When telling the story of the Holocaust, one effective way to overcome our sheer inability to comprehend the scope and scale of such atrocities is to zoom in on one or two stories: share one particular experience, in all its brutal specificity, and we have at least a small way into the event—the small details illuminate the larger whole.

One theatre company from the Netherlands, Hotel Modern, takes a related approach in KAMP (CAMP). The production depicts a typical day at the Auschwitz concentration camp, but instead of zooming in into a closeup, it shrinks everything down, literally, into miniature. It’s the accumulation of thousands of small details that has the impact in this case.

Eleanor McMahon thinks it’s time to change the conversation around cycling in Ontario.

McMahon is the founder of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, who will be hosting the fifth annual Ontario Bike Summit this week in Toronto. She says that we need to stop talking about things like bike lanes and other bicycle infrastructure as a zero sum game between cars and bikes.

“We do polling, and our polling tells us that 89 per cent of Ontarians are both drivers and cyclists,” she says. “The notion that it’s cars versus bikes is overblown, and it’s really not working anymore. Deciding to change the conversation means going out of our way to poke holes in that idea and say from the get go ‘We don’t buy into that philosophy, and just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.’ ”

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains: the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past 12 months. From December 10 to 19, we’ll unveil the nominees, grouped by category. Vote for your favourites from each batch, every single day! On December 19 and 20 the winners from each category go head-to-head in the final round of voting, and on December 21, we will reveal your choices for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

The Beguiling has come a long way since it opened in 1987. From its humble beginnings on Harbord Street, it has grown into a world-renowned source of alternative comics, graphic novels, zines, and artwork.

This year, it celebrated its 25th anniversary with a big bash at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. That’s 25 years of being arguably the best comic shop in Toronto.

The Beguiling has weathered changes over the course of its quarter century of existence. At first, it was considered controversial, because it sold unusual material that no one else would carry. The idea of dealing in non-superhero comics was unheard of. But the shop’s focus on comic-oriented artwork—starring everyday people rather than caped crusaders—honed in on what would quickly become a new niche.

As years passed, the store’s wares began to gain mainstream acceptance. In 1992, it relocated to 601 Markham Street (where it remains to this day), and in 1998 Peter Birkemoe bought the place. He remains The Beguiling’s owner, and its public face. In 2011, he made a business move that epitomizes the current enthusiasm for the comic medium: he opened a second store, catering only to children.

Venturing through the densely packed aisles at the original store, one can find reprints of comics from as far back as the 1930s, as well as freshly minted hardcovers from contemporary artists. If there’s a title that no one else has, Birkemoe either has it, or can track it down. Ask a graphic novel fan in Europe to name a comic shop in North America and they will likely name The Beguiling.

It’s so respected that it has been mentioned in some of the comics it sells. And in days past, when comics ran editorial sections in their back pages, The Beguiling frequently received shout outs directing people to check out the store for more good reads.

The Beguiling, today, is a hub for local graphic artists looking for an outlet to sell their work. The bookshelf next to the front counter overflows with self-published black-and-white comics and zines. Some are made on home printers while others have the crisp edges of a professional press. Some artwork is sold on consignment, so the artist gets the bulk of the proceeds.

Over the years, The Beguiling has hosted hundreds of book launches, artist signings, readings, and other events with big names—like Neil Gaiman and Robert Crumb, to name a few. Some artists owe the store a debt of gratitude for promoting their work when few others would. It’s a special niche that needed to be filled by someone. Hopefully, The Beguiling will continue to do it for another quarter century.

Bloor Hot Docs Cinema   A rare home for first-run documentaries.

Academy of the Impossible Making education accessible, and breaking down barriers.

Sarah Polley   Staying true to an uncompromising path.

G 98.7 Making commercial radio worth listening to again.

Alex Anthopoulos Building the Jays into a team to be reckoned with.

I Want Your Job finds Torontonians who make a living doing exactly what they love to do, in any field, and for any salary, and asks them how they did it.

