Comic Art Collection 1 - Origins and Wonder Girl

Most of my friends know that I collect comic book art. It got started in 2008 when I went to my first comic con - NYCC - and immediately got hooked. If you go to a comic con and walk around Artists Alley with a sketchbook, it's a lot of fun and immediately addicting.

I've been doing this for almost 12 years now which means I'm accumulating quite a collection. To an extent I didn't even know how big it was getting. Over Christmas I got the bright idea that I should scan all of my artwork. There's a practical purpose to this. The website Comic Art Fans has a feature where you can upload your art and add details about it, including estimated value. So if nothing else, if something happens to me Cathy can sell the artwork for what it's worth and not what I told her I paid for it.

(These are the jokes, folks. Tip your waitress.)

This process ended up being a lot more complicated than I thought because:
a. I had to pull a lot of pieces from frames and I didn't keep track of what picture goes with what frame as carefully as I should have. Which resulted in a mess I'm still dealing with.
b. I have more art than I thought. Including commission, pages from actual comics, and drawings in my sketchbook, I'm pushing around 150 right now.

Geeks with money, man. It's dangerous.

But it also occurs to me that nobody really gets to see most of this artwork except for me and Cathy. And while Cathy is tolerant and supportive of this hobby she doesn't exactly understand and love it the way I do. Fair enough.

And if I do say so, I've managed to build a pretty decent collection. And perhaps it's egotistical and perhaps no one will really care, but I though it might be interesting to show people who still read this blog what I have.

So once a week I'm going to post up an image and tell a story about it. Sometimes it might be very brief. Not all of the pieces have awesome stories. There are a few "I bought this on eBay" (Not many. Buying art on eBay is risky.) Or "I bought this through the artist's dealer."

But sometimes there's a cool story involved. It also has the added benefit of getting me writing again.

So if this is going to be the first one of these I do, it's best to start at the beginning.

So if you want to know the official date of my addiction, it would be April 18, 2008. I was wandering around Artist Alley trying to figure who to get a commission from and how it even worked. Todd Nauck had a few people in his line and I liked his work on Young Justice with Peter David. Plus, if I recall, he was asking $25 a sketch which seemed pretty reasonable. So I decided to ask for a Wonder Girl sketch.

This is pretty much a perfect $25 sketch for its time. I forget exactly how long it took for him to draw it, but I suspect it was around 15 minutes and that was with him chatting with people. Some quick penciling to establish what he wanted to do, and then using ink or a marker to fill in the details. I was very happy with it at the time and I still am.

If you ever go to a con and he's there, find the time to swing by his table. He's absolutely one of the nicest guys in comics. I've stopped by his table at other cons and he always makes a few minutes to chat. Although it's a bit harder to get a sketch from him these days and it costs more.

Hilariously he looks almost exactly like Peter B. Parker from the "Into the Spiderverse" movie, and the internet is filled with pictures of him posing with cosplayers as a middle age Spider-Man. Like this one:



He has a blast with it too.

Anyway. My first sketch in my first sketchbook. Only three more years to go.....

Last Five
1. Arms aloft (live) - Pearl Jam
2. The infanta - The Decemberists
3. White boy blues - Mo berg
4. Stay free - The Clash
5. Saint Simon - The Shins

Proof of Life: 50

I went to the beach to get a selfie, but the
combination of cloud and snow washed
everything out.

Well, that happened fast.

Seriously. It was, what, six months ago I was put to work at the counter of my grandparents' store at the entrance of their campground out in Brookcove. I sold cigarettes to minors and conducted early morning raids on campers to steal their empty beer bottles and cash them in so I could buy comic books.

It was just a couple of months ago I was walking out of the used texts bookstore on the 2nd floor of the TSC and saw someone I used to work with at Shoppers Drug Mart (Murdo) hanging out at the Muse office. I decided to pop in and say hi.

Maybe it was last month that Susy and Erin suggested going to see Monsters Inc. and that, oh yeah, they were bringing along a friend named Cathy. Both of us blindly oblivious that was a set-up. But, you know, it worked out pretty ok.

And it was just a couple of weeks ago that Cathy said she was tired of living in GN rented apartments, so why don't we go buy a house and stay in Iqaluit for a little bit longer.

Cathy and I, like all married couples, have developed our own language shorthand. And in situations like this we often just say "Fruit" when time is flying by fast. As in "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." (Shockingly, I only learned this week when getting ready to write this that the quote is not actually from Groucho Marx, but from this.)

So yes, Fruit.

I don't really know how 50 is supposed to feel. My mother is probably more traumatized today than I am. Fifty means you're a grown-up, which if you saw what I've done to one of the spare bedrooms in our house you would doubt that idea a lot. The seven year old me conducting beer bottle raids for comics money would be thrilled and nod approvingly at the toys, bookshelves filled with comics, and art on the walls. Pretty much anyone else who visits the house wonders if I've lost my mind and why on Earth Cathy tolerates it.

("It's better than you blowing it on booze" is normally her answer.)

So older, a bit wiser, but no closer to actually growing up.

I'll miss my 40s if for no other reason it finally felt, after decades of restlessness, flare ups of bitterness and questioning if I knew what the hell I was doing, I finally seem to figure things out a bit. It took awhile for me to realize that as a hetrosexual, white, male from a Christian background living in one of the most prosperous countries on the planet, I'd been given some pretty hefty cheat codes to the world that most people don't get. So maybe I should appreciate that a bit more and realize what a gift I've been (probably undeservingly) given.

It took me awhile to realize that healthy, happy, secure, and being in a love with an amazing woman is filled with victory anyway you cut it. It's better than any Lotto Max win.

I got to see the world. By our count we've now visited 32 countries, something I would never imagine when I was a kid and getting to go to Florida was like visiting another planet (actually, that's probably still the case).

But most importantly, most nights I come home after picking up Cathy, and we talk about our day. One of us makes supper. We'll talk, or watch a movie, read, or play a stupid iPhone game. I'll walk the dog. I'll tuck Cathy in after she goes to bed and then I'll read or putter on the computer for a few hours.

It's probably boring and it's an absolute gift that I hope I never take for granted. We celebrate 15 years of being married this July.

So what's the plan for the next decade? Not really sure. More of that healthy, happy, security and love sounds pretty good. I could easily handle another 50 years of that. More travel, although in our age of Climate Change I'm certainly trying to figure out how we can do that better. I need to read and write more, and starting next week you might see some changes to the blog to help spur that a bit.

Keep going to the gym, because along with keeping me in decent shape I've discovered its critical to my mental health.

And the rest? Well, we'll take it as it comes.

