Von Allan's art, comics and graphic novels: CBC Trailblazer

In a surprise (well, at least to me!) turn of events, I’ve received a $4,000.00 grant from the City of Ottawa’s Arts Funding Program (the PDF announcement from the City is here). The grant is in support of my ongoing comics project WOLF’S HEAD and represents a significant step in my arts career. Why significant? Well, bear with me here for a sec and I’ll try to explain.

As I’ve struggled to cobble together an arts career, there have been a number of obstacles that I’ve had to overcome. This is not unique to me, unique to Canadian comic artists, unique to visual artists, or unique to the arts in general. Despite certain stereotypes of artists (“heads in the clouds,” blah, blah, blah), it’s quite a tricky career to manage. There is not a lot of support “out there” for artists, either. Most artists I know are forced to manage their careers as best they can and there really isn’t a road map to help along the way. That’s been very true for me. While a lot of words come to mind to describe this — ‘challenging’ being a very good one — it just is what it is. And there is a certain truism to the notion that by the time acknowledgement does come (usually in the form of awards, accolades, and sales), the artist doesn’t need as much support as they once did. That’s definitely not true of me.

Let me say that again: That’s definitely not true of me.

It’s been a fight every step of the way. The first fight was simply to become competent and that might have been the toughest battle of them all. The learning curve, at least for me, has been extremely steep with a lot of false starts and dashed hopes along the way. Then, the next fight is to survive. Truth be told, that’s been tough, too. Being pretty much a fringe artist at the best of times and a true Outsider most of the time meant that building awareness for my work has been a never-ending struggle. Pragmatically speaking, surviving as an artist means generating an income. In my case specifically, that primarily means selling my comics. And that has never been easy.

As some folks know, I really had hopes that I AM STILL YOUR CHILD, the documentary film I’m in, would help build awareness for my art. That really hasn’t happened, at least so far, and the disappointment was hard to place. That doesn’t mean I’m not proud of my role in the film. Far from it! And I still think the film is important for shedding light on parental mental illness, a taboo subject to this day.

That said, as my wife is fond of saying, the film was ‘kindling’ for my arts career and represented a milestone in its own right. While it hasn’t changed awareness of my work in the larger comics community, it has led to growing awareness in the local arts scene. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have been a finalist for the Peter Honeywell Award without it. And I certainly wouldn’t have won a CBC Trailblazer Award without it, too.

And with today’s announcement of winning a grant from the City of Ottawa, I’m pretty confident saying that it wouldn’t have happened without the film and the other awards. One thing does lead to another. And the grant is important from another point of view; it really does give some much needed financial support for my comics endeavours. As I’ve noted, being an artist is not an easy path and every little bit of financial support helps. When a jury of my peers determined that my application was worthy of financial support, my jaw dropped. And it’s taken a bit of time for me to really get my head around it. I’m both honoured and pleased as punch to receive it. And in these pandemic times we live in, it is one helluva lift.

So yes, Von Allan Studio (that’s me, folks!) gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the City of Ottawa. Boy, do I!

2019 CBC Trailblazer Award for Von Allan aka Eric Julien

It’s always a bit weird to be writing this, but here goes. I’m one of the winners of a 2019 CBC Trailblazer Award. With a trophy and everything! I have to admit to having mixed feelings about awards*, but it’s still pretty neat to have won one. And since this is the second award I’ve won for my art-related activities, it is another “arrow in the quiver,” especially given how hard it’s been to get to this point.

Hard?

Hell, yeah.

Art, as a career, is not the easiest thing in the world to make a “go” of, especially given the austerity-fueled times we live in. And it has taken me a long time, longer than I would have liked, to reach the point that my art is, for lack of a better word, “professional.” ‘Course, one of the interesting things about art is what one means by “professional” can take on all kinds of different meanings. It really depends on who you are and what you like.

In my specific case, I knew I was pretty rough, but we really do learn by doing.

“Doing” also meant falling on my face. A lot. I’ve covered that in a piece I wrote called “On Getting Stronger” so I won’t cover that again here.

I think one of the interesting things about the Trailblazer Award is it really is recognition for the work I continue to do around my first graphic novel, the road to god knows... Who knew, when I first self-published it almost ten years ago, it would still be finding a life now? That’s in large part thanks to the documentary film I Am Still Your Child, written and directed by Megan Durnford, produced by Katarina Soukup and the fine folks at Catbird Productions, and supported by all the creative folks behind it (including “behind the scenes” people like Alex Margineanu, Howard Goldberg, Kathy Sperberg, Stéphanie Couillard, and Sara Morley, as well as folks like Jessy Bokser, Sarah Leavens, and Marie Leavens who I shared screen time with). The film gave a “second life,” so to speak, to the graphic novel and has led to speaking engagements, panel discussions, Skype conversations, and on and on.

