amount of fact in it. Some of the events are ones that actually happened, some are ones that match the truth of the book in terms of tone – they’re sort of true in spirit, even though they didn’t actually happen – and some of them are just are funnier, and are there for the joke and not there because they’re true.

KD: To what degree do you feel your internet fame from A Softer World carries over into your success as a novelist-slash-writer of short stories?

JC: Well, it’s good to have people who are interested in reading the things that you do. So you have a book come out, and you already have people who are interested to see it.

They won’t necessarily like it just because they like the webcomic, but it’s definitely nice to have that audience willing to give it a chance.

KD: Can you shed any light on what we can expect from you next?

JC: Well I’ve got a novel coming out in the spring that’s based on a horror project I did with Emily called One Bloody Thing After Another. Originally it was a zine released in chapters, with Emily taking a photo to illustrate each chapter.

It’s part horror, and part weird/sad/funny lesbian story.

Thanks go to Mr. Comeau for chatting with me! If you’re interested in seeing more from Joey, you can check out his Livejournal, Twitter feed, and of course, his stuff over on A Softer World.

Ryan North, the intelligently absurd creator of Dinosaur Comics,  has a lot to say on the subject of webcomics.

But then, this should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his work. It’s no secret that he’s one of the few individuals out there who has found a way to turn online cartooning into a career choice capable of self-sufficiency.

Not only does it say so right there on his Wikipedia page, (which – as we all know – is infallible on every subject, barring chickens) but it’s also an acknowledged point amongst peers in the industry.

In my own interviews with those involved in webcomics, I often try to ask whomever I’m talking to about their thoughts on how to make online cartooning profitable.  Though everyone has their own unique ideas on the matter, one name seems to keep popping up (if right now you’re thinking ‘Ike Turner’, then you’re missing the point on where I’m going with this).

North first built a loyal following for himself chronicling the ongoing dialogues of Utah Raptor, Dromiceiomimus, and T-Rex, the strip’s borderline neurotic central protagonist. Out of this, he expanded to marketing t-shirts, working on several webcomic side projects, and finding creative ways to monetize his education in computer programming.

Ryan has a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, something he picked up while Dinosaur Comics was still in its first two years of life.

Since Dinosaur Comics’ inception in 2003, North has also created no less than three services designed to assist webcomic creators: Oh No Robot, RSSpect, and Project Wonderful.  Respectively, they are: a webcomic search engine; a simple way of generating RSS feeds from websites, and;  an auction-based ad network that doesn’t suck.

In our ongoing quest to provide insight on how the web can help aspiring comic creators get to where they want to be, the Fabler caught up with Ryan North to ask some hard-hitting questions.

Questions… like those below:

KD: Complete this title: Ryan North; writer of Dinosaur Comics, creator of Project Wonderful and…?

RN: Handsome man.

KD: What question do you get asked the most about Dinosaur Comics?

RN: (laughs) I guess that would be about where the pictures come from. It’s not a good story, so I don’t like being asked it.

KD: I’ve read in interviews with you that you have no plans in the future for ending the strips. How old do you see yourself being and still coming up with captions for T-Rex and Utah Raptor?

RN: I don’t know. Usually about once a year I think of ending it. Sort of like a fantasy – like, how you’ll see a pretty girl and you’ll imagine dating her, but then if you’re dating a pretty girl you’ll imagine breaking up with her.  I guess I’ll just end it when it’s no longer fun, and when it starts to suck. Hopefully before it starts to suck, actually.

I used to think that comics is more of a young person’s game, and to be staring down thirty is really a big deal. But now I’ve decided comics can keep you busy till you’re at least fifty. And then when I’m fifty, I’ll up that number to eighty.

KD: Do you think you’ll be able to stay relevant at eighty?

RN: I hope so! I don’t want to be an irrelevant old guy. But then, nobody does.

KD: If you could go back in time and tell the Ryan North of 6 years ago to change anything in the design of the comic, is there anything you’d alter?

RN: That’s a cool question. I guess I’d tell him… Well, no. I was going to say, I’d tell him to make the comic a little bit bigger, because it’d be nice to have a larger image – but I’d be tempted to put more text into it, and I already have enough text there already.

So really, I’d keep it the same.

KD: It’s pretty well known that you’re a self-sufficient webcomic creator. Between this fact and your involvement with Project Wonderful, have you found yourself become a sort of go-to person for information about how to make money making webcomics?