Peter Birkemoe’s daily grind is a comic geek’s dream: every day, he oversees the operations of Toronto’s finest comic shop, which occasionally sees him hobnobbing with some of the industry’s nimblest minds and, more often than not, keeps him surrounded by books. We asked the owner of The Beguiling what it takes.

Torontoist: When did you get into comics?
Peter Birkemoe: I guess I collected comics only modestly through my preteen years and caught the real bug probably around age 14 or 15. I was able to get a job at a shop in Kitchener called Now and Then Books, which was Canada’s oldest comics shop at the time but it closed very recently. So, I was a comic collector and started shopping at The Beguiling also, as a teen, shortly after it opened. I did not open the store but I bought it in 1998.

What prompted you to purchase the store?
I had worked at the store very occasionally, mostly just picking up a shift when someone needed a day off to feed my comic book habit. But when the store was going to be sold, I got it together to purchase the store mostly because I was afraid that what was then one of the very few places you could buy this type of comic was going to fall into hands where they would no longer continue carrying the interesting kinds of comics. So I wanted to have the kind of place where I would be able to buy my kind of comics.

The Beguiling is celebrating its 25th anniversary in a couple of weeks, which is a tremendous feat for an indie bookstore, and you’ve been in charge of the place for more than half of that run. What’s your secret?
One of the things that we have going for us, as do most of the indie bookstores that have survived, is that we have a highly knowledgeable staff that cares about what they do and can do that kind of hand-selling that can’t be replicated online. And we’re very lucky to have a loyal clientele. Having been around for 25 years, that’s something that’s grown along with us. This very store, transplanted into any other like-sized city, wouldn’t necessarily survive because, for the type of esoteric material and engaged comic culture we have here, you would’ve had to have a place to obtain those kinds of comics over the years in order to have that size of audience.

How has the audience been built?
It’s built very gradually. There have been times over the life of the store where the viability of the comics market, or particularly the market for interesting literary comics or small-press materials that The Beguiling has been associated with so much, has really been fragile or the future has been very uncertain—and we may even be in one of those times now—but we’ve persevered and built that audience year-by-year.

What are some personal highlights for you from over the years?
Over the course of running the store and particularly with the number of events we do I’ve managed to meet just about every cartoonist whose work I admired or collected as a young person or came to admire as an adult reader of comics. And one of the things we’ve accomplished is the starting of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Myself and one of our managers here started this festival and now I don’t have to travel to any international comic events, and I don’t want to, because the best that the world has to offer in terms of comics comes here. And that in itself is very rewarding, but it’s also great that every time it happens, people come from around the world for this festival and tell me what a great shop this is, which reinforces the pride we have in the work we do.

Your job sounds kind of dreamy; you’re constantly surrounded by the newest and most exciting work in the comics biz and have hosted some of the industry’s most groundbreaking figures. That said, what are some of the less glamorous aspects of your job?
Doing any sort of book retail involves a lot of lifting heavy boxes of books from one place to another. That’s an enormous amount of this job, just moving this product through space. Sometimes that has its high points, when you discover a box that has been lost for 10 years and you’re like, ‘Oh! Here’s a case of an out-of-print book we could really use!’ But most of it tends to lean towards drudgery.

Your dad is a well-known engineering prof at the University of Toronto (and happens to also be named Peter Birkemoe). Was he weirded out when you decided to take over a comic shop instead of, say, following in his sciencey footsteps?
I did, myself, do an engineering degree. So I followed at least the educational path. However, my father paid me one of the greatest compliments ever. It was not directly to me, but someone else told me he had said it, that his son is the only person he knew who every day is doing exactly what he wants. So I thought, well, that sounds like an endorsement.

What’s your vision for the future of The Beguiling?
I think bookselling is going to change a lot. I don’t see it disappearing within my lifetime, but I’ve played the last-man-standing game in many aspects of this before and I have a certain confidence that I can continue to make a living within comics as long as I choose to but that the form of that will have to change with time. Some of that is going to have to relate to the festival we produce; some of that may shift from being new product as perhaps publishers stop producing new comics as a physical form and shift to an antiquarian [function]. We also act as art dealers and if physical comics cease to be a new thing, people will probably still be producing artwork. And, we’ve even published a book, so there are all sorts of things we will continue to do to continue to have a physical retail engagement of the public. But we’re just slowly adjusting our course as we go.

