Quill & Quire's "Five Rising Graphic Novel Stars"

The latest issue of Quill & Quire, a magazine devoted to Canadian literary news and reviews, features profiles of myself, Jeff Lemire, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Hope Larson, and Pascal Blanchet. It's quite a good article, and I think author Scott MacDonald really nailed it in terms of the cartoonists he chose. Plus, I think it may be the first time I've been interviewed by a mainstream media outlet and not been misquoted or otherwise misrepresented in some way. So do yourself a favour and check it out. (There's no online version, so you'll have to go buy the actual magazine, you cheap bastards.)

Three Harvey Award Nominations!

Well, this was a genuine surprise. Despite being nominated in past years for virtually every other major industry award, the Harvey Awards (named for MAD founder and '50s war comics artist Harvey Kurtzman, one of the most talented men to ever dip a brush in ink) have never really paid much attention to my work. But it seems now even they are solidly aboard the Scott Chantler train.

The Annotated Northwest Passage has been nominated in two categories: Best Graphic Album - Previously Published Material, and the Special Award for Excellence in Presentation.

And, sort of surprisingly, Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen #1 was nominated for Best Single Issue or Story. This came out nearly a year ago and, frankly, doesn't represent my best work. I'm really rather shocked that anyone remembered it when they were filling out their nomination forms. Still, John Layman's and Tom Peyer's script was hilarious, and Jim Massey's and Robbi Rodriguez's back-up story is terrific, so I really consider it a nomination for the rest of the team, not myself. But I'm glad that enough people seemed to enjoy it to give it this honour.

The Harveys will be handed September 27th, at the Baltimore Comic-Con.

Visions of an Icon

On Saturday, June 14th, the Lillian H. Smith Library in Toronto will be hosting The Sequential Art Symposium '08, which features a stellar line-up of talented comics industry people doing panel discussions in the afternoon, followed by the Joe Shuster Awards ceremony at night. As 2008 is the 70th anniversary of Superman, this event also features the Visions of an Icon art show, featuring 70 different Superman pieces by 70 different Canadian comics artists, myself included.

My favourite thing about Superman has always been the transformation he makes from Clark Kent. He's this bumbling glasses-wearing nerd, but he's got Superman inside of him, who comes bursting out now and then. It's not hard to see why that's made a strong connection with generations of young people. So that's why I chose the image I did:

I also decided to go with a distinctly 1938 version of the character, both to honour Joe Shuster and because my favourite version of Superman is the original. Before the supervillains and mad scientists came along, Superman was just a guy who roughed up wife-beaters, slum landlords, and other Depression-era lowlifes -- and took great delight in doing so.

So come out to the event on the 14th and check out the other pieces, too. I'll be there signing books all day, then presenting the award for Outstanding Canadian Cartoonist at the Shusters afterwards. It's going to be a lot of fun...don't miss it!

"Three Thieves" Lands at Kids Can Press

If you've been visiting this site for a while, you may remember this post from last year, in which I wrote about some art I was working on for a pitch for a major children's publisher. It's been over a year since then, but it can finally be revealed that the pitch was for an all-ages fantasy series called Three Thieves, and that I just finalized a deal with Kids Can Press for the first two books.


Upbeat, action-oriented, and fun, it's about as different from Two Generals (my other current project...the similarity in names is pure coincidence) as you can get. Which I kind of like, actually -- I can take a break from one by turning to the other for a while. The book's full of chases, escapes, funny characters, clever banter, etc. and so far has been nothing but fun to write.

Projected release is in the fall of 2010. I know that seems far off, but subsequent books in the series should hit every six months after that, so your patience will be rewarded. Plus you can fill some of the time with the Hawaiian Dick: Screaming Black Thunder trade (in August) and Two Generals (in November '09). As with everything else, I'll post updates here as the project comes together...so stay tuned!