Journey

There are various ways of controlling anxiety or stress: sitting down with a good book, taking a walk outside, or even enjoying a cup of tea with one’s current activity. Video games tend to be overlooked in this area. They are better known for being loud or fast-paced—not what someone would turn to if theyContinue

Not Your Usual Post-Apocalypse: The World of Stand Still Stay Silent

Ninety years later, everything is gone. Everything except Scandinavia, that is. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are all that remain of the Known world, and only Iceland is a completely safe area. As far as anybody knows, the rest of the Silent world is populated by the terrifying and dangerous victims of the RashContinue

Lilo & Stitch: it only gets better

Check out Part One of this two-part blog series here! Before we delve back into the serious stuff, let’s take a moment to admire the unique and colourful animation style of Lilo & Stitch. For the first time in decades, the directors chose to return to watercolour backgrounds as opposed to the typical solid colour ofContinue

Emily Carroll’s Horror Spectacle: Why I Checked Under My Bed That Night

“Unsettling” is a common word used to describe Emily Carroll’s graphic fiction these days, though perhaps it is given unjustly. “Unsettling” seems to skim the right word, but it ultimately lacks the punch her work delivers. Is there a definition for the sound of nails scraping a chalkboard? Or a word for the feeling ofContinue

Your Daily Dose of Comics: an Interview With Dakota McFadzean

If you’ve been to a comic arts festival in Toronto you can bet you’ve seen Dakota McFadzean there, selling his books and sketches. This Canadian cartoonist is well-versed in the strange and the imaginative. He also has a talent for making people relate to comics about things like ghost rabbits and cave-dwelling monsters. His comicsContinue

Making ALL the Art! A Joyful Chat with Artist Chris Minz

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. This interview was conducted with the one and only Dr. Chris Minz, an eclectic mastermind of many talents. For our speculative audience today, we have cooked up an artist interview which shows that a large variety of interests does not have to mean losing one’s style.Continue

You Have to Create From Your Own Intuition: An Interview with Eva Lewarne

For this interview, The Spectatorial asked Eva Lewarne, a prominent art force in Canada and overseas, to share some of her experiences, wisdom, and creative juice with the speculative audience interested in the fantastical and unique art. I have had the privilege of working with Eva’s art before, and have seen her work live and up-close inContinue

Art and Reality

Over a month has elapsed  since Gabriel García Márquez’s passing  on April 17th. The following day I decided to pick up his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, widely considered to be the author’s magnum opus. The book chronicles the lives of seven generations of the Buendía family living in the fictional town of Macondo.Continue