One last thing....it's interesting to note that on the occasion of my 50th birthday mother nature has apparently trying to destroy St. John's. I mean, I've thought about it on occasion....who hasn't? But an Amazon gift card would have done just fine.

Stay safe if you're in St. John's and hang in there.

Last Five
1. Oceans (live) - Coldplay
2. Achin' to be - The Replacements
3. Ruins - First Aid Kit
4. Relief next to me (live) - Tegan and Sara
5. What is love - Postmodern Jukebox featuring Cassey Abrams*

Alpha Flight: True North review

If you were Canadian and a geek in the late 70s and early 80s odds are you were buying Alpha Flight. A team of Canadian heroes basically assembled to give the X-Men a solid fight, they proved to be so popular that co-creator John Byrne launched a series featuring the characters.

A lot of people now may not know the team, or only be passingly familiar, but back in their day Alpha Flight was one of the best selling monthly comics. A chunk of that had to do with how popular Byrne was. During the 1980s there were few comic book artists bigger than he was. So when he left Alpha Flight after 28 issues, the series began a slow decline. Some big name artists worked on the series, like Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and Jim Lee (pretty much everything), but there's little after Byrne that is considered classic. Those issues have never been reprinted and aren't even available on Comixology or Marvel Unlimited. 

The series was cancelled after 130 issues, which is a decent run. Since then there have been attempts to bring the series back, but most didn't last long and were of....variable quality.

There hasn't been an Alpha Flight series in over seven years. But given that Marvel reboots everything eventually, and that many of the characters have played supporting roles in recent years in books like Captain Marvel and the Immortal Hulk, there's a feeling in the air that the team is due for a comeback. Plus there's this intriguing rumour about a Hulk/Wolverine movie featuring Alpha Flight.

But what most people wanted was, well, a good Alpha series.

So a few months ago Marvel announced a one-shot - Alpha Flight: True North. Featuring three 10-page stories told by all-Canadian creative teams. This was accompanied by the thinly veiled suggestion that if it sold well, a new Alpha Flight series might result.

So how is the one-shot? Well, I'm going to do a rare comic review on the book.

1. Mired in the Past

W. Jim Zub

A. Max Dunbar

C. Jim Charalampidis

This marks the third story in the last two years or so that Jim Zub has set in Nunavut. Two in Champions were in Pangnirtung (he co-wrote one with Nyla Inuksuk) with this one in Kugaaruk. At this point we should just consider him an honourary Nunavummiut.

In this case, two members of Alpha Flight go the Kugaaruk after an old evil, with a tie to Snowbird's past, reemerges from the thawing permafrost.

It's a solid little action story with Talisman and Snowbird having to fight a monster. It might not sound like much, but in the space of 10-pages Zub manages to tie off a very old loose end from Alpha Flight, set-up some potential storylines in the future if the series gets picked up (what else might be thawing out in the North because of climate change?) and script a solid fight scene with an emotional payoff.

Of course, he's ably helped by Max Dunbar. I first ran into his art on Champions, although he draws a lot of D&D related comics. It shows, because Dunbar draws some pretty spectacular monsters. Not the "I will have nightmares about this for days" (see Ben Templesmith and Bill Sienkiewicz), but more of a "those are some pretty cool looking monsters."

My only nitpick is that Talisman was introduced as one of the most powerful mystics in the Marvel universe, and yet she always seems to get in over her head. Can't address everything in 10 pages, but it would be nice if it was taken care of in the future. Although kudos for using her new, less skin-revealing costume which is just spectacular.

Future Alpha Flight Creative Team Rating: 8.5/10

2. Monsters

W. Jed MacKay

A. Djibril Morrisette-Phan

C. Ian Herring

After defeating an off-page villain called The Beast in PEI, Aurora and Northstar work on their tan, while Puck and Marrina take a walk on the beach, with Puck telling an old story of his last time on the island and it's surprising connection to Marrina.

Oh, this one was a delight. I thought it was going to be a straightforward flashback Puck story, but the twist of how it connects to Marrina and her reaction made it a joy. Just in case you think you can't do a metric ton of character development in 10 pages this story proves otherwise. MacKay take full advantage of the fact that Puck has always been a natural storyteller. Plus he nicely reins in the "angry alien" character tic that was going on with Marrina the last time we saw her. She's no longer the naive girl we were introduced to years ago, or the victim she's been way too often. Instead she's a little playful, much more thoughtful and adult. It's a staggeringly welcome change.

The last page makes you wish MacKay had another 6 issues to play with. And seriously, someone now needs to write a story with Puck meeting Elsa Bloodstone.

Morrisette-Phan's artwork is perhaps a little less polished than what you saw with Dunbar, but then again he has a harder job. Dunbar got to draw heroes fighting monsters. Morrisette-Phan has to draw two characters walking on a beach talking, with occasional bits of flashback to monster fighting. It's more moody and atmospheric, but it's a story of monsters, regret and forgiveness. The art and colouring is subdued, but I think it works.

Btw, bonus points for Marrina referring to herself as a "Canadian, Newfoundlander and an Alphan." This is why you need Canadians on the book. That's a point of subtlety that I'm not sure most non-Canadian writers would get.

Future Alpha Creative Team Rating: 9.5/10

3. Illegal Guardians

W. Ed Brisson

A. Scott Hepburn

C. Jim Charalampidis

Heather Hudson (Vindicator) is on the run after the events of the last Alpha Flight series. After a mercenary team attacks her and her daughter, she has to decide whether or not to accept the help of her estranged husband, James MacDonald Hudson (Guardian).

I'm not saying Brisson drew the short straw, but Zub gets to do monsters in the Arctic and MacKay gets to have Puck being charming and telling monster stories. Brisson has 10 pages to try and fix the mess the last creative team left Heather Hudson in. Long the heart of the team, the woman who took over leadership of Alpha Flight when her husband was murdered in front of her (he got better. Comics!), she got worked over pretty good in the last series, what with being brainwashed, betraying her country and team, murdering members of her family, kidnapping her daughter, and then going on the run.

Fix that in 10 pages.

Brisson makes a go of it. After a bit of a clunky start (which turns out was supposed to be deliberately a little clunky), you get some nice scenes of Heather and James trying to at least be friends again for the sake of their daughter. And then you get a deeply creepy twist and cliffhanger at the end. Seriously, the more I think about it, the more I think women readers are going to be genuinely horrified by it. You now really have to hope for a new Alpha series, because it needs to be addressed and there also needs to be, you would hope, some pretty serious consequences for Mac and his actions.

