Toronto is a Comic Book Town!!

This year, Vanguard features not just one, but TWO comic book-related films, Zoom and The Missing Girl!  As much as Toronto is known as a film-loving town, it has a ton of love for the graphic arts as well. So, on your way to your next screening, stop into some of Toronto’s best places for all your comic book related needs!

If you’re headed up Yonge Street from the Ryerson, the Elgin Visa Screening Room, Winter Garden:
Yonge Street has so much to offer! At Silver Snail, you can grab some coffee at the Black Canary Espresso Bar in the store while looking for your latest issue. Or up the street, you can shop comics, games, and more at One Million Comix and Next Move Games. Keep an eye open for Matt Hansen, the writer of Zoom, who stops in for his weekly fix!

• One Million Comix and Next Move Games: 531 Yonge St, Toronto, ON, M4Y 1Z2
• Silver Snail and Black Canary Espresso Bar: 329 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M5B 1R7

If you’re near The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema or Isabel Bader:
The Annex is really where it’s at in the way of comic book finds! First up is Labyrinth Comics is a collector’s friend with a wide variety of comic books, related items, cards, and much more. Though not necessarily a comic book store, I’d be negligent if I failed to mention the amazing used comics collection available at the Bloor Street BMV—sure, look at all the other books, but scour the thousands of back issues in their upstairs section!

• Labyrinth Comics: 86 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1X4
• BMV: 471 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1X9

And now we come to The Beguiling. Don’t be afraid if you get lost in this store that is overflowing with the best collection of comic book art books around—you won’t be the first to lose time submerged in their stacks, and you won’t be the last! Stop in on the other side of the block at their little sister store, Little Island Comics, and pick something up for the kids in your life—or, go ahead and just get something for yourself at the first store in North America to cater exclusively to the young comic book enthusiast. And, if at all possible, plan on coming back to town for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May—organized by Beguiling’s staff and the help of the Toronto Public Library system, TCAF has made a name for itself in a few short years as one of the best independent comic arts festivals and attached librarian and educators conference all in the name of promoting visual literacy and comic book culture. If you can’t make, at the very least, you should check out their year-round shop on the main floor of the Toronto Reference Library, Page & Panel.

• The Beguiling: 601 Markham St, Toronto, ON M6G 2L7
• Little Island Comics: 742 Bathurst St, Toronto, ON M5S 2R6
• Page & Panel: 789 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 2G8
• Toronto Comic Arts Festival 

If you are looking to get away from the festival frenzy:
The above are just a small taste of what Toronto has to offer in the way of comics. If you need to get away from the hustle and bustle for a bit, check out the following places and explore a little more of the this comics-and-film-loving town! One of my first stops when I get to Toronto is the amazing Comic Book Lounge + Gallery.

• Comic Book Lounge + Gallery: 484 Oriole Parkway, Toronto, ON M5P 2H8
• Red Nails II: 1700 Wilson Ave, North York, ON M3L 1B2 and 18 Jane St, York, ON M6S 3Y2, Canada
• Atomic Age Comics: 497 Pape Av, Toronto, ON M4K 3R1
• Paradise Comics: 3278 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4N 2L6
• Excalibur Comics: 3030 Bloor St W, Etobicoke, ON M8X 1C4

But whatever you do, be sure to make your way to the screenings of Zoom and The Missing Girl!

Zoom screens:
Tues, Sept 15, 10:15 PM SCOTIABANK
Wed, Sept 16, 9:45 PM SCOTIABANK

The Missing Girl screens:
Sun, Sept 13, 10:00 PM SCOTIABANK
Tues, Sept 15, 4:15 PM SCOTIABANK
Sun, Sept 20, 2:30 PM SCOTIABANK

Vanguard Programmer Colin Geddes' Favorite Bookstores

At Word and Film, Colin Geddes shares his four favorite bookstores within the Festival radius. Check them out while you wait for your film to start or if you have some time to kill after not making it into the screening of your choice. In fact, all four bookstores are so good, we suggest making a point of visiting them.

