Just one of my many TCAF purchases.

Last weekend was the annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and what a weekend it was! For the uninitiated, TCAF is a free celebration of comics and graphic novels and their creators, which culminates in a two-day exhibition and vendor fair featuring hundreds of comics creators from around the world, held at Toronto Reference Library in Toronto, Canada. This year’s festival featured such luminaries as Jeff Smith, Kate Beaton, Konami Kanata, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Alison Bechdel and more. My fellow SketchKrieg! members and I were stationed on the second floor, selling books and meeting new people. If you’ve never been, you should really attend – it’s a wonderful festival!

The TCAF weekend was doubly exciting this year as two members of TCAF – Brian Hoang (Medicine) and Gillian Newland (A Chanukah Noel) – were married on the Saturday night! SketchKrieg! now features two married members. It’s only a matter of time before Jason Loo (Loo Harvest) and I announce our engagement.

TCAF was a truly amazing celebration of comics. Not only did I sell a surprising (to me) number of copies of Quarter-Life Crisis, The Dead Kid Detective Agency and the brand-new DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains, I met a number of creators I really admire and discovered several new ones! Congratulations and major thanks to all the TCAF organizers and the army of volunteers. (TCAF is also one of the best run comic festivals ever – they’ve thought of everything!)

Books purchased at TCAF:

Sassy Mavericks by Brian Evinou
Hector Umbra by Uli Oesterle
Sparky O’Hare: Master Electrician by Mawil
Manta-Man by Chad Sell
Teen Boat by Dave Roman and John Green
Ultimate Kate or Die by Kate Leth

Pecha Kucha Mississauga invitation

I’ll be taking part in the FIRST EVER Pecha Kucha Mississauga at the Mississauga Art Gallery, and you can, too!

What’s a Pecha Kucha? You can find out more here, but the basic concept (devised in Tokyo in 2003) is that several participants present 20 images timed at 20 seconds each. It’s like the most fun, entertaining series of Powerpoint presentations ever!

The special guest presenter is architect, designer and editor Ian Chodikoff (Canadian Architect). I’ll be one of the other artists and cultural producers trying to enlighten and delight. What will I present on? Book publicity? Forgotten comic books of the 1990s? Who knows!

Pecha Kucha Mississauga
Thursday, May 24
Mississauga Art Gallery, 300 City Centre Drive
Mississauga, ON
7 pm
Free! All are invited!

Want to be a part of this? Limited spots still available! Please contact Jaclyn Qua-Hiansen at (905) 896-5088 or jaclyn.qua-hiansen@mississauga.ca.

Join the Facebook event, too.

TCAF poster by Gabriel Ba and Fabian Moon

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is a week long celebration of comics and graphic novels and their creators, which culminates in a two-day exhibition and vendor fair featuring hundreds of comics creators from around the world at the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street). Seriously, it’s the best thing ever to happen in Toronto and I feel forever indebted to the people at The Beguiling who make it happen every year.

I’ll be part of a table at the weekend exhibition with my fellow SketchKrieg! illustrators, so please come by and say ‘hello.’ I’ll be selling The Dead Kid Detective Agency, the brand-new DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains, the also-brand-new  SketchKrieg! Paper Trail collaborative comic book and more. I’ll also be sheepishly apologizing for not having the new Quarter-Life Crisis book done yet. (My new joke: ‘By the time I’m done, I’ll have to change the name to Mid-Life Crisis.’)

Even if you don’t say ‘hello,’ just go to this. It’s an incredible comics event. More information can be found at torontocomics.com.

Prospective illustration for the second book.

At times, it seemed it was impossible, but the second manuscript of The Dead Kid Detective Agency, tentatively titled Dial ‘M’ for Morna, is complete!

Well, not quite. I’ve handed in the manuscript to ECW Press. Most of the editorial process is still ahead, and while I think the book is in pretty good shape, I’m sure my talented editor Erin Creasey will have other thoughts. That said, the second book does have a chapter entitled ‘Sk8 or Die (or Do Both).’ So, you know it’s gotta’ be good.

DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains, is hot off the presses at Coach House Printing. Author Natalie Zina Walschots swooped by (she traveled by boom tube, I think) to catch a couple copies of the book as it came off the gluer. If you’re in Toronto on May 15, you should attend the launch of DOOM at the Insomniac Press Party at the Dora Keogh. (You can find all the details here.) I’ll also have copies on me at TCAF this coming weekend. So come by and pick up a copy, or buy a copy of our SketchKrieg! collaborative book or berate me for not having Quarter-Life Crisis #2 done yet (I deserve it).

In other news, I just saw The Raid, which is the action movie to end all action movies. Seriously, this movie is bananas. I spent most of the viewing with my hand in front of my open mouth. Just look at this trailer.  (Don’t worry. There’s way more where that trailer came from.)

Rodney and me: peas in a pod

Like Rodney Dangerfield so many years before me, I’ve been spending a lot of time going back to school. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending the morning with Ms. Poirier’s Fifth Grade class at the Duke of Connaught Public School. The class had read The Dead Kid Detective Agency as a group and knew the book inside and out. I was even treated to illustrations many of the students had made of the book – there were some really good renditions of fictional band Phantom Moustache and October smeared with teary black eyeliner. Some of the students were budding writers themselves; one student told me of her amazing work-in-progress about two friends who become rivals while running for class president. Others were keen to share their favourite horror movies. (The Omen got a lot of shout-outs. Should we be concerned?)

Tuesday morning was really a wonderful experience; I figured this must be what it’s like for the guy who wrote Where’s Waldo? when he visits schools.*

I then spend Tuesday night in the company of some of Canada’s best high school reciters of poetry at the Poetry In Voice competition. The annual bilingual poetry recitation contest for high-school students in Canada founded by Scott Griffin brought champions from Ontario and Quebec together for the finals at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto, and man, was it impressive. These kids were amazing. Audiences were treated to renditions of classics like ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ by Walt Whitman and William Carlos William’s ‘Danse Russe,’ as well as contemporary works like Kevin Connolly’s ‘Plenty,’ Suzanne Buffam’s ‘The New Experience’ and Christian Bok’s ‘Chapter I.’ In high school, I don’t think you could have got me to say two words in front of an audience of hundreds, no less dramatically recite a poem I’d memorized.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be at the Oakville Public Library, returning to the scene of the crime (the crime being the illegal dumping of bacon grease collected at my summer job at What’s the Scoop?) to talk about The Dead Kid Detective Agency, and lead a mystery writing workshop. And this mystery writing workshop is going to be really good. Stolen volleyball trophies. That’s right. Just think where that mystery could lead. Hope to see some of you there!

*And yes, I know the man’s name is Maritn Handford. I just thought it was funnier this way.

Good night, you princes of Maine.

I’ve returned from The Hammer, where the gritLIT Festival treated me like a veritable king! Or a veritable Judy Blume! My gritLIT Festival events were amazing and the staff and volunteers were the best. I talked to about eighty students from three different classes at the Hamilton Public Library, during which I gave a short preview of the second Dead Kid book (it will feature suffragettes, Titanic survivors and the inventor of the zipper – excited?) and discovered Hamilton was overwhelmingly Team Peeta (as I would hope).

After a thoroughly enjoyable day in Hamilton, I came back to Toronto to see The Magnetic Fields in concert. My good friend (and DOOM author) Natalie Zina Walschots has perfectly encapsulated the experience in her concert review (which includes extensive descriptions of she and Dani Couture hiding food from T&T Supermarket in the bushes outside Sound Academy). While I’ve never been as big a fan as, say, author Grace O’Connell (The Magnified World), who also appears in that review, the concert kind of blew me away. Bonus: I learned about their new song, Your Girlfriend’s Face, which is fantastically vengeful. You should listen to it, and be horrified yet delighted. Then it was back to Hamilton to lead a workshop on ‘Demystifying Publishing.’ This mostly involved magic tricks.