As well, I'm kind of meh on Hepburn's art. The one action sequences felt more like something I would have seen in a 90s Marvel book. Kind of clunky. Heather's costume appears by magic, which is weird. And I really don't enjoy how he draws faces, particularly Heather's, which gets bizarrely angular at one point. It's ok, but not great.

Future Alpha Creative Team Rating: 6.5/10

So do I think you should track it down? Absolutely. Not just because I want more Alpha Flight comics, but this is a solid one-shot. It's friendly for new readers, taps into parts of Alpha lore that most long-time fans are going to enjoy and has mostly solid art. It also lays some pretty solid groundwork for a future Alpha Flight series. Which, hopefully, won't be too far away.

Last Five

1. Everything is wrong - Interpol

2. Nova Heart - Spoons

3. Are you ten years ago - Tegan and Sara

4. Bullet in the brain - The Black Keys

5. Talkin' about revolution - Tracy Chapman

Con aquistions

For the second time in in two years I'm just back from the Emerald City Comic Con. I had so much fun in 2017 that I immediately began making plans to go back. There are a lot of perks to that con....Seattle is a great city, it's a four-day con so it's worth the work to get to it, a break from Nunavut in March is always nice....plus it's just a great con. It's big, but not insane like New York has become. And they work hard on their artist alley to make it diverse. So it's not just white guys selling art. There's lots of women, POC, GLBTQ and artists just getting started so this kind of con is a big break for them.

Some may go to ECCC for the cosplay, or the gaming section, the show floor and the endless supply of Funko toys (so, so much Funko at this show. Dear god....), but I live for a good artist alley. I don't normally post this kind of thing up. It feels like bragging, which I guess it is, but I have all this cool art and can't really show it to anyone. Cathy will certainly nod and make appreciative noises, but she doesn't love this stuff like I do. Which is fine. She has her things as well....

I might have gone a little overboard. But I always do. So here's the artwork I got, along with a bit of information about the artist. If you like the art, I really encourage you to go and track down the artists. They often have all kinds of things you can buy...original art, t-shirts, pins, prints, etc.

After a couple of false starts, my first commission was from Valentine Barker. Absolutely go and check out his site for some of the awesome "....Like a Girl" prints and t-shirts he has for sale. My niece may be getting a few things from him for her birthday. I often hem and haw about what I'm going to ask an artist to draw. It's why I've started carrying a list on my phone. However, Ms. Marvel was a pretty obvious choice for Valentine and he did a spectacular job.

Phillip Nguyen was a spur of the moment commission. I was walking past his table and saw the prints he had there and started chatting with him. He had a particularly nice Batgirl when she was Stephanie Brown and I asked if he could draw her. He turned this about in about two hours. 

One of the funnier interactions I had getting a commission from the con was with Brianna Garcia. I carry a list of characters on my phone that I would like to see get drawn and ask the artist if they have a preference. When Brianna saw Holtzmann from the last Ghostbusters movie (I loved that movie. Fuck fanboys who hated it because it had women as the leads) on the list she got super excited and really, really, really wanted to draw her. Always have a list, just for this reason.

Jim Zub is the co-creator of the Inuk super hero Snowguard and it was absolutely a priority for me to get a sketch of her when I was in Seattle. Jim mostly writes these days, but as you can see, he's still a damn good artist. He was deeply reluctant to draw her for me. As he flipped through my sketchbook he was horrified I wanted his art in my book because he didn't think he was good enough. Which is ridiculous because it's a fantastic sketch and I'm thrilled I got it.

Just in case you ever doubt your skills, realize that some of the very best in the business still don't think they're good enough. I also can't say enough nice things about Jim. Had a great chat with him about how important Snowguard is and to keep fighting for appearances for her. He also signed a ton of comics for me, which was kind of him.

Michael Cho is one of the hottest and best artists in the business. He was the first table I went to at the con. By the time I got to it there was already three people in front of me. He draws everything well, but since he was only doing headshots I wanted something unique. Batwoman was, I think you'll agree, a pretty good choice.

Steve Lieber is one of those artists that everyone in the comic industry admires not just because he's good, but because he's also pretty smart about the industry and what it takes to put together a good comic. He's drawn just about everyone at some point. I first remember discovering him reading the excellent Whiteout which he drew and Greg Rucka wrote (ignore the awful movie). Recently he was drawing the pretty damn funny The Fix. He also drew Hawkworld many moons ago, so I asked for this Hawkgirl. I think he drew this in an hour. 

Artists are freaky, man.

Terry Dodson is one of my absolute favourite artists. Two years ago at ECCC in Seattle he drew a beautiful Princess Leia. This time I hit him up for a Bombshell Batgirl (DC's Bombshells are a significant weakness of mine. I love the costume design). If you look closely you can see a page torn out of the book (this was a new book I was starting). He started drawing, hated it, tore the page out and started over. 

"It was technically fine, but there was no fun in it. So it had to go." I'm pretty damn happy with results.

Lynne Yoshii is one of those artists I really didn't know too much about until I walked past her table, did a double take and asked if she was taking on any commissions. It was late Saturday, so I was pretty lucky she was. She scrolled down my list and settled on Bombshell Harley Quinn. This was the sketch that made me decide I was finished at ECCC. I picked this up Sunday morning, decided it wasn't going to be topped and stopped asking artists for commissions. Because I'm evil, when I go to the next con and an artist is flipping through my sketchbook, this is the last piece I want them to see before they start drawing. Because artists are competitive. Go ahead. Top this.

I tried very hard to focus on sketches at ECCC simply because I have no wall space left. However, my will power is for shit. I also bought several other pages of art. Now I have to find homes for them.

Some of you may recall the Bruce Willis movie Red that came out in 2010. It was originally based on a comic by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. The movie and comic have very little to do with one another. I believe Ellis once said the movie would have been 20 minutes long if based only on the comic. I love the movie, but it's its own thing. The comic is one of those things that looks effortless and slight until you dig into it and see everything that's going on. Hamner is a large part of the reason why it's great.

I actually bought this before the con and picked it up there. Hamner was apparently cleaning up and found a bunch of pages from the series. Which is hilarious. I took this page out at another table when putting something away and other artists wanted to look at it and were in awe I managed to get a page. It is a masterclass in graphic story telling.

I am, I admit, slightly obsessed with Snowguard. I desperately wanted a page of original art with her in it. The problem is that most of the artists that have drawn her so far work digitally. This was especially frustrating when Marcus To did the recent Champions annual that focussed on her. Fortunately Max Dunbar did a recent story arc where the team visited Weirdworld and became fantasy character versions of themselves. This was an easy page to pick. Snowguard, Ms. Marvel, Brawn, Wasp and Man-Things. All good stuff.

