Canadian cartoonist Seth is curating a series of films from the National Film Board of Canada. (This is particularly exciting for me, since I work at the NFB).
If you’re lucky enough to live in southern Ontario, you can see the films at the University of Waterloo until January 4, 2009 (more details here).
However, the rest of us can watch one of his selections – Paul Tomkowitz: Street Railway Switchman – right here. It’s a nine-minute 1953 documentary about a Polish-born Canadian who contrasts his adopted home of Winnipeg with his native country.
Tom Devlin from Drawn & Quarterly writes in to tell us that someone has stolen the artwork for Seth’s recent cover for literary mag Taddle Creek directly from the Taddle Creek offices in Toronto.
If anyone has any leads, please get in touch with us or D&Q.
In both pieces there are some choice quotes about the cartooning process:
…when I am drawing or inking I am often running a kind of low level tutorial in my head, as if I was talking to a student, explaining why I am making each move of the brush. Why I am fixing up this line and why I am taking out that one.
There is no point in doing the work if it is going to be watered down.
I always tell aspiring artists that if they want to be cartoonists, they’d better enjoy being by themselves.
Even with all the headaches I can attribute to Quark and InDesign, I can’t imagine doing page layout by hand these days, which is why it’s all the more impressive to see Seth’s cut-and-paste mockups for the upcoming The Collected Doug Wright: Part One | Part Two
This also only furthers my theory that Seth is, in fact, a time traveller.
Brad Mackay has a great look at Dave Cooper’s massive 18-foot 8-piece octych, a series of paintings featuring his trademark “pillowy girls” that can be arranged left-to-right in an infinite loop.
Another great online auction starts today to help raise funds for the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning. Once again the Doug Wright Awards teams up with some of Canada’s finest to bring us some great original art up for grabs — all based on the monster comics of Jack Kirby. Seth kicks off the auction today with his take on Groot! Later this week you’ll have a chance to bid on Dave Sim’s Nip’por, a monsterized version of Doug Wright’s Nipper, as well as Chester Brown’s take on a page from Tales to Astonish #34. Each auction will be online at eBay for 7 days. Visit the Wright Awards site for more info.
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada! I’m off to get some turkey now…
I’m just heading out the door to celebrate Free Comic Book Day at Toronto’s The Beguiling (601 Markham Street) where you can get a copy of Comics Festival 2007 (previously). Visit the Comics Festival website to find out more about the great line-up of cartoonists featured in the book, and where to find the book in your city/state/province.
If you can’t make it out to Free Comic Book Day this year or your local store doesn’t carry Comics Festival 2007, fear not! Chris Butcher of the Beguiling has graciously put the entire contents (and then some) of Comics Festival 2005 online for free — the 2005 edition features the work of Seth, Dave Sim, Chester Brown, Bryan Lee O’Malley, and many more with swank a cover by James Jean (shown here).
I first saw this over at the Fantagraphics blog, but let’s review, shall we? Seth’s beautifully designed covers for The Complete Peanuts look like this:
The new Ashley Wood-designed covers for the new Dick Tracy compilation look, ahem, like this:
…That grey box behind “Dailies and Sundays” and “Introduction by Max Collins”? That shit is inspired. All my shit is going to have grey boxes now.
It’s visual proof that winning design isn’t just about layout — it’s a deft mixture of layout, colour choice, typography, balance, contrast, and execution. I’ve never been a big Dick Tracy fan anyhow. If I’m buying a new chronological classic strip anthology in the coming days it’s going to be Popeye Vol. 1: “I Yam What I Yam” anyhow. I mean, as long we’re judging books by their covers, Popeye’s already a winner:
And speaking of Seth, the interview between Seth and Chester Brown that I mentioned took place two weeks ago at the Doug Wright Awards is available online to listen. Max Douglas who blogged the event has graciously put an MP3 of the two cartoonists chatting on his blog. I won’t link directly to the MP3 here, but visit Max’s blog entry where he mentions the interview to download.
Seth’s new serialized comic George Sprott (1894-1975), which is being published in the New York Time’s Funny Pages has begun to be posted online. The prologue and first two chapters are available. (Thanks, Naseem!)
Another great online auction starts today to help raise funds for the 
I’m just heading out the door to celebrate 
It’s visual proof that winning design isn’t just about layout — it’s a deft mixture of layout, colour choice, typography, balance, contrast, and execution. I’ve never been a big Dick Tracy fan anyhow. If I’m buying a new chronological classic strip anthology in the coming days it’s going to be 
anyhow. I mean, as long we’re judging books by their covers, Popeye’s already a winner:
And speaking of Seth, the interview between Seth and Chester Brown that 
