Gareth Gaudin: The Graphic Novel as Literature

The first Wednesday of the month brings another Victoria Writers' Society general meeting. This month, we have Gareth Gaudin, owner of Legends comic shop and creator of Magic Teeth, an ongoing comic series.

Eight years ago, he started doing a daily comic strip. He's made himself do a comic every day since. Creating every day based on what he's done has lead to saying "Yes" to a lot more - like speaking here, or being a pallbearer. It's an interesting phenomenon, that there are a fair number of people who put themselves out there every day who feel obliged to be interesting and try to stay that way.

The difference between a comic and a graphic novel was brought up, and Gareth's answer was simple: "Nothing," and then elaborating that the term originated with Will Eisner, who was having a hard time selling his serious comic relating to the death of his daughter and rebranded it to get in past the door.

He talked about publishing the daily strips, and having to move on when it's done, and we digressed into creators who come up with the pictures and words at the same time, and circled around the idea of drafting. In comics, especially daily, you create and move on. It's interestingly opposed to the frequent approach in writing of drafts and edits and drafts again.

It was a fantastic presentation.

Island Writer Launch

Volume 9 Issue 1 of Island Writer launched tonight. It was my first issue as Editor In Chief.

There were a few minor crises, of course: un-synched lists meant that there were three people I wasn't sure were reading until tonight, the final cover with the price on it wasn't the one that went to print, Claudia de Veaux and her poem Waiting didn't make it into the table of contents, and the 2010 contest honorable mentions were forgotten from my list altogether (sorry!).

But it was a fantastic launch: the readers were funny and moving by turns, the magazine was there, with enough for everyone who attended. Marianne Altos from the City Council came by and said very nice things. The magazine looked great! There was punch and cookies and fruit and cheese!

And I'm utterly exhausted. This is the result of six months hard work on the part of myself and Kim Nayyer, the Creative Non Fiction Editor; Sheila Martindale, the Poetry Editor; Catherine George, the Fiction Editor; and Simeon Goa, the Art Director. And then a week of living on nerves making sure the details for the launch were finalized. I'm utterly elated that it went this well, and I'm crawling into bed as soon as I type this last period.

Happy New Year!

It's a bright, shining new decade. In the past ten years we've had an economic collapse, Facebook, and the first lesbian kiss on TV. It'll be interesting to see what the next ten bring forth.

I rang in the new year with what I've been told is a distinctly Victoria tradition: the levee at City Hall.. It was one of at least seven going on New Year's Day, all of which were published in the paper several days ahead of time, some of which, like the one at Government House, are legendary. We got up what felt like ridiculously early after a night out before and wandered the two short blocks down to City Hall. Up the stairs in the Council Chambers, the city council was lined up in a reception line to shake everyone's hand. As the hour wore on, it started looking more like they were awaiting firing squad than new arrivals, but none of them deserted their posts.

Upon arrival, there was a very proper, and long, queue for coffee looping around the majority of the room. As I was there for the food and didn't want anything that would keep me awake once I got home and could nap, I got to sit and watch everyone else come in; the levee bus tour of city homeless that takes them around to each stop so they can stuff themselves (we were the first stop, which meant the arrival of food in addition to coffee lead to the immediate dissolution of any proper queue), the woman who lost the most recent City Council election, the Raging Grannies, each in their own eye-catching outfit (I spotted leather pants on one), but with the common thread of purple hats and signs pinned to their shirts demanding that the minimum wage be raised. One gentleman I think was unassociated with them came in and recruited them to sing a rousing rendition of "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." Also among the attendees were Victoria's Poet Laureate, Linda Rogers, and her theremin-playing husband, and a young man in a leather jacket who sat in the middle of the floor and booted up his netbook to take advantage of City Hall's free public wifi until the photographer for the paper apparently made him uncomfortable with dozens of shots.

A short hour and a shrimp-and-lettuce wrap later, and the first levee of the year was over.