Brad Mackay : Freelance Journalist

An Era Drawn to a Close
National Post, January 2003

Toronto's Holy Trinity of cartooning bids farewell to its memorable lunches
They came, they saw, they griped. And after 11 years and more than 400 vitriol-laced lunches, Toronto's Holy Trinity of cartooning -- Seth, Chester Brown and Joe Matt -- is calling it quits.
Matt, the creator of Peepshow, the autobiographical comic, is pulling up stakes and returning to his native U.S. to follow love and new opportunities. And with his departure, the weekly ritual that is now as well known as the artists themselves will end.

Shortly after Matt, 39, moved to the Toronto area in 1991, he insinuated himself into the dyad that is Seth and Brown. Seth, 40, is the creator of Palookaville and has done work for The New Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. Chester, 42, is the man behind Yummy Fur and Louis Riel.

Their lunches, usually at Sushi on Bloor, became a forum where they could commiserate and kvetch about the state of their industry. It became renowned among the alt-comic literati, mainly because they often depicted themselves and their lunches in the pages of their comics. For example, in an early issue of Peepshow, Chester and Seth are portrayed as ruthlessly browbeating Joe because he can't remember who was U.S president during the Civil War -- much less who won.

Another memorable get-together had Seth listing the reasons Matt didn't have a girlfriend -- his addiction to pornography and the fact that he occasionally pees in a jar to avoid using the shared bathroom in the rooming house where he lives. When Matt insists that any offending smells are kept at bay by a screw-on cap, Seth replies, "Good. That'll come in handy when you eventually start s--- -ing in it. Better yet, maybe you should just start wearing adult diapers. That way you'd never have to leave your room."

It's this level of repartee that has earned the cartoonists a reputation that is part Algonquin Round Table, part Three Stooges.

"It's definitely a love-hate relationship," says Matt. "It's like a Marx Brothers movie where Seth is Groucho, Chet is Harpo, the silent one, and I'm Chico. You know, because he's the one that's always driving Harpo crazy."

This is borne out during a recent chinwag. As they settle into their window seat, Seth finishes recounting a favourite Stooges short (complete with Curly impersonation) before starting a monologue that darts from early '80s punk rock references to forgotten Canadian cartoonists to the melancholy inherent in superhero comics of the '60s. Joe, meanwhile, struggles to keep pace, and Chester occasionally lets loose with a whinnying laugh.

Inevitably, the conversation turns to Matt's 24-year-old girlfriend, with whom he'll live in New York.
"She's great," says Matt. "She's good people."

"Yep. It's a shame she has to grow up," snaps Seth.
Then, after some references to Matt's slow creative pace, the conversation turns to overrated cartoonists and the trio's perverse fondness for the Naked Gun films.
One can assess how deep their feelings for one another are from Seth's words at a recent going-away party: "I have never met an individual as irrational and irritating as Joe Matt," he said. "I have spent endless hours discussing the various merits of puppet styles in View-Master reel, over the proper height and width of a Peanuts book or the correct volume of a urine jar."
So why linger in such a dysfunctional relationship?

"Sometimes I'd get so sick of seeing them I'd try to skip weeks, but they would always come right into my house, right to my bedroom door," Matt explains.

There's no doubt they'll miss him. In his farewell address, Seth offered up this assessment of Matt: "He added a complexity to our little group. He was like a grain of sand in an oyster -- an irritant that stimulates the creation of a pearl."

From left, cartoonists Chester Brown, Seth and Joe Matt make a toast to the future at their weekly lunch on Bloor Street, a ritual often depicted in the pages of their comics, such as Matt's Peepshow. With Matt returning to the U.S., the threesome's famous gatherings are no more.

Hey Kids! No Comics!
How the comic book almost disappeared
CBC Arts Online, February 2005

Uncle Scrooge. Little Lulu. Mighty Mouse. Captain Marvel. For years characters like these ruled corner store comic racks across North America, earning a loyal fan base and selling hundreds of thousands of copies each month. As any comic connoisseur will tell you, these titles stood out thanks to charming art and clever writing that addressed both the joys and fears of childhood.

Take Little Lulu for example: a proto-feminist in curls and a red dress. Her misadventures throughout the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s featured kids who were perpetually getting into trouble in an adult world, only to giddily stumble out again. Then there was Carl Barks's beloved Uncle Scrooge, which for 23 years weaved together colourful characters, slapstick humour and adventure in a way the Disney Empire has rarely duplicated.

Thing is, as you’ve probably read over the past few years: comics aren't just for kids anymore. The ongoing and well-reported shift towards a more mature audience is the result of a veritable landslide of challenging, complex graphic novels over the past 10 years. As clichéd as it sounds, these really do represent an evolutionary step for the medium - there’s no point in arguing that. But the new wave has had its costs, chief among them being the near vacuum that’s been left in what was once a thriving market for well-crafted kids’ comics. If you need proof, just take a stroll through your local 7-Eleven. You'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of kids’ comics or the iconic racks they used to call home. That’s because the continent’s largest convenience store chain did away with wire comic racks over the past decade, citing a lack of demand for kids’ comics. If comics of any kind are even carried you’ll have to root through copies of People and Electronic Gaming Monthly to find them.

This might not seem like much of a loss to grown-up readers of such comics as Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth or Chester Brown’s Louis Riel, but it’s a matter of grave concern for those within the industry. Michael Chabon, author of the novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, devoted his keynote address during last summer's Eisner Awards to the matter. In an eloquent and wistful speech, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer and occasional comic scribe took dead aim at the industry’s dirty little secret. “Children did not abandon comics," he said to a packed hall of comic professionals. "Comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. The adult reader of comic books has always been the Holy Grail, the promised land, the imagined lover who will greet us, at the end of the journey, with open arms, with acceptance, with approval. … Comics have always been an arriviste art form. And all upstarts are to some degree ashamed of their beginnings. But frankly, I don’t think that’s what’s going on in comics anymore. I think we have simply lost the habit of telling stories to children. And how sad is that?”

In addition to being sad, it’s also posing a serious threat to the future of the industry. What comic companies are worried about is this: typically, children who devour lots of comics tend to grow up to become happy, comic-buying adults. As the quantity and quality of kids’ comics drops so does the number of children reading them, which eventually will cut off the supply of adult readers who are willing to spend $40 on a hardcover comic. The free-falling circulation and readership numbers experienced by the North American industry over the past 15 or so years is evidence of the theory in action. There have been many attempts to remedy this, and all but a few have proved embarrassing.