RN: Hm. I’ve never been called that before. I think the term wouldn’t be fully accurate, since I’m not really an information source so much as I’ve created tools to make doing webcomics easier for people. Project Wonderful and Oh No Robot are both part of that.

It’s more about doing my own comics and seeing what problems I have, then saying “I could solve this for myself, or I could solve it for everyone on the planet and have it take just about the same amount of work.”

KD: What do you tell people who ask you how they can go about becoming self-sufficient as webcomic creators?

RN: I tell them to make sure that they’re doing comics they like.

I’m not sure if anyone has actually sat down and said, “you know what, there’s a market for comics for people who enjoy refactoring databases,” and then made a comic just for that niche to make money from it.

What I’m saying is don’t be that commercial about it, do something you enjoy. You’re going to be doing it every day and it’s going to take up a lot of your time. You’ve got to love it.

Once you’re doing something that you love then after a few months you can start selling t-shirts, maybe put a few ads up, and start making money with it. You just always have to keep a trust with your readers. When they’re reading your comic, they’re sharing their time with you – and you can’t exploit that with pop-ups, or a clearly half-effort comic.

KD: Some people seem to think that there’s a ‘big secret’ out there about the trick to making money off of webcomics. Would you say that’s a misconception?

RN: Well, someone – I forget who said this – said that being a successful web cartoonist is comparable to a recipe for making bear soup; first you just have to catch a bear, and then the rest is pretty easy.

You have to have a comic that people like, which is the part that you have to figure out on your own. But when you do, it’s not alchemy to make it into something that can generate an income for you.

KD: It’d make sense to segue here into Project Wonderful. You’ve been running this service for close to three years now.

For anyone who reads this interview that might not be familiar with the service, what’s your current official Project Wonderful pitch?

RN: Project Wonderful is an ad network that doesn’t suck.  We sort of looked at some existing ad networks and found there was a lot of stuff there that didn’t make sense, and some stuff that was pretty terrible. Click fraud’s a big one – where you click on a banner you’re not interested in at all, and it still costs the advertiser money.

We said, “you know what, let’s rebuild advertising from the ground up, and see it in terms of selling ad time on a site instead of clicks.” So it’s that; it’s fair, it’s transparent, it’s fun, it’s got kind of a social networking component to it, and the ads don’t suck.  A lot of people started doing their own thing with it, which is great.

KD: How has it evolved in the two years it’s been around?

RN: Quite a bit! It started out as a much simpler service, where you could say, “you know what? You’ve got a great site, I want my ad up there. I’m the high bidder, my ad goes up on display, and everyone’s happy.” Then it became much more complex, where people could say, “I want to be on your site, but I really care where,” or “I want to be on every site in the network.”

It’s funny ’cause I built the program on my home computer, and stuff that works well for one person might not necessarily scale to eight hundred thousand people. So the first year was basically a crash course in all sorts of techniques for dealing with extreme loads and getting everything to work as it should. Which was fun, but also a challenge.

KD: For a graduating artist looking to get involved with comics, do you think that right now webcomics are a more viable career path than attempting to break into the traditional industry of printed comics?

RN: The nice thing about a webcomic is that even if your final goal is not to be a webcomic creator but to be a print cartoonist, a webcomic is a great way to practice your art and your writing every day while it also acts as a resume. As a resume, it says this is what I can do – I can make a comic, I can meet deadlines, I can be professional about this sort of thing.

I would really recommend doing a comic online to start with whichever way you choose to go in the long run. It’s great practice, and really, the first comic you do likely isn’t going to be the same one you’re doing ten years from now. Take Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes – his first comic was about two bugs and it’s not really that good. But of course he needed to start there to get to Calvin and Hobbes, which is pretty awesome.

KD: What words of advice might you have for aspiring webcomic creators?

RN: I guess I would say to do something you enjoy, and also to be friendly. Don’t be a jerk, ’cause people don’t like jerks. And community-wise, you should pick a schedule, announce it, and stick to it.

It goes back to this agreement you have with your audience where you if you tell them you’re doing comics Monday/Wednesday/Friday, but you’re only consistently doing a comic on Wednesday, you’re letting down your audience on those other two days. After a while, they’ll stop coming by on Mondays and Fridays, and maybe sooner or later they’ll stop coming by on Wednesdays ’cause there was never a comic up when they went there those other days.

