bennybox

Yesterday Sandra, Mu and I went to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. There were maybe 50 or so indy artists, most were small-time and selling their self published zine-like mini comics, of which I thoroughly enjoy mainly because they’re usually quite kitchchy and have that amateur small-bite appeal which is less overwhelming than traditional mainstream comic epics.

I picked up a handfull of smaller stuff, which is really tough because there’s a lot of good and bad work out there. I found myself being drawn to the most unique drawing styles, and for a few minutes was just throwing my money every which way, to support the artists that I enjoyed seeing, and felt inspired by their creativity. It’s a really tough industry to break into. If you get into comic arts, you’re pretty much doing it for love of your craft, as comic book celebrities are few and far between.

My artist of the day was Leslie Stein, who does her books by cutting out pieces of constuction paper and arranging them with a glue stick. The effect is great colour that is typically lacking from most indy books. I am looking forward to her current project that has badgers or something in them, and is still a work in progress.

The three of us floated around downtown for a while. There was that South Asian Heritage Festival where we learned to dance to Bhangra, and TD gave us free chai. We went to the used bookstore on Edward St. I don’t read lit much, so I couldn’t really keep up here.

Then it was to HMV which is always a blast, because Sandra and Mu will never stop talking about music if you give them the chance. There were a couple of discs I wanted to pick up, as I often get urges to just buy CDs. My must-buy for the day was the new Gorillaz album - Demon Days. It’s supposed to be even more electic and polished than the first, though I was worried that Dan the Automator wouldn’t be around this time.

But ACK! Gorillaz are on the EMI label, which of course means COPY-PROTECTED DISCs. These aren’t CDs, they’re discs that work in CD players but really screw up your computer, some sort of theft deterrent. There are workarounds, but they’re a hassle, I can’t be bothered (though they work great on Macs… why did I give mine away?!). After the pain that was the new K-Os album, I vowed never to buy a copy-protected disc again. Seriously, I buy CDs, rip them to mp3 when I get home, and stick the disc on the shelf, probably to never be played again. As should be clear, I’ll buy the stuff of the artists I enjoy. I also almost bought the Amerie album, but it to was copy-protected. I left with just one CD, Esthero’s 2004 LP (which I didn’t actually go crazy for. Go fig).

I went home, and last night, for the first time in over two years, I downloaded mp3s. In the same time, I’ve probably bought maybe 20 or so CDs. I got the Gorillaz and Amerie in mp3. It was very easy to just load up the torrent, and now I have the mp3s on my computer and iPod. It’s the full effect of buying the album, plus some extra space on the shelf. I’m not sharing the files on torrent anymore, so I hope that means I’m safe from the feds.

EMI, if these discs weren’t copy-protected, I would have bought the albums. I would have thrown my money at you. All to just rip mp3s and never use the CDs again. What I’m paying you for is not just the music, but the right to play the music how I want. Please stop using copy-protection. It makes me hate you. And makes me want to download every single copy-protected EMI release around.

Oh yeah, and because I said it was blog worthy, I met the Mrs. Velji to be on Sunday. Well, Mu’s girlfriend. They’re so cute together, ah… young love.