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Mark Laliberte
Mark is the managing editor, arts editor and designer of Carousel Magazine – a Canadian arts and literary journal published twice a year. He's also the curator of the 4Panel Project, which began as a back page supplement in Carousel, and the publisher behind Popnoir Editions' comics and zines.
Growing up in Windsor, ON. during the black and white comics boom of the 1980s, Mark discovered that some of his favourite comics were printed right in his hometown. Being the enterprising fan that he was, he decided to call them up and see if he could order his favourite comics directly from the printer and cut out the middleman. Even though the printer explained that's not how things worked, they were still nice enough to show Mark around and employ him as an assistant, sparking his love for self-publishing his own comics and graphic novels to this day.
Early on in his career, Mark's self-published zines featured the typical run-of-the-mill nihilism you might see from any punk in their twenties, but they came into the notice of the wrong authorities sparking an infamous obscenity trial knows as the Head Trip Scandal and a landmark obscenity verdict in Mark's favour that set precedent for obscenity cases in Canada for all time.
On the podcast, Mark admits that winning the case put a certain attention on his career that many independent artists only dream of, including a write-up in The Comics Journal. While spearheading his own experimental indie books like BRICKBRICKBRICK, Grey Supreme 01 r and Suture Series Fragment A: It Looked Like Rain, along with curating avant garde comic anthologies like Dehuman and Sequential Desire, he became the main man at the Canadian literary arts magazine Carousel.
Needing a back page supplement for the magazine, but wanting to stay away from the already played out comic strip, Mark issued a challenge to people he knew in the art scene: take the four panel comic strip format, but stay away from the set-up punchline of the traditional newspaper funnies and experiment.
What he got were four panel strips that pushed the boundaries of the form. Sometimes the four panels simply acted as windows into another world beyond with the panels barely containing what was within them. This challenge became extremely popular, so popular that it quickly moved beyond the carousel back page and was soon published online as the 4 Panel Project and in two anthologies featuring artists like Fiona Smyth, Jessica Bartram, Jesse Jacobs and Hartley Lin.
Mark was so taken by the work of the artists who contributed to the 4 Panel Project that his publishing company Popnoir editions has begun publishing these artists own graphic novels. Jessica Bartram's Ghost Water Kiss and Ben Oneil's Apologetica arrives from Popnoir Editions in Spring 2019, making their debut at the 2019 Toronto Comic Arts Festival.
Mark Laliberte's website
@originobscure
The 4Panel Project
Pop Noir Editions
Carousel Magazine
Pop Noir Shop
Sponsored by:
Hairy Tarantula
Old Town Bodega
AMOK Podcast Fundraising Campaign
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By Aaron Broverman
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Mark is the managing editor, arts editor and designer of Carousel Magazine – a Canadian arts and literary journal published twice a year. He's also the curator of the 4Panel Project, which began as a back page supplement in Carousel, and the publisher behind Popnoir Editions' comics and zines.
Growing up in Windsor, ON. during the black and white comics boom of the 1980s, Mark discovered that some of his favourite comics were printed right in his hometown. Being the enterprising fan that he was, he decided to call them up and see if he could order his favourite comics directly from the printer and cut out the middleman. Even though the printer explained that's not how things worked, they were still nice enough to show Mark around and employ him as an assistant, sparking his love for self-publishing his own comics and graphic novels to this day.
Early on in his career, Mark's self-published zines featured the typical run-of-the-mill nihilism you might see from any punk in their twenties, but they came into the notice of the wrong authorities sparking an infamous obscenity trial knows as the Head Trip Scandal and a landmark obscenity verdict in Mark's favour that set precedent for obscenity cases in Canada for all time.
On the podcast, Mark admits that winning the case put a certain attention on his career that many independent artists only dream of, including a write-up in The Comics Journal. While spearheading his own experimental indie books like BRICKBRICKBRICK, Grey Supreme 01 r and Suture Series Fragment A: It Looked Like Rain, along with curating avant garde comic anthologies like Dehuman and Sequential Desire, he became the main man at the Canadian literary arts magazine Carousel.
Needing a back page supplement for the magazine, but wanting to stay away from the already played out comic strip, Mark issued a challenge to people he knew in the art scene: take the four panel comic strip format, but stay away from the set-up punchline of the traditional newspaper funnies and experiment.
What he got were four panel strips that pushed the boundaries of the form. Sometimes the four panels simply acted as windows into another world beyond with the panels barely containing what was within them. This challenge became extremely popular, so popular that it quickly moved beyond the carousel back page and was soon published online as the 4 Panel Project and in two anthologies featuring artists like Fiona Smyth, Jessica Bartram, Jesse Jacobs and Hartley Lin.
Mark was so taken by the work of the artists who contributed to the 4 Panel Project that his publishing company Popnoir editions has begun publishing these artists own graphic novels. Jessica Bartram's Ghost Water Kiss and Ben Oneil's Apologetica arrives from Popnoir Editions in Spring 2019, making their debut at the 2019 Toronto Comic Arts Festival.
Mark Laliberte's website
@originobscure
The 4Panel Project
Pop Noir Editions
Carousel Magazine
Pop Noir Shop
Sponsored by:
Hairy Tarantula
Old Town Bodega
AMOK Podcast Fundraising Campaign