Meags Fitzgerald’s book Photobooth is one of my favourite books, for its prose, style and tone, and because photobooths are things I love dearly.
To my surprise and delight, a cabal including UPEI and the Canada Council is bringing Fitzgerald to Charlottetown at the end of the month: she’s presenting her work at Charlottetown Rural High School on Friday, March 31, 2017 from 1:50 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. It’s open to the public. You should go.
While we’re on the subject of graphic books: Oliver and I were in the (also surprising and delightful) Weird Harbour coffee shop today (thank you, Ben Wedge for the pointer!) and we found a copy of The Best American Comics 2016 on the shelf in front of us. Two pieces stood out: Here, by Richard McGuire, and Blanket Portraits by Geneviève Elverum.
We immediately walked down the hill to Strange Adventures to see if we could purchase copies of same, but, alas, neither was in stock, so I resorted to an Amazon order instead (Blanket Portraits appears only inside Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Book 3 from 2005; for some inexplicable reason, Amazon sold it to me used from a dealer in Germany for 47 cents plus shipping).
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The session at Charlottetown Rural just wonderful. There was a class of Charlottetown Rural students in attendance, a smattering of Richard Lem’s UPEI English students, and me, representing the “general public.”
Meags spoke for about an hour, alternating between reading from her work (this is the first time I’ve ever been to a reading of comics, which was kind of weird, but which made sense if you relaxed and watched the screen) and going on “behind the scenes” dives into her work.
She’s a compelling presenter, and I’m only sorry that the inconvenient time and location made it a less-well-attended event.