Harvesting the art

by Chris Mailloux

The Harvesting the FAM Festival kicked off its second day with a comic book themed art show.

The Incredible Comic Show took place Sept. 28 and featured art from local artists and well known comic creators. The event was hosted at Glass Monkey’s Studio on Ottawa Street. The art show was one of the many events being held for Harvesting The FAM Festival which started Sept. 27 and ends Oct. 19.

The festival was co-created by Murad Erzinclioglu during the summer of 2006.

“We put it on because we’re fans ourselves and creators ourselves and we appreciate the content that people make,” said Erzinclioglu.

Erzinclioglu said they usually spend the six months before the festival getting ready. He also said that the budget they work with is less than $1,000. They put the event together with the support of friends and people in the community who want to see it happen.

“It’s about knowing and working with people. Money is one thing but human resources are way more valuable than money,” said Erzinclioglu. “If you can work with the right people to get things done you don’t need money.”
Erzinclioglu pitched the idea of having the event at Tony Gray’s Windsor studio three months ago. He attended a similar event there last year and he loved the space and the art.

“I was actually at the first FAM fest, so it was fun to have Murad ask me,” said Gray.

The event featured art from a variety of different artists in the industry. Some of the creators were Dan DeCarlo, David Finch, Dean Young, Jason Fabok, John Romita Sr. and Johnny Desjardins.

“We’ve got work from all over the world,” said Gray. “We’ve got John Romita Sr., the artist from Spider-Man back from the 70s. He’s basically the most well known Marvel artist of the 70s.”

The event focused not only on super hero art but also featured art from comics like Archie and Blondie. The walls were devoted to art from big industry names and local upcoming artists.

“This gallery has never had more artwork up then it has right now. We even have pieces in the back that we don’t even have room for on the walls right now,” said Gray.

Dale Jacobs was the special guest speaker for the event talking about his book Graphic Encounters: Comics and the Sponsorship of Multimodal Literacy.

“About 10 years ago I was teaching a class with students, a lot of them read comics and they started giving me some,” said Jacobs. “I hadn’t read anything in a long time so I was surprised by just how more complicated they were.”

One of the books that stood out for Jacobs was the Daredevil run written by Brian Michael Bendis. Jacobs said he found the storytelling complex, not just because of the writing but also because of the visual storytelling. The chapter Jacob read at the event was about the relationship between the electric company and Marvel when they brought in Spider-Man as a character.

“I knew I wanted to do something that would give people just a general idea about the book,” said Jacobs. “I picked that chapter because it was on Marvel, because I thought doing something on superheroes would be the best.”

For more information on upcoming Harvesting the FAM Festival events visit their website www.famfest.ca