Aside from being a great artist, Max is one of the nicest, most chill guys you'll meet.

This page was a bit of an ooops. I was waiting to get Aaron Lopestri to sign a copy of the Wonder Woman/Conan book he did with Gail Simone, but he talking to someone. So I started flipping through his portfolio. sigh....Not a splashy action page, but a nice quiet character moment between Conan and Wonder Woman. I also got Simone to sign it and she spent a few moments appreciating the page and singing Aaron's praises. Justifiably.

One of the cool things ECCC does each year is put together an art book called "Monsters and Dames" with all proceeds going towards a children's hospital in Seattle. It's a good cause and there's normally huge demand to get into the book even though artists aren't paid for it. One thing many people, including myself, then do is walk around Artist Alley and get the book signed by everyone. It's fun, you get to chat to the artists and sometimes pick up something from someone whose table you might have ordinarily walked past. But everyone understands you can't buy something from every table. There are 80 pieces of art in the book.

This page, by Ryan Fisher, was one of the ones in the book. I hit his table early Saturday morning and while he was signing the book I noticed he had the original piece of art on the table. I'm always going to have a weakness for cute magicians in fishnets, but this was a cool piece and he had priced, in my opinion, a bit too low. I'm surprised it was still there on Saturday, but I'm glad it was.

Charity comic art auctions are always dangerous for me. Fun, but there's almost 100% certainty I will accidentally buy something. This Captain Marvel by Chrystal Fae was it. It was the second piece auctioned off and Captain Marvel had just opened. I liked it but thought the bidding would keep going after I raised my paddle. Nope. It's a very lovely ooops, though.

This last one I actually did gun for. I got outbid on a few pieces (always set a price in your head and stick to it, no matter how much it hurts to let it go), but this one by Chris Uminga came in less than I was ready to go, so that was nice surprise. I like Uminga's style and own a Wonder Woman figure based of his art. Also, I'm always a sucker for Ben Grimm/The Thing.

So there we go. A lot of art, but it's all lovely to look at and I got some good stories to go along with it. It's another reason I like going to cons. I buy from the artist, talk to them, get a good story or help out a good cause.

Last Five
1. Politik - Coldplay
2. Time of your life - Green Day
3. Candy - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4. Sweet fire of love - Robbie Robertson*
5. Guest room - The National

A cautious return

With the mid-term elections over I'm apparently supposed to come back to social media. I have one friend on Twitter who has been eager for me to come back for my geek knowledge if nothing else (dude, seriously, we can just meet for coffee at the Black Heart or something). And I probably will dip my toes back into it.

However....

The mid-term elections in the US fundamentally changed very little in social media. It was a convenient date on a map, but I see no end in sight to the level of online toxicity. It'll be Canada's turn next year. It won't get to the horrific heights seen in the US the last few months, but it's not going to be pretty.

And today essentially kicks off the start of the 2020 US presidential campaign. Yeah. Seriously. Feel free to start weeping now.

But I do miss elements of social media, I just need to do it smarter than the last time, just for the sake of my sanity. So what's the plan?

1. Do a significant purge on Facebook and anyone who annoys me in the slightest gets blocked/muted. That's a hint at trying to be civil and respectful in the upcoming federal election. The amount of Hitler references I saw in the lead-up to the last election was disgraceful.

2. Go though my Twitter and start purging accounts that I don't need to follow anymore.

3. Set up key word blockers on Twitter, particularly for "Trump" and anything else I find along the way.

4. I'm not reinstalling either Facebook or Twitter on my phone to limit my time using it.

5. No more than 1 hour a day, combined, looking at them. That's still probably too much, but it's a place to start and we'll take it from there.

I'm kind of sorry it's had to come to this. I like interacting with friends online simply because I get to see them so rarely in person. I like getting access to random, cool information from more knowledgeable people that I might have otherwise missed. But the problem with opening the flood gates is that everything comes through and a lot of it is really not good for you.

Cathy and I resolved awhile back to cut unnecessary drama from our lives. We've done a reasonably good job of it. A friend of mine asked recently how do you do that. Well, there's a way, and it's doable, but like all things there's a cost. You eliminate the sources of the drama. Sometimes that's people, sometimes it's social media.

(For friends who haven't spoke to me in awhile, it's more likely that I suck at being a friend and reaching out when I should. My hatred of talking to most people on the phone stretches back decades.)

It's not for everybody and not everybody would want to do it or even understand why we'd want to live like that. But we like it, and we like the relative stress-free aspect of our lives. So I'll give Facebook and Twitter another go, but much more cautiously this time.

Last Five
1. Parking lots - Josh Pyke
2. She's electric - Oasis
3. The needle and the damage done (live) - Neil Young*
4. The herring song - The Flash Girls
5. Ain't it fun - Paramore

8 years, 281 days

It was about nine years ago that Cathy decided we needed a house. She was very certain on this matter.

View from the living room window.

On the other hand, I thought this was madness. I had many solid reasons for thinking so. We'd just come back from a pricey vacation in Australia for almost four weeks. I was also unemployed, with my contract with the Government of Nunavut having expired earlier the summer. And while I was sure I would get something, I didn't have anything at the moment Cathy was hatching this scheme.

Plus I didn't see the need for the place. We had a perfectly nice apartment downtown. Cathy could walk to work in minutes. All the grocery stores were nearby and it had a perfectly nice view. And it was a quiet building. No kids. So why rock the boat?

But Cathy wanted a house and went about persuading me. She was convinced we were fine on finances (indeed, the bank pre-approved us for a staggering and insane amount) and she set about keeping an eye for new places. I distinctly remember having a conversation when driving where she said "Look, if you think this is a bad idea and feel that strongly about it, we don't have to do this."

I might have only been married for four years at that point, but a little klaxon was going off in the back of my head telling me that, at all costs, do not accept this offer. This was a trap and I would be punished in ways that would not be enjoyable.

Compromises were made. At some point I think Cathy dangled letting me having a spare bedroom and converting into a den/geek space/Room of Requirement. That and the promise that we weren't going to beyond our means on a house. I thought the later point secured us from having to worry about it for quite some time. Iqaluit real estate was insane in 2009; it's only gotten worse since.

View of the house at Christmas. Cathy loves to light the
place up.

After one failed attempt and several deeply meh houses, we stumbled on one. I should emphasize the amount of dumb luck karma that went into getting this house. First, there were no building inspectors in Iqaluit at that time. So we had to do the best we could to figure out what kind of shape it was in with our deeply limited experience. The people wanted to move quickly, so the process was expedited. We first looked at the house in mid-October; we moved in on December 1.

