More Comics

We were kind of on the fence about whether to descend to the Toronto Comic Art Festival site again, but in the end we decided it was worth it after all and made a second visit. This time we made a much more appreciable dent in the wallet.

If you click on the picture to the left, you’ll get a bigger shot of it. It’s a panel from NextWave: Agents of H.A.T.E. written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Suart Immonen. This time around, we actually brought our hardcover trade paperback (and picked up volume 2 while we were there ) and got both of them signed with a little doodle courtesy of Stuart. I am very happy about this as I can’t remember the last time a comic made me laugh out loud so much… and for whatever reason, Warren Ellis hates French Canadians. Go figure. Strangely enough, when I asked Stuart about how much input he has into the creation of the comic, he seemed kind of torn about it. It would seem that during the entire run so far, he and Warren Ellis have exchanged maybe a total of 20 e-mails, and whenever he asked Ellis about how to approach a particular page or panel, the usual answer was “whatever way you think is best,” and after a while, since that was the only answer he was getting, he stopped writing e-mails and just concentrated on doing the book.

I really have no words to describe just how hilariously psychotic this series is. Ellis has taken the Marvel universe and just attacked with a Great Sword Of Snark (+5 against Avengers Fans) that digs into every single thing about the Marvel universe that comic fans may have ever debated. The fact that makes extra-dimensional beings from the darkest reaches of pain and nightmare big fans of the Suicide Girls website is also so unbelievably awesome that if you punch the very concept itself, it explodes, which is par for course with NextWave.

This is the cover to one of my favorite Vertigo series, Fables, the revisionist, post-modern update to fair tale characters by Bill Willingham. James Jean is the cover artist and work is absolutely gorgeous. We were determined to get something signed by him this time, and so showed up good and early to a) be the first ones to actually form the line for his table and b) choose which table he was to sit at when we asked the Beguiling folks where he was to sit and they said, “You tell us, we’ll put the sign up.”

James Jean surprised the hell out of us by… not being white. At first I thought maybe some kind of volunteer or assistant was getting the table ready for him when an Asian guy showed up. But when he sat down, looked at us expectantly and said “Hi!” I had to reorder my reality for a brief moment from James Jean=White Anglosaxon Protestant type to James Jean=Asian guy with glasses. The confusion got settled when he explained that he was from Taiwan, and decided to change his last name to something that would be a little more palatable to Western ears. Still, my first volume of Fables is now signed by him, and I am a happy camper.

Our next bit of loot was a surprise purchase by the Wife. A local artist by the name of Jeff LeMire had created a comic in 2005 called Lost Dogs which won a Xeric award, which is something put out by the Xeric Foundation, a group composed of, amongst other people, Peter Laird, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The award goes out to promising new artists to help them publish their work and get into the industry. Our friend, Sonny Liew, was one such winner a few years back. Jeff ended up being a VERY personable, humble and friendly guy, and it was nice that the slower Sunday vibe allowed to just stand around and talk to him about various things. Unsurprisingly, he showed an interest in the Wife’s artwork when she mentioned she was “in the biz” and encouraged her to keep pursuing it and self-publish if necessary, contrary to her own opinion that because she is a) a girl and b) wholly devoid of talent, she stands no chance in the industry. With any luck we’ll be able to see the guy around more often, and perhaps within a year or two, it will the Wife sitting at one of these tables, signing and doodling for others.

The other acquisition, which was not signed, was Wimbledon Green, by Seth, Yet Another Canadian Artist, who has been winning awards and making a lot of waves in the Literati crowd that deign to read “graphic novels,” but not comics.

I have to admit, aside from having seen his work on more recent compilations of the Peanuts strip, I haven’t delved too deeply into his work, but he’s another the artist The Wife has been aware of for some time, so hopefully this will give me an excuse to get a better grip on the kinds of stories he tells.

All in all TCAF has been a pretty big hit with us; the more laid back, “it’s all about the artists and not the merchandise” vibe of the event made it enormously fun. And it’s just a blast to be surrounded by so many comics creators. I have a feeling now that even if we ever do get a chance to go to the San Diego Comic Con, somehow, the cozier, more intimate feel of TCAF is going to keep this event at the top of our list. As far as Paradise ComicCon and others go, this is definitely the event to beat in our books. Although I still can’t quite believe that James Jean isn’t white. That’ll take me a few years to digest.

Tomorrow, either my thoughts on Digital Devil Saga 2 (which I don’t feel like writing today after writing this) or thoughts on "font-style: italic;">Persona 3 which should be delivered to us by Monday afternoon.