To the comic world’s credit, there have been earnest attempts to recreate the Golden Age of Kids’ Stuff, including Measles, Scatterbrain, Yeah! and Little Lit. But despite such A-list talent as Los Bros. Hernandez, Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman and Ottawa’s Dave Cooper, they fell flat. In 2002 they even resorted to giving comic books away through an industry/retailer initiative called Free Comic Book Day. The annual event has participating publishers donate comics to be given away gratis at comic shops across North America. The scheme managed to grab some headlines, but failed to grab that many readers. The whole affair seems like an expensive exercise in desperation.

So aside from single-handedly eliminating video games, extreme sports and other modern distractions, what’s a cartoonist to do?

Well, if you’re Jay Stephens, you trade in your alt-comic credentials and start drawing kids’ comics. Stephens, who lives in Guelph, Ont., made a name for himself in the early ’90s with SIN Comics– a decidely adult comic that masqueraded as a kids’ comic. (Imagine cartoony black and white characters drinking, fighting and swearing.) Then in 1996 he adapted some of his characters to appear in the U.S. kids’ magazine Nickelodeon, and found near-instant success. He has gone on to draw a popular strip for Canada’s Chickadee and create an animated cartoon on NBC called Tutenstein based on one of his early characters. Like fellow cartoonists Joe Matt, Chester Brown and Seth, Stephens grew up reading comics such as Little Lulu, Casper, Archie, Mighty Mouse and of course superhero comics. Yet he’s also a parent of a 61⁄2- and 41⁄2-year-old, which makes the current dearth in new kids’ fare a bit more personal. “There are kids reading comics, they’re just reading less and less of them - and I’m not sure they ever will again,” he said. “It’s a product of our time. There's a generational impetus on making mature work and we’ve gone and cut off new readers. It’s like the whole ‘comics aren't just for kids anymore’ mantra turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy."

To Stephens, the recent failed attempts at nouveau kiddie comics missed the mark for a very specific reason. "A lot of these guys - whose work I love by the way - are permanent adolescents. Most of them aren’t married and hardly any of them have children. They've stayed adolescents and they're pulling up the art form with them. They've decided that comics are for them and them alone,” he said. “This is something that's always kind of irked me about somebody like, say, Seth, who is a huge Peanuts fan and Little Lulu fan, but in an intellectual way only. He embraces it as highbrow art. We're both fans of the same material, but we have a completely different approach. He would rather keep it just for himself. Isn’t it great because kids can read it and it's also miraculously enjoyable for grown-ups? Isn’t that the goal?”

Of course, it isn’t all doom and gloom according to Stephens. There is the occasional worthwhile licensed kids’ comic, along with a flood of Japanese manga and a reprinting of the classic Little Lulu oeuvre. But as long as cartoonists continue to eschew the lowly kids’ stuff, the industry will continue its freefall, which can’t be good for anyone. As Michael Chabon says at the conclusion of his comic-manifesto: “We have to sweep them up and carry them off on the vast flying carpets of story and pictures on which we ourselves, in entire generations, were borne aloft, on carpets woven by Swan and Hamilton, Kirby and Lee. They did it for us; we have to pass it on, pay it forward. It’s our duty, it’s our opportunity and I really do believe it will be our pleasure.”

Alternative Canadian Walk of Fame Inductee: Iron Man
CBC Arts Online, May 2005

Reason for Induction: For being the first made-in-Canada superhero.

Citation: By the 1940s the comic book was in the midst of its Golden Age. Prompted by the success of Superman in the June 1938 debut of Action Comics, a parade of costumed heroes soon followed, including the Batman, introduced in May 1939, and Captain Marvel, who pulled on his woollens in February 1940. But as popular as these new superheroes proved to be across North America, Canada didn't have a comic industry to call its own until the March 1941 debut of Better Comics.

As comic books go, Better doesn’t look like it could stand up to the likes of Batman or Wonder Woman. The cover of issue No. 2, for example, features simple black and white art and promised a sober — and very Canadian — mix of “FUN — EXCITEMENT — ADVENTURE — FACTS.” (You can almost imagine a middle-aged editor throwing that last one in to lower the expectations of over-eager young readers.)

Notable for being created by a stable of homegrown artists/writers, Better Comics also holds the distinction of introducing the first Canadian-made superhero, an undersea-dwelling hero named Iron Man. Not to be confused with the better-known (and quite frankly, more successful) Marvel Comics superhero of the 1960s, our Iron Man lived in an underwater bubble city in the South Seas and appeared to actually be made out of iron (which raises all sorts of transportation and rust issues that we won’t explore here).

Created by Vernon Miller, a Vancouver native and former Disney animator, Iron Man was portrayed as the only survivor of a civilization that was destroyed in an earthquake. When he wasn't brooding in his submerged palace, the fearless (and ferrous) hero answered pleas from his young pals Jean and Ted to battle surface-world bad guys, which included such Golden Age standbys as pirates and Nazis.

Though he called the South Seas home, Iron Man's origins were distinctly Canadian: Better Comics owed its complete existence to an obscure cross-border trade law. Introduced in the winter of 1940, the War Exchange Conservation Act was designed to preserve the value of the Canadian dollar by restricting the importation of non-essential goods from the United States. All U.S. periodicals — including popular comic book titles like Action and Detective Comics — fell under the new legislation.

Within months several upstart Canadian companies lined up to take advantage of the lucrative vacuum in the comic market. Vancouver-based Maple Leaf Publishing put out Better Comics No. 1 around the same time as Robin Hood and Company No. 1 (by Toronto’s Anglo-American Publications), but Better was the first out of the gate with original characters. Over the duration of the Second World War, four Canadian companies published dozens of titles in a genre that became known as the “Canadian Whites” — after their primarily black and white interiors. Despite low production values and at times crude art, the oddball adventures of the Polka-Dot Pirate, the Penguin and Nelvana of the Northern Lights were snapped up by Canada’s comic-addicted youngsters. After the war the U.S. comic ban was lifted and the Canadian Whites eventually faded into obscurity. Better Comics would publish some 60 issues and feature such bizarre, forgotten heroes as Bill Speed, Stuffy Bugs and Senorita Marquita before ending its run in March 1946.

Of course, in the decades to follow Canada would make a more lasting impression on the four-colour world of comics with the likes of Captain Canuck, Quebec’s heroine Fleur de Lys and the proudly Canadian X-Man Wolverine. But, whether they know it or not, they all owe a small debt of gratitude to Better Comics and Canada’s own indomitable Iron Man — and that’s a fact.

Cartoons Go Online
The Emancipation of the Funny Pages
CBC Arts Online, March 2005

If you want to take the pulse of newspaper comic strips, look no further than Jim Davis’s Garfield, a strip that nicely sums up both what’s right and wrong with the medium. Despite being about 20 years past its prime, the lasagna-obsessed, Monday-phobic feline remains immensely popular, boasting a readership of about 275 million worldwide. In 2004, it was picked up by an additional 50 newspapers, bumping its total syndication to some 2,620 newspapers and placing it in a tie with Charles Schulz’s masterful Peanuts for the most syndicated strip of all time.

