CANAR
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
This article or section needs expansion. |
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | CANAR, Comic Art News and Reviews |
| Publisher: | John Balge |
| Editor(s): | |
| Date(s): | 1972 - 1978 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Comics |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
CANAR, short for Comic Art News and Reviews, was a Canadian fanzine in Comics fandom.
Sim and Balge, along with Now and Then’s Kremer, became inseparable, travelling together to comics conventions in the U.S. and southern Ontario, interviewing many prominent American comics creators along the way. Issues of the zine are a treasure trove of interviews for researchers interested in cartoonists, writers, and editors active in the 1972 to 1976 period, including Will Eisner, Russ Heath, Harvey Kurtzman, Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Kaluta, Gil Kane, Steve Skeates, Berni Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, and others.
The zine continued its focus on Canadian fandom as well, with a lively letters page, reviews of other zines, and historical articles on 1940s Canadian comics. As well, both Sim and Gene Day contributed many covers, illustrations, strips, and multi-page comic stories. Richard Comely’s early Captain Canuck efforts were profiled and the triple issue #26-27-28 (1974) featured a cover by the Canadian poet/cartoonist bpNichol as well as a rare interior 3 page Nichol comic, “The Revolt of Rover Rawshanks.”[1]
"Where has CANAR been all my life?" Harvey Kurtzman wondered in a letter after I had interviewed him at York University (which was very sweet gratification on my part after getting short shrift from him) and we had devoted most of an issue to him. That was the kind of thing that really kept us going. Comics professionals who looked forward to getting the latest issue and who appreciated being asked interesting questions. I was a big fan of the PLAYBOY interview and definitely wanted to apply that sensibility to the comics field. That was my painstaking end of things. Interviewing as many professionals as possible at a convention and then transcribing the tape, line by line and phrase by phrase and then taking it over to John's place on Admiral Road where he would turn it into meticulously justified type. Studying to be a professional comics artist, but I didn't know, at the time, that's what I was doing.[2]
Covers
Cover of CANAR #21/22 Double Issue (May/June 1974), art by Gene Day
Cover of Issue #30, art by Dave Sim (possibly 1975)
References
- ^ "John Balge (1954-2014): Early Canadian Fanzine Pioneer". Archived from the original on 2024-07-29.
- ^ "Weekly Update #51: John Balge (1954 - 2014)". Archived from the original on 2024-07-29.