The Beguiling will be celebrating its 25th anniversary on November 12 with readings by Charles Burns, Adrian Tomine, and Chris Ware.

“Fan Expo” and “romance” aren’t words that traditionally go together.

It’s hard to imagine a couple opting to spend their first day of wedded bliss amongst Star Wars jawas and steampunk enthusiasts. It’s equally difficult to envision finding one’s future partner next to a giant Dalek. But both of those things happened this weekend.

Nerd Speed Dating was first introduced at Fan Expo last year, and was a massive hit, with dozens of people left on waiting lists. This year, the expo’s organizers brought it back with more sessions, as well as “genre-specific” speed dating for horror fans, anime enthusiasts, and other interest groups.

Ragna Stammler is the owner of 25 Dates, a company that hosts speed-dating events. She and her crew were brought in to organize this year’s edition of Nerd Speed Dating. Stammler said the dates at Fan Expo differed from the norm in a few key ways.

“It’s a little more chaotic at the beginning,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of people sign up beforehand, then not show up, and other people showing up without registering.” Many participants showed up in costume.

Despite the chaos, daters still managed to find connections. Amber Fall of Toronto signed up for Nerd Speed Dating because she’s “a nerd, single and lonely.” She said she was generally impressed with the calibre of her dates.

“The people were all pretty normal. No stereotypical ’80s-type Revenge of the Nerds nerds or anything,” she said. “I actually liked a lot more people than I didn’t.”

While the speed daters were searching for their nerdy soulmates, another pair of sci-fi enthusiasts were tying the knot a few rooms over. Rob Bridges and Amy Banman are long-time Fan Expo attendees who opted to get married during the event, in front of friends, family, and a hundred or so cosplayers.

Fan Expo programming director James Armstrong admits that the expo’s organizers weren’t entirely sure that the couple was on the level at first.

“We had to make sure it was legitimate, that it wasn’t a prank, that we had a wedding license,” Armstrong said. “Once we had that, we started putting it all together fairly quickly.”

The groom was escorted to the altar by a phalanx of Star Wars storm troopers, while the father of the bride looked slightly confused when he walked his daughter up the aisle as people dressed as anime characters looked on. Their vows included references to Spider-Man and the Green Lantern. Banman referred to Bridges as her “knight in Jedi robes.”

As the wedding ended, the couple walked out to the strains of “I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You,” while Bane hugged a Jedi and Tank Girl cried a little. At that moment, Fan Expo was quite possibly the most romantic place in the city.

Three frames from Asylum Squad Side Story: The Psychosis Diaries. Click for a zoomed-in view.

Toronto-based graphic novelist Saraƒin (she prefers not to use her birth name) has been creating comics since she was a teenager. One of her earliest, a collection of stories called Asylum Squad, featured, in her words, “superheroes who pop pills.” The artist had experienced some depression in her youth, and found refuge in graphic storytelling.

It was an outlet she would return to in 2008, as she struggled with psychosis and spent the better part of a year in the schizophrenia ward at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on Queen Street.

We spoke with Saraƒin at the third annual Comics and Medicine conference, where she was invited to present a paper on her experience creating Asylum Squad Side Story: The Psychosis Diaries. The graphic novel, her first, is a revamp of her original concept, and it features young characters struggling with visions, delusions, and what Saraƒin describes as “psychiatric incarceration.”

Saraƒin describes her time in CAMH as a constant struggle with voices and images in her mind, but also with those responsible for caring for her. “Saying the wrong thing, looking at the staff the wrong way, could have consequences,” she told us. “I had to learn to adapt to the environment, or else risk being overmedicated to conform.”

Saraƒin acknowledges her own confused state, but adds that, “Anybody, regardless of their state of mind, would get upset after a certain point about the bad food, the bad lighting, the lack of activity, the low ceilings.”