While there’s no arguing with hundreds of millions of Garfield fans, Davis’s strip is perceived by many cartoonists as the Fat Elvis of the funny pages. It’s a perfect example of what’s called a legacy strip a title that continues to gobble up precious newspaper space and shuts out fresh, young talents in the process. Davis’s bloated creation may be read (or maybe I should say endured) by millions, but the strip remains little more than an engine for an estimated annual $1-billion US merchandising machine responsible for pumping out T-shirts, coffee mugs, plush toys and, last summer, an inevitable $85-million US Hollywood movie. And as Davis has admitted, Garfield has long been written by a committee and is drawn by a stable of full-time artists none of which happens to be Davis himself. (Last year, the 60-year-old confessed that he spent an average of five days a month actually working on the content of his strip.)

It’s legacy strips like Garfield, Blondie, Hi and Lois (and even that poor sad sack Ziggy) that drive people like Michael Jantze to distraction. The 42-year-old Jantze grew up with Peanuts and was an early devotee of Bill Waterson’s modern classic Calvin and Hobbes. He managed to channel these obsessions into The Norm, a gently offbeat strip that recounted the life of his titular hero Norm as he changed jobs, girlfriends and eventually got married. Jantze, who lives in San Francisco, sold his strip to King Features Syndicate (one of the industry’s big three, along with United Features and Universal Press) in 1996 and slowly gained a loyal audience. But while his readership was dedicated, The Norm stalled at just under 100 newspapers a far cry from Garfield-like stardom. Nicole Jantze, Michael’s wife, business manager and spokesperson, blames the lack of promotion and the ongoing reign of legacy strips for the strips failure to break out.

“The basic syndicate contract pays [the cartoonist] under minimum wage, when you look at the average number of papers most strips are in and the number of days you're producing,” she explains. This situation is a result of a revenue-splitting arrangement that is as old as the newspaper strip itself. The standard 20-year syndicate contract sees all newspaper and merchandising revenues divided 50-50 between the cartoonist and the syndicate. If a strip grows enough to be picked up by say 500 papers, the artist’s cut can be quite handsome. But thanks to the shrinking newspaper market, many young cartoonists have been stymied by lower and lower distribution levels, which translate into lower incomes across the board.

“It’s a very, very tough business and the creator has no control over it,” Jantze explains. “This is because all the bargaining is done between the [syndicates] salesperson and the newspaper editor. It really is a syndicate, you can never forget that.”

When their contract came up in the fall of 2004 (Michael had negotiated a rare eight-year deal) Nicole convinced him to turn his back on the syndicate. The last newspaper version of The Norm ran on Sept. 12. The next day, Nicole posted an announcement on their website: if enough fans were willing to pony up a minimum of $25 US a year, The Norm would find new life as an online strip.

This wasn’t the first time someone had attempted to emancipate the comic strip. Over the 109-year history of the form, a handful of strips such as Fred Harman’s 1930s western strip Red Ryder and James Childress’s Conchy in the 1970s have found success with self-syndication, by selling their work directly to newspapers. But this was always seen as an alternate means of attracting a syndicate’s attention. (Red Ryder for instance, was eventually snapped up by the Newspaper Enterprise Association and went on to inspire a radio show and a popular BB gun before ending its run in the 1960s.)

After extending their deadline to Dec. 31, the Jantze’s announced in January that they had come close enough to their goal of 4,000 subscribers. The Norm was re-launched as a members-only strip on Jan. 3. Tom Spurgeon, a journalist and former newspaper strip writer who has tracked the Jantzes venture on his website, says he was astonished that they were able to make their online gambit work. “No one has lived the dream of becoming rich at comic strips without the involvement of syndicates. It's the standard path to becoming a star,” he says via e-mail. “But when it comes to Jantze, I wouldn't be surprised if he's making twice as much this year on The Norm than any year he was syndicated. What would happen if a more popular strip were to try that?”

In many ways the migration of comic strips to the internet is a sound business decision. Reacting to the twin pressures of rising newsprint costs and dwindling readerships, newspaper publishers over the years have drastically reduced the space devoted to strips. As a result, most strips today run at about half the page size that Little Orphan Annie did 50 years ago. The diminishing importance of comic strips, combined with a reluctance to recognize new talent, has resulted in a whole generation of cartoonists who consider newspapers a near-relic.

Since 2000, dozens of young cartoonists have used the web as a self-syndication scheme. While the quality and success of these vary widely, a few have managed to rise above the fray and build a healthy audience. Some, like PvP, Penny Arcade and Sluggy Freelance, have benefited from a young, video-game obsessed readership that enables them to run their strips for free while garnering income from video-game ads. (PvP also earns revenue with comic book-sized strip collections.) Other sites, like Modern Tales and Serializer.net, offer an assortment of alternative and independent comics with subscription rates as low as $2.95 US a month.

Then there’s Chris Onstad’s Achewood, which has pushed the creative possibilities of the internet to new and refreshingly profane ends. In October 2001, the 29-year-old Stanford University graduate launched the strip which he claims documents what his wife’s stuffed animals do when the couple isn't home. Crudely drawn yet often innovative, Achewood is billed by Onstad as “a cartoon of modern life as lived by a retarded otter, an alcoholic tiger, and two bears.” For the first two years the strip was strictly a part-time venture. Buoyed by T-shirt sales and his self-published strip collections, the San Francisco Bay Area resident quit his job in 2003 and began chronicling the twisted adventures of his four stuffed protagonists full-time. But unlike the Jantzes, who tried but failed to make it big in newspapers, Onstad has little interest in setting up shop next to Beetle Bailey.

“I see the ‘Funny Pages’ as a false goal for cartoonists. Cartoonists have to horribly emasculate themselves if they want to see newsprint,” he says via e-mail. “Newspapers were a flawed mechanism for getting this sort of entertainment to people anyway, but they were the only way. Not anymore. It's easier to send the link to my strip to your friend than a cut-out clipping.”

To him the online environment is as essential to the success of his strip as the syndicates were for generations of cartoonists before him. “The internet offers nothing but benefits for me. I can write whatever I want and not have some editor gating my work. It lives or dies via word of mouth.”

So what does he think about the future of the newspaper syndicates?

“I don't really care about what happens with the syndicates. I do my thing, we run our business, we follow our vision,” he says. “It's all a nice ‘Fuck You’ to the guys in ties and short shirtsleeves who hold new comics up against the gold standard of Garfield.”

