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Speech BubbleSummer 2020 HiatusHey Fan People,
Speech Bubble is taking a break for the summer. Listen to this announcement to find out the amazing reason why.
Aaron's Top 10 Episodes
Chester Brown
Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
Seth
Cecil Castellucci
Paul Soles - The Voice of '60s Spider-Man
Willow Dawson
Chip Zdarsky Live @ Hairy Tarantula
Ho Che Anderson Live @ The Toronto Cartoon Arts Festival
Kevin Boyd - Comics Coordinator at Fan Expo Canada (Three-Part Series)
Joe Kilmartin - The One...
2020-06-1601 minSpeech BubbleJim RuggJim Rugg is the Ignatz and Eisner award-winning cartoonist behind Street Angel, (co-written with friend Brian Maruca) Afrodisiac, Rambo 3.5, SuperMag and The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, which is co-written by past Speech Bubble guest Cecil Castellucci. But these days he is best known as one half of the immensely popular Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel with Ed Piskor (Hip-Hop Family Tree, X-Men Grand Design, and the upcoming Red Room)
Though based in Pittsburgh, prior to COVID-19 and the proximity precautions that come with it, Jim was scheduled to attend The Toronto Cartoon Art Festival in May 2020...
2020-06-011h 10Speech BubbleGraeme MacKayThis conversation with The Hamilton Spectator's resident editorial cartoonist runs the gamut. Graeme Mackay (as Aaron learns, pronounced Mac-kai) is "The Last of the Mohicans." He has held his position since 1997 and,pre-COVID-19, was actually still been going into a newsroom when many of his editorial cartoonist colleagues either have been working from home for years or their positions have been eliminated entirely as newspapers tighten their belts.It's actually COVID-19 that forced Graeme to finally work from home and switch to digital drawing (something he would've had to do anyway as The Spectator was set to...
2020-05-182h 07Speech BubbleChris SanaganIf you recently watched the mailbag episode of Cartoonist Kayfabe spotlighting Group of 7 off the top or you listened to our episode with Group of 7 artist Jason Lapidus, this is the episode that will complete the Group of 7 trifecta because Chris Sanagan is the writer of Group of 7. Chris lives in Guelph, Ontario but spent many of his younger years as a Bay Street broker in Toronto before persuing a career as a historical achivist. You'll learn from this episode that Chris came up with the idea for Group of 7 after realizing that seven legendary Caadians were...
2020-05-0459 minSpeech BubbleAl EwingAl Ewing is best known as the writer behind the critically-acclaimed comic series Immortal Hulk. It's a comic nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series in 2019. In the time before proximity precautions and the COVID-19 pandemic, Al Ewing was booked to appear at the Toronto Comicon. The convention was eventually postponed – along with every other public gathering – but before it was, Aaron had this conversation with Al in promotion of his con appearance.
As a result, it's a little different than the typical conversations Speech Bubble fans have become accustomed to. Since Al lives across the...
2020-04-1422 minSpeech BubbleBecka KinzieIn the first Speech Bubble podcast episode during the COVID_19 Pandemic, (complete with social distancing essentials like Zoom) Becka Kinzie joins our show. Becka is directly connected to our last guest Chip Zdarsky and his friend, previous Speech Bubble guest Kagan McLeod, since she was the colour flatter on Kaptara.
Becka explains what a colour flatter does on this podcast, but that's not her only gig. She hails from Kitchener-Waterloo where she shepherds the web comic turned graphic novel Gehenna. The first, of what she reveals on this episode is a planned series of Gehenna comics, is...
2020-03-301h 02Speech BubbleChip Zdarsky (Again!)Chip Zdarsky Returns to Speech Bubble! Last time host Aaron Broverman and writer/artist Chip Zdarsky got together on the podcast it was for a live episode celebrating podcast sponsor Hairy Tarantula's 25th anniversary in 2017. Let's just say...he's done a lot since then. When last we left Zdarsky, he was just about to release the first issue of Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man in two months. Since then, Peter Parker: Spider-Man has concluded, (and Zdarsky won an Eisner for his trouble) Sex Criminals is about to end its seven year, 32 issue run with a final, seven issue arc...
2020-03-161h 20Speech BubbleMichael DeForgeBorn in Kingston, raised in Ottawa and living in Toronto, Michael DeForge is a multi-Ignatz and Doug Wright award winning and Eisner nominated alternative cartoonist. His body of work numbers many web comics, zines, mini comics, graphic novels, anthologies and gallery shows. He's also a prolific commercial illustrator, having done many gig posters, media illustrations, film screening announcements and album covers. He is so prolific that he's often publishing at least two comic works a year either with Koyama Press or Drawn and Quarterly, including the award-winning series Lose, as well as graphic novels Ant Colony, Sticks Angelica, Folk...
2020-03-021h 15Speech BubbleTe'Shawn DwyerTe'Shawn Dwyer is the co-founder of the From a Hat Studio artist collective with former Speech Bubble guest Paris Alleyne. Te'Shawn details the origins of the group, which was inspired by R.A.I.D. Studio -- another group of Toronto artists who pooled their resources to great success. On this episode, Te'Shawn talks about how the group was started by he and Paris as they were graduting from Max the Mutt College of Art and Design as a way to stay in touch and keep drawing on a regular basis. Soon they were joined by Matt Simas, Dylan...
2020-02-1753 minSpeech BubbleKat VerhoevenKat Verhoeven grew up in Canada's original capital of Kingston, Ontario in a single-parent household that encouraged artistic talents.Thanks to this, both she and her sister Mary Verhoeven grew to push each other in a friendly competition to see who between them was the better cartoonist – a jockeying that Kat says continues to this day -- with each taking a turn in the spotlight.
For Kat's part, she put her drawing talents towards an innovative food blog called Drawn and Devoured, which came out along with her initial sensual food poetry zine, The Artichoke that she pu...
2020-02-031h 27Speech BubbleAdam GorhamAdam Gorham is a comic book artist on such titles as TMNT Universe, Jughead: The Hunger, James Bond 007, Power Rangers, Marvel's Contagion and Rocket (starring Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy). He is currently drawing Punk Mambo for Valiant. Adam was born in Perth, Ontario but was raised in Mississauga, Ontario and still makes his home there now with his family.
On the podcast, Adam goes through his long, strange trip from art school drop-out and disgruntled grocery store warehouse employee to working for major comic companies like Marvel, Image and Valiant. This includes finding his...
2020-01-201h 31Speech BubbleFiona SmythFiona Smyth is a legend of the Toronto arts community. A true renaissance woman, she's a sculptor, a muralist, a book illustrator an animator, an art teacher and an independent comic book artist. If you're a Toronto resident, you've probably seen her work without even realizing it. Her murals adorn iconic locations like Lee's Palace's Dance Cave and Sneaky Dee's (which is known to Scott Pilgrim Fans) where she designed their sign and bonehead cow logo. In 2019, she was inducted into The Giants of The North Hall of Fame as part of Canada's Doug Wright Awards for indepedent cartooning...