Consistency goes a long way when trying to build a rapport with an audience.

Kate Beaton is in the business of making history funny.

Well – history, MS Paint, mermaids, her younger self, and a handful of beloved fictional characters. (Among other things.)

Kate is the creator/writer/illustrator of Hark! A Vagrant, a webcomic series that caters to those with a more… shall we say… refined taste in cartooning.

If you haven’t heard of Hark! A Vagrant, not only are you missing out on something ridiculously awesome, but you’re fast becoming part of a dwindling minority. Hark! A Vagrant has been making waves in webcomics since its debut back in 2007, earning much-deserved praise from news sources as diverse as Maclean’s, Wired, Comic Book Resources, and (most recently) Halifax weekly newspaper The Coast.

As the above comic would suggest, Beaton’s trademark style of humour largely involves pitting well-known characters from history and fiction into unlikely and almost always snicker-worthy situations.

Armed with a history degree herself (earned at New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University) as well as a sharp, sardonic wit and a knack for finding the silliness in pretty well anything, Beaton draws comics that anyone could find entertaining.

Her comics are also rich with Canadian content;  many of the historical figures who cameo in Hark! A Vagrant are borrowed from the annals of the Great White North – a fact that, surprisingly, doesn’t adversely affect her American readership at all.

Beaton’s familiarity with Canadian identity goes significantly beyond what she’s learned from history books. The self-identified Maritimer has lived in five provinces across the nation – she grew up in Nova Scotia, went to school in New Brunswick, worked in both Alberta and BC, and drew her webcomic full time in Ontario.

She recently moved back from Ontario to Halifax, where she’s presently working an administrative job in a museum  in addition to keeping her comic regularly updated.

Kate caught up with The Fabler Blog from her home in Halifax to chat about her early inspirations, how success has changed her life, and what she did to make her grade 6 teacher cry.

The interview is below:

KD: Hi Kate! So, you’re back in Halifax, working at a museum again – what can you tell me about the new job?

KB: Well,  I wanted to take something on because I’d been doing just cartooning for over a year and there comes a point where you miss the routine of having a regular job where somebody sets your hours and you have something to set your watch by. And also a workplace where you can talk to other people – to feel like you’re part of the real world, I suppose.

KD: As I understand it, you’ve been doing comics for a long time now – since substantially farther back than when you first started publishing Hark! A Vagrant online back in 2007.

What was the earliest comic you can remember drawing?

KB: When we were in grade 6, a friend and I drew comics about our teacher and made her cry. They were pretty mean. Well, they were made by someone in grade six, so they were idiotic for one thing, but also probably unnecessarily cruel. When you don’t know how to tell a joke yet you just call someone stupid and belittle them in a way that’s really base because that’s all you know.

We would draw her like, farting, or things like that. Solid gold elementary school.

KD: What kind of comics did you read, growing up?

KB: We only had newspaper comics, so Calvin and Hobbes, Foxtrot, that sort of thing. The library had older Peanuts and Garfield collections, which were actually pretty funny.

KD: Addressing Hark! A Vagrant more directly, I’d guess one of the reasons behind how popular it’s gotten is just how creative and original the content is.

Take, for example, your historical comics – a lot of people wouldn’t have seen a comic that puts that kind of spin on history before.

What do you think it is that appeals to people about a webcomic that mixes history and humour?

KB: Well, I’m certainly not the first to mix history and humour. Things like Black Adder and Larry Gonick’s A Cartoon History of the Universe have been around for a really long time.

I think that people who like history definitely get something extra out of reading the history comics. It’s almost like an in-joke, how it can be rewarding when there’s something that speaks to you and what you’re especially interested in.

Then there’s a lot of people who tell me, “I don’t get all of the references, but I like (the comics) anyway”. Sometimes you get people who look it up when they’re not familiar with the subject, and wind up appreciating it more. There are also people who don’t like doing that, and they sometimes don’t like the comic.

I really like doing them, and I think it shows when you enjoy something – I think it comes through to the reader, even if it is a little esoteric.

KD: If you could have your readers take one thing away from your webcomic, what would that one thing be? I guess I could also ask this question as, ‘what is the Kate Beaton agenda?’

KB: (laughs) Well that’s funny, because I never started making comics with a large audience in mind. I started making them for myself and my friends, just because they were something I wanted to do. I just hoped other people would also like them, and that’s all it ever was. I don’t really have an agenda.