In the midst of her mental and emotional trauma, Saraƒin decided to resurrect the Asylum Squad theme and retool the characters to speak to her experiences. She remembers how the noise of people in her ward shouting and pleading for staff “sometimes made it impossible to concentrate and write.” She gradually earned the right to leave the CAMH grounds on a day pass, and would walk to nearby St. Christopher House to upload her comics to the web.

A turning point for Saraƒin was her interaction with people at The Secret Handshake, a “peer support program created by and for people with schizophrenia.” A man there heard about her work and encouraged her to contribute to a zine he was editing. “I’ve always denied my label of Schizoaffective disorder,” Saraƒin says, “and they respected that.”

When she was finally discharged from CAMH, Saraƒin had created 44 comic strips. She decided to accept the wordy and sometimes disjointed nature of that collection as an authentic record of her psychosis, and worked to complete the book in the same style. “I hadn’t seen a lot of comics on psychotic states. I wanted to speak to people who have had psychotic experiences and say, ‘You can come out the other end. It doesn’t have to be chronic…you don’t have to be medicated for life.’”

While Saraƒin described herself as “extremely happy” about her invitation to present at the Comics and Medicine conference, she was also dealing with the anxiety of sharing her experiences with psychiatrists who might not relate to them. “I’m not completely anti-psychiatry,” she told us, “but I admire the spirit of those who are, and I can see why they feel that way.” Nevertheless, she has found acceptance from medical professionals. “All the doctors that I’ve talked to have been extremely supportive,” she said. “I’m learning to be less stigmatizing and angry.”

Nowadays, Saraƒin is working on the next book in the Asylum Squad series, and advocating with groups like Mad Pride to humanize the treatment and perceptions of people dealing with mental-health challenges. She blamed a lack of resources and training for the conditions she experienced at CAMH. “It’s understaffed, especially at [the site on] Queen Street. They can only talk to you for so long” before care takes the form of pacification or discipline.

(We invited CAMH to talk about the issue of funding. A CAMH representative said only that CAMH is “committed to providing comprehensive, client-centred care in a supportive healing environment.”)

Saraƒin imagines mental-health interventions that could have avoided, in her case, “things done to my body for my own safety.” She wants to see more art programming, housing support, and improved nutrition programming for people living with mental illnesses. Her ability to channel pain, confusion, and isolation through art has allowed her to view her experience at CAMH as a transformative blessing in disguise. “Tragedy is a gift for creative minds,” she said.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival
Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street)
Saturday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
FREE

This weekend, happy nerds will descend on the Toronto Reference Library for the fourth annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival. The free convention takes up residence at the Toronto Reference Library and hopes to give the public a different experience from FanExpo on Labour Day weekend, or Wizard World Toronto, which just passed in mid-April.

What makes this any different from other comic conventions held in Toronto?

If you’re looking for conventional cape comics, this might not be the best place. TCAF specializes in both smaller companies and the types of books not often seen at large companies.

“Our tastes generally tend to run towards independent comic cartoonists because ‘comics mainstream,’ to those who are already comics fans, means superheroes,” said Chris Butcher, TCAF organizer. (He also owns the Annex shop The Beguiling, which deals in comics, anime, manga, and art.) “We’ve always felt that what we were doing for the festival was not for the initiated already. Comics fans will come to comics events—it’s not hard to do. [What TCAF] was really about was finding people that had maybe one cartoonist that was their favourite—that wasn’t necessarily an every Wednesday superhero cartoonist—and then introducing them to 300–350 other cartoonists that we think they’d enjoy as well.”

Any Canadian flavour? What about webcomic artists?
Canadian webcomic darling Kate Beaton will be signing comics on multiple days, and will be at a panel at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. Other creators like the Scott Pilgrim series’ Brian Lee O’Malley, Jeff Lemire (who writes for DC Comics, as well as composing larger tomes like Essex County), and numerous other Canadians will be on-hand as well. TCAF usually also serves as a staging ground for many young Toronto artists’ budding careers.