2020-01-061h 09Speech BubbleMariel Ashlinn KellyMariel Ashlinn Kelly
Mariel comes from the world of zines. Those hand-stapled, photocopied and folded masterpieces of the small press that made her a BlogTO Zinester to watch in 2016. Mariel is still setting Toronto on fire with her work, but this time it's as one of the contributors to the Drawn Poorly anthology, published out of Manchester, UK. The project is a zine focusing on stories of mental illness, chronic illness and disability.. While doing small groundbreaking zines of her own like Pixie Dream Ghoul and Moth – a true story about the time she chased a moth ar...
2019-12-0943 minSpeech BubbleJenn WoodallJenn is what you get when you cross a love for 80s and 90s manga like Akira and Sailor Moon with a passion for groundbreaking indie comics like Dirty Plotte, Eightball and Optic Nerve with some “take no shit” feminism thrown in. This Brampton-raised Toronto resident is best known for her self-published comics Magical Beatdown Volumes one and two and Marie and Worrywort: Comics About Anxiety. Both works won the Gene Day Award for outstanding self-published comics at the Joe Shuster Awards, as well as the Spotlight Award, honouring the identical circumstance, at the Doug Wright Awards – both in 2018.
...
2019-11-2548 minSpeech BubbleEmmanuelle ChateauneufEmmanuelle's story is an epic one. Perhaps that's why when she was connected with Ramon Perez (Jim Henson's Tale of Sand, Marvel Two-in-One) and was mentored under his tutelage with an eye to creating comics of her own, she came up with the beginnings of what would become her fictionalized autobiographical masterpiece Queen Street instead of the few drawn pages he requested. Aaron and Emmanuelle go deep on this story (her story) and all the multi-layered implications that as an exceedingly precocious 7-year-old she didn't truly understand, but as an adult in retrospect, had far reaching consequences on the...
2019-11-111h 03Speech BubbleNick MaandagNick Maandag is a straight-laced accountant by day and a Joe Shuster and Doug Wright nominated cartoonist with a bizarre sense of humour by night. Early influences include the gross out humour of Ren and Stimpy and the subversive satire of The Simpsons. In comics, he moved on to the work of Robert Crumb and other underground cartoonists like Julie Doucet, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge and Chester Brown and through their inspiration, decided to dedicate his life to making comics after a brief foray in animated film.
His first project of note was Streaker's, which won Peter...
2019-10-281h 20Speech BubbleJay StephensJay Stephens is a Guelph, Ontario-based and Toronto-born comic artist and cartoonist who joins Aaron for a live episode from The Guelph Comic Jam on the day of the 2019 Joe Shuster Comic Book Awards, which honours Canadians like Joe Shuster – the co-creator of Superman – who make their living in mainstream comics. Jay began his career getting bankrolled by a Guelph comic shop called Collage, under Tragedy Sucks Comics, to create his own indie and underground comic anthology called Sin where many of his most well-known characters first appeared. These are characters like The Nod, (not to be confused with Domi...
2019-10-1446 minSpeech BubbleAndy BelangerComic artist Andy Belanger (Swamp Thing, Vampirella, WWE Comics) is an absolute wild man. His ambition knows no bounds and he's always been a highly competitive person in his field. Maybe that's why he has done so much. From talking his way into a gig drawing Friday the 13th for Wildstorm, and in doing so achieving his lifelong goal of working for DC Comics by age 27, to being the artist on the critically acclaimed Southern Cross for Image Comics and now being a professional wrestler for Montreal's International Wrestling Syndicate as Bob “The Animal” Anger.
Aaron and Andy...
2019-09-3056 minSpeech BubbleKen and Joan SteacyComics power couple Ken and Joan Steacy ring in their 40th wedding anniversary with a live interview on Speech Bubble during TCAF weekend and a graphic novel each. The first, Aurora Borealice from Conundrum Press made its debut at TCAF and is the first part of a three-part fictionalized memoir from Joan Steacy following Alice (standing in for Joan) and her struggle with illiteracy. As Joan says on the podcast, “I graduated high school functionally illiterate and I knew I had to do something about that.” The memoir also documents how meeting legendary media theorist Marshall McLuhan and his son...
2019-09-1635 minSpeech BubbleKagan McLeodKagan is a Toronto comics forefather, having founded RAID Studio with Ben Shannon, Cameron Stewart and Chip Zdarsky. He continues to be a fount of knowledge for artists coming up through the local scene, opening his studio for weekly life drawing nights. His latest book, Draw People Everyday from Penguin Random House Canada, comes from these life drawing sessions and the techniques he has picked up after years of drawing the human form. Kagan is probably best known for his magnum opus, Infinite Kung Fu – a mash-up of Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest 1970s kung fu movies with blaxploitation, zo...
2019-09-021h 19Speech BubbleMark Alan StamatyMark first came to Aaron's notice on the Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel. The hosts Jim Rugg (Street Angel) and Ed Piskor (X-Men Grand Design, Hip-Hop Family Tree) did an episode showcasing picture books that spotlighted Mark's underrated classic, “Who Needs Donuts?” On this episode of Speech Bubble, Mark explains the bizarre story of how the book got its non sequitor title among other unlikely tales from his life as a prolific cartoonist for The Village Voice, The Washington Post and other equally high profile American publications of record, including The New York Times Book Review.
In all thre...
2019-08-191h 13Speech BubbleFábio Moon and Gabriel BáTwin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are international comic book powerhouses whether doing a project together or apart. The two artists have collaborated on comics like the Eisner-award-winning Day Tripper and Two Brothers and the comic book adaption of Neil Gaiman's How to Talk to Girls at Parties. They are equally potent as separate entities (although, they're never really separate since they share a studio). Of course, you know Gabriel as the co-creator of Umbrella Academy with Gerard Way (lead singer of the band My Chemical Romance) and Fabio as the co-creator of Casanova with Matt Fraction (Se...
2019-08-051h 12Speech BubbleScott ChantlerScott has approached rarefied air that very few Canadian cartoonists have ever reached. His historical graphic memoir Two Generals was nominated for two Eisner Awards, named one of Chapters-Indigo’s best books of 2010, selected as a Best American Comics in 2012 and named by CBC as a “Canada Reads” selection and one of the 40 best Canadian non-fiction books of all-time. Not to be out done, his book Northwest Passage also has Harvey and Eisner nominations to its name. Plus, his young adult comic Three Thieves won a Joe Shuster award as The Best Canadian for Comic for Kids. He's a contri...
2019-07-2256 minSpeech BubbleBen O'NeilYou probably don't know Ben by name, but if you live in Toronto and you've had ice cream at the Sweet Jesus Ice Cream Parlour you've definitely seen his work. He's the artist behind the original look of Sweet Jesus and now he has launched his first graphic novel, Apologetica. Published by past Speech Bubble guest Mark Laliberte's publishing imprint Popnoir Editions, Apologetica takes the state of the world to its environmental extremes. Ben talks about what influenced his vibrant, kinetic drawing style that seems to melt off the page at times and talks about his fascination with the...
