{"id":23851,"date":"2023-04-05T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23851"},"modified":"2023-04-21T10:13:26","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T17:13:26","slug":"camosun-comic-arts-festival-showcases-lineup-of-aspiring-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/04\/05\/camosun-comic-arts-festival-showcases-lineup-of-aspiring-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun Comic Arts Festival showcases lineup of aspiring artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 20, the Camosun Comic Arts Festival will showcase the final projects of students in the Comics & Graphic Novels (CCGN) program. The students have created and published their own comics to display at the festival, which runs from 3 to 7 pm in the Wilna Thomas building at Lansdowne, and is free of charge.<\/p>\n

CCGN student and Nexus<\/i> cartoonist Tylar McKoen is just finishing up the year-long program, and feels that she has benefitted from the experience as an artist and as a professional (see page 10 to see McKoen\u2019s comic, Taxidermy Bug Project<\/i>, this issue).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an incredible program; my art has grown tenfold,\u201d McKoen says. \u201cThe skills I\u2019ve learned are invaluable and it\u2019s definitely something where if I didn\u2019t do it, I think it would have taken me a lot longer to get to the technical skill that I\u2019m at now, but also the confidence level to do something like pursuing it as a career.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Camosun Comics & Graphic Novels student Tylar McKoen (photo by Jordyn Haukaas\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Program instructor Gareth Gaudin is a lifelong cartoonist, proprietor of Legends Comics & Books, and the artist behind the iconic Perogy Cat. Even as recently as Gaudin\u2019s own youth, comics were scorned as a form of art or literature, he says, and now they\u2019re booming. With an art so early in its infancy, the future is a blank page, ready to be drawn by the next new talented cartoonists.<\/p>\n

\u201cComics are young enough as a medium that the greatest thing that will ever be done in comics hasn\u2019t happened yet, and the person who\u2019s going to revolutionize it probably hasn\u2019t picked up a pencil yet,\u201d says Gaudin. \u201cSo the future\u2019s bright for this medium. I\u2019m so used to people having to struggle to find their voice later in life, and it\u2019s such a pleasure to see these kids who I\u2019ll just be proud to see go off into the world and get work for the first time ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKoen advises people to take a chance doing what they love, because times are hard and purposefully choosing one\u2019s own life path is the most sensible, inspired, and productive plan for a healthy lifestyle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the state of the world that we\u2019re in right now, there\u2019s no risk in trying. If you focus too hard on what\u2019s going on, it just kind of seems like everything\u2019s falling apart, so why not take the chance to do something fun?\u201d she says. \u201cThis sounds very cynical, but if I\u2019m going to be struggling to pay my rent working a minimum-wage job, I\u2019d rather do it by making art, you know? There\u2019s no risk, no harm. It\u2019s going to be an amazing experience and you\u2019re going to learn something from it regardless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaudin, who has more than 30 years experience in the industry, says legendary artist Todd McFarlane once shared a sagely bit of guidance that made a lasting impression on him as an aspiring cartoonist.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me some really good advice when I was a teenager: \u2018If you want to break into the comic book world, don\u2019t look at the greatest guys working and think, I\u2019ll never be that good, look at the worst guys working in the industry and think, I just have to do better than that.\u2019 I really loved that,\u201d says Gaudin, \u201cit totally changed my perspective, and it actually kept me going. I was a teen and it was a really big moment for me, and it changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKoen says that the program has left an indelible mark on her life, and she\u2019s excited to move into a long, productive career as a comic-book artist.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo regrets, it\u2019s been an incredible experience, and it\u2019s definitely my career choice from now on,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m running headlong into comics for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 20, the Camosun Comic Arts Festival will showcase the final projects of students in the Comics & Graphic Novels (CCGN) program. The students have created and published their own comics to display at the festival, which runs from 3 to 7 pm in the Wilna Thomas building at Lansdowne, and is free of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,286],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-april-5-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23853,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23851\/revisions\/23853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}