Where did the dumb luck come in? Turns out the neighbourhood we live in - Tundra Ridge - is one of the nicer ones in town. My neighbours include a former premier, the CEO of Nunavut Tourism and the President of QIA. The house itself was built by a mad Dane back at the turn of the century and all the ones he build are known for quality and sturdiness of the construction. And other than a contractor related disaster last fall on some renovations, we haven't had any problems. Plus the views are spectacular.

So yeah, we've used some good luck on this house. Having said that, I remember in November 2009 signing my name committing to paying back what seemed like an ungodly amount of money over the next 25 years.

Except it wasn't 25 years. It was exactly 8 years and 281 days. As of September 7 we made our last mortgage payment. The house is now ours.

All ours.

(Yes, I know. I'm burying the lede. I prefer to think of as setting the scene for the payoff).

Cathy and I are phenomenally proud of this achievement. We both try not to brag much, but we've been bursting the last few weeks as we knew this day was approaching. Every two weeks we'd get a letter from RBC updating us on how much was left on our mortgage. You've never seen two people happier to be getting mail from a bank about a mortgage update.

We had help, of course. Cathy's parents kicked in a few thousand dollars when we first bought the house. Both sets of our parents installed in us an ethic to not get in over our heads financially. Bills got paid on time. We love our vacations, but they only happen after everything else is taken care of. Same with my geekery (Cathy's only bad habits, I swear, are Swatch watches and Fluevog shoes).

We've had a couple of people ask how we did it. Well, not having kids, not smoking, drinking little and not owning a ski-doo, boat, ATV or multiple cars helped too. You prioritize where you want to spend the money. Getting out from under the bank and our trips around the world were our priorities. Yours may vary.

As for what's next, we have a few things to catch up on. Cathy's laptop is about 8 years old. My desktop is 7 years old. I might get another year out of my computer, but Cathy's laptop is on death's door. We may even splurge on a new TV set. And in two years, when I turn...sigh....50, I'm taking a couple of months off work and we're going to travel to Australia (head's up, Sarah). So some reserves to pull that off will be a good idea.

And then back to saving money. It's not like we're suddenly going to be eating out every night and buying new cars or boats. It's not us. Plus, we have ambitious retirement plans. Cathy's insisting we retire to a place with palm trees. So that will take some doing.

But mainly we'll just enjoy not owing any money. I can't overstate enough how much we hate owing banks money.

Oh, and we'll be burning our mortgage at some point soon. Safely away from the house, of course. I like a little irony as much as the next person, but that would be a bit too much.

Last Five
1. Lazy bones - Joel Plaskett
2. Heart vs. doubt - Sherman Downey and the Ambiguous Case
3. Believe in me - Sloan
4. Old Dan Tucker - Bruce Springsteen*
5. Feud - Band of Horses

Welcome to Ireland

So, vacation time 2018 is here. I haven’t done a great job of these little blogger journals the last couple of years and I miss them. They’re a nice reminder of what we’ve seen and done and impressions. Plus, you know, more writing is a good thing to get into the habit of.

But first, allow me to indulge in a small conspiracy.

The flight over was a slightly below par international Air Canada flight aboard an older plane with uncomfortable seats. And we were an hour late arriving. Among the many sins of Air Canada I certainly can’t get outraged over it.

But it did land us right in the middle of a flood of planes arriving in Dublin. A lot of eastern North American cities launch flights in the late evening so they arrive the next morning allowing you to save the cost of a hotel....at the price of being jetlagged out of your mind the first day you arrive. But details.

So as we’re wandering down the endless corridors of Dublin International Airport to get to customs and immigration when we walk past a sign that said it was five minutes ahead. Then, about 10 seconds later, we ran into a wall of people that didn’t move for the next 30 minutes. And then for the next hour begrudgingly crawled forward a few inches at a time.

Far be it for me to tell the Irish, well known for their efficiency, that perhaps taking a couple of hundred jetlagged people in a deeply irritable mood who want to do little more than get to a hotel room to shower and nap that this is not the best way to endear warm feelings and a desire to spend money in your country. But if there was a suggestion box at immigration I might have slipped that note in.

It got worse when you got near the front. EU citizens had been breezing past the non-EU citizens at a healthy clip during these 90 minutes. In fact, helpful immigration staff were routinely going up and down the line to rescue any that might have accidentally wandered into the wrong line. Which always buoys spirits....but only European ones.

(When one of the immigration officials checked to see if there were any wayward EU citizens in our area and asked “You’re all Americans, right?” a dozen voices sang out “No! Canadians!” Her response of “Americans, Canadians...whatever” was quickly matched by my annoyed “Irish, English....whatever”, but she didn’t hear it, much to Cathy’s relief.)

Near the front there were about eight machines which only required EU citizens to place their passport into a scanner to be admitted. A process that takes about 15 seconds. There were also four officials there to deal with the few who were EU-Ctizens but required help.

And for the hundreds of non-EU people in line waiting in line? Four people.

I mean, it’s so breaktakingly stupid that it gave me pause. When we were in Portugal last year the line was ridiculous, but it kept moving and there were about a dozen immigration agents. It took about 30 minutes to get through with more people.

And so, the conspiracy. After I saw how many agents were handing non-EU I said out loud “Jesus, is this some kind of EU ‘go fuckyourself Americans for voting for Donald Trump and giving us all migraines’ and Canadians are just caught in the crossfire?”

I uttered my conspiracy mostly for Cathy’s amusement, but then a voice behind me went “I’m from America and I was just thinking the exact same thing.”

So if you’re Canadian and travelling from North America to the EU, perhaps be prepared for a chilled welcome, no matter how many Canadian flags you have on your backpack.

Most of the rest of the first day was spent getting to the hotel, shower and napping. We did manage a wander of the area, and to hit a pub for a pint and a meal. The main wandering about will be in the next post.

Break time

After Trump won the 2016 presidential election I took a break from social media for a couple of months. The pure despair and misery on social media was simply more than I could handle. And it was a much needed break. But much like any addict there was an eventual lapse and I gave it another go.

I'm hit and miss on Facebook, to be honest. I like the vague idea of keeping in touch with friends, but it's not like I actually learn of anything going on in their lives on that site. People have learned their lesson and are much more judicious about what they say there.

And while I like Instagram, the realities of Northern internet means waiting two minutes for photos to load can quickly become annoying.

No, my major vice is Twitter. I'm an information junkie. I recall being at King's back in 1994/95 and spending hours reading news groups and my classmates thinking I was nuts. But it was information and I love knowing things. And Twitter gives you that constant flow of information. Whether it's political news, geekery, fun pics/memes, it's a constant hit of information.

