The Canadian Comics Scene

Welcome Back

Happy belated Canada Day!

Or Happy, also belated, 4th of July for the overwhelming majority of you are reading this post.

Today is the 4th day of our campaign for From Parts Unknown #4 and it's going extremely well. It likely won't hit the heights of Naked Kaiju Woman, but the fact that it's even in the same conversation is astounding. It's easily the best performing issue of From Parts Unknown to date, which is not surprising as many backers are picking up all four issues at once.

If this pace keeps up, we'll be able to hit all of our stretch goals, and I really do hope that happens as I have a couple cool ideas that I can really only do if we manage to surpass them. If you haven't taken a look at the campaign yet, there's still lots of time it runs until August 1^st.

Here’s a special link for those of you who haven’t backed yet:

If you’ve backed any of From Parts Unknown in the past, check your email for “Project Updates” from those campaigns for even more secret reward levels.

Much like every other campaign, I mostly have my friends from South of the border to thank. As it stands, just 6% of the backers are from my homeland of the Great White North. 75% of the backers are American.

This is more of a feature than a bug. They say to be a success in Canada, you have to go be a success in the United States first. If that idiom is true at all, then I'm going down the right track.

Majority of the connections I've made in comics have been online through Kickstarter itself or via social media. I've yet to table at an American convention, but I've made my presence known at San Diego and plan to do the same in New York this fall.

I wanted to discuss this topic after spending two weeks selling at both TCAF and the East Coast Comic Expo. I had a lot of time to gather my thoughts about selling to the Canadian public and the challenges therein - along with what it means to be more popular away from home within it.

Main Story

Toronto (and Canadian) Comics History

Before I dig into how frustrating the Canadian market can be, I want to acknowledge just how successful some comic creators have been in Canada. None bigger than someone who was just barely Canadian, but we’ll happily claim him:

For the Canadians reading this, you’re very familiar with the Heritage Minutes - and if you’re a comics fan, especially a Superman fan, this one specifically stuck with you.

Joe Shuster immigrated to greener pastures as a young man, as the Toronto of 1924 was not the same fertile creative ground it is today. Nowadays, Toronto (and what we call the GTA or Greater Toronto Area) is a hotbed of comic creativity. There are too many successful names to list, but we have folks like Todd McFarlane, Darwyn Cooke, Francis Manapul, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Ty Templeton, Chip Zdarsky, Ed Brisson, Karl Kerschl, Jim Zub and a bunch I’m surely missing – and that’s just Toronto (and not including a bunch of folks in the indie scene that I know personally.)

If I expand outside of the borders of my own town, but still within that of Canada, John Byrne and Tom Grummettt were particularly influential as creators who had the good fortune of adding to the Superman lore.

Toronto, and broadly Canada, is clearly a home for comics. We love them here and strive to create them as much as any other big city in the world - starting all the way from its origins to now. So, what's the problem?

You can find out that answer, along with exclusive previews of upcoming projects, behind the paywall. I make subscriptions as cheap as Substack will allow me to, so it’s the best deal I can make it.

If you’re interested, join us behind the cut. If not, I’ll be back on Wednesday to talk about all of the wonderful artists who have worked for Pesto Comics so far.