It’s a truism of film festivals that industry attendees never have time to do anything but watch and buy movies. This despite being held in some of the prettiest and sexiest places on Earth (Park City, Cannes, Telluride, Busan, Abu Dhabi). So when it comes to book browsing, the producers, writers, agents, execs, and filmmakers who scour the world of literature and publishing for material all year long must forgo the pleasure during those hectic days spent running in and out of dark theaters and bargaining feverishly. That’s a shame, because Toronto, whose annual international film festival kicks off September 5, has an enviable collection of bookstores big and small....This was a running theme echoed by pretty much everyone we asked. Until we reached out to Colin Geddes, a Toronto film festival programmer since 1997 who programs the Midnight Madness & Vanguard sections. Geddes eagerly laid out his personal picks for the top four bookstores in the festival’s orbit.

Click through to see Colin's recommendations ranging from specializing in used books to genre to graphic novels and a curated collection of curiosities.
Between them, you're sure to find a copy of Joe Hill's Horns.

HORNS Screening Times:

Friday, Sept 6th, 6:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

Sunday, Sept 8th, 1:00 PM SCOTIABANK 4

So You're Going To Canada?

 

A Mid-Century Modern Dominion-era travel pamphlet sure  to be useful to Festival-goers from all over the world (via Delicious Industries).

I notice one thing that it is missing is advice about Toronto crosswalks with those X's hanging over them (cross the street whenever you feel like by pushing the button and crossing while the crosswalk lights are flashing to warn traffic) and, for those Festival-goers who have their own cars, the stoplights flashing green (flashing green light means, whether you are going straight, left or right: Go! Go! Go!). 

At Vanguard, we don't want you to die in traffic because the signal's meaning is not obvious.

Also, the pamphlet should probably have an entire section on Tim Horton's.

 

All Play At THE SHINING Party!

 

This Friday there's a Shining-themed party in Toronto--just in time for Room 237. a film that documents conspiracy theories based on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. More details at the Midnight Madness blog.


 ROOM 237 screening times:
Thursday September 13
The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
6:00 PM

Saturday September 15
Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 2
5:45 PM

Sunday September 16
TIFF Bell Lightbox 3
12:00 PM

PEACHES DOES HERSELF: Who Is Peaches?

With all of her talents and accomplishments—singer, songwriter, musician, DJ, performer, provocateur—maybe a better question would be, who ISN'T Peaches? At one point, she even had her own action figure, but her career didn't fully explode until she was in her early thirties.

Peaches, born Merrill Nisker in Toronto, graduated from Toronto's York University. For nearly a decade afterwards, she educated kids—first at a local YMCA, and later at private schools and homes—through a self-designed program she developed to "cultivate children's creativity outside of the established structure of music and drama classes."

All the while, she was honing her skills, germinating the seeds of what would eventually explode into the Peaches persona.

She began her musical career with folk songs, but soon developed her own unique sound and style: rapping over a Roland MC505 sequencer. Frustrated with her prospects in Toronto, and with hardly any radio support, she moved to Berlin. After one gig performing the tracks from an EP she'd recorded, the Kitty-Yo label signed her immediately. That EP (Lovertits) and an album (The Teaches Of Peaches) soon followed.

Her subsequent four albums (Fatherfucker, Impeach My Bush, I Feel Cream) ran the gamut from rapping over heavy synths and samples to a full rock band sound and then onwards to pure dance music complemented by Peaches' astonishing vocal range (a skill she held back on revealing until she felt people had already accepted her musical skills). Her 2010 one-woman production of Peaches Christ Superstar, a reimagining of the '70s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, was another success.

The Guardian once proclaimed, "as a pop star, Peaches is so niche she needs a category of her own."
 Peaches' music and live performances push boundaries, combining theater, burlesque, and cabaret, while addressing beauty, feminism, mainstream and alternative culture, gender identity, sexual politics, and well, regular politics.

A January 2012 interview with Typewriter Trasher posed this question to Peaches: "What does it take to have longevity at a time when everyone is so obsessed with what’s new?" Her response?

"I think you just have to go along and keep doing whatever it is that you’re doing, and realize that there are times when it’s going to click with people and there are times when, even if you think it’s your best work, it’s just not going to. And that can’t discourage you."

Viva la Peaches, the epitome of not just DIY but also Do What You Want. Her latest creation, Peaches Does Herself, is screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

PEACHES DOES HERSELF Screening Times:
Thur., Sept. 13th, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA 9:00PM
Sat., Sept. 15th, TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4 3:15PM
Sun., Sept. 16th, JACKMAN HALL (AGO) 4:00PM