| ALL ARE WELCOME!
Artists meet once a month in a bar to socialize and draw collaborative
comics. Books of the work are provided free the following month
as well as here
in PDF format. This Toronto Star
article explains it best. Check out the Resources
for other jams, especially the awsome Monthly
Montreal Comix Jam site.
Meanwhile, why not visit our Discussion
Group and say hello?
When: The last Tuesday of each month (excluding December).
It starts at 9 pm.
Where: The Cameron
House on Queen St. W., just west of Spadina.
Here's a MAP.
How much?: $4 or $2 or pwyc
Dave Howard founded The Toronto Comic Jam in November 1996
as a safe haven for the alternative comics community -- a place
where artists could meet, exchange ideas, and find moral support,
using comics as a basis for social interaction. Inspired by Rupert
Bottenberg's comic jams in Montreal, regularly-held monthly comic
jams in Toronto have helped to build a sense of community and
local history around this often underappreciated art form.
A "comic jam" is a constraint-based exercise reminiscent
of Raymond Queneau's Oulipo
(Workshop for Potential Literature) and its subsequent comics
arm, Oubapo (Workshop
for Potential Comics). Participants take turns drawing consecutive
panels, composing spontaneous, collaborative stories. In the process,
comics become a vehicle to explore narrative, a template for self-expression,
and a form of social exchange - and participants get caught up
in the sheer joy of drawing. Finished pages are put on the wall
for all to see.
In social situations, many artists find themselves doodling in
notebooks and drawing on napkins. These people find the comic
jam to be a wonderful inversion - everybody's drawing. In fact,
to not draw is an anomaly.
Toronto artist and illustrator Ruth Tait says of the jam process,
"I believe that we understand each other best through the
stories we are able to exchange with each other. If we can record
these stories in an inventive and engaging way, then we may be
able to connect to others and impart our views, our knowledge
and experience."
The comic is a medium in which anyone and everyone can participate,
and that this is part of its power. At the comic jam, experienced
artists are challenged to expand themselves, given the different
requirements of each jam page, while people new to the medium
can discover the wealth of graphic language they may not realize
they already possess. |