KD: What are the biggest ways that you feel your life has changed since finding success with Hark! A Vagrant?

KB: Oh, it’s changed in a lot of ways. I’m not really sure what I would be doing now if I didn’t have the comics thing going on. I planned on going farther with the museum work in the long run, but now I probably won’t because the job opportunities aren’t dazzling. Comics have given me a new trajectory.

Also, I’ve met a lot of amazing people, and like-minded people that are really great pleasures to be around.

I used to draw all the time, and basically quit when I finished University. I started doing it again for fun a few years later, and now that I’m doing it all the time, it really feels comfortable.

KD: Everyone has a vice that they distract themselves with when there’s something they know they should be working on. For some people it’s Twitter, or Wikipedia, while others might turn to gaming as a tool to procrastinate.

Do you have a time-wasting vice of your own?

KB: Oh yeah, sure – the internet. Definitely Wikipedia, but I’m also one of those people who’ll compulsively read through snippets of books on Google Books. Though they don’t let you read more than just the stupid snippets, and it’s really annoying when you just get to the good part and it tells you ‘pages 38-50 are not available in this book preview’.

If I find something interesting in a Google book, I’ll go and look for other resources on the subject. Once you get on a tangent, it’s awful – unless you’re very focused, the internet can be a terrible place for that.

KD: What webcomics by other artists have you been reading lately?

KB: Oh some regulars for sure. Octopus Pie, Anders Loves Maria, A Softer World, Dinosaur Comics, Pictures for Sad Children… I could go on and on – there’s lots. Scott Campbell’s work on Double Fine Action Comics. Oh, and Loyalty and Liberty – a webcomic about the American Revolution starring cats! I think it’s great, because it’s insane. Whoever’s drawing it knows everything about the outfits and puts the right hats on the right people in insane detail, but they’re all cats. Look it up.

For more from Kate Beaton, check out Hark! A Vagrant and Kate’s Livejournal. She also has a book published collecting some of her best comics from 2007 to early 2009 that you can buy from TopatoCo.

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.

I would like to extend a gigantic thank you to everyone who has helped so far in building this blog as a resource for Canadian indie comic artists & writers to learn more about their fellow comic-creatin’ canucks.

Of course, over the three months that the site has been live we’ve only just skimmed the tip of the iceberg.

Bruno could tell you more about the overall vision for The Fabler and how the blog will continue to help to promote the interests of independent comic talent. For my part, I wanted to take the opportunity to ramble a little about some observations I’ve made with the interviews I’ve done to date, explain a little about my motivations for the format I went with, and introduce some changes I’ll be making in the future with my own column here on the Fabler Blog.

Ramble ramble ramble, blah blah blah. That sounds a lot more boring to type that it sounds in my head.

For those of you paying attention, there are a few consistencies you’ll notice across the posts I’ve done with my column here so far. The obvious fact is that they all feature interviews with Canadian comic talent; most indie, a few with some very major credentials behind them. You’ll also find that I approach the interviews with a ‘big picture’ sort of take on whoever I’m talking to, whether that’s Jay Bardyla on his experiences running Happy Harbor Comics, or Lar deSouza on the reasons he first got into caricature drawing.

This avoidance of too much emphasis on purely ‘newsy’ content is very much on purpose, and there is, in fact, a reasoning to it. Fundamentally, we don’t want to be a redundant news outlet. For news on events and releases in Canadian indie comics, you can go to any number of sources. I personally would recommend the Sequential newsblog, and not just because they put in a good word about us recently – Sequential has been one of my favourite sites for news about the industry long before I started my column at the Fabler.

It’s been my goal to write about how people came to be successful (at least relatively so) doing what they love, in hopes that when people read these articles and interviews, they’ll be inspired to do the same themselves. This doesn’t mean I overlook their recent work entirely – quite the opposite, actually, since connecting the dots between where an artist is now and where they began is crucial in attempting to convey a sense of how they’ve managed to fit themselves into the industry.

So far it’s been a blast talking to some of the most gifted comic book talent Canada has to offer. From the Vicious Ambitious boys here in Calgary to Gareth Gaudin and Perogy Cat out in Victoria, and further out east to Doug Wheatley in Winnipeg and Troy Little in Halifax, everyone seems to have something unique and interesting to offer on the subject of comic books. It’s humbling, really, since most of these creators have more talent in their left foot than your average, part-time pseudo-comic-journalist (see artist’s interpretation of a part-time pseudo-comic-journalist below, courtesy of Conor Geoghegan).