2019-07-0842 minSpeech BubbleJamie MichaelsWinnipeg's Jamie Michaels is arguably the best self-promoter we've had on the podcast and what he's promoting is a graphic novel about a little known happening in Canadian history at the height of fascism's march across Europe in the years before WWII.
Christie Pits is a graphic novel detailing the little-known happenings behind Canada's only race riot – when Nazi sympathizers unfurled a Nazi flag during a public baseball game and Jews and Italians united to throw down against them in Toronto's Christie Pits Park. Coming out now, the work seems more relevant than ever with Trump in of...
2019-06-2431 minSpeech BubbleJim ZubMrs. Zubkavich's baby boy is the busiest Canadian comic book writer not named Jeff Lemire.
His credits include Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons and Dragons, Thunderbolts, Glitterbomb Skullkickers, Wayward, Champions, Uncanny Avengers, Avengers: No Surrender and Avengers: No Road Home, but that barely scratches the surface of his illustrious career. As if writing comics didn't take up enough of his time, Jim is also the animation program coordinator at Seneca College where, as he told our host Aaron Broverman on this episode, he actually has time to keep office hours. In his “spare time,” he co-hosts a live...
2019-06-1056 minSpeech BubbleRichard PaceRichard Pace is a long-time veteran of the comic book industry, having either been written or drawn for every major comic company in the industry. Career highlights include his mainstream comics art debut on Terror Inc. for Marvel, writing Pitt Crew and the last few issues of Dale Keown's Pitt and co-writing Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. He also had the honour of bringing the legendary Alan Moore's songs to life as one of the artists on Alan Moore's Songbook.
More recently, he's the well-known cover artist for the DC...
2019-05-271h 18Speech BubbleJason KiefferJason Kieffer
Jason Kieffer was recommended for this podcast by the legendary Chester Brown and it's with good reason. The young cartoonist is best known for his self-published graphic biography of Toronto street legend Zanta and is one of the only people to ever get the full story straight from this muscle-bound mystery wearing a Santa hat. His penchant for chronicling the characters and oddballs that populate Toronto's has won him equal parts acclaim and scorn. However, at the end of the day, he's just a soft-spoken guy with long-hair and a butcher-boy hat who loves his...
2019-05-131h 06Speech BubbleSalgood SamRecorded live at the Toronto Comicon 2019, Salgood talks to Aaron about his colourful father Lionel who inspired him to create the upcoming, Bastards Tale to be serialized in his self-published comic RevolveR. They then move on to how he went from having artists like George Perez fawn over his work, doing sample pages for DC Comics from Neil Gaiman Sandman scripts and being offered to draw his own series for Marvel at 20-years-old under his real name Max Douglas, to drawing one comic issue in nine days and quitting books over personal conflicts with writers and editors. If you...
2019-04-2958 minSpeech BubbleJahnoy LindsayJahnoy Lindsay
Jahnoy is what one might call a comic artist who was never really that into comics. The Brampton, Ontario product is an alumni of the From A Hat Studio collective with Paris Alleyne, (Haven) Jamal Campbell (Naomi) Matt Simas, Te'Shawn Dwyer, (Desert Messiah) and Dylan Burnett (Cosmic Ghost Rider, X-Force). From there, he has gone on to draw for Marvel, starting with a back-up story in Totally Awesome Hulk and then becoming the main artist for She-Hulk's “Jen Walters Must Die” storyline with writer Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer) before going on to release Luke Cage...
2019-04-151h 17Speech BubbleCraig YeungLive from Toronto Comicon 2019, Aaron sat down with Marvel inker Craig Yeung. Born and raised in Toronto, Craig is best known as the long time inker of Runaways, written by Brian K. Vaughan with pencils by another Toronto resident, Adrian Alphona. Since Runaways, (now a live action TV series on Hulu in the U.S. and Showcase in Canada) Craig has inked other Marvel comics like X-Men: Gold, The Superior Octopus and Daughters of the Dragon. His pencils have been featured on Riftworld Legends 8, Arrow Season 2.5 and Bitch Planet: Triple Feature.
On the podcast, Craig explains what...
2019-04-0154 minSpeech BubbleMark LaliberteMark is the managing editor, arts editor and designer of Carousel Magazine – a Canadian arts and literary journal published twice a year. He's also the curator of the 4Panel Project, which began as a back page supplement in Carousel, and the publisher behind Popnoir Editions' comics and zines.
Growing up in Windsor, ON. during the black and white comics boom of the 1980s, Mark discovered that some of his favourite comics were printed right in his hometown. Being the enterprising fan that he was, he decided to call them up and see if he could order his fa...
2019-03-181h 04Speech BubbleJason LapidusJason is a Thornhill, ON. native who always wanted to be a comic artist. He could always draw his classmates under the table, but Thornlea Secondary School was the basis for author Gordon Korman's 1985 novel Don't Care High and the moniker was still true when Lapidus went there.
The vibe killed any enthusiasm he had for institutional education and that buzz kill continued in art school where he just couldn't connect painting on wood block and philosphizing about art with the practical skills he wanted to learn in order to make comics.
Instead, he leaned...
2019-03-041h 08Speech BubbleChristopher Yao/Shane HeronIt's a jam-packed episode with one returning guest and one brand spanking new one.
First, friend of the Show Shane Heron (Morris, Black Have Hunters Club) returns in his capacity as co-editor of Cauldron Magazine to promote the Kickstarter for the Spring 2019 issue. If you haven't heard of Cauldron, this is an adult fantasy-horror comic anthology magazine in the vein of Heavy Metal, Savage Sword of Conan, Creepy and Eerie. The upcoming spring issue has a cover from Toronto's own Adam Gorham (New Mutants, Rocket Raccoon) and if you donate to the Kickstarter before it expires on...
2019-02-181h 37Speech BubbleWes TyrellWes is the cartoonist behind the Prophet of Zoom comic strip on the back page of Zoomer Magazine and he's the president of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists representing some of the finest editorial cartoonists from across the country. Aaron met Wes when the cartoonist moderated a panel discussion featuring the Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man creative team of Chip Zdarsky and Adam Kubert at the Royal Ontario Museum. Since then, he's been wanting to get Wes in the NSN studios and now he finally has his chance.
The two begin by paying tribute to Wes's groovy...
2019-02-041h 39Speech BubbleJonathan KociubaJonathan is one of the most multi-faceted individuals to ever grace Speech Bubble. Not only does he both write and draw his own self-published comics, but he also draws album covers and is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for local Toronto band Summer and Youth.
Aaron traces Jon's artist trajectory from childhood to adulthood, as he goes from making comics with his brother in the 90s (long-haired characters with shoulder pads and pouches) to joining forces with past Speech Bubble guest Jason Loo (Pitiful Human-Lizard) in high school to spending one year in illustration at the...
2019-01-211h 19Speech BubbleJo LalondeJo Lalonde tells Aaron she was an artist since she figured out how not to eat the crayons. First
apprenticing as a tattoo artist before learning the chalk art trade under legendary Canadian chalk artist
Chalk Master Dave, best known for producing the iconic
superhero mural on the outside of Silver Snail's former Queen Street location. Jo tells tales of her own
superheroism while dealing with the few pedestrians who don't pay attention and walk over her hands
and art. Not to mention dealing with other various street buskers while she plied her trade at Toronto's
Yonge-Dundas Square before...
