Here’s a very cool tourist giveaway comic book I found a short while ago. It was created, printed and published in Canada by G.W. Hogarth and the Division of Publicity, Department of Travel and Publicity, in authority with Baptist Johnston, Printer to the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty (no pressure) Toronto, Ontario. There is no mention of artist although there could be a signature hiding in a panel somewhere and my guess is it was published circa 1952. If anyone has any additional information, please be sure to let me know.
Reproduced below is the entire comic book of Our Vacation in Ontario, cover to cover.
Canadian Culture Thing now has Prints. These awesome prints are sure to make your environment that much better. Say, if you lived in an igloo, you could put up the Animated Map of Canada and POW! you’ve got some colour to add some pizzazz to all that white snow and ice. It might be so flashy that you’ll have to reach for your Inuktitut Snow Goggles just to look at it.
Animated Map of Canada c1935.
Or maybe you’re a Torontonian lumberjack, living up a tree in B.C. and you’re getting awfully sick and tired of all that green, all that blue sky and you need something to balance the pristine beauty of a Canadian forest. So you reach for your black and white print of Yonge Street at rush-hour, with streetcars, cars and people, oh my!
Looking north on Yonge Street from north of Queen Street. 1:15pm, January 12, 1929 Toronto.
Or maybe you’re from Vancouver and were forced at finger-point (we don’t do things at gun-point) to go work in Toronto and want to show all those people, with their inexpensive housing what trees look like…
Trinity College grounds looking south towards gates at Queen Street West and Strachan Avenue. Toronto, Ontario, October 9, 1913.
I attended Art in the Park this weekend at Trinity-Bellwoods Park. Our local super-park and one-time home of Trinity College (1851-1925), was overrun by artists and art-lover’s in this annual exhibition and sale.
Trinity College gates, Queen Street West at Strachan Avenue. Toronto, Ontario, Canada c1916.
The sun was shining, children were laughing, lover’s were canoodling (that’s right, canoodling!), I had a bowl of dumplings and it seemed that everything was right with the world. But looking past the veneer of paradise, past the squirrels, black and white, gathering nuts in unity, there was subversion afoot! Not since 2001, when Mel Lastman shook hands with members of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club in an unfortunate photo-opt, has something so scandalous taken place in Toronto politics. Mel Lastman claimed to not know who was shaking his hand, and when told he was shocked to discover that there was a chance that the friendly hand-shaking bikers might be mixed up in illegal shenanigans (that’s right shenanigans – don’t judge me!) like drug-trafficking!
Mel Lastman shakes hand with member of the Hell’s Angel in January of 2001.
But here in Trinity-Bellwoods Park where I once saw a cat leap from the top of a tree, over the head of a reaching fire-fighter on a ladder-truck, something more shocking and unbelievable had taken place and was now on display.
Kids, cover your eyes…
While you can’t actually see the cat in the picture, believe you me, when that cat hit the ground it was well enough to run.
Allegedly, Rob Ford (Toronto’s temporary mayor) had been seen standing next to Sasquatch on the shores of Toronto Island. Artist Mike Riley had captured the event and was now displaying it for everyone to see.
“Look, isn’t that the CN Tower” by Mike Riley
Rob Ford has been known to be staunchly opposed to Gravy Trains, weekly weigh-ins and so horrified by Gay Pride that he doesn’t even want to be in the city in case he might catch homosexuality, but when graffiti artists began depicting him in an unsavoury light, Big Rob went after them.
Graffiti by Ivus
Is it possible that now that his impromptu appearance next to Sasquatch Dave is out there for the whole city to ridicule that Rob Ford may go after art in general?
Rob Ford targets art! First it was Gravy Trains, then it was weigh-ins, next it was safely operating a motor vehicle. Now he’s adding eyebrows!
Sasquatch Eddie, who was visiting from the Fraser Valley in B.C. has been facing ridicule amongst his fellow-Sasquatch at home. In a front-page story in the local Sasquatch Valley Recorder, the Sasquatch community is in an uproar about Sasquatch Dave posing alongside Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, claiming it was poor judgement on his part. In an interview with Canadian Culture Thing, Sasquatch Dave claims he was simply making a silly pose for a photo for long-time girlfriend Sasquatch Velma and he “was just as shocked as everyone else that the Toronto Mayor jumped into the frame.”
Sasquatch Dave added that he has been having trouble sleeping ever since and has been having a recurring dream, “I’m in a large pot of boiling water and there a Rob Fords dancing around it and chanting that I have to “volunteer” for his Toronto football team or I can kiss my job goodbye! It’s horrible…just horrible.”
Let me tell you, you haven’t seen sad until you’ve seen a Sasquatch cry.
Toronto-based artist Olenka Kleban’s butter sculpture depicting the mayor driving a car while reading a Margaret Atwood novel was a real crowd-pleaser at the CNE this year. Rob never wanted to lick himself so badly.
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and really want to be surprised, bookmark this article and read it later.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a 2010 film based on the 6-part Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series by Canadian Graphic Novelist Bryan Lee O’Malley of London, Ontario. Directed Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World stars the City of Toronto and tells the story of a rock band bassist and habitually bad boyfriend, Canadian actor Michael Cera (Arrested Development) of Brampton, who meets the girl of his dreams – literally. In order to pursue a relationship with his American dream-girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Scott Pilgrim must fight and defeat in a videogame-esque, martial-arts battle, an alliance of Ramona’s 7 Evil X’s led by the fiendish Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).
The film sets the scene with screen copy that reads: “Not so long ago…In the mysterious land…of Toronto, Canada…Scott Pilgrim was dating a high schooler.”