But not all my news is good. As my co-conspirator, the talented Emma Woolley, posted on the Geek Love website earlier today, we are discontinuing the Geek Love event series. She’s said it better than I could, so I’ve excerpted her sad message below:

‘It is with a heavy heart that I announce that Geek Love is dead for an indefinite period of time, perhaps forever. Evan and I are rather strapped for time and so we made the difficult decision to end this little project of ours.’

‘Thanks for your continued support. These nights were some of my favourite from the past year, and we love you – and your geekiness – very much.’

‘P.S. Due to receiving a number of questions regarding our depressing demise, I wanted to add that time isn’t the only factor in the Geek Love hiatus. I didn’t want to mention them initially because they’re no fun, but here we go: Recently there have been a number of questions regarding obtaining copyright of what we screen and charging cover to pay for those fees.’

There’s more on the Geek Love website, but in short, the copyright police are at the door, and we’ve said ‘uncle.’ But we are thinking of ways to continue. (I like the idea of running Geek Love as a class and making attendees ‘registrants.’) And there will be a farewell Geek Love some time in May – a ‘little zombie party,’ as Emma puts it, so we hope to see you there.

Okay, back to finishing my draft of The Dead Kid Detective Agency 2 …

Your one-stop source for info on Ontario books!

In advance of my publishing workshop at Hamilton’s gritLIT Festival this coming Saturday (March 31), book and publishing website Open Book Ontario interviewed me (or rather, Open Book editor Erin Knight did)  about what attendees can expect to learn (or not learn). Read this excerpt:

Among the most highly anticipated events (aside from the rollicking Gala Festival Close with Lit Live) are Saturday’s writing workshops. Publicist, novelist and cartoonist Evan Munday gave Open Book a sneak preview of his upcoming workshop, The Published Author, a demystification of Canadian publishing.

Coach House Books publicist by day, Evan has been part of Toronto’s publishing scene for nearly a decade. He’s learned a few tricks of the trade in the years since he first interned with This Magazine and Cormorant Books, and he plans to share these tips with Saturday’s audience (hint: DO tell everyone you ever knew about your upcoming book launch; DON’T try contacting the Books editor of the Globe and Mail). He’ll answer questions about what a writer should do when the manuscript’s the best it can be and the search for a publisher begins. Writers who already have their first book deals lined up will also learn some key pointers (don’t let the Public Lending Right Program cheque pass you by). Perhaps most importantly, Evan’s experience as both a writer and a publicist will give writers perspective on the industry from both sides of the page.

“Working dual role as publicist at one press and published author at another has helped most in keeping my expectations realistic,” says Evan. “I know how hard most publicists work to organize events or sell a couple books. I’ve been to readings where two hundred people show up and I’ve been to readings where two people show up, and I know that publicity can be a long game.”

You can read more at Open Book Toronto. It nearly makes me seem wise. Though the line about being ”part of Toronto’s publishing scene for nearly a decade’ kind of terrified me. Not gonna’ lie.

Hope to see some of you on Saturday! And my Oakville Teen Writing Workshop has been moved to April 19. (Check the events listings.)

Dr. Horrible and Buffy go their own ways.

Long-time (and long-suffering) readers of this blog (hi, mom!) will know I’m the co-organizer of a monthly Toronto event series called Geek Love. With co-organizer (and real founder) Emma Woolley, we’ve been hosting nights of geek-themed television at The Ossington (61 Ossington Street) for a year. We’ve screened nights of The Venture Brothers, Battlestar Galactica, The Mighty Boosh, Freaks and Geeks and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And on the occasion of Geek Love’s one-year anniversary, we repeated the event that began it all (back when Woolley was organizing things on her own), the Whedonfest Singalong: a crowd participation screening of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ‘Once More with Feeling.’

Toronto news leader the Torontoist was there to cover the action, and interview us. I was in my pyjamas, but I was in character (Xander, while singing ‘I’ll Never Tell’). You can visit the whole article at Torontoist, but I’ve posted a short excerpt below:

In a dark, small-ish room with exposed brick walls in the back of the Ossington, a buzzing crowd has already begun to form nearly an hour before the main event. One girl is wearing a white scientist’s smock with a pair of black goggles dangling around her neck. A young gentleman is looking dapper in a classy librarian-esque jacket and tie. Another guy is really pulling off a plaid pyjama set—the silk ones were too expensive, he says.

