Blogging on film

Thanks to the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival for inviting me to screen my new short film, The Man Who Built My Childhood. One more screening tomorrow: Saturday, June 20, 2009 at Noon at the Cumberland 4.

Here are some things I've noticed while wandering the streets of Toronto. Click on the pictures if you want to see them bigger. Since I blog at a leisurely pace I figured I could wait for a whole hour, so all pictures were shot on film the old-fashioned way.


Funny reference from a seemingly elderly graffiti artist.


Toronto takes its mayonnaise-substitutes very seriously.



My room at the Madison Manor. You can tell it's classy because the fireplace has an 'on' switch.


Detail of the stain-glass window in my room.


I did an interview at Bravo! for the their Bravo!Fact Presents show and they took my picture and printed me this visitor ID badge. For some reason I kept it stuck on my bag, and the next day the word 'STOP' magically appeared.

George Sprott, CKCK, and the Glory Days of Local Televison

For my money, the best cartoonist working today is Seth. The Guelph-based graphic novelist and illustrator has been putting out quality work for about 20 years now, and it just keeps getting better and better. As a collector and fan of music, films and comics there are lots of artists I follow, but nothing excites me like the arrival of a new work by Seth. What follows is an account of the multiple layers of joy, surprise and reflection that I found upon reading Seth's new book, George Sprott.

First of all, it’s a gorgeously designed object, unique in many ways. It’s huge, measuring 14 inches tall, with a beautifully embossed hardcover and wonderfully printed interior pages in multiple two-tone hues. It's so sumptuous in its details, it's hard to know whether you should read it or lick it.

Then, there’s the subject matter. As you open the book the first image is of a black, white and grey test pattern for an ancient television station called CKCK. For the purposes of Seth’s book CKCK is a fictional Canadian TV station based in the fictional city of Lakeside, Ontario, but as anyone from Regina, Saskatchewan knows, CKCK TV was the real deal. CKCK Radio and CKCK TV were powerhouse prairie broadcasters that served Regina and area with style and grace for many years. As a young kid I worked at CKCK Radio in the 1980’s. This was at the tail end of the glory days of AM Radio, and it was a thrill for me to be a part of it. At the age of 17 I began as a midnight-shift disc-jockey, and I couldn’t believe that I was left in charge of this broadcasting legend. Among other notable things, CKCK Radio gave the world the first ever live broadcast of a hockey game, in 1923.

Brian Stockton, 1983, self-portrait in the CKCK Radio control room. This control room survived until the early 1980's when a more modern room was constructed across the hallway.

George Sprott, inside front cover.

With the fictional CKCK TV as the backdrop, Seth's book is about George Sprott, an explorer, raconteur, and television pioneer. Sprott's life is examined in multiple short graphic stories, the bulk of which were commissioned by The New York Times Magazine and published serially. For this book Seth has expanded the story to turn it into a complete 'picture novella.'

I don't know if Seth is aware of the real CKCK or not, but his book is the perfect compliment to the real memories and artifacts from CKCK Regina, and pretty much every other local TV station in Canada. George Sprott celebrates the oddball characters from local shows that were once so common across Canada: The children's show star, the host of the late-night movie, and the local talk show host. The fictional George Sprott had a show called Northern Hi-Lights, in which he recounted tales of his trips to the arctic while showing reels of silent film like they did on The Red Fisher Show.

Seth's tale follows Sprott's story to the demise of local television. Like at the real CKCK, the local shows at fictional CKCK disappeared in the 1980's. "Only local news survived. The remaining airtime was filled with shitty American shows." says the narrator.

George Sprott, detail.

As we look back, those old shows seem so ancient now, so stuck in the past, that it's hard to imagine local shows existing in the present. Of course they do, on broadcasters like SCN, Knowledge Network, TVO, community cable and Moses Znaimer's CITY TV brand which was bold enough to imagine a new kind of local TV. CITY TV still exists—sort of—under media conglomerate Rogers. When I lived in Toronto in the 1990's and early 2000's, CITY TV was part of the Toronto experience, much like CKCK Radio and TV were as a kid growing up in Regina.

Seth's book has come out at a time when a debate about local TV is raging in Canada. I don't really have anything to add, except to say that Seth's book seems to have landed in the right place at the right time. Like all of Seth's work we are forced to think about the present while immersed in a story about the past. As Canada's private broadcasters make their plea to 'save local TV' Seth's book makes it crystal clear that what we're really talking about is 'saving local news' because 'local TV' as we used to know it, has been dead for years.

Some good stories from the front lines of local TV debate can be found here and here.

Seth's book also brought to mind local Regina celebrity broadcaster Johnny Sandison. While the character of Sprott is nothing like Sandison, there is a passing resemblance between the two.


Johnny Sandison (1926-2004) , George Sprott (1894-1975)

Johnny was the titan of local broadcasting in Regina. For many years he did double duty on CKCK Radio as The Morning Mayor, and on CKCK TV as weatherman, talk show host, and whatever else they needed. Johnny Sandison was Regina's biggest celebrity, but was not much known outside of Saskatchewan. No doubt there are Johnny Sandisons and George Sprotts all over map of Canada's broadcasting past.


Seth's style is clearly suited to his subject matter in George Sprott. Here's a detail of the fictional CKCK schedule, and an artifact from the real CKCK.


As the owner of the CKCK collectible plate, I guess that makes me this guy.



The imagined, and the real.

For those interested in more pictures from the glory days of CKCK TV Regina, try here. As always, Seth's work is published by Drawn and Quarterly of Montreal.

George Sprott is a beautiful and affecting work, part of a body of work in comics that is among the best in the field. I highly recommend it for everyone, even though this particular book seems like it has a target audience of me.