Blog
Tag: Chester Brown
TCAF Photo Diary
by Dan
Graphica / May 19, 2011
If you missed the excitement of Toronto Comics Art Festival (TCAF) a couple of weekends ago, never fear! The awesome online art magazine that is Squidface & The Meddler documented the event with a slew of photographs by talented Toronto photographer Sam Javanrouh.
It was the 6th gathering of the annual arts festival founded by The Beguiling's Peter Birkemoe and Chris Butcher and it was bigger than ever this year with artists, writers, publishers and fans from all over Canada and abroad attending.
Needless to say the folks from Drawn + Quarterly were out in force and Javanrouh snapped these great shots of pals Chester Brown, author of Paying For It, and Seth, whose new book The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists is published this fall, working away at the D+Q table:
More of Javanrouh's photos of TCAF — including snaps of Adrian Tomine (Scenes From An Impending Marriage), Chris Ware (The Acme Novelty Library #20) and Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant) — can be seen at Squidface & The Meddler, and you can see new pics by Sam every day at his Toronto photoblog Daily Dose of Imagery.
(Special thx to Sam Javanrouh and Mike and Jes at Squidface and The Meddler for letting use these pics).
Chester Brown in Vancouver TONIGHT!
by Dan
Events + Graphica + Vancouver / May 18, 2011
As in TONIGHT-TONIGHT! At 7pm!!
Chester Brown will be reading from his new book Paying for It in the Alice MacKay room on the lower level of the Central Library. He'll also be answering questions, and signing books.
Did I mention it's TONIGHT?
Paying For It
by Dan
Graphica / May 02, 2011
Chester Brown's controversial new book Paying For It — both a contemporary defence of prostitution and a memoir of his personal experiences — is out this week, and the Toronto author was profiled in both the Globe and Mail and the National Post this weekend. Brad Mackay also reviewed the book for the Globe:
As is the case in most of his other autobiographical comics, Brown sets himself up as the target of the jokes. Joe Matt, a good friend and recurring character in Brown’s work, gets the lion’s share of the yucks here. I especially liked Matt’s reaction after he learns Brown has visited a prostitute: “This is disturbing, but it’s also good gossip.”
Of course, the art is as idiosyncratic as ever. Brown forgoes the six-panel grid and turns down the cross-hatching that he used in Louis Riel for a small, rectangular eight-panel layout inspired in part by the comics of Carl Barks. These oblong panels house some of the year’s most effective cartooning, capable of lending dignity to even the most awkward sex scenes.
You can also read reviews in The Walrus magazine, and at the Comics Reporter and Robot 6.
Chester will be at the Toronto Comics Art Festival this coming weekend and at the Vancouver Public Library on May 18th.
Chester Brown Tour Dates
by Dan
Current Affairs + Graphica / April 13, 2011
Chester Brown's controversial new book Paying For It is published later this month and Chester will be on the road to launch it in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in May:
TORONTO: Sunday, May 1st at Goodhandy's with Sasha
TORONTO: Saturday & Sunday, May 7th–8th at TCAF
MONTREAL: Saturday, May 14th at Librairie D+Q
VANCOUVER:Wednesday, May 18th at Vancouver Public Library with Lucky's
In Paying For It, Chester Brown calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in but a vocal proponent of one of the world's most hot-button topics—prostitution.