His Brother's Keeper
David B's Confessional Comic, Epileptic, Explores the Many Impacts of Illness
National Post Books, April 2005

To alternative comics, the autobiographical tradition is as important a touchstone as capes and tights are to their mainstream counterparts. The confessional urge can be seen in comics ranging from Robert Crumb's compulsive tell-alls of the 1960s to such modern classics as Art Spiegelman's Holocaust epic Maus, Chester Brown's I Never Liked You, Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. The latest contender in this esteemed tradition comes, somewhat unexpectedly, from French comics.

Although bandes dessinees (standard comics) have long enjoyed respect in France, confessional comics have failed to generate similar acclaim. That changed with the debut of David B.'s Epileptic. When the first instalment was published in 1996 (as L'Ascension du Haut Mal), it became a sensation, winning the prestigious Alph' Art Award and becoming required reading in many classrooms.

An emotional marathon, the plot focuses on a French family and its attempts to cope with a son's complex battle with epilepsy. Thanks to David B.'s masterful storytelling and intricate art, it becomes much more -- a story of the many impacts of an illness, complete with writhing demons, imaginary medieval warfare and pages of raw emotion.

Following a well-received 2002 English translation of the first half of the novel, Pantheon recently introduced the English- speaking world to the complete Epileptic. At 368 pages, Epileptic is a moving pageant that calls for comparison to Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

David B. (born Pierre-Francois Beauchard in 1959) has called forth the demons he first encountered when his older brother, Jean- Christophe, had his first grand-mal seizure in the late 1960s. With his younger sister, Florence, David becomes his older brother's keeper, protecting him from both the private illness and the public ridicule it evokes. Along the way, they observe their parents trying everything from acupuncture to psychics in hopes of finding a cure for Jean-Christophe. The odyssey is both captivating and heartbreaking as they turn from one guru to the next. Their desperation lands them in a macrobiotic commune in the 1970s, where every piece of food they eat is monitored.

The parents' focus on their epileptic son eventually breeds resentment in his siblings. In an early sequence, David daydreams about his brother being run over by a truck. In another, he walks -- rather than runs -- to tell his father that his brother is playing with fire. He recalls slapping his brother "under the pretext of getting his seizure to stop." In the next panel, he adds: "I throw in a few kicks."

It's stark confessional moments like this that lift the narrative above the level of cliche that the story could have become in less capable hands.

The book is also an exploration of the author's psychological and creative development. From an early age, he immerses himself in accounts of military engagements ranging from those of Attila the Hun to the Paris riots of May, 1968. His gory depiction of these events is an outlet for his own frustrations, and also leads to his becoming a cartoonist.

Likely in an effort to keep costs down, Pantheon has significantly shrunk the page size -- to almost half the size of the original French albums -- in both its French and English incarnations. This inevitably drains some of the visual power from the story.

To see David B.'s work in all its unrestrained glory, search out the first issue of Babel, a new series published by Montreal's Drawn & Quarterly Books. The first issue, released last fall, picks up on the same autobiographical threads as Epileptic, but explores them through mythology and the author's dream comics.

The real star of the show here is his art, which on eight-by-12- inch pages has ample space to stretch out, and is augmented by gorgeous drop-in reds. Just 32 pages, Babel is a fantastic platform for a master cartoonist. (D&Q plans to release the second issue of Babel this fall.)
Despite the restrictions inherent in its format, Epileptic is a perfect example of how affecting autobiographical comics can be. David B. has crafted a heartfelt and painfully human comic that deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its Pulitzer Prize- winning predecessor, Maus.

Always Cute and Often Cruel
National Post Books, May 2004

Charles Monroe Schulz was arguably the most successful artist in the history of popular American culture. According to Forbes magazine, he earned some US$32-million last year -- a payday that placed him runner-up only to Elvis Presley on the publication's annual list of wealthiest dead celebrities. And in 1999, a panel of comic critics and scholars voted Peanuts, his life's work, the second-greatest comic strip of the 20th century. (It came a distinguished second to George Herriman's masterpiece, Krazy Kat.)

Yet despite both critical and financial success, Schulz himself never shook his inherently bleak view of life. Consider this ode to loneliness from a 1985 Peanuts collection: "The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for that moment in his limited understanding he is being left alone forever, and he has to run and run to survive."

The more introspective Schulz is an unknown entity to the majority of Peanuts fans, whose impressions are coloured by the waves of T-shirts, coffee mugs, greeting cards and souvenir ball caps that began to emerge in the 1960s. (A 1967 New York Times Magazine article about Schulz revealed that Peanuts was already earning more than $20-million in licensing fees.)
There are now two new books that aim to resuscitate some of the original Schulz wit and sophistication that existed long before Snoopy became an insurance company shill.

The Complete Peanuts 1950 to 1952 is the first of an ambitious 12 1/2-year project that will see every Peanuts strip reprinted in 25 hardcover volumes. Published by U.S. alternative comics stalwart Fantagraphics Books and designed by Canadian cartoonist Seth, the handsome tome includes scores of Peanuts strips that haven't been seen by the public since they first appeared in newspapers more than half a century ago. (Schulz was always selective about what went into his Peanuts collections, and indeed only grudgingly gave his approval for this project before he died in January, 2000.)

The first strip, which appeared in October, 1950, depicts the soon-to-be star of the feature walking by some friends. As he approaches, his pal Shermy comments, "Well! Here comes Ol' Charlie Brown! Good Ol' Charlie Brown ... Yes, sir!" The final panel, after Charlie has passed by, ends with the rebuke "How I hate him!"

And that bite is spread throughout the strip's first 27 months, with Everyman Charlie suffering a host of undignified firsts; his first mud pie (courtesy of Violet), his first trademark "Good Grief," his first baseball game and the first time a football is yanked away from him -- though, in this case, it's not Lucy's fault.

A glance at the index gives you an idea of what to expect. The annotations for Charlie Brown include citations for "failure in sports or games ...", "injuries to ..." and an "insults to ...", a listing that is divided into "general" and "re: size and shape of head." Much of the joy of this book is in witnessing Schulz in his embryonic period as an artist, before he settled into a regular cast with defined personalities.

For the first 100 or so strips, there is no clear "star" among the tight cast of Patty, Shermy, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. In fact, Charlie is depicted as a relatively worry-free little guy. It's only as the strip progresses that he evolves into his signature mix of bruised ego and wounded pride.
As Violet, Schroeder, Lucy and Linus are introduced in a horizon full of sandboxes and slides, Schulz never fails to depict them as both endearingly cute and unerringly cruel. One rarely exists without the other. In an era when the domestic comedy of Blondie and the square-jawed justice of Dick Tracy ruled the funny pages, this collection offers a brisk reminder the uniqueness of Charles Schulz's arch take on the world at the time.