But I hit my wall last weekend. Again. My social media news feeds were 90% seething rage. The rage was:

- Donald Trump
- Kids being snatched at the border
- The Red Hen story
- And, bizarrely, a woman being raked over the coals for calling the cops on an eight-year-old selling bottled water.

The start of this week hasn't calmed down much, what with the recent Supreme Court ruling in the United States. And today Justice Kennedy announcing his retirement that also means there will now be a fight over a seat on the Supreme Court. It is going to be a summer of unending, seething rage in the United States. That country is so messed up, so angry and incoherent, that if it were a patient you would commit it and give it all the drugs.

There is literally nothing I can do about this and frankly it is beginning to stress me the fuck out. I'm not thrilled with the idea of sticking my head in the sand, but I need a break. I have a perfectly lovely vacation planned for most of July. In August I have my usual "Movies Cathy Hates" marathon planned while she's in Newfoundland. I have about 30 books to read.

I have writing I've been putting off for ages. There are more useful things I can do....things that are better mentally for me, than having an online front row seat to watching the United States try to eat itself alive. Until the mid-term elections in November, most social media outlets will be unbearable. I mean, a solid third of my Twitter stream is just comic book geeks. You'd figure that would be safe, but you would be wrong.

So until that happens, I'm out of here. As of July 1 I'm off Twitter, Facebook and Instagram until November 15. Granted, no one reads this blog unless I post a link to one of those sites. So we'll see if anyone notices.

I'm sure there will be lapses. I'm hoping to go to Emerald City Comic Con next March, and registration is normally in October. So there might be some sneaking around at that time for any information. And there will always be lapses. But I won't be on it every day for what probably amounts to hours.

If you need to reach me, my email address (towniebastard (at) gmail ) will do the trick. And I'll still monitor Facebook Messenger if you really need to reach me. Plus there's this thing you can do with iPhones I've heard about. Apparently there's an app that allows you to call and speak to people. So that's a thing I could try to, I guess.

The next four months or so will be absolutely batshit crazy. Take care of yourselves, folks.

Last Five
1. The trip to pirate's cove - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2. Fever - Neko Case
3. From Finner - Of Monsters and Men
4. Road to joy - Bright Eyes
5. Kingdom of days - Bruce Springsteen

Geekery for sale

Once a year I go though my geek den and ask myself the sickening question...."Do I need to keep this?"

I'm a geek and a collector. Getting rid of things is never an easy choice for me. However, I have a hard limit on how much space I have for my stuff as Cathy has decreed that while I certainly can buy all the graphic novels I want (a deal she has cursed on more than once), she has also decreed that the geekery cannot escape the room. And since my geekery has expanded beyond graphic novels to include Lego, figurines and original artwork, well, space is at a premium. So what's the sense of holding onto books or toys that I no longer need.

I should mention that most of the graphic novels are fine, just not my thing. The comic publisher Image, in particular, does this marvelous thing of offering up Volume 1 of most of their trade paperbacks at a low price. So you can try it out and if you like it, great and you will pay regular price for all future volumes. If not, you're out a few bucks.

I mention all of this because I'm going to list a bunch of graphic novels I have for sale. This is primarily for Iqaluit geeks....I can just link to this post from Twitter. But if you're abroad and see something you desperately want, and are willing to pay shipping, I'm sure we can work out an arrangement.

If you're local, DM me on Twitter is the best way. Or email me at towniebastard at gmail dot com.

Happy hunting....

All-Star Superman (Morrison/Quietly) Vol 1 and 2 (HC - sold as set. Contains #1-12) - $15

Transmetropolitan (Ellis/Robertson) Vol. 1-10 (sold as set) - $50

Magneto (Bunn/Walta) Vol. 1 and 2 (sold as set) - $8

Strange Tales (Various) HC - $5

Gotham Academy (Cloonan/Fletcher/Kerschul) Vol. 1 and 2 (sold as set) - $8

Shade, the Changing Girl (Castellucci) Vol. 1 - $4

Justice League: A League of One (Moeller) - $4

Low (Reminder/Tocchini) (sold as set) Vol. 1-2, $8

Jonsey (Humphries/Boyle) Vol. 1 - $2 (slight damage)

Ghost (DeConnick/Noto) Vol. 1 - $4

Tokyo Ghost (Reminder/Murphy) – Vol. 1 - $4

Mythic (Hester/McCrea) Vol. 1 - $4

Mara (Wood/Doyle) Vol. 1 - $4

Shutter (Keatinge/Del Duca) Vol. 1 - $4

No Mercy (De Campi/McNeil) Vol. 1 - $4 (signed)

Letter 44 (Soule/Alburquerque) Vol. 1 - $4

Black Magick (Rucka/Scott) Vol. 1 - $4

The Discipline (Milligan/Ferandez) - $4

Doctor Who: The Four Doctors (Cornell/Edwards) - $4

Bounty (Weibe/Lee) Vol. 1 - $4

Rockstars (Harris/Hutchinson) Vol. 1 - $4

Josie and the Pussycats (Bennett/Deordio) Vol. 1 - $4

Outcast (Kirkman/Azaceta) Vol. 1 - $4

Flutter (Wood) - $4

CSI: Dying in the Gutters (Grant/Mooney) - $2

Kids

Polly and the Pirates (Naifeh/Rodriguez) Vol. 1-2 - $4

Courtney Crummin series (Naifeh) Vol. 1-4 - $8

Newprints (Xi) - $2 (signed)

Toys

Rhino (Funko Pop. Still in box. Never open) - $5

Black Panther (Funko Wobbler) - $3

Thanos with Sanctuary II (Giant bloody Funko Pop. Limited edition)  - $25

Avengers: Infinity War heat changing mug - $3

C3PO Snapback hat (Funko) - $3

Spider-man snapback hat (Funko) - $3

Random assortment of figures (Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Buffy,  Mr. Freeze, Captain Marvel, etc) - $1-5 each. Not in package.

25 years after Guyville

My iPod currently holds 13,372 songs. And while I love music and I'm constantly poking around looking for new stuff, I confess I've gotten into a bad habit. I tend to buy albums, throw them on my iPod and then hit shuffle.

Now, I love the shuffle function. I've never been much one for creating playlists unless it's something to play at the gym. I like being surprised by the next song. It's a little radio station of songs I like. And yes, I know there's streaming. You understand I live in Iqaluit, the land where Internet comes to die, right?

I love my iPod Classic. It's a miraculous black slab of music. When Apple idiotically discontinued them, I immediately went out and bought another one as a back-up. I'm still on the first one and it's still working. I can't even tell you how many years I've had at at this point. The Classic was discontinued in 2014 and I've had that one a couple of years before that. I use it pretty much every day, either in a Bose station at home or sitting on my desk at work with my noise cancelling headphones.

