Healthcare, The Business Of Art & Geeking Out

Did no writing of any kind today, but that’s all right, ’cause it was a pretty busy day.

First of all, we FINALLY got around to venturing out into the southern downtown core to pay a visit to the offices of the Ministry of Health and get that damn Ontario Health Insurance Plan card, known by the otherwise extremely ugly name “OHIP.” I managed to completely misunderstand the details laid out by the website and thought that we would only get our OHIP cards issued to us three months after submission. Turns out that what they mean is we actually qualify for OHIP coverage three months after ARRIVAL, so since I’d arrived in Toronto on January 12th, I actually qualified for it now. The Wife’s coverage will kick in on the 18th, when she arrived, so she’ll probably get her card about a week after mine.

Having done that, we made our way out of the Yonge Street area and went on over to an area a couple of blocks south of Queen Street West in order to collect prints for the Wife’s first commission in Canada, although the artwork itself is going to be going to Australia. Go figure. Some guy saw her website and just e-mailed her outta’ the blue saying “I want some a’ them thar, sex-ay ladies to adorn my swingin’ bachelor pad, how much?” Oh, I guess he would’ve said “Mate” in there somewhere, since Aussies are supposed to do that.

Still, it was a pretty cool studio we went down to. The guy running it had a deal going with a photographer who’s gallery we visited a few weeks back, and since then, we’ve stopped in to chat with said photographer whenever we’re in the gallery district of Queen Street West. It’s kind of weird how as soon as a Creative Type here in Toronto finds out you’re in a similar line, suddenly it’s all “Aw hell, we’re all in it together, right?” and you make friends FAST. So when the Wife needed to figure out how and where to get archival quality prints of a couple of her pictures, said photographer recommended us to this one man operation digital print studio hunkered down on the 4th floor of this crumbly old 19th century office building that looked like it probably housed the Oracle of the Matrix on one of its floors. He was a pretty friendly and informative guy, and it was pretty cool being walked through the various grades of paper and showing how each on handles ink and color differently. Now some guy in Australia is going to have these signed, archival quality pictures, hanging on his wall and making it abundantly clear where his priorities lie:

There was one other one, but heck, you get the idea…

After that, we finally got around to subjecting the Wife to that most unique of all North American geek experiences, the comic book convention. Unfortunately, we got there pretty late, it was going to close in an hour, so things had calmed down somewhat. But that didn’t stop the fat-to-muscle ratio from climbing to tremendous levels of imbalance, nor did it impede the collection of loud-mouthed attempts at Jay & Silent Bob-esque witticism, or variations on the kind of laughter one normally associates with a seriously pissed off donkey. It’s called the Toronto Hobbystar comiCON Fan Appreciation Event, though how this con differed from any other comic con is beyond me. Still, it was nice that, at least on this first day, when you paid your $10 admission, you immediately got a “coupon” for $10 that was redeemable at any of the vendors inside the convention hall. We wandered around and saw a lot of interesting stuff, and eventually settled on these:

I’d already read this, thanks to the editor of GameAxis more or less stuffing it down my throat with the addendum that it was written by Brian K. Vaughn, the Y: The Last Man guy, and this was a very different story from the kind he’s telling in Y, but still a cool one nevertheless. The Wife was drawn to it by the artwork, but it’s a happy bonus that there’s a darn fine story included as well.

One odd thing occurred while we were making our purchases. I mentioned to the guy behind the counter that we’d just moved into town and he asked where from and when I mentioned from Singapore, but originally from Edmonton, he kind of looked at me and asked “Why would you come here? EVERYONE’S going to Edmonton, it’s the place to be! You’re the first guy I’ve ever met who came from there to here. Why would you want to come to Toronto of all places when you could go back to there?!”

This baffled me utterly, as I had memories of Edmonton being a safe, quiet, suburban wasteland with nothing particularly cultural, historical or “happening” about it. I had no idea that it had become the cultural capital of the country. I’m not entirely sure I like the direction Canada is taking if this is the case, ’cause while the West Edmonton Mall is admittedly impressive, it’s… a… MALL…

The other one was this, and once again, it was the Wife’s eye for artwork that initially got the attention, but I got very interested once I saw the name of the writer, Brian Wood, a guy who’s doing a very interesting series for Vertigo called DMZ. Again, it’s thanks to the editor over at GameAxis that I was tipped off to the intense and very socio-political writing of Wood, and DMZ was a very scary, very realistic take on what would happen if there was a new civil war in America in the 21st century, and what would happen if New York got divided between the government
and the rebels, thus becoming a demilitarized zone. Supermarket looks like it’s going to have a similar critical vibe to it, so I’m looking forward to reading this.

Of course, no comic book convention is complete without a few guests, and one of the biggest surprises was seeing this guy over here:

Carmine Infantino is one of the Elder Statesmen of comics, particularly if you’re a fan of DC comics (and really, what discerning comic reader with some taste isn’t?) this is the guy that was a key pillar in defining the Silver Age of comics, giving us the iconic red and yellow uniform of the flash, dredging Batman out of the campy 50′s and making him a detective again, as well as giving us more science-fictiony characters like Adam Strange.

I was a bit horrified however, when I saw him sitting glumly at his table, being entirely ignored while artists of the 90′s like Whilce Portacio (no disrespect to the man, he’s had his own share of troubles with his sister’s illness and his own struggle to regain control of his hands after a diabetic coma) were completely swamped by legions of fans. It was like night and day; here was one of the guys that made comics such a treasure they were eventually acknowledged as a legitimate art form… and absolutely no one was talking to him, no one was getting autographs and no one was interested in any pictures. Granted, the guy’s been retired since 2005, but my GOD, this guy one of the originals in the industry.

The convention is going to run until Sunday and although I’m kind of curious, I’ve decided that 12 noon might still be a little too early for me to get up to trundle back down to the Toronto Convention Center and check out a Saturday afternoon talk by comic writer Dan Slott of She-Hulk fame, but I suppose there will be other opportunities. Not having actually read any of his stuff, I don’t feel a particular desperate need to hear his pearls of wisdom the way I would were Neil-O to show up, but I suppose if I ever got around to reading his stuff, I’ll then slap my head in regret and wonder why I passed up the opportunity to see him in person. Oh well…

And finally, on the way home we had to walk through many tunnels to return to the Toronto equivalent of Grand Central Station in New York, only this one is called Union Station, but it pretty much feels like Grand Central; massive, classical architecture and the buzz of thousands of people hopping subways, streetcars, “Go Trains,” the local lines that carry commuters to outlying towns, as well as the passenger trains that go cross-country. We took a few pictures of the place before heading back to our neighborhood for groceries and dinner, so here they are…