Of course, Schulz devotees will know that Peanuts is not the Minnesota native's first foray into the comic pages. More than three years before Peanuts, the artist produced L'il Folks, a weekly feature that ran in the women's section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The gag-style feature, which ran from June, 1947, to January, 1950, shows a much younger Schulz in both style and content. All 134 cartoons have been gathered for the first time in Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings, published by the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

True devotees will get a thrill out of spotting familiar characters like a telltale black and white pup and several Charlie Brown doppelgangers. And even this early on, Schulz's trenchant wit is evident -- one panel has a boy telling a fisticuffed girl "Don't hit me! Just say something sarcastic."
But the one-panel format of these strips limits their appeal by not allowing for any narrative or character development. As well, the art here is clearly Schulz trying to find his way, much of it bland and stiff. The poor reproductions and shallow commentary don't help.
But in the waning weeks of L'il Folks, Schulz comes into his own, simplifying a style that he would expand upon in Peanuts.

But Schulz's goal was always to keep the cartoon simple. "I like it, for example, when Charlie Brown watches the first leaf of fall float down and then walks over and just says 'Did you have a good summer?' That's the kind of strip that gives me pleasure to do."

Life Stripped Bare
National Post, November 2000

Joe Matt's life is an open book - literally. For over a decade the Annex-area artist has been chronicling his existence using comics in place of the standard diary. In Peepshow, a booklet-sized alternative comic, Mr. Matt uses a mix of black, white and red to deliver frank autobiographical accounts of his day-to-day life. But unlike most autobiographical work, Peepshow offers readers a relentlessly unflattering self-portrait of the artist, often bordering on character assassination. In recent issues, the illustrated Matt compulsively masturbates over pornographic videos, ogles teenage school girls and conspires against his housemates -- all within the cramped quarters of his Bathurst and Bloor rooming house. Past issues have dwelled on his dysfunctional friendships with fellow Toronto cartoonists Chester Brown and Seth, and his troubled romantic relationships (he once gave his girlfriend a black eye).

In person, Mr. Matt thankfully leaves a more sympathetic impression, even if his round-lensed eyeglasses, receding hairline and prominent set of teeth make for a strong resemblence to his comic-book self. During a recent chat in Cabbagetown's Jetfuel Coffee Shop, the cartoonist comes across as painfully shy and given to fits of intense self-examination. "Art imitates life, right? Well at some point I realized that my life has to imitate my art," explained the lanky Mr. Matt. "It's like I'm a prisoner of my own construction." That construction, his life as portrayed in ink, has elements of truth.

For the past eight years he has lived in an Annex rooming house, which he depicts to a tee in his comic. He spends the majority of his time in this small but meticulous room, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with the six other residents of the house. It is in this room where he fanatically dubs and edits pornography on a mattress propped up on milk crates. It is also here that he famously keeps a plastic jar that he urinates in when he feels like avoiding his neighbours. It's such frank admissions like these that have helped him earn his peculiar version of fame. Letters to the comic, which run on the inside covers of every issue, are often harsh - including those from his mother. One reader sniped, "No wonder you're all alone - you're just a pathetic fucking loser!"

Such criticism seems to have little effect on Mr. Matt, who sees it as part of the package.
"What I'm doing is like any writer, just drawing on my experiences from the past and trying to put them in a cohesive order," the 37-year-old explained over a latte. "But I'm very focused on the negative aspects of my personality, because to me that makes the most compelling read. Humour, pain and negative qualities are all linked together somehow. "[Then again] it could also be cliched as a Catholic upbringing and needing to confess." Whatever the reason, his work seems to have struck a chord. Despite an irregular publishing schedule and limited distribution, Peepshow sells a steady 5,000 copies per issue. (It is primarily available in specialty comic book shops.) A trade paperback of the early issues, called The Poor Bastard, has sold well and a compilation of his early, experimental one-page strips is currently in its fourth printing.
Meanwhile, the dozen issues of Peepshow have been nominated for numerous industry awards and have been praised by comic legends Robert Crumb and Matt Groening.

Rolling Stone magazine was so enamoured of his work a few years back that it anointed Mr. Matt a "Hot Cartoonist" in its annual roundup of all things hip, placing his balding pate next to pictures of supermodels. Surprisingly, this unusual level of fame was born out of abject failure.
A Pennsylvania native, in 1985 Mr. Matt emerged from the Philadelphia College of Art committed to finding work as an illustrator. Frustrated by his lack of success and struggling to make ends meet, he moved in with his mother and began colouring superhero comics. "I was just floundering. Living on pennies, counting every dime," Mr. Matt recalled. Then he stumbled across the unflinching confessional work of Robert Crumb and MAUS creator Art Speigelman. Their work, along with a life-long affection for Woody Allen films, jump-started his dormant creativity.
When he wasn't busy slaving away in a Philadelphia comic shop, he spent his spare time working on a series of one-page black-and- white strips, primarily for his own amusement.
The results, a tightly-drawn diary of a witty, if neurotic, human being, eventually caught the eye of an alternative comic publisher and were soon published in an anthology.

In 1992, Montreal-based Drawn and Quarterly Publications offered Matt his own comic book series, Peepshow, and nearly a decade later his irregularly published comic (he is lucky to pump out two a year) is loyally awaited by readers. Even with his success, Mr. Matt admits he is growing uncomfortable with his dark alter ego. He frets that his comic-book version of himself has begun to influence his friends and family.

"They all seem to have a progressively lower opinion of me as the years go on. It's very frustrating," says Mr. Matt. "And it's all because of the comic." One of those friends, Seth, creator of the comic book Palookaville, isn't exactly sympathetic. "He's a complicated character. He's a combination of George from Seinfeld and Homer Simpson - which isn't great," explains the cartoonist. "I like to say that he's living the life of a 13-year-old boy who's got a day off school and is surrounded with all his pornography and his comics in his room." Of course, even this becomes fodder for Peepshow. Mr. Matt's upcoming issue will depict his ongoing travails with Seth and the continuation of what he calls his "definitive porn addict's story."

As for the scorn it is bound to generate among readers, Mr. Matt waxes philosophical. "They don't know me - they only know what I give them," he explains. Besides, he continues, "nothing would hurt me more than to know somebody read the first two pages and then put the book down and didn't feel the need to continue."

