Rutu Modan special presentation at the Miles Nadal JCC (Toronto) - May 12th

The Toronto Comics Arts Festival and the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre will be co-hosting a special audio/visual presentation by Rutu Modan on her new graphic novel The Property. 

The Property is a work that will inspire, fascinate, and delight readers and critics alike. Savvy and insightful, elegant and subtle, Modan’s second full-length graphic novel is a triumph of storytelling and fine lines. After the death of her son, Regina Segal takes her granddaughter Mica to Warsaw, hoping to reclaim a family property lost during the Second World War. As they get to know modern Warsaw, Regina is forced to recall difficult things about her past, and Mica begins to wonder if maybe their reasons for coming aren’t a little different than her grandmother led her to believe.

Rutu Modan offers up a world populated by prickly seniors, smart-alecky public servants, and stubborn women – a world whose realism is expressed alternately in the absurdity of people’s behavior, and in the complex consequences of their sacrifices. Modan’s ever-present wit is articulated perfectly in her clear-line style, while a subtle, almost muted color palette complements the true-to-life nuances of her characterization. Exit Wounds made a huge splash for this signature combination of wit, style, and realism, and The Property will cement Modan’s status as one of the foremost cartoonists working today.

Date : Sunday, May 12, 2013 

Time : 5:00 - 8:00 PM

Address : 750 Spadina Ave. 

New Narrative conference in Toronto - Fri., May 10th

Today, the 4th annual FREE one-day comics conference known as The New Narrative will be held on the campus of University of Toronto. Full details (including the schedule) may be found at http://torontocomics.com/news/new-narratives-iv-seeing-is-believing-voire-cest-croire/.

One of the paprs being presented is titled “’Maybe they’ve mixed me up with Joe Sacco?’: Reportage, Autobiography, and the (non-)Touristic Gaze in Guy Delisle’s Graphic Travelogues”. Both Joe Sacco and Guy Deslisle have had their comix travelogues published (though Sacco's work is always referred to as comic journalism). Both have also written and illustrated stories about Israel (Joe Sacco's Palestine and Guy Deslisle's Jerusalem).

The conference will be concluded with a keynote address by  Rutu Modan (author-illustrator of the graphic novel Exit Wounds and the newly-published graphic novel The Property).

Jewish Side of TCAF 2013

This weekend, readers, writers, artists, publishers and fans of comix will converge at the Toronto Reference Library to take part in the the FREE Toronto Comic Arts Festival.This yearmarks the 10th anniversary since the first TCAF was held (at a much smaller venue) in 2003.

Among the talented people who will be at TCAF this year are a small number of comix professionals who have done comic art using Jewish characters or themes.

* Jonathan Baylis (author of So ... Buttons mini-comic)

* Willow Dawson (illustrator of the anthology No Girls Allowed : Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure, written by Susan Hughes and published by Kids Can Press. The anthology includes the story of Esther Brandeau, the first Jewish person to immigrate to Canada.)

*  Sarah Glidden (author-illustrator of the autobiographical How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less!, which was nominated for the 2012 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list)

* Gilbert Hernandez  (author-illustrator of Love and Rockets X, which features the half-Jewish character Kris Nesnick)

* David Malki! (author of the Wondermark webcomic, which has been collected in trade paperback. Among the comics that have appeared on the site is one with the punch line "Hannukah bush", one about the Jewish New Year, one that uses the juice/Jews homonym joke and one about Hebephiles.)

* Dylan Meconis (author-illustrator of the webcomic Family Man, about a Jewish academic named Luther Levy, who was unable to defend his dissertation because he was not Christian ; volume 1 may be purchased in person at TCAF or ordered online)

* Rutu Modan (author-illustrator of the graphic novel Exit Wounds and the newly-published graphic novel The Property)

* Josh Neufeld (author-illustrator of A Few Perfect Hours)

* Paul Pope (author-illustrator of the story "Berlin Batman" in The Batman Chronicles #11 [reprinted in Batman : Year 100], in which Batman is a Jewish painter named Baruch Wane)

* Jon Rosenberg (author-illustrator of the webcomic Goats, which includes the Jewish character "Jon", as seen in the strip from Nov. 24, 2005)

* Art Spiegelman (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Maus and one of the main characters in the online story "The Night I Met Art Spiegelman")