Setting up comic shop

GRAPHIC CONTENT: Chris Oliveros

by SACHA JACKSON

Like most kids growing up in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Chris Oliveros read a lot of comic books. But unlike most kids, Oliveros’s affair with comics would evolve into an internationally recognized press that changed popular notions of the art form.

“The first issue of Raw was a big inspiration for me. When it came out, I was about 15 and it was like an epiphany,” Oliveros says. “It was the first time I discovered that a comic could be about more than just superheroes.”

Edited by cartoonist Art Spiegelman and his wife Françoise Mouly, Raw was dedicated to showcasing alternative comics. Inspired by Spiegelman’s comic anthology, Oliveros started his own comic company, Drawn & Quarterly, in 1989 with the intention of publishing a quarterly anthology. D&Q, however, quickly evolved into something more.

“It was a natural evolution,” Oliveros says. “Since it started as an anthology, I was contacting a lot of people to contribute. It turned out that a lot of these people were at the beginning of their careers writing and drawing their own graphic novels.”

Although the anthology was still the backbone of the business, the small press went on to publish the early work of artists like Seth, Julie Doucet and Chester Brown, promoting and distributing the work of illustrators who would come to be recognized as the new generation of graphic novelists.

At the time, in the early ’90s, the notion of the graphic novel was something new. Alternative comics like Love and Rockets and Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur were gaining interest, and although the content was alternative, the format was anything but. The renegade texts of the comic industry were still published in the standard 24-page pamphlet with a glossy cover. Oliveros started publishing serialized strips in beautifully bound hardcover editions, putting as much effort into the design of the book as the artists put into the story.

Since then, they’ve published work by authors from all over the world. “Twenty years ago, there wasn’t too much good work being done,” Oliveros says. “Now as more good cartoonists emerge, the subject matter is broadening. There’s a cartoonist going to Bosnia, a cartoonist from Africa, and we just published a book by Rutu Modan, whose book takes place entirely in Israel.”

This week, 18 years after first setting up shop in Montreal’s Mile-End, the press will open its first store, which, Oliveros promises, “is a lot more than just a store. It’s a multi-purpose space.” It’ll carry the pre-requisite graphic novels, art books and regular fiction, but workshops and regular events, such as book launches, are also an important part of the plan.

Starting in January, the company that supported burgeoning graphic novelists will now have a hand in creating them. The workshops will focus on everything from cartooning to publishing and will involve collaborations with local artists. Making the most of what Oliveros does best, working from the ground up.

DRAWN & QUARTERLY BOOKSTORE
(211 BERNARD W.) OPENS ITS DOORS
WITH A LAUNCH FOR PASCAL
BLANCHET’S WHITE RAPIDS THIS
FRIDAY, OCT. 19, 7 P.M.dx 1