Birds of a Feather
Toronto Life, September 2002

It's Friday night, nine o'clock, at the Hamilton Central Racing Pigeon Club, and a line of wood-and-canvas crates stretches out the door into the muddied grass parking lot. Idling out front, middle-aged men and retirees share cigarettes and rumours as they struggle to protect their caged birds from the last downpour of summer. One of the youngest on hand, Doc Walker, a 34-year-old janitor at Humberside Collegiate, is hustling birds to the shelter of a trailer. Inside, a gaggle of farmers, doctors and factory workers talk pigeon over bottles of Molson Export and sauerkraut-laden bratwurst while the registration process whirs around them. Above the entrance, a sign bears an epigram written in old-timey Dutch script: Gott shutze uns for Sturm und Wind, und tauber die zu Langsam sivd – “God protect us from storm and wind, and pigeons that are too slow.”

Located between an emu farm and a slaughterhouse, this squat one-room hall near Stoney Creek is the first stage for competitors in the Annual Canadian Young Bird Classic, a Kentucky Derby for the local pigeon racing set. With prize money totalling $20,000, the end-of-summer affair attracts the racing elite from Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara for a 600-kilometre test of ornithological endurance. "They're like racehorses you can keep in the city," a man says as he attaches a band to a bird's leg. "And this here really sorts out who's who; it's like who's got Northern Dancer."

There are nearly 100 human entrants here tonight for this decades-old tradition, and their names, scrawled in black Magic Marker on the registration board, reflect the birds' transnational appeal: J. McLennars, J. Provost, P. Tavares, S. Rebejko, S.K. Fu. Although they're a diverse lot, testosterone rules the day. The only women present are either behind the registration tables or selling hot dogs and beer. This fundamentally male passion ("hobby" doesn't quite suffice) can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians, who began domesticating pigeons around 3000 BC - long before they got around to erecting the Sphinx or the pyramids. Julius Caesar depended on carrier pigeons to shuttle messages between military outposts during his conquest of Gaul in 59 BC. Thanks to his vast network of pigeons, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, founder of the banking dynasty, learned of Napoleon's 1815 defeat at Waterloo a full 24 hours before the British government did, and profited from the advance information by shrewdly juggling his investments. Fifty years later, Julius Reuters' nascent news service would rely extensively on pigeon posts scattered about Europe's capital cities.

Homing pigeons are no longer the speediest messengers, but the birds' genetic programming, acrobatic flight patterns and soft, sociable coos continue to fascinate their admirers. Doc Walker had his first pigeon encounter in Grade 6. He remembers gravitating toward an injured bird in the schoolyard before it was whisked away. "I always used to watch them, especially the males, because they do this mating dance," he says. "They puff up their chests, you know, to make themselves look bigger. Then they spin around, drag their tails on the ground and clap their wings above their heads. You can actually hear it."
His seminal pigeon moment came two years later: "I was playing basketball, and I noticed a group of pigeons flying around together," he recalls. "I thought to myself, 'Why are they sticking together like that?' I followed them and saw where they landed. So I went and knocked on the guy's door and asked him if he had any of those birds for sale. He said he didn't think I could afford any of them--which at that age was true. But then he said, `I'll tell you what: if you clean my pigeon coop twice, I'll give you one bird.'" Joe Gemes, a lifelong pigeon fancier, taught Doc the basics, helping him to build his first loft and later encouraging him to race his birds.

Tonight, as Doc toils away, the competitors, from farmers clad in dress shirts and fully buttoned cardigans to beefy Urban guys wearing baggy FUBU gear and Kangol hats, are brooding Over their pigeons' prospects. At 10 o'clock, in the run-up to the race, pigeon talk--fuelled in part by swigs of CC from Styrofoam cups--is frenzied: "Let's just hope those clouds hold off tomorrow afternoon" ... "See, there's gonna be a headwind or a crosswind tomorrow, so either way that'll slow them down" ... "Hey, watch how you're grabbing my bird! Don't spook him, man."

By the end of the night, 684 feathered athletes will be registered, loaded onto a trailer and hauled six and a half hours north to the starting line. There, in Englehart, 120 kilometres north of Sudbury, the driver will pull a lever to open the compartments, and the birds will begin their singular flight paths home. With lofts costing upwards of $10,000 and birds often fetching hundreds of dollars apiece, their owners will understandably spend much of the day anxiously waiting for the first sign of each pigeon's return. With favourable winds, a bird can make the 500-kilometre trip in six hours.

In the weeks leading up to a major race, most bird owners employ an array of elaborate feeding schedules and arcane rituals to enhance their thoroughbreds' chances. Prior to the race, some stoke their birds with protein-rich green peas and hemp seed for three days, followed by a two-day carbo chaser of corn, millet and brown rice. Male birds will sometimes be deprived of their mate's company in the run-up to the race, then allowed a brief reunion moments before being carted away. Owners of female racers will sometimes plant ticking eggs in the birds' nests to trick them into believing that a chick awaits them at home.
While Doc won't discuss which strategy he employs, the results prove he's doing something right. His birds placed 27th, 28th, 29th and 39th, and his loft averaged second overall, giving him bragging rights, not to mention the $740 in prize money. "I want to spend it on the birds," says Doc, "but my wife has other plans."

A Place to Hang His Hat
Shop owner survives through changing styles
National Post, July 2000

When David Rotman began selling hats nearly 40 years ago, it was supposed to be a temporary gig. In the midst of a burgeoning career as a printer his father suddenly asked him to help out with the family hat business. Ever the good son, he agreed.

One year turned into the next and he eventually took over, becoming sole proprietor and salesman of Rotman's Hats and Haberdashery. Now, in his early 70s, Mr. Rotman still plies his trade at the same 345 Spadina Ave. location. Hidden in plain sight among textile wholesalers and Chinese herbalists, the store opened its doors in 1940, when hats for men were most popular. Back then, it was just one of many downtown stores selling and blocking hats for a mainly Jewish clientele.

"The street was different then. Different religions and different people," explained Mr. Rotman in his cozy, dimly lit shop. He recounts how the area, originally Jewish, experienced an influx of Hungarian refugees in the 1950s. Since then, it has seen subsequent waves of Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants. Along the way, society marched toward a progressively casual future and the need for the formal headwear dropped off. Some place the blame on John F. Kennedy, who forswore headwear at his 1961 inauguration. Others pin it on crooner Frank Sinatra, who doffed his signature fedora shortly after marrying flower-child Mia Farrow.

Whatever the reason, around 1970 the men’s hat all but vanished. But he holds no grudges.

As other hat stores closed up or retreated to newer, shinier digs he chose to stay put. "It's important that people know where to find you," he explained amid stacks of tidy-brimmed fedoras, fur-felt homburgs and wrinkled hat boxes. But finding him would be a challenge for the modern shopper, since Rotman's is not listed in the phone book; he lives upstairs and has no business phone and he doesn't advertise. The secret to his survival? Above all, Mr. Rotman is a highly polished salesman with a unique gift of the gab that keeps his regulars coming back.

