National Cartoonists' Society Holiday Party 2009

Above: Brian McLachlan and Eric Orchard.

I've been going to the National Cartoonist Society (Cdn Chapter) holiday parties for several years now, and they're always a lot of fun. Friday's gathering was no different, with lots of chat about comics, books, publishing, illustration....and drawing comics, of course!



Above: Ronnie Martin, Aaron, Susan Adsett.

The party was held at the Bedford Academy. Great venue for the gathering, but the low light conditions posed a challenge for photographers who (like me) don't like using flash. I was grateful for my Sigma 30/1.4 lens but still found myself jealous of photographers who can look around and -instantly- know what settings to use. I used ISO 1600, set my Rebel XTi to shutter priority and then fiddled with that, depending on where I was in the room.

Ok, enough about the photography.



I'm still grateful to the ebullient Patricia Storms (above, raffling off her new book, The Pirate and the Penguin) for inviting me to my first NCS holiday party in 2005.

Since then, I've gotten to recognize more and more faces, and it's been great to catch up on some of their projects. Like Cathy Thorn's Cartoons About Women book, for example:



And chatting with Michael Cripps about his new webcomic, Grizz:



Sandra-Bell Lundy, creator of Between Friends:



Sandra was handing out Thing-A-Ma-Boobs to women at the party.

Hilary Leung and Peter Cook:



Naseem Hrab from Kids Can Press:



Naseem took pity on me during the raffle and gave me one of the prizes she won since I wasn't winning anything (Cathy Thorn even gave me HER raffle tickets when she left): a set of Templar, Arizona graphic novels and a cool pin. Thank you, Naseem!



Augh, want to write more but I really need to get back to my novel writing. I have 3,000 words to write today to reach my 50,000 wordcount goal for NaNoWriMo! You can see more photos from the party in my Facebook photo album. I also have a Flickr album, but the Facebook one is more interesting because the attendees have been tagging themselves and other people at the party. I just discovered that I took a photo of Kean Soo (creator of Jellaby and also assistant editor of the Flight books) and didn't even know it!

Anyway, if you have a chance to attend the NCS party next year, do come! It's lots of fun and a great chance to meet not only cartoonists but authors, editors and others in the publishing business, win cool prizes, and see Patricia Storms not be shy:


Above: Patricia Storms and John Martz.

Heh.

HUGE thanks to Patricia for inviting me in the first place!