Comic Strips
Taddle Creek #32
By Hervé St-Louis
July 9, 2014 - 10:32

Vitalis Publishing
Writer(s): Ethan Rilly, Dave Lapp, Michael Cho, Jason Turner, Kieffer, Joe Ollmann, Maurice Vellekoop, Cory McCallum, Philip Street, David Collier
Penciller(s): Ethan Rilly, Dave Lapp, Michael Cho, Jason Turner, Kieffer, Joe Ollmann, Maurice Vellekoop, Matthew Daley, Philip Street, David Collier
$2



taddlecreek32.jpg
This issue is a special Taddle Creek is a Sunday comics type publication in Canada supported by the Canada Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. It’s a newspaper filled with comic strips by local Toronto creators and others sold in a few comic book stores like The Beguiling. Seeing a Sunday comics type publication at the store  excites me. I didn't think anyone took such risks anymore. Taddle Creek is rather picky about whom it publishes. Some of this issue’s cohort includes Maurice Vellekoop, Michael Cho and Philip Street.

Newspaper like Sunday comics appear in comic book stores from time to time. With Web comics, most of these ventures appear online or in digital comics. When cartoonists don’t have much material to publish, Sunday comics newspapers are good alternatives. The stories in the Spring 2014 edition of the semi-annual Taddle Creek have oblique endings. These are not meant to continue after a heart breaking cliffhanger. They just are.

I like the colours and variety. The stories are more relevant to a Toronto resident but will appeal to similar urban yuppies in other cities. Taddle Creek is best in a coffee shop, if you are a coffee drinker. If you are not part of that urban demographic, it might feel a bit presumptuous and a big publishing venture for so little reward. I want to make myself believe that I enjoy being able to consume comics liberally this way. But my civic awareness has difficulty accepting that taxpayers subsidize a comic. I hope that at least the publisher tries to distribute it aggressively. Blame my reticence on years of neoconservative advertising. Welcome to Canada.

Related Articles:
Fisher Comic Strip Ends 20 year Run in Globe and Mail
Philip Street's Fisher Comic Strip