Bjoern Arthurs and Zachary Abram met in a Toronto kindergarten classroom in the early 90s. Bjoern’s deft skills at finger-painting and papier-mâché would indicate that he would always be an artist, while Zac’s tendency to get lost in books would indicate that he would always be underemployed.
Throughout elementary school, Zac and Bjoern would fight over who got to read the tattered and dog-eared French language comic books that were strewn around the classroom. An enduring love for the medium was born in the hearts of both boys in that grimy public school.
Since those halcyon days, Bjoern has become an OCAD-trained award winning artist and an in-demand freelance illustrator whose work has appeared in magazines and journals at home and abroad. He lives and draws in Atlanta. Zac’s addiction to books only worsened and he’s currently a doctoral candidate in English/Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa, where he’s trying to desperately finish his dissertation on Canadian war novels. His academic writing and fiction has appeared in scholarly journals, books, and magazines. He lives and writes in Montreal.
Though their lives diverged after those heady school days, our two heroes would meet up at least once a year to discuss which comics and graphic novels they had read in the past year. These conversations usually started over coffee and ended over beer. Their debates over the relative merits of Daniel Clowes, Seth, Chester Brown, and Chris Ware, were as heated as a conversation can get between old friends. Finally, after years as professional appreciators, Bjoern suggested that they take action and create their own comic. Zac was delighted because he has always wanted to tell Bjoern what to draw.
This blog is a running record of their process.
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