2019-01-0750 min
Speech BubbleAttila AdorjanyFor this episode Speech Bubble is coming to you live in front of an audience on Halloween Weekend 2018 at Hairy Tarantula's Hairoween Party at their new location at 3456 Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario Canada. The show is a sort of coming out party for Aaron's guest Attila Adorjany, since a huge re-branding project for a massive corporation took him out of the comic scene for a very long time. Now he's back miking his special effects background with a new custom toy company of his own making called Titly Toys where he's making mini cthulhu figures, zombie Hello Kitty...
2018-12-1053 min
Speech BubbleA G PasquellaWilliam S. Burroughs once said, “Seize control of the reality studio” and Adam “A.G.” Pasquella has been doing that since he was in second grade. Born in Dallas, Texas but now living in Toronto, he started making comics that ended with him getting all the candy in grade school and just kept right on going through middle school when he sold mini comics through the mail. When the small publisher he sold his first book to went out of business just as the ink was drying on the contract, he once again seized the reality studio and self-published his firs...
2018-11-261h 24
Speech BubbleJoe I the Editor GuyOur illustrious audio editor Joseph Ianni makes his long-awaited return to the show. Having listened to and edited every episode of Speech Bubble since launch, he's like our own version of The Watcher of the Marvel Universe: always observing, never interfering...until now.
He comes to us for the first time, to pitch a comic of his own to the Toronto comic artists he knows are making Speech Bubble appointment listening every two weeks. The project is called Noon, a horror /teen drama comic where a state-of-the-art high school goes on lock-down, trapping the students inside with...
2018-11-1240 min
Speech BubbleEvan MundayOn this episode of Speech Bubble, we have one of Canada's most fashionable males of 2018 – just read The Globe and Mail, where he was voted best dressed. Aaron and Evan go back a long way, to the days when Aaron first moved to Toronto and was just getting into the comic scene and Evan was part of a long-retired artist collective Sketchkrieg with past Speech Bubble guest Jason Loo where he was peddling his own self-published comics, like Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery (starring Avril Lavigne) and Quarter-Life Crisis, on the convention circuit.
At some point though, he...
2018-10-291h 11
Speech BubbleJ BoneJason Bone was comics' golden boy following his very first professional work. The Toronto artist was nominated for an Eisner Award (work deserving of wider recognition) in 2001 for his first comic Solar Stella. His very next project Alison Dare (with past Speech Bubble guest J. Torres) was also Eisner-nominated. Both works drew the attention of the late, legendary Canadian comic artist Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier, Catwoman) who took J under his wing as his inker until Cooke's death from cancer in 2016.
J. spends much of this episode reminiscing about what it was like to work...
2018-10-151h 20
Speech BubbleSam Maggs/Megan PurdyThis week's episode is a twofer. First, Aaron's got a short interview with writer, comics scribe (Star Trek: Waypoint, Jem and the Holograms) and geek girl personality Sam Maggs live from Fan Expo Canada spotlighting the launch of her new book, Girl Squads: 20 Female Friendships that Changed History, which comes out Oct. 2, 2018 from Penguin Random House Canada and Quirk Books. Then, Aaron comes back to the studio and sits down with comic industry journalist and editor Megan Purdy, founder of Women Write About Comics, Bleating Heart Press and The MNT and co-editor of The Toronto Comics Anthology: Osgoode as...
2018-10-011h 25
Speech BubbleCasey ParsonsAs part owner of Comic 1 Books in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Casey Parsons in one of the few artists who can say he has actually sold a comic book he worked on in his own store. Classically trained in art at Sheridan College but disillusioned by the business, it took him until his 40s to really embrace comics as his chosen art form – always reading as fan, but never creating them -- until now. Now, he's figuring out how to balance comic book mechanics with a fine art look, a marriage he showcased as one of the founding artists on Ca...
2018-09-1745 min
Speech BubbleMike RoothMike went to art school at Sheridan College, but was too chicken to pursue a career in comics, so he put his dreams on hold and picked up odd jobs doing menial labour until a work site accident almost crushed his hands. It was the bell he needed to hear and from then on he vowed to dedicate himself to his art or starve doing it. Work with big publishers like Scholastic and Rubicon started paying the bills, but it wasn't until a few local comic shops gave him a chance drawing their store exclusives that the variant cover...
2018-09-0342 min
Speech BubblePages for PledgesIt's our first ever clip show live from a back storeroom inside Paradise Comics at Yonge and Lawrence during a very special fundraiser. Sketches for Pledges was organized by past Speech Bubble guest Shane Kirshenblatt to benefit The Canadian Cancer Society in honor of the legendary Toronto born comic artist Darwyn Cooke (Batman: Ego, Justice League: The New Frontier) and, friend of the Toronto comics community, Brendan Yapp.
Local artists including the three guests on this show -- Steve Bynoe, Jason Roussel and Nik Zezos -- raised $3297.20 -- by sketching for a very generous public. Now, listen...
2018-08-201h 19
Speech BubbleYvan AlagbeFor his entire childhood Yvan Alagbé wanted to be a pilot, but by the time university rolled around, an eye problem put that future in doubt and he didn't want to do it anymore anyway – he wanted to be comic artist and eventually he became quite a prolific one. Someone who is highly influential in Paris's avant garde bande desinée scene.
It started when, while studying physics and mathematics at the Université de Paris-Sud, where he met Olivier Marboeuf. Alagbé and Marboeuf founded a contemporary visual arts review called L’oeil Carnivore and the magazine Le Chéval S...
2018-08-0655 min
Speech BubbleChris ReynoldsIn 2005, former Speech Bubble guest and legendary Canadian cartoonist Seth wrote an appreciation of Chris Reynolds' work in The Comics Journal calling him, “The most underrated artist of the last 20 years.” Prior to that essay, Reynolds' distinct heavy black and white cartooning style and indescribably bizarre, but also greatly nostalgic and reminiscent stories remained in relative obscurity as he toiled on them from across the pond in the UK. Now, thanks to a May 2018 reissue of his work in a beautiful graphic novel from the New York Review of Comics designed by Seth himself, North America will finally get to e...
2018-07-2354 min
Speech BubbleCecil CastellucciA true renaissance woman, Cecil Castellucci's work spans mediums. The New York-born, Montreal-raised writer is currently best known to comic book fans as the writer behind the latest reinterpretation of the late Steve Ditko character Shade – Shade the Changing Girl and now, Shade the Changing Woman as part of DC Comics' Young Animal imprint, spearheaded by Gerard Way – lead singer of My Chemical Romance. Fitting, since Cecil tells us why making comics is like being in a rock band. She would know since she was better known as the lead singer of Nerdy Girl in the early '90s and...
