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Jungle jam >> Rumpus introduces a new wave of comic jam by JULIET WATERS
Dolgin and I have been listening to Brown's enthusiastic description of the newly resurrected Comic Jam event, but the irony here is twofold. First it was Brown who insisted that Dolgin get on the phone in the first place, and second that they're supposed to be promoting an event that's all about interaction. But Dolgin's one word does sum up one of the principles of comic jamming: it doesn't matter how little you contribute, as long as you give something and as long as you do it with a bit of style. Rumpus is a revival of the bimonthly Comic Jam that fell by the wayside over a year ago when comics impresario Rupert Bottenberg went on to other things. But Brown has implemented at least one radical change (other than changing "Comix" to "Comic"): local bands are being replaced by local DJs. "It's the same concept, but we're doing it with a bit of a different feel. Those jams were great, but it was a real band scene. I thought there was too much of a division between the people listening to the bands and the cartoonists off in the corner drawing. So we have people doing comics on the walls and people doing comics on overhead projectors getting shot onto the screen. And the music is more ambient, less of an intrusive thing. You can dance and sort of enjoy it while you do other stuff." A different feel and a different spelling also means a different style in a lot of the comics coming out of this new wave. "We've noticed a connection between rap culture, graffiti culture and comic books and we wanted to bring these things together," says Brown. This broader graphics form is also moving a bit away the standard white boy grunge autobiographies which have dominated alternative comics for the last decade. Still, narcissistic old wavers are more than welcome. They just may have to prepare themselves to look up from their belly button piercings from time to time. These days the writing is on the wall and soon it may not be just on the Bristol board. "One of the things we're working on for next fall is that a couple of our artists are going to be going around the city doing big murals on various walls that will each be a panel in a one page comic." And then? "We're thinking of having a multi-national jam linked by satellite," says Dolgin. "Yeah, a helicopter thing," says Brown. Now we're interacting and illustrating another principle of a successful Comic Jam: don't get too hung up on reality. Rumpus, Issue #2 launch takes place at Blizzart (3958 St-Laurent, corner of Duluth) 9pm
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"Yeah," says Josh Dolgin, one of the two editors of the Rumpus Comic Jam anthology. This is the first thing he says 10 minutes into a phone interview I'm having with co-editor Jesse Brown, and frankly I'd forgotten Dolgin was on the phone. But he says it assertively and it comes off as a perfectly timed joke.