In 1923, in Paris, shortly after 7 pm on a warm Sunday in June, forty people boarded a barge moored along the Seine. Entering the main room, there was a large table, set out for a multiple-course champagne dinner. Instead of flowers, there were mounds of brightly coloured children’s toys interspersed among the place settings. The meal went long into the night, and, in between courses, the various guests displayed their talents.

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is noticeably lacking in the sort of rituals formerly associated with adolescent spell-casters: no pentagrams are carved, no blood is consumed (save that of a few unlucky unicorns and the odd werewolf victim), and the phrase “Bloody Mary” isn't uttered once. In fact, thanks to the boy wizard and his friends, the phrase “teenage witch” is more likely to invoke an image of Emma Watson in a striped scarf than of the mini-skirted goths of The Cult.

“You know what I hate, Gordon?”

“No, Joe, what do you hate?”

“I really hate it that I’m so petty as to feel angry when people from Canada succeed at something.  I also really hate it when my dated perceptions of Canadian literature make me look ignorant in a room full of learned people.  In spite of this, I can’t help trashing the shit out of every writer this country produces.”

“Well, Joe, what are you going to do?  Support Canadian artists or something?!”

“You’re right, Gordon.  That is ridiculous.  Pass me another Molson, buddy.”

“Only Budweiser left, Joe.”

“Same difference, Gordon.  Same difference.”

Brendan Blomb describes what it was like growing up reading Herge's legendary comic, Tintin, in Canada.

Kevin Johns explores how issues of art, religion and sexuality are interwoven into Craig Thompson's masterful graphic novel, Blankets.