2018-07-0947 min
Speech BubbleHo Che AndersonAaron is live from the Toronto Comics Art Festival 2018 serving as the moderator for a Spotlight Q & A on this episode's guest. If you couldn't be there live, now's your chance to eavesdrop on this sit down with Toronto's own Ho Che Anderson. The writer and artist talks about what it was like to go from an admirer of Jack “King” Kirby and Howard Chaykin to aping Chaykin's style before coming into his own on the definitive Martin Luther King graphic novel, King: A Comics Biography for Fantagraphics. He tells of his unlikely route into comics through the broken prom...
2018-06-2532 min
Speech BubbleJames KochalkaThis time we're blessed to have a cartoonist laureate on the show. Fom Burlington, Vermont best known for his daily autobiographical strips between 1998-2012 called American Elf. He also publishes the superhero frathouse comedy Super F*ckers which was adapted into a cartoon on the online channel Cartoon Hangover. He has also created Monkey vs. Robot and a number of other comic series for kids, including Dragon Puncher and the Johnny Boo series. He's also a darling of college radio fronting his own alternative punk band James Kochalka Superstar. Aaron caught up to him at The Toronto Cartoon Art...
2018-06-1143 min
Speech BubbleEddie Campbell and Audrey NiffeneggerEddie Campbell's Alec series of quasi-autobiographical comics has been called "one of the most important graphic novels of the 20th century" While his fictionalized comic memoirs Alec and later, Fate of the Artist, have become his trademark style where he interrogates his own life through an avatar, he is best known as the artist behind From Hell with legendary comic scribe Alan Moore. Set during the
Whitechapel murders of the Victorian era, the story speculates on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper and was later adapted into a lesser movie of the same name starring Johnny Depp...
2018-05-2850 min
Speech BubbleKyle James SmithKyle is a member of Toronto's RAID Studio along with past Speech Bubble guests Ramon Perez, (Jane, Nova) Scott Hepburn, (Spider-man/Deadpool) Marcus To (Justice League: No Justice) and Gibson Quarter (Undertow). Kyle's past credits include Scare Tales with friend and fellow RAID member Gabe Sapienza and RAID.One, an anthology with contributions from each RAID member. He comes to the podcast to promote his latest project, BlackMouth – a coming of age, horror webcomic featuring a man named Eric investigating his mother's death after she was banished by their village to a forest that is alleged to hold all ki...
2018-05-1452 min
Speech BubbleCaitlin Major and Kelly BastowSometimes when an Aussie and a Canadian who has a hardcore love for Aussies get together, magic happens. That's what happened when Caitlin Major immigrated from Australia with her boyfriend for better comic-making opportunity in Canada and met Canadian Kelly Bastow at a Drink & Draw. Kelly is an artist on the rise, having done variant covers for titles like Lumberjanes and Adventure Time and having been nominated twice for an Ignatz Award (honouring small press comic creators) including for her graphic memoir Year Long Summer. Caitlin is no slouch either, already having two published graphic novels under her belt...
2018-04-3045 min
Speech BubbleWillow DawsonWillow Dawson is a critically-acclaimed illustrator for comics, graphic novels and picture books for kids and adults. She was a finalist for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award in 2016 for her picture book about the way wolves and ravens hunt together called The Wolf-Birds. She was also nominated for a 2008 Joe Shuster award for No Girls Allowed, a graphic novel chronicling women who had to pose as men throughout history.
Willow comes to Speech Bubble to promote her newest effort White as Milk,Red as Blood an evocative illustrated collection of uncensored, adult fairy tales translated from...
2018-04-161h 43
Speech BubbleAndrew WheelerAndrew is a comic book writer, podcast host and former Eisner award-winning comic industry journalist who came to Toronto by way of Hastings, England. He was the last editor-in-chief of Comics Alliance, shepherding it towards its 2015 Eisner win for “Best Comics Journalism.” As part of the LGBTQ community, Andrew has always championed representation for all minorities in all of his comics work, starting with Another Castle from Oni Press and continuing with his current work on Freelance from Chapterhouse Comics. Formerly co-written with Jim Zub, (Wayward, Avengers: No Surrender) Freelance re-imagines Canada's oldest superhero swashbuckler as a same-sex love tria...
2018-04-021h 21
Speech BubbleSam BeckSam Beck is certainly a comic artist to watch for these days, as her career coalesces to its first major apex. At the time of this episode, Songs for the Dead – the comic she draws for writers and past Speech Bubble guests Andrea Fort and Michael Christopher Heron – has just been picked up by publisher Vault Comics and is now available at comic shops everywhere. Her work is also featured in the 2018 edition of the Toronto Comics Anthology, Osgoode as Gold, she also contributed a story to the upcoming Wayward Sisters Anthology and that's just for starters. She also writ...
2018-03-1947 min
Speech BubbleMatthew DaleyMatthew is the former long-running artist of the Mr.Monitor comic strip in Broken Pencil Magazine – Canada's national magazine for D.I.Y. Arts and zine culture. He and his long-time collaborator Cory McCallum (known collectively as Pier Pants Productions) won a Joe Shuster award in 2013. called the Gene Day award, denoting their Mr. Monitor short comic, The Pig Sleep, the best independent comic of that year. They've also collaborated on a number of other comics, including Errol Dynamic – a scifi space adventure with a theme song you can hear as part of this episode. Speaking of music, in this...
2018-03-051h 13
Speech BubbleDiana McCallumDiana is one half of the duo behind From Superheroes – the brand that brought you Texts from Superheroes (funny text conversations between your favourite superheroes and supervillains) and the superhero media review podcast, Talk from Superheroes. She founded the site in 2012 with her boyfriend, Comedian Andrew Ivimey and now they have millions of fans around the world. Diana also occasionally writes comics. She's currently featured in the Secret Loves of Geeks graphic anthology, the much anticipated sequel to The Secret Loves of Geek Girls edited by past Speech Bubble guest Hope Nicholson and published by Dark Horse Comics. Along wi...
2018-02-191h 23
Speech BubbleBrendan MontgomeryTimmins, Ontario native Brendan Montgomery was a Queen's University student who thought for sure that a campus with over 200 student groups would certainly have a club for comic book fans. When it turned out that wasn't the case, he started a club himself. The Queen's Comic Book Legion meets every week on campus to discuss the latest issues coming out that week, they sell comics at an on-campus comic shop and they've even published their own graphic novel featuring Queen's very own superhero team. Gael Force is a fully Kickstarter backed graphic novel featuring a superhero team of the...
2018-02-0537 min
Speech BubbleSteve KerznerHey, Fan Persons! In another installment of our Comics on Comics series, Steve Kerzner is the creative force and executive producer behind the big personality that is Ed the Sock. Children of the 1990s to mid 2000s will remember Ed as the acerbic and outspoken puppet hosting programs on MuchMusic like Fromage - his annual take down of pop culture and Ed and Red's Night Party, his late-night show with co-host and co-creator Liana K on CityTV. Steve comes to Speech Bubble to let his geek flag fly, revealing that his house is decked out with all kinds of...