This last costume-wearer is Evan Munday, co-organizer of the monthly Geek Love screening series, which celebrated its first anniversary on Monday night with a repeat of the event that started it all: a Joss Whedon Singalong. Together with Emma Woolley, these two lovers of all things geek-related planned their first event in 2011, screening the 42-minute-long Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog followed by “Once More With Feeling,” the musical episode of Whedon’s best-loved TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Did we just ignite an internet firestorm of debate?)

“Joss Whedon’s musical episodes provide people with a more readily available way to appreciate [his work] as a group, in that you can sing along,” says Munday. “I think it would be annoying if you were to watch an episode and just recite all of the lines, but singing—that’s an acceptable thing, and these episodes are the perfect way to have audience participation.”

Munday and Woolley have packed about 80 Whedon-heads into the bar’s back room, including one fan who says she has watched “Once More With Feeling” on all seven continents. Among nerds, Whedon is like a rock star—stories about sightings and near-sightings fly at Geek Love, and a fairly enthusiastic field of swaying hands is not out of place during Captain Hammer’s misguided, macho rendition of “Everyone’s a Hero” in Dr. Horrible’s final act.

Read more at Torontoist (with videos!), and be sure to check out the Geek Love website and Twitter feed. We’re always looking for more suggestions of what to screen!

Star of The Dead Kid Detective Agency, October Schwartz.

The Dead Kid Detective Agency was reviewed very favourably by blogger, The Library Lady (Hylary).

One of the best parts of the review is that I turned her around. She started out hating my style, but grew to enjoy it.  I love when that happens:

I have to admit that when I first started reading this novel I had trouble getting used to Evan Munday’s writing style. Not many authors joke quite as much as he does in telling the story, so it was somewhat new territory for me. Once I became more accustomed to it, however, I ended up really enjoying this book! Munday’s pop-culture references were spot on for me, making me laugh at the nostalgic feelings they conjured up.

Then concludes her introduction with:

I would highly recommend this title to tween readers who want something with a bit of edge and lot of laughs.

Funnily enough, that’s close to what  my online dating profile: ‘highly recommended to those who want something with a bit of edge and a lot of laughs.’ (Very little edge, really.) But then, something that mystified me:

Since the author is Canadian and the book is set in Canada, American readers will have to get used to some of Munday’s references/vocabulary that differ slightly from what they’re used to.

But I am a secret American! Have I been fully assimilated? Were there references to Nanaimo bars and The Littlest Hobo that I missed? I will have to be more vigilant in the future.  But the review ends really nicely:

Overall, The Dead Kid Detective Agency is an easily enjoyable, entertaining and downright funny story that many young readers are sure to love.

Thanks so much for the review, Hylary. You can read the full article here.

Poster for my upcoming workshop.

True story: I worked one summer as student employee of the Oakville Public Library and have very fond memories of my time spent there. Another true story: I’ll be returning to said library for a teen writing talk and workshop. Check it out:

Oakville Trafalgar High School grad and Young Adult Author Evan Munday will take you on a mystery writing tour that you won’t forget!

First on tap: introducing readers to his book, The Dead Kid Detective Agency, first in a series and has been called “a zany side-splitter of a novel” by Quill & Quire.

After reading and talking about October Schwartz and her dead friends, Evan will then lead the audience in writing a mystery of their own: A crime has happened and it is up to the teen audience to help figure it out. Evan will create drawings of a mysterious crime and a handful of possible suspects. Budding authors in the audience can chose their favourites and use them as a springboard for their own spellbinding tales!

Evan Munday: Dead Kid Detective Agency Talk & Writing Workshop
Thurs, April 5, 2012: 6:30-8pm
Ages: 12-18 yrs – Free/Must Register
Registration opens Thu., Feb 23
Maximum number of participants: 80
Central Branch Auditorium
120 Navy Street