Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck “The Son of the Sun” The Don Rosa Library Vol 1

I never read any of the Carl Barks or Don Rosa duck comics until relatively recently when Fantagraphics began releasing collected editions. I was, however, a big fan of the TV show Ducktales (which was based upon Barks and Rosa's works) and thus was already familiar with many of the denizens of Duckburg. Continuing in its tradition of bringing the best of Donald and Uncle Scrooge to the masses, Fantagraphics has released the first volume in the Don Rosa library.

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Marvel 1960s Annuals: Part One, Fantastic Four

One of my personal favourite genres of comic books that I like to collect is the big square bound super-hero annuals. Twice the size and price of a regular comic, these books only came out once a year and were packed with pin-ups, some classic reprints, and usually a crackling good original story. The original stories quite often took place outside the current storylines taking place in the title, but had a place in the character or groups long term continuity. There were surprisingly few made – I count 18 in the sixties and some characters and groups had none at all. I did not include war, romance, westerns, or re-print annuals in this first series but may get to them at a later date.

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Birthdays

This third week in September is quite a significant week for WECA book fans. This past Saturday night I attended the Shuster Awards for the first time and served as a presenter for the induction of former Hamiltonian Edmond Good into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame. He and publisher of Bell Features books, Cy Bell, were the two WECA era inductees this year. In the past few years it has we have inducted two creators from the Canadian Golden Age and one more recent creator—this year well deserving Ty Templeton. One oversight that I think needs to be corrected is that a female WECA artist has yet to be inducted (top of my list is Doris Slater with Shirley Fortune not too far behind). You can see all the winners at the Shusters web site and read Scott VanderPloeg’s report here.

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2014 Joe Shuster Awards

The 2014 Joe Shuster Awards took place Saturday September 20th in Toronto. I previously posted the Harry Kremer Retailer Award winner but here is the full list with pictures and audio courtesy of Jamie Coville. Anthony Falcone, Ivan Kocmarek and myself presented awards and represented Comic Book Daily.

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The 44th Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide

The 44th edition of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide came out several weeks back and I’d like to take this a bit tardy opportunity to chime in with some thoughts.

For comic book collectors the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide is the one resource that is needed above all others. It remains the “Bible” of collecting.

I’ve done a few comic cons this year and I’m happy to report that I see the Guide carried around by lots of collectors, those that don’t carry one often ask me if they could look at a guide while considering a purchase.

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Flea Market Finds!

I’m back in school with kids half my age so I’m feeling a bit apprehensive about the coming months. A lot has changed at OCAD (Ontario College of Art & Design) but the political and artistic sensibilities remain the same.…

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50 Years Ago…

It was 50 years ago this week that the earliest article I know of on Canadian WECA comics appeared in the Sept. 19, 1964 issue of Maclean’s Magazine. It was written by Alexander (“Sandy”) Cameron Ross as part of a series called “A Maclean’s Flashback” and its title was “A Fond Portrait of those Wild Wartime Comics.” Ross was perhaps best known for founding Canadian Business magazine in 1977 and posthumously has had a national award ‘The Alexander Ross Award for Best New Writer’ given out by the National Magazines Awards Foundation.

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Rise of the One Day Show

Now that the holy pilgrimage to the mother of all shows in Canada is over, what do comic fans have to look forward to? Typically, Fan Expo signals the end of summer and along with it the end of the convention season. However, it’s been an unusually busy summer for comics this year. In addition to new shows like the GTA Comic Con and the SuperFan ComicCon, we also have the rise of smaller one day shows like the Toronto Comic Book Show (TCBS).

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