It begins the moment the door creaks open, as you're greeted by a steady stream of banter that comforts and cajoles. "That's a smart looking hat," he assured a thirty-something customer recently, trying on summer headwear. "It's a little more continental. That's the Panama hat that Sam Snead made popular." The pitch continues.

"Not only is it a fashion look - but it protects you from the sun." When the man asks about the possibility of a different coloured band or feather to dress it up a little bit, Mr. Rotman is subtly reproachful. The black band is traditional, he urges. "There's enough dress in a Panama hat, without a feather." Then, he recites a series of rules - the Hat Commandments.

"It should be worn one-and-a-quarter inches above the eyebrows," he says. "This is the holding position. "The slight tilt of the hat should be on the right-hand side," he corrects. "It's traditional. In Europe - if you remember - they used to throw garbage out the window and the man would walk on the inside [of the sidewalk] in order to protect the woman. That's why the tilt is to the right."
Thirty minutes and much talk later, the sale is made. He throws in three dressy feathers for free.

As the customer is ready to leave, he adds the finishing touch: a last-minute shaping from an ancient Jiffy steaming machine. As his hands run over the palm-leaf brim to give it a proper shape, he says: "People will come back years later and remember the steaming I did, nothing else. It's a little service I provide, along with the conversation.

"The days can be long. A little talk makes the day go by faster."

Bowled Under
There are 10,000 lawn bowlers in Ontario; 75 of them are under 21. It's a problem
National Post, July 2000

Henry VII did it. William Shakespeare was known to partake. Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Laurence Olivier and Victor Hugo were all under its spell. It's not opium, or even absinthe. It's lawn bowling.

At times called the "king of sports," lawn bowling boasts a heritage stretching back to 13th-century England. Some anthropologists suspect that the game has roots in ancient Egypt and was subsequently adopted by the Romans as bocci, by the French as boules and, of course, by the English, where it lives on as "bowls." Or, as we prefer in North America, lawn bowling.

After arriving on these shores with the English over 300 years ago, lawn bowling became a popular pastime among early settlers, who took the game with them throughout their travels. In Canada today there are 18,000 registered bowlers, the majority living in southern Ontario.

Yet despite the game's esteemed pedigree, most people readily associate it with white-shoed penisoners than knights of the crown.

"Unfortunately, that's the case," says David Bain, a bowler who, at 58, ranks among the younger set. "It just didn't come across the ocean in the same context." Today in England, Wales and especially Australia, it's considered a family game, which helps to ensure a healthy supply of young bowlers. In North America, it's another story. "It has no pizzazz, no profile, for younger people," explains Mr. Bain.

Admittedly, to the casual bystander lawn bowling can be puzzling, even a bit surreal. From a distance, the tidy greens look like wildlife preserves for well-heeled seniors. Come spring, clubs across the city host groups of bowlers in crisp whites who pitch an endless series of balls that either silently collide or come to rest as close as possible to a smaller, white ball. The rules are simple: Bowlers get points for being closest to the white ball, or "jack." But the jack can be hit at any time, propelling it closer to your opponent's balls, for which they would receive points. In addition, the balls are not perfectly spherical - on close inspection they appear slightly squashed - which causes them to veer either right or left. Watching a game, which runs well over an hour, can induce a hypnotizing effect.

What motivates players, who range in age from 50 to 95, to gather afternoon after lazy afternoon, for upwards of five hours at a time? Much like bridge or golf, socializing is a large part. For many, lawn bowling is an opportunity to share jokes and a drink or two in the clubhouse. Another factor is the scenic locations that many of the clubs boast, most being staked out decades before Toronto's overheated real-estate market caught fire. The city's largest clubs, Willowdale and Agincourt, boast idyllic lawns in the north of the city, while the Balmy Beach and Kew Beach clubs are perched on choice real estate a few metres from Lake Ontario. The most avid bowlers, though, speak of the sport's competitive allure. "It's all about strategy," explains Sherrey Sidel, 22, the National Junior Chair for Bowls Canada, who was attracted by the game's cerebral elements. "It's a very mental game; it's not physical."

Because of the movable jack, a player must carefully plan every move in advance, much like pool or chess. Long-time bowlers talk of the game as a one-on-one struggle, a duel where every bowl thrown is a thrust and parry. This intellectual element also helps make lawn bowling widely accessible. Hand-eye coordination and dexterity are the sole skills required, thereby eliminating any gender or age advantages. And compared to other summer and winter sports in Canada, it's affordable to join; annual membership at a club typically ranges from $50 to $200 per year, and the only equipment needed is a pair of flat-soled shoes.

Despite this, lawn bowling is in big trouble. While there remain 160 clubs in Ontario, 40 in the greater Toronto area, the sport is battling a war of attrition. In the past few years, elderly bowlers have been passing away or quitting because of physical ailments, and there are scant few recruits waiting in the wings to replace them. Since 1995, the national ranks have dropped 10% -- some 2,000 members. At the current rate of decline, total membership will shrivel to half within 20 years. This trend has not gone unrecognized by organizers of the sport. "If we don't get an increase in the number of people," says Mr. Bain, who has bowled for 23 years, "I would suggest the game will continue to deteriorate and quite possibly disappear."

Inspired by the expansive growth of similarly sedate sports, such as golf and curling, Bowls Canada, the national organizing body, recently moved to attract younger interest in the sport. Clubs were provided with media kits as part of a recruitment effort. The kits came complete with glossy brochures featuring colourfully dressed 30- to 40-year-olds enthusiastically celebrating a game of lawn bowls, trumpeted in bold type as "The Sport of the Nineties." These efforts have been slow to bear fruit. Fewer than 5% of Ontario bowlers are under the age of 50, and only 75 of the estimated 10,000 bowlers in Ontario are under 21. This elderly skew is a huge obstacle in any attempts to revive the sport.
Mr. Bain, who was instrumental in bringing the Canadian National Tournament to the Beaches last year, struggled to find corporate sponsorship for the event. "They pretty well laughed at me," he says of the response from several major banks. "They want the most exposure for their money, so the funding goes to high-profile sports." The problem is that lawn bowling is quietly compelling, revealing its charms slowly over years of devotion. This is a hard sell in a youth-worshipping age of adrenaline junkies and extreme sports. While similar sports such as golf and curling have managed to outgrow their stodgy reputation, lawn bowling appears to be cursed by its own. Still, faced with a grim future of dwindling membership and imminent club closures, some maintain a stiff upper lip regarding the once King of Sports.

"It's a young person's game that old people can play," says Ms. Sidel, who took up the sport only recently, in her early twenties. "I think lawn bowling is where curling was 15 years ago. Let's hope we can continue moving onwards and upwards."