2018-01-221h 18
Speech BubbleKeith GrachowRecorded live over breakfast at the Halibut House in Burlington, Ontario Canada, Keith Grachow is an independent comic artist whose credits include Concrete Martians, Saltwater, Polybius Dream and the independent children's book series Up in the Sky written by his mom Amy. Exposed to comics and graphic design at a very young age, he didn't start embracing his artistic side until the final year of high school. He talks about overcoming his hangups and fear around doing comics professionally and what it took to fully commit. Though he'd joined Bright Anvil Studios, it wasn't until he moved to Japan...
2018-01-081h 25
Speech BubbleEd BrissonBorn in Toronto, grew up in Oshawa and now living in Kelowna, B.C., Marvel writer Ed Brisson (Old Man Logan, Iron Fist) regales us with his 18-year odyssey trying to break into comics. Even after he seemingly broke in with The Comeback for Image Comics, there was still a period where he was being rent-evicted from his home in Vancouver, all his comics work had basically dried up and he was mere moments away from taking on a full-time job before Marvel offered him a solo title starring the Daredevil villain Bullseye. Thankfully he hasn't looked back since...
2017-12-1843 min
Speech BubbleD.A Bishop: MorteD.A. Bishop returns to Speech Bubble from his basemment studio in Pickering, Ontario to promote his groundbreaking co-creation with writer Kevin Joseph, Morte published by Source Point Press – a silent one-shot comic starring a man who is presumably the last human on earth in a post-apocalyptic future living out his days performing a seemingly monotonous but necessary task. In this short episode, Aaron and David debate who is more important in the production of a silent comic – the writer or the artist? They briefly discuss other occurrences of silent comics in the mainstream industry before dissecting how Bishop beca...
2017-12-0424 min
Speech BubbleTodd Sullivan and MiikeMalcolm Derikx aka Miike and Todd Sullivan met as classmates at Ty Templeton's Comic Book Bootcamp. Both fans of old gangster movies and noir, they always wanted to work together, but other projects got in the way. Malcolm helped found the Toronto Comics Anthology and Hogtown Horror and Todd was teaching animation as a former animator on Tiny Toon Adventures and Darkwing Duck. Eventually they did come together for a gangster romp called Tommy Gun Banshee featuring an assassin named Nicky who is haunted by a whaling banshee who can only be drowned out by the Rat-tat-tat of his...
2017-11-2059 min
An Elegant WeaponEpisode CCLXXX...30 in 30 Session 19 - Aaron BrovermanFor the final installment of Mississauga Comic Expo week a conversation with fellow podcaster and host of Speech Bubble podcast, Aaron Broverman.
2017-11-2018 min
Speech BubbleWayward Sisters: Allison O'Toole, M. Blankier and Lorena LoaizaFormer Toronto Comics Anthology and current Chapterhouse Publishing editor Allison O'Toole returns to Speech Bubble with a groundbreaking new project. Wayward Sisters: An Anthology of Monstrous Women features an all-female and non-binary cast of comic creators telling monster stories from their own perspectives. Following in the footsteps of other recent comic anthologies written and drawn from a minority point-of-view, Wayward is still something the mainstream comic industry has never seen, much less attempted, at a time when new readers are hungering for something more. Allison brings her assistant editor and former Marvel intern Margot Blankier and contributor Lorena Loaiza...
2017-11-061h 25
Speech BubbleRead More Comix: James Spencer, David Craig & Robb MirskyRobb Mirsky was working the checkout at a liquor store when David Craig showed up in his line wearing a Chester Brown t-shirt. The two bonded and Robb invited David to the next Toronto Comic Jam. Taking place the last Tuesday of every month, the jam happens in the back of the Cameron House bar where participants are expected to grab a page and finish the next panel of the night's various half-started comics. At the end of the night, the pages are collected and that month's issue is published. It was on one of those nights when Robb...
2017-10-231h 15
Speech BubbleStephanie CookeStephanie Cooke cut her teeth in the comics industry as one of several hosts on one of the original comic book podcasts – Talking Comics. From there, she was able to work behind-the-scenes at many comic conventions, eventually becoming the personal assistant of some of the biggest names in the industry. Now, she has struck out on her own as the founder and editor-in-chief of Rogues Portal a pop culture review and commentary website. A writer in her own right, her work has appeared in the Toronto Comics Anthology, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls and more recently, Mark Millar's Mi...
2017-10-091h 19
Speech BubbleAnthony FalconeLast episode we talked to artist Gibson Quarter and this one features his Quid Pro Quo collaborator and fellow RAID studiomate -- writer Anthony Falcone. Anthony has written everything from novels to screenplays, but he is perhaps best known as the writer of the Northguard comic book for Canadian publisher Chapterhouse. Find out how original Northguard co-creator Mark Shainblum passed down the writing chores of the newly rebooted series to Anthony and how integrated the hero into the Chapterhouse Universe. Then we discuss what it's really like to work at RAID and the new studio anthology RAID.ONE where...
2017-09-251h 36
Speech BubbleGibson QuarterAnother member of the RAID Studio graces the Never Sleeps Network Studio in promotion of the group's RAID.One anthology featuring original work from celebrated artists Francis Manapul, Ramon Perez and this man, Gibson Quarter. Gibson's name may not be as familiar yet in North America because a lot of his work is published in Europe. On this episode, Gibson describes how his love for the work of famed Scottish comic artist Frank Quitely lead to him breaking into the European comic market working for Quitely's first publisher and then later signing comics beside him at the Glasgow Comicon...
2017-09-1152 min
Speech BubbleSethAaron journeys to Inkwell's End, the home and studio of Canadian award-winning cartoonist Seth (Palookaville, Clyde Fans, It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken, Wimbledon Green, George Sprott) in Guelph, Ontario Canada. In doing so, he steps into a time-warp and a space Seth best describes as, “post war-kitsch.” Think your grandma's house if the furniture was still pristine, the radio still worked and toys from the early 20th century lined the walls. It's all just another aspect of the extremely well-crafted and curated personal brand that is Seth – a man who consciously harkens back to a certain formal...
2017-09-011h 13
Speech BubbleChester BrownInspired by Robert Crumb, Crad Kilodney, Art Spiegelman, Seth and other alternative cartoonists, Chester Brown uses his autobiographical comics work to confront issues that he's currently wrestling with or make him uncomfortable. Whether it was the use of scatological humour in Ed the Happy Clown, his relationship with women and his own mother in I Never Liked You or his journey to becoming a John in Paying For It, it's easier for him to unpack his own hang ups when they're made public. Brown talks about how he initially broke into comics with the self-published Yummy Fur, why his...
2017-08-182h 06
Speech BubblePeter Birkemoe and Christopher ButcherThe Beguiling Books & Art is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2017, so Aaron welcomes its current owner Peter Birkemoe and outgoing shop manager and current Toronto Comic Art Festival artistic director Christopher Butcher. Together they trace the shop's history from its beginnings on Harbord Street to its current status as Toronto's destination for independent comics. We discuss how both Chris and Peter grew to mostly detest mainstream superhero comics in favour of the more intellectual and independent fare, before discussing the evolution of the Toronto Comics Art Festival from a small comic convention in the Honest Ed's store parking lot...
