Newsletter >> 18
Ariaken Preview
Word on the street
Halloween Films To Watch
Get Out The Vote, Toronto!
6 PAGE ARIAKEN PREVIEW
My friend Greg Boychuk recently launched his new webcomic, Ariaken!
“Ariaken, raised by a cult of assassins, escapes the only life he’s ever known and turns his deadly skills toward protecting the innocent. As he seeks redemption in a war-torn world ruled by feuding kingdoms, he is drawn into a hidden conflict between a secret order and followers of banished gods—forces whose rising power threatens to plunge the world back into chaos.”
Greg’s been working away at this graphic novel for a very long time, and reader, you get the chance to enjoy the fruits of his labors. I encourage you to click through the links to Ariaken.com and to enjoy some comics!
Word on the Street 2026
Last weekend was Toronto's Word on the Street, which was jam-packed with tables, books, writers and artists. On a beautifully sunny weekend, the city came out and supported literature both local and abroad, making for a very enjoyable time.
What really caught my eye were the local magazines. The narrative of "print is dead" has been the mantra burying magazines for the past decade, and yet I was happily surprised by it's stubborn refusal to remain in the casket. With stores like Issues over on Dundas and Dufferin helping to reanimate it, print culture seems to be getting a second life in the city.
It also feels likely that the resurgence of print culture comes at a time when everyone's trust in social media is at an incredible low. From feeling burnt out, deciding to move away from it and cultivate better lives offline, the general sentiment feels like people wanting to rediscover their best selves. Sungwon Cho (ProZD) made a point recently about how after throwing out a funny polemic post, there was a certain fun in "watching numbers go up"...but also now that he felt that behaviour to be pretty cringy as well.
Algorithmic manipulation, where audiences engage with pieces because they're trolled into action, sits at the heart of the majority of interactions online. People are teased through emotions to become angry, upset, anxious and fearful. These emotional tradeoffs used to be accompanied by trustworthy journalism, but AI has helped make that suspect as well -- a recent CBC article revealed that one journalist, "Daniel Robson," was likely AI.
The word on the street, so to speak, at Word on the Street was "trust." In signs and conversations, I couldn't help but notice that people were looking for things that they could put their trust in. Signs pushing back on AI, people talking about their work and reporting as beng trustworthy helped crystallize for me that audiences were looking for something concrete. Coveted readers like Gen Z and Millenials were, oddly, alongside Boomers in seeking out face-to-face conversations and words they could trust in a format they could test that couldn't be easily forgotten or destroyed -- paper.
It's possible that I'm being overly optimistic about the show, but as a print enthusiast, it certainly made my Sunday.
Halloween Films to Watch
Get out the Vote, Toronto
If you’re looking for a candidate that has your interests at heart, well look no further — this publication wholeheartedly endorses Olivia Chow! But don’t be lulled by headlines about polling leads that make it seem as though the race is done…lock it in and make those headlines a reality. Go vote!
See you all next month, and hopefully with good news!
- eric
