Good Material

I think it's a really good thing when I start a blog post with no idea how it's going to end up, because then finding out how it's going to end up becomes the main thing, so I usually end up ~"saying something"~.

This past weekend, I volunteered with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (henceforth known as "TCAF"). Since I had some previous experience running public events at KW|AG, they allowed me to run one of the venues all on my own (not really, but mostly). I took care of a bar a block away from the Toronto Reference Library, where the festival held panels and interviews throughout the weekend. Everything went really well too! No real problems! Go me!

I had heard of the festival before and thought about attending in 2013 because Liz Prince was attending and I wanted to pick up some of her stuff that I was missing. I ended up skipping it that day to hang out with my friend Lisa in Pickering. That turned out to be a whole other adventure. I think I wrote about it on here? Maybe? I just tried to find the post to link it, but had a hard time. I guess your only course of action is to read my entire blog and maybe come across it.

TCAF did seem really cool though. Even though the vast majority of the comics I have read have been mainstream Marvel stuff, I really love the idea of people creating their own weird niche stuff and me getting to support these people directly by buying their stuff right from them. I find that a lot of the stuff I appreciate in punk is present in indie comics as well (and not just in Mitch Clem and Liz Prince).

When I was in Vancouver earlier this year to present for a conference, one of the other presenters specialized in comics as a subject of study in art history. In my undergrad, I thought about pursuing that avenue of study many different times. While we were talking about just that, he said that he would be presenting at TCAF that year and invited me to come. I said I would and meant it. Later, when I was back in Toronto, I looked into volunteering. I had the end of my thesis planned out, but didn't yet know what I would be doing when it finished. I figured that since I would probably have a lot of free time, I could dedicate a significant portion of that to TCAF. I signed up to be a Head Volunteer (more responsibility than a regular volunteer!) and devoted most of that week to TCAF activities.

I really didn't know what to expect when Saturday morning rolled around, but was pretty sure that I would be fine. I am "good" at running these sorts of things. Plus public events are this weird sort of organism that mostly takes care of itself once it gets going. Everything went fine. It helped that all of TCAF's stuff at The Pilot was pretty cool too. It's easier to pull a crowd in when you have things that they are actually interested in seeing.

I will admit that when the weekend started, I did not know any of the names at The Pilot, but what was interesting was that when they were presenting, I immediately recognized their work. The first time this happened was during the second panel featuring Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes. I knew Essex County, but I didn't know that was this guy until it was mentioned. Neato.

Then, two panels later, I realized that two of my favourite internet cartoonists, those behind The Perry Bible Fellowship and Boy's Club (well, Boy's Club is actually printed stuff, but much of it's notoriety comes from the internet, so I'm lumping it in here) were speaking. "Damn," I said to myself "maybe I'm more tuned into all of this than I originally thought!"

What I wanted to get to though was the third last panel of the second day, featuring Simon Hanselmann and HTML Flowers.

I was first exposed to Vice magazine by my brother, who would keep random copies around in our parents' basement. After he showed me them, I read through an entire issue and thought it was cool for the following reasons:

1. One article had a picture of boobs in it. Bare boobs! I was in like grade 9 and that was sick.
2. The articles were all about weird stuff that I would never expect to see in a magazine. It was almost like I kept reading just to see what the next thing would be.
3. Most of the ads were for skate companies, which was crucial in me linking all of these new weird things I was reading about to a subculture I already understood, that being "skateboarding".
4. There was lots of swearing.

After that, I started to pick up issues of the magazine whenever I was downtown. They were always free, which I thought was fucking sick and anti-establishment and I noticed that they were always in stores like independent skate stores or small, hip clothing stores and not in chains. I also thought that was cool. You had to seek it out and that contributed to the enjoyment of it.

One of the things I always looked forward to in those issues was reading the surreal and nihilistic and dark comic strips that were on the inner back cover. It was always a very weird story that I didn't quite get, but still enjoyed reading. What I didn't know until this past Sunday was that those comics were the work of Hanselmann and HTML Flowers. When I figured this out shortly into the interview, I was delighted.

Though I wouldn't say the two artists and I are similar in many ways, I do see certain parts of myself in them. I think we consume and evaluate pop culture in the same way. Their comics are the result of the darkest parts of life. Throughout the whole weekend at The Pilot, I saw a big variety of comic styles. Queer stuff. Sex stuff. Fucked up horror manga. Webcomics. Mainstream stuff from Image. None of that was the result of truly fucked up experiences like the stuff from Vice. I think it's so wonderful to look at the world and say "Fuck it all" and completely do your own thing and that is what Hanselmann and HTML's comics do. Bright cartoons that show the darkest parts of your brain and everything around you.

These two were by far my favourite part of the whole weekend. Whereas everyone else treated the panels like an important professional event, but these two went right for the bar and then shot from the hip for the whole interview. Though none of the cartoonists were meant to me, many were dismissive and a few big-leagued me when I would try to see if they needed anything. These two actually asked what my name was and talked to me.

During the talk, they mentioned that they both grew very poor in bad situations and HTML said that that made him appreciate things more when he got them. I guess it showed through this too.

I would also like to say that Kate Beaton was also very nice!