2017-08-041h 37
Speech BubbleAlfonso EspinosAlfonso Espinos was born and raised in Mexico where, over 20 years ago, he launched Studio Comix Press to self-publish The Night Spike, a cartoon, superhero parody comic. It could've just been another obscure Spanish-language imprint, but then he met his wife and moved to Kitchener, Ontario where things got a lot more challenging. The jokes in The Night Spike didn't immediately properly translate from Spanish to English, so he sat watching Canada's Comedy Network for hours taking notes just to understand Canada's sense of humour. His drive did not end there. Most comic creators rest on one successful comic...
2017-07-281h 29
Speech BubbleAndrew ThomasAndrew Thomas lucked out. Just as his indie comic Post-Human (kind of Inspector Gadget meets film noir) was disintegrating because of creative differences with the writer, the Northern Ontario Comicon in Timmins, Ontario contacted him about developing an ongoing superhero series featuring its mascot – an anthropomorphic lion in medieval garb named Auric of the Great White North. The local media latched on to the hero they could finally call their own and the title has been a hit ever since -- already on issue three and having made multiple printings of the prior issue zero mini comic. Meanwhile, as a...
2017-07-211h 09
Speech BubbleValentine De LandroAs the co-creator of Bitch Planet, comic artist Valentine De Landro gets to explore intersectional feminism and build a world representing all kinds of women of all kinds of races, minorities and body types, a far cry from his days as an African-Canadian comic fan when he didn't often see himself represented and had to tolerate a spate of heroes with “Black” in front of their name. We talk about that awkwardness and the eerie way Bitch Planet's second arc began to allude to Hilary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election without really meaning to. While De Land...
2017-07-141h 16
Speech BubbleSarafinSarafin is the writer and artist behind the independent webcomic and graphic novel series Asylum Squad. The fictional story is very loosely inspired by Sarafin’s own experiences during a year an in-patient facility where she was receiving treatment for mental illness and follows four teenage patients drafted into an experimental drug trial that allows them to battle their inner demons like a psychiatric Justice League. This episode delves into what lead to Sarafin being institutionalized and why she began her comic as an outlet for what she was experiencing. We also explain the Mad Pride movement and why Sa...
2017-07-071h 26Speech BubblePaul SolesWe all remember the original 1967 Spider-Man cartoon (you know the one with the catchy theme song) but did you know that all the dialogue for the series was recorded in Toronto and Paul Soles, the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, is not only still around, but still acting at 86-years-young as the star of the new CBC Comedy web series, My 90-year-old Roommate? The legend comes by to spill secrets from the production of Spider-Man, including the fact that the voice acting company for all the original Marvel cartoons – Spider-Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Marvel Superheroes and mo...
2017-06-291h 12Speech BubbleNicholas Brown and Evan HendersonAs regular listeners to this podcast will know, it’s no secret that our host is a huge Sandman fan and works in a Sandman reference in almost every episode. So when he heard Nicholas Brown and Evan Henderson were making a 35-minute fan film adapting Sandman #6: “24 Hours” called Sandman: 24-hour Diner, Aaron had to have them on the show. The film screens on June 25, 2017 at 7 p.m. at Toronto’s Royal Cinema. Then, at midnight, it will be released on Vimeo for the whole world to see. This episode of Speech Bubble serves as a primer for the movie, w...
2017-06-2243 minSpeech BubbleNug NahrgangNug Nahrgang’s success as an award-winning sketch comedian and improviser seems like a series of stumbled upon happenstances. First, Nug accidentally got himself hired at Second City, then he somehow scored an audition for Saturday Night Live! He scored memorable bit parts in The Love Guru with Mike Meyers and Owning Mahowny with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, both at a time when he was sure his scenes would be left on the cutting room floor. Nug has managed to meet Vince McMahon, and William Shatner, and improvise on stage with legends like Colin Mocherie, Catherine O’Hara, and...
2017-06-151h 13Speech BubbleRebecca DiemRebecca Diem is a co-organizer of Comic Shop Ladies Night, a pop-up after hours social just for the ladies, held at a rotating list of comic shops across Toronto. She’s also the author of a series of popular, self-published steampunk adventure novellas titled Tales of Captain Duke. After running through the early influences and inspirations that got her into comics and writing, which range from Archie and Saved by the Bell to Neil Gaiman and the Sunday Funnies, her grandma sent her, we get into the process behind and inspiration for Captain Duke. This episode will also give li...
2017-06-081h 32Speech BubbleStephany LeinAs Wonder Woman hits theaters this week, we present a woman who champions and embodies many of her best qualities as a great admirer of the character. Stephany Lein grew up as a child whose circumstances forced her to be almost completely self-sufficient, independent and strong in the face of familial adversity. She now passes on many of the lessons she learned and the coping mechanisms she had to the children who read her independent all ages comics work. There’s Strays, which is about a girl who finds the love of a dog after being kicked out of th...
2017-06-0156 minSpeech BubbleJ TorresEven though he’s written horror comics and Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight, J. Torres is known best for all ages Comics like Batman: Brave and the Bold, Teen Titans Go! and his current project The Mighty Zodiac. He has also written many Degrassi comics so he has more than a few Drake stories. In this conversation we drill down on why more kids are into comics than ever before, what DC and Marvel can do to attract new readers while keeping their diehard fans and what it took for this former ESL teacher to break into comics an...
2017-05-2550 min
Speech BubbleAlly Rom ColthoffAlly comes to Speech Bubble while her Kickstarter for volume 3 of her long-running webcomic Chirault is in full swing. Chirault is a high fantasy adventure akin to comic book fantasy classics like Elfquest and Bone. The comic stars Teeko, a girl hit with a wayward shrinking spell who enlists the help of a demon hunter named Kiran. As the two go on a quest to find a cure for Teeko, they uncover a vast conspiracy tied to Kiran’s past. Ally discusses the genesis of Chirault, her role as a member of the SpiderForest Webcomic Collective and her latest co...
2017-05-181h 04Speech BubbleChip ZdarskyBefore he was comic industry iconoclast Chip Zdarsky, artist on Sex Criminals and writer on Kaptara, Jughead, Star-Lord, Howard the Duck and Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man (coming: June 2017), he was Barrie, Ontario’s Steve Murray. Growing up as a lonely geek with amazingly supportive parents, including a mother who let him and his brother make fun of his father at will, he would eventually become a cartoonist and humour journalist for The National Post newspaper. Then, an opportunity to watch Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau beat someone up in a boxing match, somehow led to his collaboration with Ma...
2017-05-1149 minSpeech BubbleAnthony RuttgaizerOn the last day of his Kickstarter for Heroes of Homeroom C, First Hero creator Anthony Ruttgaizer takes aspiring comic creators school. He explains why some creators need a reality check when it comes to their skill level and how being unable to receive such honest feedback from the professionals who know is detrimental to their success. He also explains why the history, legacy and structure of DC and Marvel will always hinder their ability to produce anything authentically diverse. We also touch on his pro wrestling career, why he started his own comic company, Aristocrats Comics and what...
