Sunday, May 29, 2005

The Doug Wright Awards

New Award for Canadian Comics
(Toronto) The innaugural Doug Wright Awards honouring the best in Canadian Cartooning have been announced. The awards were presented to two cartoonists based on work published in 2004 in a ceremony at the
Toronto Comic Art Festival on Saturday.
The winners:
-Best Emerging Talent: Bryan Lee O'Malley
-Best Book: Clyde Fans, Book One by Seth
In addition to the awards, 4 inductees into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame were announced.
Details:
The Doug Wright Awards

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

PRIX BEDELYS 2004



The Sixth Annual Bédélys Prize For French Comics

By Bryan Munn

On Monday, May 16, 2005, the Promo 9e Art Foundation, based in Montreal, Canada presented the sixth annual Bédélys Prize offered to French comic books from the Province of Quebec. The awards were announced at the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec.

This year, the Foundation gave out three awards:
1. The Bédélys d'Or, offered by the Corporation des Bibliothécaires Professionnels du Québec (Professional Librarians) is attributed to the best French speaking graphic novel.
-Le Photographe Book 2, by Guibert, Lefèvre & Lemercier
-published by éditions Dupuis
-graphic novel about Doctors Without Borders set in Afghanistan
-$1000 prize

2. Bédélys Québec, offered by the Association des libraires du Québec. This prize celebrates the best graphic novel published within the Province of Quebec.
-L'abîme by Jean-Paul Eid & Claude Paiement
(pictured above, celebrating their win)
-second volume in the Naufragé de Mémoria series
-published by Éditions Milles-Îles
-$1000 prize

Special Mention
-Té malade, toi!, by Line Gamache
-published by Zone Convective

3. Prix Bédélys Jeunesse - Ville de Montréal, offered by the City of Montreal for the best graphic novel for the 7 to 12-year-old market. Voted on by a jury of children.
-Lou: Journal infime by Julien Neel
- published by Glénat


Site Officiel de Promo 9e Art -Press Release
Background (in English)
Photos
Nominations

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

CACTUS


QUEBEC HUMOUR ZINE CELEBRATES 10 YEARS
"Semaine de la Bande Dessinee"
May 12-22, 2005
Centre culturel Jacques-Ferron
Longueuil, Quebec

Conferences, exhibits, and special guest Michel Rabagliati.
Cactus
Centre Culturel Jacques-Ferron

BD MONTREAL


Just announced:
le Festival de BD francophone de Quebec and the Salon du livre de Quebec, in association with the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival present:
'BD Montreal'
July 14-24 2005

le boulevard de Maisonneuve, Montreal
& Just for Laughs Museum
Guest of Honour: Jean-Paul Eid ('Les Aventures de Jerome Bigras', 'Le Naufrage de Memoria')
Other guests to include: Tristan Demers, Jimmy Beaulieu, Line Gamache, Bruno Laporte, Francois Lapierre, Marc Delafontaine, Thierry Labrosse, Regis Loisel, etc.
Over 6000 comics for sale! Art shows, round tables, and cartoons for the kids!
ToutenBD.com
Le Devoir

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

D&Q 2005 RELEASES

Courtesy of Yakov Chodosh on the Comics Journal Messageboard and Tom Spurgeon, comes this list of upcoming and, in some cases, already published book projects from Drawn and Quarterly. Some works are translated into English for the first time.
The Canadian cartoonists include:

GENEVIEVE CASTREE-EVELRUM
DRAWN AND QUARTERLY SHOWCASE,VOLUME 3
JULY 2005
--
Wright Award-nominated cartoonist
(also: SAMMY HARKHAM AND MATT BROERSMA)
GUY DELISLE,
PYONGYANG
OCT 2005
JULIE DOUCET
MY MOST SECRET DESIRE
--NEW RELEASE WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
FALL 2005
&
DOUCET DIARY
FALL 2005
LUC GIARD
VILLAGE UNDER MY PILLOW
MAY 2005
MICHEL RABAGLIATI
PAUL MOVES OUT
MAY 2005
SETH
WIMBLEDON GREENOCTOBER 2005
--a book about obsessive collectors done in Seth's "sketchbook style"

Drawn and Quarterly

Monday, May 09, 2005

New Award Recognizes Canadian Graphic Novels

Caroline Skelton at Quill & Quire covers the Wright Awards:

"May 6, 2005

Until this year, Canadian comic-book creators in search of award recognition had to rely on foreign prizes, like the Will Eisner Awards in the U.S. This spring, though, not one but two new Canadian comic-book award programs have sprung up, independently of each other. The inaugural Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards were presented April 30, and the first Doug Wright Awards will be presented May 28.

The Wright Awards will feature two categories: Best Book (any comic book,
graphic novel, or collected work), and Best Emerging Talent (a category that
honours new or improving cartoonists from these three mediums). Winners will
be decided by a panel of judges, including Globe and Mail books reporter
Rebecca Caldwell and cartoonist and Louis Riel author Chester Brown.

