Quill & Quire
Alexander Huls
May 12, 2016
When Marvel was preparing to launch a new comic series last year based on its archer superhero Hawkeye, the creative team – writer Jeff Lemire, artist Ramón Pérez, and colourist Ian Herring – were asked what they wanted to call it. Their response: “The All-Canadian Hawkeye.”
The title was rejected, but the joke, and the Toronto-based team behind it, is representative of the wave of Canadian comic book creators who are increasingly being called on to bring some of the world’s most famous superheroes – including Spider-Man, Batman, and the Flash – to life. Many of these creators have made their home base in the cheekily named Royal Academy of Illustration and Design, a co-op art studio that’s home to veteran and up-and-coming comic book talent including, along with Pérez (Jim Henson’s Tales of Sand) and Herring (Ms. Marvel), Francis Manapul (The Flash), Marcus To (New Avengers), and Kalman Andrasofszk (Captain Canuck) – making the city an unintentional hub of mainstream comics’ top talent.