But as much as I love it, I get lazy with it. I rarely, very rarely, listen to an album from start to finish anymore. I can buy a new album and it can be months before I go "huh, I don't recognize that song" and then check to see it was something I bought 6 months earlier. I kinda miss that. At the very least I should get back into the habit of listening to an album a few times before it gets lost in permanent shuffle.

I'm rambling about this because there are only a handful of albums I can remember where I was the first time I heard them. Transformative albums. Many, many years ago I used to be Entertainment Editor of the Muse, which meant dispersing music. A lot of it was crap, but every now and then you'd hit gold. Pretty sure I gave Nevermind by Nirvana to someone to review. I can't remember if they actually did. Giving away the music was easy; getting the reviews back required a hefty amount of death threats.

I recall giving the cassette (they were almost always cassettes. CDs were too expensive to waste on student newspapers) Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos to my friend Jaap. He came into the office the next day, dragged me into an office and made me listen to the tape on a battered ghetto blaster, proclaiming it was of the greatest things he'd ever heard.

(Jaap would probably say it still is one of the greatest things he'd ever heard. I wouldn't argue with him. It's a remarkable album).

Picking up An Irish Evening by the Chieftains at a college radio remainder sale in Halifax in 1994 and listening to it so much my roommate at King's begged me to stop. It quickly became an expensive quest while in Halifax to own everything by the band.

I remember buying Neko Case's Furnace Room Lullaby at Fred's after hearing a song on CBC's Definitely Not the Opera and driving around around St. John's for hours afterwards listening to it on repeat by myself because I'd never heard a voice like that.

And then there's Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.

It is, god help me, the 25th anniversary of the album. Which means, of course, there's a special remastered edition of the album. Pitchfork, which hates almost everything, gave it a 10, which surely means the end is near. I normally curse on anniversary editions of albums because they're silly or make me feel old. But hearing the album is now 25 slams the specific moment I heard it for the first time.

I heard it at 3:30 in the morning at a house party (pretty sure it was Sherry Russell's place) after a night downtown. My friends Chris and Lisa were trying to convince others to let them put on the CD. I was deeply skeptical of it because at this time both of them belonged to the cult of Cub, a band they loved and tried to convert everyone too. I loathed the band and had grown to deeply distrust their musical sensibilities at this time.

But they won out and the CD eventually made it on, but in a bedroom so everyone else didn't have to listen and could continue on with what they were doing. I was roped in because, well, Chris is Chris. And it was jaw-dropping. It's that moment when you realize you've never heard anything like it before. I was a 23 year old guy when I heard it, so I wasn't exactly the target audience she was singing to. I was pretty much everything wrong in the world that she was singing about. But the honestly, purity and rawness made an impact. Again, next day I went out to buy it....and couldn't find it. Eventually Fred's got it in and I paid some silly amount of money for it. Worth every penny.

Others will, and have, written more eloquently about the album. And again, I think if you're a woman hearing that album it hits you in much different ways than if you're a guy.

There's been a segment of critics that have always been disappointed that Phair never lived up to the "potential" of Exile but I quite liked her next few albums. Whip-Smart  was quite good and Whitechocolatespaceegg had some moments of pure pop wonder like 'Polyester Bride'. Hell, even a song like 'HWC' has a humour and brashness that I can admire. They're not Exile, but hell, very few artists get one of those kinds of albums in a career. Asking to do it a bunch of times is insane.

So yeah, dig it out if you haven't listened to it in awhile. And if you've never listened, hop into your time machine to the early 90s and enjoy. You may have heard people try to duplicate it to some degree, but the original still holds all the power.

Last Five
1. The Parts - Manchester Orchestra
2. Who do you love - Lily Allen
3. Boogie Street (live) - Leonard Cohen
4. Trip my wire - Garbage
5. Extraordinary - Liz Phair*

Avengers: Infinity War (spoilers)

Here there be Spoilers. So don't read if you haven't see the movie...

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There's a key moment for me in Avengers: Infinity War. And it's not one that's been particularly focused on when I read a lot of the commentary about the movie.

It's the scene at Knowhere, the wonderful (and hopefully rebuilt) mining colony inside a dead Celestial skull. Thanos is trying to wring the location of the Reality Stone out of the Collector when Gamora attacks and kills Thanos, before breaking down weeping. This is when Thanos pulls back the curtain to reveal that he is still alive and already has the stone. After a brief and terrifying fight, he takes her away.

Two things occurred to me at that moment.

1. Marvel are clever, devious, lying bastards. In all the promo material it ever only showed Thanos with two of the stones. This scene shows him with three. That means Marvel had spent a solid year deceiving people. The movie wasn't going to be about Thanos trying to get the stones to form the Gauntlet and the Avengers trying to stop him. 

No, the movie was going to be about him actually using the Gauntlet to wipe out half the universe.

I honestly felt like clapping at that moment. I'm not mad at Marvel. Good for them. Fans are insane. Every inch of footage and still pics were examined in a way that would make the CIA want to start recruiting analysts at Comic Cons. If lying meant that people got a surprising cinematic experience, I'm happy for them. But this leads to....

2. The only way you could know this was coming is if you were a comic book reader. Liking Marvel movies and reading the comics are hardly mutually exclusive. Marvel and DC go quietly insane over movies that can make $1 billion at the international box office but the comics they take the material from are lucky to sell 100,000 copies a month.

I have no way of proving it for sure, but I'd be surprised if 10% of the audience at Black Panther or Avengers: Infinity War had read one of those comics in the last 6 months.

So for me an other comic book readers, we'd probably figured out what was coming, had an hour to brace for it, wonder how it was going to play out and how they're going to reverse it the next movie. Because they will, because there are no pearly gates in super hero afterlife, merely a revolving door.

But for everyone else, including Cathy, the last five minutes or so were an absolute gut punch. They didn't see it coming. The heroes lost and half the universe gets wiped out. Characters they love died. And as one clever critic I read mentioned, you were not given a glimpse of hope at the end of this.

The Empire Strikes Back is considered a massive downer of a movie, but it still ends up an upbeat note. Luke is back with the Rebellion, he has a new hand, and there's a plan underway to rescue Han. They got their ass kicked, but there's still hope.

There is not a glimpse of hope in that ending. Not a whiff of it. It is an astonishing final act to drop on audiences. Maybe later you go "Well there's no way they're killing Black Panther and Spider-Man - they have movies coming out." But at that time, it's an audience not familiar with comics and its tropes, who might not read all the fan sites, watching characters they love get wiped out is devastating. I've read reports of all kinds of reactions to that scene. Dead silence. Crying. Gasps. Apparently people have fainted, but that's unconfirmed.