I get all my comics from the internet. Are web artists included?
Webcomic artists are plentiful at TCAF: many Americans look to be crossing the border for the event, including Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots) and Andrew Hussie (MS Paint Adventures). For many fans, TCAF is one of the few times that they will be able to meet these creators in person, buy merchandise, or get things signed.

I have a fully functional Iron Man costume with LEDs, sound effects, and a detachable bottle of bourbon. What does the convention have for me?
Festival organizers have affirmed their stance that because the convention is taking place in a public space, some common convention activities aren’t recommended. While Butcher has no problems with costuming, he has concerns about the public’s reactions.

“We’re in a public building that is still being accessed by the people who are going to use the Reference Library the weekend before we’re there and the weekend after we’re there,” Butcher said. “We can’t guarantee it’s going to be that safe space for people who want to dress up and act out these cool comics that they love.”

I have some kids that might be interested in coming along. Anything happening for them?
TCAF’s OwlKids day is being held Saturday from 10 a.m.–5 p.m., a short walk from the library at St. Paul’s (227 Bloor Street East), offering a full day of children’s programming—including signings, presentations, and workshops for the budding comic creator.

Photos of TCAF 2011 by Matthew Braga.

CORRECTION: May 4, 2012, 2:22 P.M. This post originally stated that Jeph Jacques would be attending TCAF, but he is unable to make it to the event.

It's even silver, kind of. The Silver Snail's new home, in the old HMV at 329 Yonge Street.

After months of searching, the Silver Snail has found a new shell.

The popular comics-and-more shop will be leaving its Queen West storefront of 36 years to move to a second-floor location steps from Yonge and Dundas Square, at 329 Yonge Street, where its owners hope to have it open for business by July 1 at the latest. The Silver Snail will continue to operate at its popular Queen West location until then.

Silver Snail’s owner, George Zotti, began to lay plans for the move when he found out that the store’s Queen West building had been sold for redevelopment. At first, he eyed the Annex for a potential new location, but eventually realized that the neighbourhood wasn’t a good fit. “The whole idea was to find an area that we liked with a space that we liked. We [really] liked the Annex, but we couldn’t find anything,” said Zotti. “Everything was really small—like 1,400 square feet, or something like that—or used to be a restaurant. To make a restaurant not a restaurant is very expensive.”

Zotti hopes the Yonge property, which faces Edward Street, will enable the store to take advantage of the area’s high pedestrian traffic and its proximity to the Eaton Centre, Ryerson University, and Dundas Station. Previously, commuting customers rode the Queen streetcar to Soho Street, or made the short walk from Osgoode Station.

“We saw the space, and, you know, you can’t get more ‘heart of the city’ than Yonge and Dundas,” Zotti said.

Recent tenants at 329 Yonge have included a clothing store and a large HMV, the latter of which is still in business. (It consolidated its floor plan, and now operates out of a storefront to the south.)

“Currently, at Queen Street, we have 2,700 feet of retail floor space,” said Zotti. “This new location will be 3,300 square feet, only on one floor. It’s very long, and much wider than the back of the [Queen] store is right now.”

The Snail will be sharing the neighborhood with the World’s Biggest Bookstore, BMV, and the Indigo in the Eaton Center, along with more specialized shops like 401 Games and One Million Comix. The competition would not be any less fierce in the Annex: that neighbourhood has The Beguiling, a well-known comic and graphic-novel shop, as well as a BMV with a large comics section on its third floor.

Zotti hopes to have the new Silver Snail up and running before the summer months, with as little transition time as possible.

Matt Demers is a Toronto freelancer who writes about comics, pop culture, and other nerdy things. You can find him on Twitter and his website.

CORRECTION: April 11, 2012, 5:20 P.M. This article originally said that the HMV that had once been a tenant at 329 Yonge Street “moved next door.” In fact the HMV had previously occupied the next-door storefront, but had once operated out of 329 Yonge Street as well. The article has been amended accordingly, and has also been edited to clarify the reason for Silver Snail’s move.