In fact, many of these individuals have had so much to say on the matter that I’ve had to reluctantly edit much out from the final posts. That’s really saying something, since some of the interviews to date have surpassed the 1500 word mark – a cardinal sin itself in online journalism.

I’ve had some pretty fantastic unpublished discussions about the state of indie comics, the future of webcomics, alternate ideas for breaking into the industry, and a whole whack of more stuff. That’s right, a whole whack even, with stress on the ‘H’ sound.
It seems that there are a few subjects (like the ones mentioned above) which are on everybody’s minds right now. Going forward, my column will begin to feature my own blurbs on those topics, as well as whatever else comes to mind that’s remotely relevant to the indie comics industry. Don’t furrow your brow in keenly poignant disappointment yet though, the interviews will still be there!

The other change we’re going to be introducing, both in my posts and elsewhere on the Fabler Blog, will be North American content not limited exclusively to the Canadian comic book scene. I still plan on making the larger emphasis in my own posts and interviews on artists and writers North of the border, but there will definitely also be some branching out.
I know Bruno has some more news ahead for the Fabler itself, but I’ll leave that to him to talk about in the (hopefully) near future.

In conclusion, rock. And thanks for reading so far.

Known for combining high brow intellectual concepts with fantastical high-impact art and accessible, fun stories, James Turner’s work in comics has defined him as one of Canada’s most innovative contributors to the medium.

His breakthrough graphic novel Nil: A Land Beyond Belief, released in 2005, served up a poignant vision of a nihilistic dystopia marked with a sharp sense of humour not often found in books with such lofty subject matter. Later that same year, Turner began an ongoing series chronicling the metafictional adventures of a thousand year old librarian bad-ass. The series, titled Rex Libris, ran from 2005 to 2008. Rex Libris  and Nil (both published by the indie comic publisher Slave Labor Graphics) were regarded highly by critics, and helped build Turner as a celebrated name in Canadian independent comics.

So why is it that his latest series, Warlord of Io, was cut before the first official issue even hit the stands?

The answer to that has everything to do with Diamond Comics Distributors and the new minimum sales order policies they implemented earlier this year. DCD is known to many as the largest comic book distributor in North America. Its virtual monopoly on comic book  circulation guarantees that when Diamond introduces a new business process, there are going to be widespread ripples throughout the industry in North America.

Essentially, what they did was increase the minimum advance sales order from $1,500 to $2,500 US dollars. If DCD does not receive at least $2,500 in orders for a given comic, it will not distribute that title at all – thus forcing many indie comic creators and publishers out of the market.

It was Dan Vado , owner and president of Slave Labor Graphics, who rang up Turner earlier this year to break the news to him that his comic was declined distribution by DCD. Since the announcement was made public in May, there has been a flurry of discussion surrounding Warlord of Io on blogs and newswires across the internet. Some suggest Warlord of Io is an ominous portent of where the industry  is headed, while others are simply peeved that they might never get to see the series in physical, hard copy form.

Turner took the time to field some questions for the Fabler about Warlord of Io, the state of the industry,  and whether a Rex Libris movie and/or animated series is still, in fact, in development.  He was also indulgent enough to answer a fanboy question that I’ve been wondering about Nil for some time (I admitted to him that I count Nil as among my personal all-time favorite graphic novels).

The transcript of the interview is below:

KD: Though I suppose it means this interview will be moving chronologically backwards, let’s start by talking about Warlord of Io.

What was the initial pitch for Warlord of Io?

JT: Spoiled, rich kid rocker inherits planet of ruthless warlords, and things go horribly wrong.

(for more about the concept behind Warlord of Io, check out the Warlord of Io FAQ on Turner’s official website)

KD: How did you plan to approach it differently than your previous works?

JT: Well, I wanted to make it faster paced and more accessible to a general audience. Unlike Rex, I intended it to be a mini-series from the get-go.

KD: Obviously you’re in a position where DCD (its decisions, its position as a monopoly in comic book distribution) has had a significant impact on your work as a comic creator. What are your thoughts regarding the experience, and the effects Diamond is currently impressing upon the market?