And, more concretely, it’s given me an opportunity to talk about my mom. Not just her battle with schizophrenia, but also the poverty we battled combined with the lack of social programs to help her. To talk about the immense courage she showed (courage I’ve really only became truly aware of as an adult) while she fought a lonely and often terrifying battle to navigate a truly unforgiving health care and social aid system. And what it was like to grow up with her, for both good and ill.

It’s funny; my mom died pretty young, at 48. And I’m slowly but surely approaching that age myself. In fact, I’ve now lived longer without her in my life than I did with her (she died when I was 20, and I’m now well-past 40 myself). But the memory of her stays with me still. That’s partially because I loved her, of course, but also because I still find, to this day, how unfair her situation was. And the fact that it never had to be that way. Despite all of the “by your own bootstraps” nonsense we live in (you know, that idea that any failure, let alone any health issue, is a sign of personal rather than societal failure), what happened to my mom was grossly unfair. What is heartbreaking to me is that the unfairness she experienced is experienced by so many other people right to this very day.

Yeah, yeah, awareness about mental health and mental illness is better. There’s more open and frank discussion around it. Sure. But poverty has not gone away. The lack of social support really hasn’t changed. Welfare rates for anyone (let alone single moms) have, if anything, gotten much worse. We can talk about “resilience” and “perseverance” as much as we’d like. We can even point to individuals who’ve managed to do just that, but what about those who can’t? There’s still a chronic lack of systemic support. There’s still a culture that desperately needs healing (don’t believe me? Look at the suicides that are still occurring in the wake of the Parkland shooting).

I’m pleased to do what I can to help. And I’m proud, damn proud, to talk about my mom. To help put a face on what otherwise might be simple dry statistics. To use my art, as best I can, to show what some of this is like. But it’s hard not to escape the idea that in a very real way, the 2019 Trailblazer Award should not have gone to me.

It really should have gone to my mom.

She died in 1994, alone and isolated. I had moved out some months before because I had to, for my own sanity and self-esteem.

What I try to stress to people, though, is that she had hopes and dreams. Things she still wanted to accomplish. Who knows what she might have done if she had managed to beat a truly vile disease and get healthier? She’d be 73 right now, probably feisty as all get out, and probably telling her own story to people, trailblazing change.

I don’t doubt that for a second. But it was not to be.

I placed, a long time ago, the grief along with the disappointment of what could have been. It is what it is and it happened a long time ago. But other people, right now, are going through similar things. And even if mental illness is not a part of it, there is still crushing poverty, a cold and often hostile health and social services system, kids going hungry, massive personal debts, and horrible unhappiness. All the celebratory economic statistics in the world doesn’t change that. There is a lack of solidarity with each other, not just with our fellow citizens but a lack of solidarity and fellowship with people around the globe (don’t believe me? Look at all the hate against immigrants and refugees we’re seeing now).

We have to overcome this.

And what about me? Well, I continue to grow and get stronger, especially with my art (both visual art and my writing, too). And with my art I try to not just focus on the past (though always to honour it), but to move forward with new stories and new adventures. One of the things about falling in love with art, with comics, and with visual storytelling, is that the growing and learning never stops.

Using comics to tell stories has been, I think, the most rewarding thing I’ve done as an adult. And I can still remember where I was when the journey started to where I am now. Harder than hell, yeah, but rewarding all the same.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

* The late Harlan Ellison, back on the “Awards” episode of the TVOntario program PRISONERS OF GRAVITY said it best: “I think awards are bullshit. I think awards are detrimental to the writers…You win a Hugo, you win a Nebula, you win a Horror Writer’s Award, you win an Edgar, I’ve won all of them in multiples for god’s sake. What you’re getting are popularity awards. If you were a good boy that year. If you were published in the right place. If the right people read it. If stories that were five times better than yours were published in places no one saw them. Then you get an award. They’re meaningless.

They had value, years ago, as being, you know, you could put them on a cover of a paperback. “Hugo Award Winner.” Well, every book you pick up now is a Hugo Award Winner or Hugo Award Nominee. Or someone thought this should have won a Hugo. They don’t mean squat.

The minute you start thinking that you’ve won an award because you’re a terrific writer, you’re dead.”

Always good to keep in mind, right?