Comic fans party at the Comic Book Lounge & Gallery's's grand opening. Photo by Dean Bradley.

The Comic Book Lounge & Gallery is more than just a comic book store. According to manager Joe Kilmartin, the College Street space, which celebrated its grand opening on Friday night, is meant to be a community hub.

He wants Toronto’s comic fans to use the lounge as a place to bond over the titles they love.

“The whole idea is to have people come in, get their books, sit down a while, read, have a cup of coffee, listen to music, and take it easy,” he said.

The idea for the lounge came about following the January demise of Dragon Lady Comics, where Kilmartin was a manager. The upstairs space at 587 College Street, where the lounge is now located, was already home to both the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop and Guerilla Printing, a digital print shop that has worked on small comics and zines. When Comic Book Lounge co-owner Kevin Boyd, who is also the director of the Joe Shuster Awards and the event coordinator for FanExpo, first heard about Dragon Lady’s closure, he contacted Sean Menard, the mind behind the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop and Guerilla Printing, about using some of his vacant space.

Comic lover Brandon Lim gets engrossed at the Comic Book Lounge. By Dean Bradley

“When I heard that Dragon Lady was closing,” said Boyd, “I went to Sean, the owner of the Cartoonists Workshop, and I said, ‘You know all the empty space at the front of your school? Why don’t we put a comic book store up there and keep Dragon Lady alive in some way?’”

Boyd, Menard, and Kilmartin convinced Dragon Lady owner Josh Biernet to transfer his subscriptions over to them, then started imagining their dream store.

“We didn’t want to do a huge space with back issues,” said Boyd. “There are a lot of traditional comic book shops in town, and I said when we were putting this all together, ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s not do a traditional comic book shop. Let’s do something unique, like a gathering space with a community aspect.’”

In addition to being a shop and clubhouse for comic lovers, the lounge will also function as an art gallery, showcasing work from artists in the city’s comic scene. The artist on display right now is Mike Del Mundo, whose portfolio includes almost 50 Marvel covers. For him, having his work on the walls of the Comic Book Lounge is a treat.

Artist Mike Del Mundo next to his work. Photo by Dean Bradley.

“We don’t really get a chance to enjoy what we do,” he said. “We’re so involved with hitting deadlines and whatnot, just to to put it all on the wall and enjoy it and digest it—it’s amazing.”

Kilmartin said that he hopes the fun, convention-like vibe of the lounge’s opening will be characteristic of the shop.

“Any small group of people who are interested in anything—essentially you all like same thing,” he said. “If you’re a sports fan, you might have your differences in teams that you like, but ultimately it’s the game that you love. There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as being in a room full of people who love the same thing.”

It’s a story we’ve heard too many times before, but that doesn’t make it any less troubling: after more than 30 years in business, Dragon Lady Comics will be closing its doors for the last time on February 1. According to manager Joe Kilmartin, a combination of factors led to the store’s demise, including a drop in foot traffic after repairs to the College Street streetcar tracks, an industry in flux, declining sales, and most directly, a recent increase in the store’s rent.

As of July 2011, rent was raised about 25%, meaning they’re now paying $5,200 a month.

“We’ve been swallowing that extra amount and basically, it’s just more than we can take,” says Kilmartin. “[...] More strength to places like The Beguiling and Silver Snail, who’ve been able to keep their heads above water as long as they have. They’re wonderful people. I hope they can continue to last, because it’s just deadly right now.”

Dragon Lady, located across the street from the Royal Cinema in Little Italy, has walls covered with vintage issues of Life, Time, and Rolling Stone. (A 1954 collector’s issue of the “gentleman’s magazine” Sir! features Marilyn Monroe on the cover, with various headlines asking things like “Can humans hibernate?” and “Why do couples swap their wives?”) Shelves are packed tightly with comics, and boxes overflow with them. Featured comics on “Dragon Lady’s Must-Read Shelf” include local fare like Scott Pilgrim and Kenk, offering customers a hint of native pride.

