{"id":6827,"date":"2013-04-19T07:52:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T07:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/?p=6827"},"modified":"2013-04-19T12:54:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T12:54:43","slug":"capital-city%e2%80%99s-comics-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/?p=6827","title":{"rendered":"Capital City\u2019s comics culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Granted, Ottawa isn\u2019t famous for its urban underground scene.\u00a0 But where comic books are concerned, this city is quickly proving the industry, and even local naysayers, wrong.<\/p>\n

\"\"Buy local. Dominic Bercier and Kristopher Waddell of Ottawa\u2019s Mirror Comics, with two of the publisher\u2019s titles.<\/em><\/p>\n

With half a dozen shops across the Ottawa area, a local independent publisher, and a surprisingly successful spring 2012 convention, the nation<\/span>\u2019s capital may finally be proving itself a contender in the Canadian comics market. \u201cSince Ottawa Comic Con, the cat<\/span>\u2019s out of the bag,\u201d says Dominic Bercier, the co-founder of Ottawa independent publisher Mirror Comics, chuckling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bercier is referring to the Ottawa Comic Convention, a two-day event held at the CE Centre in May 2012 (previously held as a one-day event at <\/span>Lansdowne Park). Organized by the same group that plans the Montreal Comic Convention, the 2012 Ottawa event drew over 23,000 in attendance and over 100 vendors<\/span> \u2013 both exhibitors from stores and individual artists<\/span>\u2019 booths.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rob Spittall, owner of the 13-year-old Comic Book Shoppe on Bank Street, says they weren<\/span>\u2019t expecting those kind of numbers, admitting, \u201cWe would have been happy with 5,000.\u201d Spittall says the success surprised even the attendees. \u201cWe had a lot of people saying, <\/span>\u2018Wow, this is Ottawa? I didn’t think we could pull this off.<\/span>\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the exhibitors<\/span>\u2019 experience, Bercier and Mirror Comics<\/span> editor-in-chief Kristopher Waddell say that their sales figures were a happy shock. Waddell says Mirror<\/span>\u2019s sales for the Ottawa convention were equal to what it had made at Toronto<\/span>\u2019s Fan Expo, though with only a fifth of Toronto<\/span>\u2019s attendance numbers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Back issues on offer at Myths Legends & Heroes. Some first editions can cost hundreds, even thousands.<\/span><\/p>\n

In retrospect, maybe no one should have been surprised by Comic Con<\/span>\u2019s explosive success. Scheduled just before Toronto<\/span>\u2019s Fan Expo and<\/em> Montreal<\/span>\u2019s Comic Con, the Ottawa event enjoyed a timing and a location that were convenient to both Toronto and Montreal. But mainly Comic Con was a success because comic books are a rising tide in North America, and Ottawa, like neighbouring Montreal and Toronto, is tapping into it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond Canada<\/span><\/p>\n

The market isn<\/span>\u2019t a small one. Diamond Comics Distributors, Inc., based in Timonium, Md., reported a $414 million market in North America in 2011. These numbers don<\/span>\u2019t account for online, independent sales or merchandising, with comics being just the tip of the geek iceberg. Small comic book shops across the United States have also reported an increase in sales. Though Diamond has yet to release the 2012 numbers, Rob Zedic, owner of Myths Legends & Heroes in Vanier, says this year has been his best since opening in 2004. <\/span><\/p>\n

He says his clientele range from 20 years old and up, many looking to rediscover characters from their childhood or to fill gaps in their collections. \u201cMost of the kids that come in here are brought by their parents,\u201d he says. Spittall says that in the last five years demographics have changed dramatically. Though customers traditionally have tended to be males between ages 25 and 45, Spittall says now 30 to 40 per cent of clients are female. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Girls read comics, too.\u00a0 Contributing to a noticeable demographic shift, a fan browses back issues at Silver Snail.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For Mirror Comics, Ottawa was the clear choice for their headquarters. While Toronto and Montreal are known art hubs, Bercier says Ottawa is more accepting of local artists. \u201cYou tell people you\u2019re an artist in Ottawa and they’re like, \u2018Wow, that’s really cool.\u2019 In other cities it\u2019s more \u2018been there, done that,\u2019\u201d Bercier says.<\/p>\n

Spittall\u2019s Comic Book Shoppe, which sells Mirror Comics publications among others, holds a variety of events for the community, from art sales to girls\u2019 nights in the Shoppe. Spittall also isn\u2019t afraid to refer customers to other shops if he doesn\u2019t have something in stock. \u201cIt is a business, but it works better when we work together.\u201d It\u2019s this thriving and cooperative spirit that Waddell describes in one line: \u201cOttawa is geek chic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spittall says Comic Con, expanding to a three-day event for 2013, still has a lot of growing room, and his Shoppe continues to see more and more new faces. Still, some misperceptions linger. \u201cTo most people, the stereotypical comic book reader is the guy from The Simpsons<\/em>: a cave-dweller living in his mom<\/span>\u2019s basement. Sure, you can find that guy, but most of the people there were not him. A lot has changed; now there’s something for everyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ottawa may not be known traditionally as a hotbed of comic-book culture, but a smash-hit recent convention and an indie publisher have helped put the capital on the map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-6827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","tag-natasha-mendonca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6827"}],"version-history":[{"count":86,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8246,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827\/revisions\/8246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}