The ceremony, says organizer Brad Mackay, should be a "low-key" affair, taking
place during the Toronto Comics Art Festival. (There is a trophy, but no cash prize.)
The shortlist for the Best Book category includes Seth's Clyde Fans Book One
(Drawn & Quarterly/Raincoast), Marc Bell's Worn Tuff Elbow #1
(Fantagraphics/Raincoast), Genevieve Castree's Pamplemoussi (L'oie de
Cravan), David Collier's The Frank Ritza Papers (D&Q/Raincoast), and Darwyn
Cooke's The New Frontier Vol. 1 (DC Comics/H.B. Fenn).

Though both the Wrights and the Shusters have been in the works for some
time, there was no co-ordination of the two. "It was a complete coincidence," Mackay says. Where the Wrights focus on new talent and completed books, the Shusters also recognize various areas of behind-the-scenes work, including publishers and retailers as well as writers and artists. "The Doug Wright Awards pick up where the Shusters leave off," writes Shusters organizer Kevin Boyd in an e-mail.

Joe Shuster, the artist and co-creator of the Superman character, moved from
Canada to Cleveland, Ohio, at age 10, and achieved success through the
support of mainstream audiences. Doug Wright, however, succeeded within a
Canadian market by depicting scenes of day-to-day Canadian life. He is known for the syndicated comic strip Nipper (later dubbed Doug Wright's Family), which ran for three decades. Mackay says Wright is "an example of a Canadian artist who managed to succeed while staying in Canada, which is the point of the awards as well.""

Quill And Quire

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Marc Bell in NYC

BLOO CHIP
Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York
May 6-July 1, 2005

"Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Marc Bell, "Bloo Chip," from May 6 through July 1, 2005. In his second solo exhibition, Marc Bell seamlessly combines his decade plus comics activities with his lifelong devotion to, as he calls it, "Fine Ahtwerks." The result is over eighty drawings, watercolors, paintings and mixed media constructions of a fully formed visual world of tubular creatures, inexplicable landscapes, and nonsense words that imply narrative as quickly as they distract from it. One of the works in the exhibition is the long, scroll-like ink drawing on EKG paper "Supernatural Hot Rug and Not Used II," 2004 - a composition teeming with Bell's manically animated people and quasi animals amidst text rife with free-associations. In the mixed media construction "(Hide Behind Bloo Chip) Kid," 2005, a complex melange of people, creatures, forms and buildings constructed from cardboard, we see his work has roots in masterful renderings, typography, and old-fashioned gags, but then grows into assemblages that bring his images into real space, and funny, seat-of-the pants comic narratives that give his characters an inner life. Marc Bell, 33, lives in Vancouver, B.C. He has self published his own books and comics for over a decade, yielding dozens of titles including Mojo Action Companion Unit, Gooma, Knoze Clippah! He has also serialized his comic strips weekly in The Montreal Mirror and The Halifax Coast, and monthly in Vice Magazine. His first comic strip collection, Shrimpy and Paul and Friends was released in 2003 from Highwater Books. In 2004, Bell's book The Stacks was released by Drawn and Quarterly and Fantographics published Marc Bell's Worn Tuff Elbow. Bell's work has been included in several anthology books such as Ganzfeld 3 & 4, Kramer's Ergot 4,5 & 6 and Made magazine. He will be included in the exhibition Paper, Scissors, Rock at the Contemporary Art Gallery Museum in Vancouver. All of these activities have charted Bell's ever-growing imagination. His artistic universe is at once foreign and familiar, and a riotous, enlightening, and constantly surprising experience.
The gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11-5:30 P.M. For additional information, please contact Adam Baumgold at (212)861-7338."

Adam Baumgold Gallery preview

2 x SETH

Guelph cartoonist featured in two exhibits
1. AGO -Art Gallery of Ontario
Swing Space: Present Tense 31
Seth
June 29 to October 16, 2005
Contemporary art in unexpected places
"This exhibition looks at the work of renowned Canadian comic artist Seth, and the 20th century urban vernacular that energizes his work. Featured will be three extended narrative sequences from Clyde Fans, the artist’s ongoing story, and miniature buildings from a fictional northern Ontario town that appears in the work."

On Thursday, June 30, 2005, 7 pm AGO curator Ben Portis will interview Seth about his work.Free with gallery admission.


AGO



2. Confederation Centre Art Gallery

Charlottetown, PEI
May 20-Sept 18, 2005
Seth: Bannock, Beans and Black Tea
"the exhibition presents the working drawings, proofs, letters and original art works from innovative graphic novelist and comic artist Seth’s most recent publication Bannock, Beans and Black Tea. Ten years in the making, the book is a retelling of his father John Gallant’s memories of childhood on Prince Edward Island during the Great Depression. It features Seth’s signature graphic style and continues the artist’s deep fascination with depression-era Canada and the lives of marginal figures. Seth and his father, John Gallant, received a PEI Museum Heritage Award in 2005 for the book.
Seth is considered one of the great cartoonists of the past decade, having published extensively with Drawn & Quarterly. He is best known for his series Palookaville, which has been published in graphic novel format as It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken and Clyde Fans: Book One. He also has collaborated with the CBC’s Stuart McLean, designing the book, stage show and CD for Vinyl Café Diaries. Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario, and John Gallant lives on Prince Edward Island."

Confederation Centre
PEI Buzz