2017-05-041h 35Speech BubbleMarvin LawMarvin Law’s first few years as a comic fan were pretty traumatic. As a single digit age kid, he watched Batman beat Superman to a pulp in Dark Knight Returns, his favourite character, The Flash, died in Crisis on Infinite Earths and he read Watchmen way too early. Meanwhile, his father who trained in Wing Chung Kung Fu under Ip Man at the same time as Bruce Lee, exposed him to Hong Kong comics. All of it influenced Marvin’s later career as a comic artist. Somewhat of a local legend in the Toronto comic book scene as a sc...
2017-04-271h 29Speech BubbleShawn DaleyShawn Daley came to comics through the unlikely path of music. As an audio intern at a recording studio, he was exposed to his boss’s comic book collection. While powering through classics like Chester Brown’s Louis Riel, Watchmen and The Walking Dead, he quickly became inspired to create his own comics. Enter TerraQuill, a continent Daley created where his ongoing webcomic of the same name takes place. Completely self-taught, he learned everything he knows about comics making TerraQuill Collected – a collection of short stories all taking place in the TerraQuill universe. Meanwhile, he never completely abandoned music, but th...
2017-04-191h 06Speech BubbleComics on Comics: K Trevor WilsonSpeech Bubble: Comics on Comics: K Trevor Wilson
Aaron faces off with the Mountain Man…er…Man Mountain of comedy for this second episode of the Comics on Comics series. Our host gets tips on performing the perfect Letterkenny dialect from Squirrely Dan himself before the two explore the reasons behind K Trev’s love of The Incredible Hulk and Professional Wrestling. Oh, and we also learn that the best way to book a stand-up comedy spot on Jimmy Kimmel Live is by bumping into Jimmy in the men’s room.
@KTrevorWilson
K Trevor W...
2017-03-0239 min
An Elegant WeaponEpisode CCIX...Aaron Broverman Part 2
Part 2 of our interview with Toronto Comic enthusiast and journalist Aaron Broverman.
2016-08-311h 19
An Elegant WeaponEpisode CCX...Aaron Broverman
The Jedi Ras chats with journalist, ju-jitsu student, comicbook enthusiast and host of the Speech Bubble podcast on The Never Sleeps Network, Aaron Broverman. Aaron discusses his beginnings in Vancouver, his move to Toronto, his life long love of comics, his experiences living with Cerebral Palsy and all the adventures in between that have made him the inspirational and awesome guy that he is. This is Part One of an epic 3 hour conversation held one beautiful Sunday at The Sidekick comic café and lounge in Leslieville over iced coffee and decaf americano espresso...
2016-08-291h 37Speech BubbleMark AskwithAs one of the founders of the Space Channel and a producer on the homegrown genre fiction culture show Innerspace, Mark Askwith has more than made his mark in the long history of comic book fandom in Canada. (Although, he” far too humble to agree on that fact.) He has personal ties to the likes of Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and Frank Miller. He is also a staple in the history of Canadian comic book television with the seminal “Prisoners of Gravity,” and was a pioneering manager of The Silver Snail comic store in the 1980s. Aaron delves into Mark’s personal...
2016-07-2353 minSpeech BubbleChris WattonChris is the owner, founder and curator for The Sidekick, (www.thesidekickcomics.com) a Toronto East End coffee and comic book spot. Chris wanted to have a combined shop since her high school days, long before the two cultures were mutually engaged the way they are in a few comic shops across Toronto. Chris opens up about how comics helped her through her difficult formative years and how growing up in Windsor was particularly difficult for a budding comic fan. Her challenges had far from relented when she entered art school as she -and many of her fellow students- butted...
2016-07-1055 minSpeech BubbleJohn Little and Jon Sufrin – The SalesmanAaron tries mealworms live on air, which fits with the politics of consumption brought up by The Salesman — an original graphic novel from our guests John Little and Jon Sufrin. Little takes us through the long, hard road to publication: the book was released online, he hated it, so he recruited food journalist Jon Sufrin to help him re-write it. The result is a morally absolutist fable that pulls no punches and will leave many uncomfortable. Both men say, ‘That’s the point.’
2016-05-061h 15Speech BubbleJay Clark – An Elegant Weapon PodcastAaron was introduced to Jay Clark after claiming that past guest Alice Quinn was the only comics journalist in Toronto – Jay is proof to the contrary. He is the host of An Elegant Weapon, a podcast that interviews voiceover artists, actors and comic book creators from all over the geek media sphere. Jay tells us what goes into many of his interviews, how he lands big name guests like John Ostrander, (Grim Jack, Suicide Squad, Star Wars) Ryan Stegman (Superior Spider-Man) and Jim Cummings (The voice of Winnie the Pooh) and who is on the rise in the Toronto and Mi...
2016-04-221h 26Speech BubbleShane KirshenblattShane Kirshenblatt is the former proprietor of the now shuttered Temple of Toys – a retro toy store which had its retail location inside The Comic Book Lounge and Gallery in Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood. As a result, he was once the business partner of our last guest Kevin Boyd. Shane is also a custom action figure and Pop Vinyl maker, art teacher and comic book artist (The Jewish Comic Anthology, Anything Ghost, Dorothy Gale: Journey to Oz). Here, he schools us on the finer points of custom figure-making and toy collecting, tells us how judaism has been a cultural poin...
2016-04-081h 25Speech BubbleAaron Feldman and Allison O’TooleThe editors of volume three of The Toronto Comics Anthology stop by to preview the new book, promote the Kickstarter campaign and detail their own careers writing and editing comics. Allison talks about her story in the collection — “Ghosts Over Garlic Mashed Potatoes” — with art by Meaghan Carter, while Aaron details “The Dark” — a story that takes place in Toronto’s O.Noir restaurant – with art by Josh Rosen. Aaron has written for various independent comic collections like this, while Allison is also the editor of The Pitiful Human-Lizard ongoing series from Chapterhouse Comics.
Toronto Comics Anthology Vol. 3 Kickstarter
2016-03-111h 22Speech BubbleBrian Evinou / Debra Jane Shelly MemorialWe open another podcast from our archives in January 2014, just a few days after losing someone integral to Toronto’s comic book community. Debra Jane Shelly didn’t work in comics, but the mark she left on the scene was just as indelible. I look back on her impact with indie comic book creator and animator Brian Evinou. Brian self-publishes his own comics, (Fight Song, Lucy Legacy) has animated some of the most innovative cartoons, (Ugly Americans, Moon Beam City) and is the co-editor of a grand horror comic anthology (Monstrostity Vol. 1 and 2). After pouring one out for Debra, we talk...
2016-01-2454 minSpeech BubbleScott HepburnAt the time of this release, Scott Hepburn is drawing Drax the Destroyer for Marvel with former WWE Superstar C.M. Punk. But back when Aaron talked to him, he’d just finished a collaboration with Rage Against the Machine frontman Tom Morello on a comic called Orchid for Dark Horse. They talk about what it was like working on a comic with a celebrity and how Scott ended up breaking in at DC where he worked on Forever Evil: Rogue’s Rebellion. They also touch on the establishment of RAID Studios – a bastion of high-profile comic book talent living and wo...
2015-12-1542 min