Dragon Lady has been at its College Street location since 1996, but it originally opened in 1978 on Queen Street. Loyal customers like Norm Wilner, senior film critic for NOW magazine, have relied on the store’s supply of comics and “paper nostalgia” for decades.

Wilner remembers finding old sci-fi and fantasy film magazines like Starlog and Fangoria at Dragon Lady in the early ‘80s. “I used to go there all the time when I was a kid,” he says. “It’s always been this comfortable, tiny, obsessive little place, which I like.” Now that he’s living in Kensington Market, the shop’s current location makes it easy for him to pick up the latest issues of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Nine and other Joss Whedon spin-offs.

Kevin Boyd, event coordinator for Fan Expo Canada and Toronto ComiCon, was possibly the first to blog about the shop’s closure, and he has similar memories of visiting the original location as a teen, looking for copies of The Amazing Spider-Man. Now, he says, Toronto is losing a piece of its own history. “A lot of people discovered comics through Dragon Lady and made it their local store,” he told us. “It’s been a community focus point for a while, especially at their College Street location, where a lot of comic book creators in that area have used it as their hang out and their community base.”

According to Kilmartin, Dragon Lady owner John Biernat hopes to move his business online. Rather than hold a massive blowout sale, he’ll move the store’s stock to a warehouse.

This news marks the third in a string of unfortunate announcements for Toronto bookstores. Earlier this week, 47-year-old west end mainstay The Book Mark announced they were closing, and Glad Day, Canada’s oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, is seeking a new owner. The good news, we hope, is that the year can only get better from here on in.

"Skunk," originally published on Torontoist on December 19, 2007.

Wild Toronto was a bi-weekly comic strip by Rosemary Mosco that ran on Torontoist from December 2007 to July 2008 (with one last return visit in December 2008). It cleverly observed and taught us about the animals and plants that live in our city, and we are excited to present the entire collection of Wild Toronto comics in one place.

Mosco continues to focus her comic talents on flora and fauna. Her latest work, Bird Sound Mnemonics, is a poster that illustrates the sounds of Eastern North American birds, from the “laa-zyyyy” sounds of the black-throated blue warbler to the alarming call of the indigo bunting. Check it out here.

Michael DeForge sinks Tintin in adventure, mystery and water for Toronto tribute gallery. Illustration courtesy of {a href="http://michaeldeforge.wordpress.com/"}the artist{/a}.

Toronto Draws Tintin
Steam Whistle Exhibition Space (Roundhouse, 255 Bremner Boulevard)

November 2–27
Monday to Thursday 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
Friday and Saturday 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
Sunday 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
FREE

Tintin began his adventures in the 1930s, only hanging up his blue sweater and giving his ageless face a rest in the mid-’70s. Many adult Tintin fans spent their childhoods reading the comics or watching the Nelvana-produced cartoon with the trouble-hunting reporter, his sailor-tongued chum Captain Haddock, and faithful dog Snowy (Milou, for purists). For having brightened so many lives with his engaging and accessible works, Hergé, the Belgian artist responsible for Tintin, is one of the most admired names in comic art history. “The French take their Tintin very seriously,” says Peter Birkemoe, owner of comics store The Beguiling. And if you visit the Steamwhistle Gallery between now and November 27, you’ll find Torontonians take him very seriously too.

“Toronto Draws Tintin” features dozens of works celebrating Hergé by Toronto’s talented, local admirers. Artists from comics to video games, new to old, famous to students have donated a myriad of works portraying the friendly fictional adventurer, ranging from Faith Erin Hicks’ (Demonology 101, Friends with Boys) sentimental embrace to Chip Zdarsky’s (Prison Funnies) hardened, Ron Perlman–statured take, which greets visitors at the exhibit’s entrance. While it would be much easier to pin this peaking Tintin fandom on a certain Spielberg-produced animated epic, this local show has more substance.

“There’s a few points of genesis for this,” says Birkemoe. “One is we wanted to do something to promote a book that is coming out in English for the first time called The Adventures of Hergé. It’s by a French cartoonist named Stanislas, now being published by Drawn & Quarterly.” The graphic biography takes Hergé’s already animated life and adds slightly fictionalized dashes of adventure, to create a story that meshes Hergé’s tale with the ones he famously created. Another big inspiration for the gallery is not nearly as celebratory.