It's as ballsy a thing you'll see in a franchise movie in quite some time.

Now, does that make it a good movie? Well, allow me to quote Warren Ellis, who has written a whack of these characters, for a moment....

"It is not a movie. It is a brand manifestation that wants to have prolonged, eager and reasonably skilled cultural sex with you. It wants your experience with its content™ to be satisfying and it hopes you are pleased enough to return for further interaction with the Brand.  This is a very 21C thing.  I like it for that alone, to be honest."

It is as weird a movie as I've ever seen. Completely non-sensical if you haven't watched the 18 previous movies. And yet if you have, it pays off in dozens of different ways throughout if you have. Funny, yet massively heartbreaking. It's the second-to-last episode in the most expensive season of TV you've ever seen. It's a remarkable achievement that might never be duplicated again. 

Seriously. Marvel's skill is in making this look flawless and easy. So easy others crash on the rocks trying to duplicate it.

I need to see Infinity War again before I can properly assess and place where it falls in the grand scheme of things in the Marvel series. Probably Top 5, but I've thought that about others and they don't hold up to repeat viewings. And with a movie with this many easter eggs, twists and everything else, it'll be interesting to see how it holds up to repeat viewings. 

Still, all those involved deserve a round of applause. And probably lots of booze. Ten years ago, after walking out of Iron Man, if you had asked me if a movie like this could exist I would have laughed. And here it is. Remarkable.

Top 5

1. You are what you love - Jenny Lewis

2. Let the lord shine a light on me - Noel Gallagher and the High Flying Birds

3. Sweetest goodbye - Maroon 5

4. Beautiful - Blue Rodeo

5. DOA - Foo Fighters

Snowguard and Champions

One of my favourite stories of last week had the rare meeting of comic books and the North. The CBC reported that a new Inuk super hero is being introduced by Marvel Comics and joining one of their super teams - The Champions.

Nunavummiut got a bit of a hint this was coming a few weeks ago. Champions #19 came out and someone posted a page on Twitter showing the issue started with a couple of Inuit characters investigating a mysterious base just outside of Pangnirtung. It was a couple of pages of set up, then going back to the main team in New York who are getting themselves reestablished after a rough period. They decide to investigate a disturbance in Nunavut. Cue action sequence when they're attacked and a dramatic cliffhanger.

It was an interesting discussion on local Twitter about it. Aside from the small oops of putting trees in Nunavut and Pangnirtung, it's a solid little issue. The issue also featured the debut of a new creative team with Toronto-based Jim Zub writing, South African Sean Izaakse on pencils and Marcio Manyz on colours. So they're trying to do something different to shake up the book. I've been collecting Champions in trade paperback since it launched with Mark Waid writing. Waid's one of the best, don't get me wrong, but the concept he was aiming for - a group of idealistic teen superheroes who want to change the world and help people rather than getting into a super villain of the day fight - just never completely materialised. I think I read an interview where he even admitted that.

Zub might be the guy to do it. He's coming off a well reviewed run on Avengers that he co-wrote with Waid and Al Ewing. I've enjoyed his Image series Wayward, which features teenagers challenging old mythological powers. So he's a good fit. Izaakse's art is new to me, but I like his style.

Both were on Twitter talking about the book when the Nunavut conversation was going on. I was pretty excited and others enjoyed the idea as well. However, there was concern about appropriation of Inuit culture in the comic and how accurate it was going to be. For example, there was sadness that the character of Amka Aliyak wasn't wearing a nice traditional parka or some kamiks. Or that maybe it would have been nicer if Marvel had hired Inuit to write or draw the comic.

Zub also alluded, cryptically, that he consulted with someone from Nunavut. Plenty of locals offered to provide help (guilty as charged) if they needed it. Nunavut doesn't make it into mainstream comics every day. We'd like for it to be accurate. They were both pretty gracious about the Northern geeks offering to help.

The CBC story broke that open, with Nyla Innuksuk being consulted on the character's origins, powers and design. And it wasn't just a consultation....it was a paid consultation. I think everybody was very happy about that. The creators seems very determined to get this right and aware of the sensitivities involved. Good for them.

Snowguard

A lot of how this is going to play out remains to be seen. Amka has only been in a few pages. The publicity push right now has to do with boosting orders for #21, where she makes her costumed debut, as the cut off for ordering is coming up shortly. Plus, well, Champions could use a sales boost. Last I checked it's on the mid to lower end of sales for books Marvel publishes. Or at least the best guess. Marvel and DC are zealous about guarding their sales figures.

Despite being a Nunavut-based character there are limited options for people reading her adventures. To my knowledge nowhere in Nunavut sells comics anymore (Arctic Ventures used to and stopped. Stuff 2 Do, which sold toys and comics closed last year). You can read it digitally through Amazon, but there can be challenges with that as well in Nunavut (Crappy internet. Not everyone has a credit card). The trade paperback collecting the stories won't be out until November. I confess if the Nunavut Public Library system doesn't buy it, I might buy a bunch and donate them.

And there's a lot to like about her design. I love the amauti design of her costume. And the tattoos, particularly the facial ones, are a big bonus. Not 100% wild about her name; something in Inuktitut would have been nice, but that might have been a bit much for Marvel to swallow. Her powers are also a bit derivative of another Marvel Canadian hero - Snowbird. We'll see how that works. Besides, as much as I love Snowbird, man is she an awkward character in a modern context. An Inuit demi-goddess with the power to change into any Northern animal who is....white. And blonde.

Also, new characters are hard to launch. Almost exactly four years ago DC made a very big deal about a Cree character from Northern Ontario named Equinox in a Justice League series. Her creators were Jeff Lemire and Mike McKone, two very prominent creators. She appeared in a handful of issues and then vanished. To my knowledge she's not currently being used in any series.

Snowguard may well be different. I hope she is. There needs to be more indigenous characters and creators in comics. Representation truly matters in comics and pop culture. If you need proof of that, look at the reaction Black Panther had when it hit screens. And Champions is a good book for her to be in. The characters are young, but also ethnically diverse and feature more females than males.

Zub has said as long as he's writing the book, she'll be a part of it. Here's hoping Champions has a long run. Selling comics is not an easy gig either. But as long as Amka is around, I'll keep giving Champions a look....

Last Five
1. Do you want to - Franz Ferdinand
2. Jejune stars - Bright Eyes
3. Born losers - Matthew Good*
4. Look of love - The Jezabels
5. Zero results - Hot Hot Heat