Re-post from Instagram 🙂 Big news! We will now be open and lending our collection out on Fridays, 12noon-6evening!!! Planning for more lending hours in near future, soo consider this a ◔◡◔ ♥ soft openning ♥ inside of our new home at Story Planet’s Alien Art Market: 986 Bathurst St. (2 stop lights north of Bloor) Expect more photos of the space and posts from us over the coming days on Instagram! Our library calendar can be found on our…
Hey hey, Victor Martins here! I’m CCOL’s Comics-Creator-In-Residence for the month of August. It is the last day of August*, so here is some “me talking about some of the books I picked to display on CCOL’s shelf!” *Actually technically the first day of September, oops. Carpe Fin – Michael Yahgulanaas The thing I love the most about Michael Yahgulanaas’ work is how huge and rich and exciting the world feels in his stories. I have no idea how he…
Hello everyone my name is Jey Pawlik, a Toronto nonbinary comic artist. On February 23rd I had the pleasure of giving a talk here at the Comics Open Library about creating webcomics and I’d like to share that information with anyone who wasn’t able to come. I’m the artist for Topaz Comics which hosts the webcomics “Dead City” and “Gender Slices”, both of which are available at the library. Topaz Comics is the comic making duo I’m apart of with…
Hi everyone, my name is Jey Pawlik ( https://jpawlik.com ) and I’m the creator in residence for February! I’m a nonbinary comic artist (they/them) and one half of the comics duo “Topaz Comics” ( https://topazcomics.com ) that I run with my partner Michelle Parker. Together we create exclusively queer comics with a focus on wholesome and soft stories. For my first blog post here at the Canada Comics Open Library I want to talk about my history in comics and…
Hi, folks — this is Eric Kostiuk Williams, Creator in Residence for January! I’ve had a great couple weeks becoming more familiar with the library, and getting a chance to curate one of its shelves with some of my favourite comics, pictured below. I’d like to zero in on a couple of these, and get more into what they mean to me! Gaylord Phoenix by Edie Fake: For many queers in my age bracket, the collected Gaylord Phoenix book was something really…
Comics and animation created by Cleopatria Peterson as part of their residency at CCOL this October!
There is nothing more depressing when someone praises your art and wishes they could do it too, or say they can’t be an artist. Anyone and everyone can be an artist. Next time you think like that consider the standards you’re working against. Most times they are colonial, and hetero patriarchal. For me as a marginalized creator, representation can be few and far between. This allows me to set the standard of work for myself without looking to others, but…
We are so happy to announce an upcoming spooky workshop event hosted by our October Comics Creator in Residence Cleopatria Peterson on October 30th, 6:30- 8:30pm at CCOL: All Treat no Trick: A Halloween Comic Jam In this workshop, Cleopatria will be demonstrating a few inking techniques, discussing their work, and facilitating collaborative zine making. Participants will be able to use spooky/cute/kitschy Halloween prompts to create collaborative comics! This workshop is free and open to anyone of any skill level; you do…
I wanted to create a curated comics list that reflected my identity through comics. These are things that speak to who I am as a creator and person (they’re one and the same), and things that inspire me as an illustrator and storyteller. First off, my identity is a complexity of many parts, but many of them are marginalized. Finding work that represents one let alone any part of my identity is very difficult. I still love a good story!…
My first introduction to the actual process behind writing Real Comics was an excerpt at the end of an issue of The Sandman, where Neil Gaiman talks a little bit about his writing process. I had always admired how the art style shifted so heavily with each volume as the artists changed. He described a process something along the lines of writing a loose script with dialogue but that also described what wanted each panel to look/feel like, and then…