JT: I don’t know what Diamond’s financial books are like, but I would imagine the recession is hitting them hard like everyone else. Comic book sales overall are down. They may have a monopoly but it’s of a withering market. The raised minimums are meant to cut costs and protect their bottom line, which is perfectly understandable. Businesses that don’t do that don’t remain businesses very long.

To be honest the greatest surprise came not from being cancelled, but from being cancelled so early. I knew that launching an ongoing independent title these days is no easy feat, so I intended the series to be limited in length in the hope that it could finish the story before the sales numbers fell off. Either I miscalculated with the content or the market is even tougher than I’d thought. At any rate, the first official issue never hit the stands.

The bottom line here is that the pamphlet format is becoming a less viable platform for small independents. I don’t think this will be as great a problem as it might have been thanks to the internet. Artists can easily float their ideas online. Those who succeed in building an audience will attract publishers who will print collections of their work. I can see that as a possible new paradigm, but with technology advancing and changing so quickly, who really knows?

One problem with the online only model is that trying to monetize material on the net is a difficult proposition because piracy is so easy. Films, videos, music, comics, books, can all be downloaded. It’s just information. The first official issue of Warlord of Io (the follow up to the one-shot) was pirated and put on torrents within a week of it being available online, and It was only 99 cents. This suggests that advertising and merchandise are going to become key for creators in the future. At least T-shirts and vinyl dolls can’t be duplicated with the click of a button, but advertising will only be helpful once a large audience has been built.

But I’m just guessing here, really. There are people who are already running webcomics who can give you a better picture. I suspect the new break-out comics will start online more and more often.

(I would like to insert a thank-you here to James for his thoroughly presented views on the subject – he raises some interesting points, specifically about where comic books fit into the jigsaw puzzle that is the struggle to make money off of media on the internet.)

KD: Onto Rex Libris. Now that the series is finished, (and the second volume TPB is out, as of June 1st) how do you feel looking back on the run? Did you feel like you accomplished what you set out to do with the title?

JT: Yes and no. There was so much more I wanted to do with the series. I never even made it back to Benzine V to revisit Simon and see what he’d been up to as ruler. On the other hand, I think the potential of the series is clearly shown.

KD: I had heard some time ago about potential plans for a Rex Libris movie, then back last year you announced an animated series that would be airing this year. Where are either/both of these projects at now?

JT: The movie is still in development. Mark Burton is writing the screenplay. The TV animated series was just a flight of fancy, I’m afraid. A hoax. I put disclaimers with it, but somehow the idea took off anyway. Producers take note! People want a Rex Libris TV show. I know I’d watch it.

KD: Since we’re in backwards interview mode, it makes sense to move to a few questions about Nil, your first excursion into graphic novels -

How long did you carry the idea for Nil around in your head before it became a reality as a working project?

JT: That was a while ago now. I think it was percolating, popping in and out of the probability foam, for as many as six months before I started typing it into my computer.

KD: What motivated you to take the leap and put out that first graphic novel? As I understand it, by that point in your career you had already been working as a successful illustrator for quite some time.

JT: I was feeling limited by the illustration format. I wanted to go longer, and expand the scope of what I could cover. Bringing in text and narrative added a new level of interest for me. A whole new playground.

Like going from 2 dimensions to 3, in a way.

KD: This is a question I’ve wanted to ask you since I first read the book  – with Nil, were you inspired at all by Terry Gilliam’s film ‘Brazil’? I’ve personally always likened the tone of both works to each other, something about the ‘cog in a machine trying futilely to work his way out in a dystopic setting’ theme.

I really like the Gilliam film. It’s fabulous, but it wasn’t the inspiration for the book. I’ve always had a fascination with dystopias. I was thinking more of Russian Constructivism when designing the look of it, and the work of el Lissitsky, Rodchenko, and the architect Melnikov. The material itself came from reading history and the general absurdity that underlie politics and human civilization. We’re pretty funny when you think about it.

KD: So as to not completely end the interview with past tense, what are you working on next? In the May interview you did with Newsarama, you mentioned a wariness to approaching any new projects at the time – say it isn’t so!

JT: Ha! Thanks. Nice to know someone cares! My main goal at this point is just to get Warlord of Io finished and out the door. Right now I’m working on some 3d spaceships for it. After that, I don’t know. I’d like to do Hell Lost, but I can’t really afford the time investment. If anything, I’ll probably try to do shorter, smaller, self-contained projects that I can do as a hobbyist, and go from there.