Sequential Art Symposium
Report By Jamie Coville
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Date: June 14th, 2008 Location: 239 College St. @ Lillian H. Smith Library Time: 10am - 5pm Cost: Free I arrived around 10:30 am. Inside the Library was a sign leading you down a spiral stairway with lights looking like torches into the main circular room where the event was held. In the main room was AllNewComics.com selling books by the Joe Shuster Awards nominees. They also had boxes of kids comics and slightly damaged, discounted TPBs. There was 2 tables with posters and prints for sale and a free comics and convention and other comic related postcards/pamphlets for the taking. Much of the free comics were provided by Blair and Mike Kitchen, two good local artists doing comics about a Possum Hero and a comedy crime book called Spud and Harry #1. Also on the table was some old family friendly FCBD books. There were 1 big side room divided up by 3 walls for the artists, the Superman artwork for auction and the panels. The Superman art is all going up for auction at a later date and there were some really nice pieces there, including one by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. Also at the awards was the Sci-Fi Polaris22 convention people advertising their convention and the Constellation Awards ceremonies happening on July 22nd. When I arrived most of the artists were not there, but Tom Grummett, Ray Fawkes and Mario Takara were there. Scott Chandler showed up shortly afterwards.Tom was busy sketching and already had a small list of commissions going. Other Toronto creators were there as well with most of them taking part in the various panels. There were 5 panels that day running from 11 to 4pm, each lasting about an hour. Here are the panels as they happened. 11 am --- Comics & Kids: Teaching with Sequential Art On the panel was retailer Jenn Stewart (Dragon Lady, Guelph ON), Scott Chandler (Northwest Passage, Tek Jenson), Erik Kim (Owl Magazine), and Teacher/Artist Dave Watkins. The panel was an excellent talk about the benefits of using comics to teach children. Several studies were brought up about comics vs prose books in stimulating reading. Dave Watkins talked about his experience in using comics in the classroom. Jenn Stewart talked about her Comics in the Classroom project in helping teachers and librarians choose comics. Scott Chandler and Eric Kim talked about their work which is being read by children and about the sequential art in general as compared to other mediums. Some of the audience members were teachers and librarians. I made a recording of the panel and you can download it here. 12 noon --- Sequential Art on the Internet: Webcomics Moderated by Ty Buttars On the panel were webcomic creators Andy B., Ramon Perez, Michael Cho (all from TransmissionX) and Lar De Souza (Least I Can Do http://www.leasticoulddo.com and Looking for Group http://www.lfgcomic.com). Surprisingly this was the least attended panel of the day. At first Michael Cho teased staying in the audience until more people came in. The group talked about making money from webcomics and marveled over Lar De Souza's work that sprung from making webcomics. Cho talked about the benefits of cutting out the middlemen and dealing direct with the consumer. Another topic was about giving the content away for free and if that leads to sales when it comes to print collections. The Audio recording of the panel can be downloaded here. 1 pm --- Writing for Sequential Art I missed the majority of this panel but I can tell you it was the best attended panel of the bunch and on it were Howard Wong (After the Cape - Image), Cecil Castellucci (The Plane Janes - DC/Minx), Ray Fawkes (Mnemovore - Vertigo), and Jim Munroe (Therefore Repent! - IDW). It was moderated by Ty Buttars. 2 pm --- Darwyn Cooke's Next Frontier Next was the panel about Darwyn Cooke, which was hosted by Space Channels Mark Askwith. Darwyn talked his upcoming fill in issue on Jonah Hex and how it came about (It involves alcohol), his year of doing conventions and commissions, a bit about how important San Diego is to a lot of artists is in terms of yearly income, his upcoming personal graphic novel and teases to his future project which will be announced at San Diego. He also talked a bit about the comic market in terms of black and white books vs colour in and outside of the direct market. The panel can be heard here. 3 pm --- Superman @ 70: 7 decades of superheroes & comics This panel didn't have a moderator by Ty Templeton, Tom Grummett and Dave Ross did a good job without one. Helping was an audience member who had some ideas about the original Superman vs today which resulted in a lot of back and forth talk. Among the topics was the Death of Superman, how to handle him in terms of writing, some talk of Smallville and more. I did record this panel, but for some reason my MP3 player will not transfer it to my computer. 4 pm --- John Bell's Invaders From The North: Canadians and Comics with 2008 Hall of Fame Inductees Pierre Fournier and Stanley Berneche Author/Historian John Bell talks with two Hall of Fame Inductee's Pierre Fournier and Stanley Berneche about their careers in the Canadian Comics Industry. Pierre Fournier created a satirical superhero comic, Les Aventures Du Capitaine Kebec and worked on magazines Croc and Titanic over a 15 year period. Stanley Berneche worked on a counter culture humor magazine called Fuddle Duddle and created Captain Canada, also a satirical superhero feature. You can hear the panel here. The convention ended at 5pm. At 7:30pm seating was opened up for the 4th Annual Joe Shuster Awards. The awards were hosted by Rick Green. The awards began at 8pm. This awards ceremony was different than the previous years. Aside from no Rob Salem (the usual co-host) we also didn't have Ed the Sock and Liana K doing a comedy routine/presentation, as well we didn't have a keynote speaker. But the awards were done considerably quicker than in previous years. The biggest change was the addition of a jury to pick the award winners instead of having it all determined by fan voting.
The 2008 Joe Shuster Award Winners are: |
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Outstanding Cover by a Canadian Artist - Presented by Daryl Collison, owner of 3rd Quadrant comic book store. Winner: Steve Skroce for Doc Frankenstein #6 (Burleyman)
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book &/or Graphic Novel Publisher
Outstanding Comic Book related Achievement by a Canadian
Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame Inductees:
Favourite Canadian Comic Book Creator - English Language (Fan voted)
Favourite Canadian Comic Book Creator - French Language (Fan voted)
Favourite International Comic Book Creator (Fan voted)
Harry Kremer Outstanding Comic Book Retailer Award
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Colourist
Outstanding Canadian Webcomic Creator/Creative Team
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist Audio for the Awards can be found in one full recording here or broken up award at http://www.thecomicbooks.com/audio.html Pictures of the entire event can be seen here.
Regards, http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com News and discussion on a free, Delphi like forum.
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E-mail: jcoville@kingston.net
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