Whazamo! The TCAF Artist Series, with Shannon Gerard

Every May, Open Book celebrates the outstanding graphic novels and comics published here in Ontario and throughout the country with Whazamo! Check out Open Book's Whazamo! page all month long for interviews, news and original comics.

This spring, we teamed up with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) to ask Canadian comic creators about their work. The artists, who were at TCAF earlier this month, each submitted an image that answered one of our three questions: Why should everyone read comics? Who is your audience? What inspired you to start making comics?

With her comic, Shannon Gerard looks at the inspiration behind her work and the possibilities that arise when illustration and words are beautifully combined.

Shannon works across a variety of media. She writes and draws comics, crochets soft sculptures, binds books and makes prints. About her collaboration with No Media Kings’ Jim Munroe on the graphic novel Sword of My Mouth, boingboing wrote: “Gerard’s stellar
illustrations are jagged line drawings that play with time-series and an expressivity of posture to convey emotion with unexpected punch.” To read more about Shannon and her work, visit her website, shannongerard.tumblr.com

Shannon's book, Unspent Love (Conundrum Press), "addresses themes such as hope, fear, and human frailty.... Embracing a variety of genres, from poetry to relational art to graphic novel, Unspent Love is as varied as the characters who populate its quintessentially human stories. This is a first solo book from a multitalented artist."

Buy this book at the publisher's website, your local independent bookstore or online at Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.

Click on Shannon's comic to enlarge. The image can be further enlarged by clicking on the icon with four arrows in the right-hand corner.

Check back throughout May for new comics in the TCAF Artist Series.