“We had been looking at this case coming up for the Comic Legends Legal Defence Fund,” says Birkemoe, “and we wanted to raise money for the legal defense of a young man.” The CLLDF has been in existence since the ’80s, raising funds to protect collectors and retailers alike from persecution over creative works. They have recently been picking up steam and fuming in Calgary, after an American crossing the border had his laptop searched by Customs where they discovered manga, which officials later deemed “child pornography.” Oddly enough, Calgary was also where a store’s collection of Crumb’s Zap and Weirdo were confiscated, the incident that spurred the establishment of CLLDF. All money raised by auction at Toronto Draws Tintin will be donated to the CLLDF.

Toronto doesn’t need to be told this, but Toronto is plenty talented. Using their well-rooted network through the store and TCAF, the Beguiling sent out a signal flare to all interested, talented types, and while Birkemoe wasn’t surprised by the volume of responses, he was surprised by new faces. “There are many people who I’ve known at the store, because they buy comics from me regularly, and we talk about comics, but I don’t know their names, I don’t know their jobs. But it turns out, as they hand me art, that they are artists too; they just never said anything.”

Established artists, especially of the comics variety, make appearances throughout: Chester Brown (Louis Riel, Paying For It) contributed two re-creations of scenes from The Black Island and Zach Worton (Drawn & Quarterly, The Klondike) submitted a tribute to Haddock’s cussing. Newer star Michael DeForge (LOSE, Thickness) is no stranger to subjecting pop culture icons to beautiful misery; you could argue sinking Tintin eyes-high in a murky jungle pool is “going easy on him.” But Toronto’s talent pool doesn’t end at comic art. Creators of the digital and design world paid respect with gusto.

The Southern influence in Rodrigo Bravo's drawing stem from his childhood in Chile. Illustration courtesy of {a href="http://www.rodrigobravo.ca/"}the artist{/a} .

“The chance to draw Tintin, especially in a pixelated style, is something I knew I’d have a lot of fun doing,” said Miguel Sternberg (a.k.a. Spooky Squid Games, creator of the upcoming They Bleed Pixels), who had grown up reading the books with friends. “He’s just one of those iconic figures you grow up with. It’s been ages since I’ve actually read a volume.”

While styles differed wildly, themes seemed to emerge in neat pairs. Many had recreated or paid homage to specific volumes and scenes, but both Tess Reid and Fiona Smyth (Cheez 100) practised the fan-art tradition of gender-swapping, and Joe Ollmann (Mid-Life) and Rina Picollo (Tina’s Groove) pitted Hergé’s heroes against old age. One coincidence seemed incredibly unlikely, but both Ben Rivers (Snow) and John Martz (Heaven All Day) drew Tintin on a Tauntaun. “I’m amazed,” said Rivers, “but at least the execution is different.”

Star Wars isn’t the only nerd-flavoured crossover in this nerd-filled room. Brice Hall dumped the Tintin ensemble onto the set of Jaws, while Steve Manale (Superslackers) subjected Tintin to a grotesque, The Thing–inspired fate. “I guess it’s been on my brain for a while,” says Manale, who’s actually an extra in the new remake but hasn’t seen it yet. “I love the scene where Bennings mutates and has those gross, tree-stump arms. I just thought I’d cast Tintin in that role. I feel like you can easily see Tintin in the Arctic. It could be that adventure. It would be a shocking, startling scene, but it seemed right to me.”

From detailed paper cut-outs to pixel-perfect prints, Toronto can draw Tintin in many ways. Those who want to take home a piece of the adventure can bid on any work till the closing ceremonies on November 27, when Stanislas will visit to launch his newly translated biography. A nice set of drawings is also available online.

CORRECTION, November 4, 3:55 p.m. This post originally misspelled artist Rodrigo Bravo’s name as Rodrigo Brava. That has been corrected. We regret the error.