By: Hess Sahlollbey
If there’s one person you’re bound to run into every year at Toronto Comic Con, it’s “Fearless” Fred Kennedy. Whether he’s moderating panels or hosting a Q&A, this writer and long-time host on “102.1 the Edge” and “Teletoon At Night” is expanding his conquests across all media platforms.
Kennedy will soon be amping up his creative workload with another book this summer with a new imprint, Black Mask Studios. Warpath will be a collaboration with First Nations artist Kyle Charles. The comic deals with human trafficking and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The area that I grew up in in Edmonton… the north-east end had a lot of prostitution and crime and the issues around human trafficking are pretty crazy,” said Kennedy.
“Human trafficking is disgusting and tragic that it doesn’t get more attention and First Nations communities are so much more susceptible to it and being in a position where I can tell a story that deals about this and soldiers with PTSD are two issues that both Kyle Charles and I are passionate about.”
Sitting amongst his peers from Chapterhouse Comics and from the Royal Academy of Illustration & Design, Kennedy spent the weekend meeting fans who have either heard him on the radio, seen him on TV or read the stories that he now crafts.
Kennedy grew up reading Lucky Luck and Tintin. After having read the Infinity Gauntlet, the Marvel Comics story that will be adapted to film later this year, Kennedy became obsessed with the medium.
“[I] didn’t even live in Canada until I was 12, but I’ve always loved science fiction and when we moved to Canada I read even more comics,” explained Kennedy.
After his brief time at King’s College in Nova Scotia, Kennedy moved to Toronto to work in radio, where in 2009 he launched his own independent comic book imprint: Big Sexy Comics.
Teuton, written by Kennedy and Illustrated by fellow Torontonian Adam Gorham, is the flagship book of Kennedy’s imprint with three volumes published so far. Gorham has worked as the artist for Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon and on the New Mutants amongst other projects. In Teuton, the illustrator brings a medieval fantasy set in the Baltic crusades to life.
Soon after the release of Teuton in the fall of 2010, Teletoon launched a week-night block labeled Fred at Night, a role that he had up until 2016.
While he still hosts a daily show on CFNY 102.1, Kennedy is currently working on The Fourth Planet which diverges from medieval fantasy and ventures into space odyssey à la Star Trek and Battle Star Galactica.
The Fourth Planet was first published as a web comic with illustrator Miko Maciaszek. It was then picked up by Canadian publisher, Chapterhouse comics. Inspired by a childhood spent on watching Franco-Belgian cartoon Ulysses 31, the team of Kennedy and Maciaszek now tell the story of the survivors who crash-land on a foreign planet.
Comics serve as the perfect outlet for Maciaszek as he renders the kind of cosmic monsters and aliens that can only be done in a medium where the only limits are the creators’ imaginations. This is further amplified by the vibrant colors that serve to elevate the final product to even greater levels that yearn to be adapted to cinema or videogames.
With no end in sight or drop in quality in a market that is becoming increasingly dominated by the big two: DC and Marvel, Kennedy’s books are as polished as can be.
Kennedy and contemporaries at Chapterhouse comics continue to produce tales that can go toe-to-toe with the mainstream publications of Marvel and DC.
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By: Hess Sahlolbey
As we celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial this year, the comic book community in Canada continues to bloom in unison. With that growth has come many waves of Canadian comic book creators contributing to our nation’s growing artistic tapestry.
Nowhere was that more evident than the downtown core of Toronto for its annual ComiCon. Every March, Toronto ComiCon takes over the city center for a three-day affair full of homegrown comics and their creators.
One of the fixtures at Toronto ComiCon and FanExpo is Chapterhouse Comics. Filling almost a third of the artist alley with multiple panels throughout the show, the creatives at Chapterhouse Comics and their output is becoming impossible to miss.
The genius shepherding this expanding universe of comics and titles is Kalman Andrasofszky.
A native Torontonian, Andrasofszky continues to reside in the city, where he is a member of the Royal Academy of Illustration and Design, also known as the RAID cooperative art studio. Located in Little Italy, the studio is composed of sequential artists, illustrators and designers.
Andrasofszky’s studio-mates are working on established properties like Superman and Spiderman, and while Andrasofszky occasionally contributes cover artwork for Marvel, he has mostly left the mainstream American publishers to fill the role of Editor-in-Chief at Chapterhouse Comics, and their flagship series Captain Canuck.
“Captain Canuck started off as a design gig. One of my studio-mates was acquainted with people that were re-writing Captain Canuck... I started off by redesigning the character and the costume,” said Andrasofszky.
The classic Canadian superhero was created in 1975 by Richard Comely and Ron Leishman.
The reboot Andrasofszky contributed to consist of a new, modern version of Captain Canuck whose new story and design were used for an animated series. The series was crowd funded and aired from 2013 to 2014.
The success of the animated series allowed for a one-shot comic book which was released on Canada Day in 2014. That issue preceded a still ongoing monthly Captain Canuck series. Andrasofszky continues to write the series and collaborates with Leonard Kirk who provides the interior art in the series.
“Canada has never had really had a consistent comic book industry. There have been glimmers like the Canadian Whites in the 1940s, though there was a period during World War II where all American imports were banned. For five years all these Canadian superheroes were being published and once American comics came back our heroes faded away,” explained Andrasofszky.
“What we are trying to do now with the Chapterhouse is [to] license these old creations that have heart... and weave them into something bigger. We’re hoping that other people will understand why we love these characters and love them as much as we do.”
The next release in this expanding universe will debut on May 5 for Free Comic Book Day, co-written by Canadian actor, director and screen-writer Jay Baruchel.
“[Baruchel] is a grade-A, diehard comic book nerd and there is nobody more enthusiastic about Canada than him” said Andrasofszky.
"For five years all these Canadian superheroes were being published and once American comics came back our heroes faded away."
Kalman Andrasofszky
Editor-In-Chief,
Chapterhouse Comics
“We’re calling it Captain Canuck—Year One which is kind of a flashback for the character to his time serving in the Afghanistan war, “ said Andrasofszky. The series will be three parts which will then be collected into a graphic novel.
Adding to the row of talent working on Year One is Andrasofszky’s studio mate, interior artist Marcus To, who is currently the artist on Nightwing, while the cover art will be handled by David Finch, who is currently working on Batman.
On the long term spectrum, Andrasofszky and the team at Chapterhouse Comics are looking into a full length animated feature film, followed by possible live action Captain Canuck film.
“No dates have been set yet, but things are happening in a way that hasn’t happened for the last few months. Things are ramping up and its super exciting. Having [Baruchel] walk into the room with you really changes how seriously people take you and how willing they are to open check books.”
The success of Marvel Studios and their cinematic universe may be many years away for Chapterhouse, but the work of Andrasofszky and fellow creators have successfully laid the groundwork for a mainstream breakthrough for Canadian comic books.
Perhaps it won’t be long before a new red and white super patriot crashes enters the big screen.