The Triumphant Return of Alberta Slim
National Post, September 2000

Half a century after he toured North America with a fortune-telling horse and a tightrope-walking chimp, 90-year-old country singer Alberta Slim returned to play an exclusive gig yesterday at a Toronto nursing home yesterday. And while the sitting-room only crowd at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care on Bathurst Street near Lawrence Avenue proved to be less than uproarious -- wheelchairs were the order of the day -- Mr. Slim took it all in stride."You never know what might happen, I just might die up there," he said, before strapping on his guitar. "If I do, just make sure everyone claps."

He did not die, but there was still applause for the cowboy crooner who performed two short sets of well-worn hits, showcasing both his trademark yodelling and nifty cowboy outfit.

His warbling set canes tapping and caused one man to launch into a recurring two-step in front of the stage. There was even a heckler, of sorts, who uttered what amounted to a mumbled cat call. "That's a nice story," one white-haired woman said about Mr. Slim's lengthy introduction to a song. "Now let's hear you sing it." Unphased, Mr. Slim (or Mr. Alberta - he'll answer to either) ploughed through the set with aplomb, interspersing it with off-the- cuff repartee.

He even worked the crowd afterwards; signing autographs, kissing cheeks and handing out business cards for his real estate business in British Columbia. While it wasn't clear if the elderly audience recognized the strange man with the long white hair and massive cowboy hat standing before them, Mr. Slim played a seminal, if unsung, role in Canadian music history.

Born Eric C. Edwards, Mr. Slim made his name during the heyday of Canadian country singers such as Hank Snow and Wilf Carter. But unlike other performers who milked the corny singing-cowboy shtick, Mr. Slim was the real deal. Raised on a Prairie farm, he was riding horses and roping calves at the age of 10 while strumming guitar on the side. In the 1950s he had a popular touring circus that featured Canada's only elephant at the time and Jimmy Tangula, his beloved performing chimp. He was rediscovered four years ago by rock band manager Cameron Noyes, who coaxed him out of retirement. Since then Mr. Slim has performed on both coasts and has become a semi-regular on CBC Radio's Basic Black, showing no signs of slowing down. "We've created a monster," commented Mr. Noyes.

Yesterday's event was intended as an anniversary celebration for the centre's employees and residents, and while it was unlike his typical shows, it did have its controversial moments.

Midway into his set, the affable cowboy told an anecdote about buying his plane ticket to fly to Ontario. It began with him asking about an extra ticket for his pal Jesus Christ, then ended with an inspirational quip, "Jesus rides for free." Not surprisingly, he was met with stunned silence by the primarily Jewish seniors. Commenting on it after the show, Mr. Slim recalled being briefed about the religious makeup of his audience beforehand. "They told me to be careful about mentioning Jesus. That didn't go over that well,” he sighed. “That didn't go over at all."

A Classic Makes a Comeback in the Muskokas
National Post, May 2001

PORT CARLING – It’s no secret that a quiet friction exists between the old-school Muskoka and the new. Having descended from pioneer families, the old school considers it a kind of birthright to preserve the more tranquil rituals of cottage culture. Meanwhile, the new school - such as Kurt and Goldie - has showered the area with cash, sparking a cottage country renaissance that has sent real estate prices spiralling. Come summer, which one do you think is more likely to hop on a Jet Ski? This is the tug-of-war between the bucolic and the high-octane. And, as battles go, this one appears sadly mismatched.
In the thousands of lush square miles in the greater Muskoka District, fewer than 50,000 of the old-guard, permanent residents remain, compared with more than 100,000 of the seasonal sort.

Not the greatest of odds. But the founding families possess a secret weapon in the form of the Muskoka boat. Given all the potential status symbols in this affluent part of cottage country, nothing speaks more directly about a people's pedigrees than the boats they pilot.

For those in the know, the antique wooden crafts known as Muskoka boats are the definition of old-world elegance. Think of them as Bentleys with an outboard.
On a recent visit to the area, a local boat aficionado was keen to put it all in perspective: "You know why they're called Muskoka boats? Because they cost a s---load of money."

With some models fetching more than $150,000, it's easy to understand the allure, which harkens back to Muskoka's golden years. Originally built in 1910 by local workshops such as Duke's, Minnett's and Sea Bird, the mahogany boats were favoured by both local families and the wealthy sportsmen who had begun to flock there from the city. Known for their deep shine, distinct yellow striping and sleek bodies, the boats were as de rigueur back then as Jet Skis are today.

That changed at the end of the Second World War, when Fibreglas became a more affordable building material. By the 1960s, the Muskoka boat had slipped out of fashion.

Tim Butson, whose family first began building boats in England in 1869, sees the impact even today. "A young person, like the hockey players, will buy a place up here and immediately the boat they buy is Fibreglas," explains Mr. Butson, who runs Butson Boats in Port Carling. "Then you start hanging out at the golf clubs and [the establishment] will say, 'When are you gonna get rid of that thing and get something decent?' Then they get caught up in this wood thing."

For many up here, the older models, with their spare interiors and slower engines, serve as an antidote to the more common powerboats. Mr. Butson's is just one of a number of local outfits that specialize in the restoration of the old sloops.

Ed Skinner bought Duke Marine in Port Carling back in 1977, just as interest was beginning to stir. His nondescript shop houses a dozen boats in various states of repair, and is dripping with history. Our Cup of Tea, a 1931 cruiser awaiting a new layer of varnish, was originally owned by Alex Gooderham of Gooderham and Worts Distillery, before ending up as a fishing charter 50 years later. A local family rediscovered it in some bushes two years ago and has since invested thousands of dollars bringing it back to life. Mr. Skinner believes that while most of his customers are attempting to reclaim a small part of Muskoka history, others are simply trying to keep up appearances. "It's like having a BMW and a nanny, right?" he says. "You just gotta have a wood boat."

Tapping into this interest, Mr. Butson has begun to design and build a new generation of Muskoka boats. Along with his 76-year-old father, Ron, he sees his company as filling the void left when the last authentic Muskoka boat rolled off the line in the early 1970s.

From their authentic construction (no epoxy is ever used) to custom-made chrome hitches and vintage steering wheels, the attention to detail is bewildering. Tim Butson insists the proper location for the boat's name should be along the side, ideally in simple chrome letters, as opposed to conspicuously plastered on the rear. Even with prices that range from $115,000 to $155,000, he has already sold six, and people in the area, including hockey great Paul Coffey, have begun to show interest. "Most people will use the Fibreglas to blast to the liquor store but they'll use the wood boat to impress the company," says Mr. Butson.
"One guy said, 'Hey this is my 'Vette. I've got one for the water and one for the garage."