After calling his sister at work at a Second Cup, and telling her that he is dating a 17 year-old, his sister complains that he is falling into his typical routine of bad relationships and that he should call it off. Thus begins the adventure of Scott Pilgrim in the City of Toronto. While building the storyline with bits of acting like Scott picking up his teenaged girlfriend Knives Chau (Scarborough actress Ellen Wong) at school and again at a video game arcade, things get quite interesting with a shot of Bathurst Street and Bloor Street West. The viewer gets the opportunity to see the pomp and pageantry of the 23,000 light-bulb encrusted Vegas-esque marquee of Honest Ed’s on the south-west corner with Central Technical School back in the distance. Sadly, the scene is in the daytime and the millions of lights are dark.
Honest Ed’s is a landmark department store in Toronto opened in 1948 by the larger-than-life Toronto personality “Honest” Ed Mirvish. With World War II behind Canada and the future looking bright, Ed created a bargain basement department store filled with close-out, bankruptcy and fire-sale merchandise. The no-frills style business model was an immediate success and Honest Ed’s began to expand. Eventually Honest Ed’s would consume almost an entire city block and would bill itself as the “world’s biggest discount department store”. In the late 1950’s began buying houses on Markham Street south of Bloor with the intention of razing the lot and for an expanded store and parking lot. When the City rejected Ed’s application to tear down the Victorian houses on Markham, Ed rented them to out to local artists at low rates and the street became a community of shops and galleries known today as Mirvish Village.
Perhaps because of the red of Honest Ed’s sign, Scott dreams that night of Ramona, a red-haired beauty and while at the library with Knives the next day, he sees her in the flesh. His obsession builds. After t rehearsal, when Scott introduces the star-struck Knives to his band Sex Bomb Omb, including girl-drummer Kim Pine played by Toronto actress Alison Pill, they head out into one of the more exciting scenes in the film.
Sex Bomb Omb walking up Manning St. at Queen St. W.
Suddenly, and out of nowhere Toronto again steals the scene when the band is seen walking up Manning Street! From just north of Queen Street West in the extremely cool neighbourhood of Trinity-Bellwoods, you see 793-797 Queen Street West in the background. Filmed before the fire that on May 24, 2010 would leave 791-797 in ruins, the cameraman mistakenly excluded 791 Queen Street West, the eventual home for Canadian Culture Thing and Valhalla Cards and Gifts. Perhaps it was because he felt psychically that without CCT and Valhalla in the shot there was no point to widen his shot.
Looking north up Manning at Queen 1900.
The four-alarm fire that started accidentally on the apartment deck above 793, would take 18 fire trucks and 65 firefighters an hour and a half to put out. The damage would exceed $600,000 and would leave several people and a poodles named Rocco homeless and three business closed. The resulting shuffle would have Australian Boot Company formerly at 791 and Sydney’s at 795 moving across the street into new spaces while Flight Centre would go on with business as usual after a three-day closure. In December of 2010 cool baby fashion shop Minimioche, a children’s clothing boutique would move into 795 and Deluxe who had temporarily closed awaiting renovations would wait to move back in June of 2011.
Sex Bomb Omb walking up Manning St. at Queen St. W.The fire of May 24, 2010 that left 791-795 Queen St.W. a charred ruin.
While some took the disaster in stride as one tenant commented, “Like anything bad that happens in life, something good will come from this; I just don’t know what it is yet…It’s just stuff.” Others would take a more realistic view, “I had $50,000 worth of uninsured vinyl in there…so that’s f#@*ing gone.” The something good that would come would be in February 2011, when Canadian Culture Thing and Valhalla Cards and Gifts, after being further west on Queen Street for 12 and a half years, would upgrade their space and move into the newly renovated and structurally sound 791 Queen Street West…but I’ve gratuitously digressed.
Looking south to Queen West down Manning 1900.Queen and Manning 2011 – Valhalla standing out in lime green.
After having walked up Manning Street in a show-stopping scene of (almost) cinematic brilliance the group goes to a party where Scott meets his dream-girl Ramona in the flesh for the first time. With his thoughts of Manning Street distracting him, Scott’s indifference is overwhelmed by his band-mates excitement at an upcoming gig at the Toronto International Battle of the Bands, the TIBB. The TIBB will offer Sex Bomb Omb an opportunity to win a record contract.
Dreaming again of Ramona, Scott wakes to find that the dream has turned to reality and she is at his door. Scott Pilgrim convinces her to go out on a date with him and they have an amazing time. Scott is hooked but little does he know that Ramona is carrying a terrible secret.
Pressured by his room-mate (Kieran Culkin), his band and his conscience, Scott knows he must break things off with Knives but just can’t find the right time. Even at his next gig, he forgets entirely about Knives and is confronted with having two girlfriends present. Fortunately, Knives’ naivete keeps her clueless and her excitement in seeing Sex Bomb Omb play at the Club Rockit on Church Street keeps her unconscious. Having fainted, she misses Scott’s fight for the love of Ramona.
The first battle takes place at Club Rockit on Church Street south of Richmond against Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) in which Scott is triumphant defeating the first Evil X. With Knives having gone home, Scott and Ramona ride home on a TTC bus heading east on Carlton towards Parliament St. (although that is actually a streetcar route…oh, those crazy magical movin’ pictures!) in the Cabbagetown area of Toronto.
The next day as Scott prepares to leave, with plans to finally break it off with Knives, his roommate mentions that Lucas Lee an OK skateboarder turned OK actor “is filming a Winnipeg Healey movie in Toronto right now.” To which Scott Pilgrim responds, “They make movies in Toronto?” As he leaves, the Spike channel is on TV airing a Lucas Lee movie. In the clip, the Toronto skyline is shown with Lucas Lee charging towards a phone-booth near Cherry Street in the foreground.
![""](http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=canadiancom03-20&l=as2&o=15&a=B00067TVHU")
), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World stars the 
