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Winter is crap. I vote for disappearing inside books for the entire season. Most recently I have been devouring a collection of interviews with cartoonists by Robin McConnell called Inkstuds (Drawn & Quarterly). It's 30 interviews taken from the extensive archives of the show by the same name that airs on CiTR radio in Vancouver and via podcast online.
One of the first interviews is with David Collier, a genius Canadian cartoonist and regular Geist contributor. His opening line is pretty darn clever:
David Collier: "I feel bad that you had to play a couple of tracks there because I was out in the Madawaska River, reading Geist magazine. What could be more Canadian that that? I made this little raft out of noodles and stuff so I can sit in the nice cold water and I had this car cup with a top and I was drinking hot tea in the water. Geist is this magazine of Canadian ideas and culture. It's in Vancouver, too." -Inkstuds, p.44
This Inkstuds book is the funnest way to familiarize yourself with the who's who of comics as well as a few of the tricks and tools of the trade. (I think we all in our subconscious want "funnest" to be allowed as a word, so I'm just doing us a favour there.) The whole time I was reading I had to run off to look things up on the internet, like what is a rapidograph, for example? And who is this mysterious Seth without a last name? To boot, there are samples of each artist's work alongside their interview; it's the ideal words-and-pictures mix to be expected from any self-respecting book built for comics types.
