Montréal je t'aime

The Looby-list of good things: Drawn and Quarterly, travel sketchbooks, and Montreal-style bagels.

Hello, 

We’ve been in Montreal for a spring break week, and we’re home (today) to tell the tales. I will be turning mine into a short travel zine which (if all goes to plan) will be available later this year for those who are keen to read slightly exaggerated stories about eating poutine and smoked meat sandwiches or those who are eager to visit Montreal sometime in the foreseeable future and needs some touristy tips.

In the meantime, here is this week’s list, which is a little bit Montreal themed:

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Best book store in my life:

I have visited and worked in some beautiful bookstores in my life. Munro’s in Victoria is a delight. The Little Bookroom, Readings, and Sainsbury’s Books in Australia all hold a special place in my heart… but the bookstore that I have always longed to visit is in Montreal. The shop front of the comic and graphic novel publishing company, Drawn and Quarterly, is in Mile End… and was a half-hour walk from our air bnb.

I have been collecting Drawn and Quarterly comics since 1996. Back then, we had to hunt them down from little independent comic or record stores in Melbourne. Julie Doucet, Chris Ware, and Adrian Tomine were my go-to, while Phil collected anything by Chester Brown, Seth or Daniel Clowes. I was incredibly delighted when they started publishing the Moomin comics in 2005.

To be able to walk into their store (on my birthday!) and be thrown into a frenzy of indecision and buyer’s anxiety (so many choices!) was a dream come true.

Other notable Montreal Bookstores we stumbled across for the bookish traveller: De Stiil (English language), Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore (English), Le Petite Drawn + Quarterly (children’s books, across the road from D+Q), and Le Porte de tête bookstore (French language).

What did I buy?…

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…Let me tell you.

Reading:

(clockwise, l-r) My New York Diary by Julie Doucet; The Peanutbutter Sisters and Other American Stories by Rumi Hara; How to be Alive and Unwell by Tara Booth. All are highly recommended.

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Travel Sketchbook:

As I mentioned, I started working on notes for a little travel zine while in Montreal. I now have this idea that I could make these all around the world. I’d love to do Japan, and all the places I’ve always wanted to go in Europe, and obviously some Australian cities too, and maybe even my own home island. Why not? It will be called the Looby Planet series.

Here’s the drawing kit I packed:

I cover some more stuff about travel sketchbooks in a series in my Wednesday newsletter.

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A Newsletter I love:

One of my favourite newsletters is Recomendo, brought to you by internet luminaries Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson and Kevin Kelly. Everything they link to is useful or interesting. Lately, they recommended the website Artvee, a repository for public domain art. So much good stuff… all free to use in whatever way you wish. 

George Barbier

Arthur Rackham

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House envy:

Ahh, yes, the lovely work of Arthur Rackham. With his incredible talent and fantastical imagination, he established himself as one of the leading figures of the Golden Age of British book illustration. If you are an occasional viewer of Architectural Digest’s Open Door series, you may be interested to see his beautiful house on this tour. I think it’s the one time one of these tours has made me quite envious… not of the new interior design, to be honest… but of the occupancy of the house itself. What a magical place.

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News just in!
Amelie was not just a sweet waitress looking for love in Montmartre; no, not at all! Film creator Jean-Pierre Jeunet reveals in this new short film that she was, in fact, a KGB agent… ah, it did all seem too sweet to be true. (hat tip to Andrew H).

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Watching:

With The Last of Us now a mere memory (unless you live in my house where people are playing the video game 24/7 - and the sound of marauding zombies is the background soundtrack to your life), we are now into Ted Lasso season 3. I also enjoyed Shrinking on Apple TV, co-created by Brett Goldstein (who plays Roy Kent in Ted Lasso) and stars Jason Segal and Harrison Ford (still my all-time favourite). It’s gentle and funny, and the characters creep up on you and get under your skin, but not in a Cordyceps-zombie-creating way.

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Crone Cooking: Bagels! Part 1

In an effort to cook 52 essential recipes by the time I turn 52 (March 21, 2024), I have started a little list, and this week was dish number two; Bagels! (part 1).

I am doing this in two parts because this is the Montreal edit, and Montreal just happens to be famous for its bagels. A Montreal bagel is not a New York bagel, “the Montreal bagel is smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven.” (Wikipedia) There are two bagel establishments in Montreal’s Mile end, and they have a notorious rivalry. You either like the St Viateur bagels or the Fairmont bagels, and ne’er the twain shall meet. 

We did a little taste test, and it turns out we are team Fairmont.

This week I’m planning to make some Montreal-style bagels - minus the wood-fired oven, because I can’t figure out how to emulate that without a serious building project. It seems counter-intuitive to use a recipe for Montreal-style bagels from the New York Times, so I am going with this one based on St Viateur’s recipe. Pretend you’re a McGill student, and check this out.

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That’s all for today! Don’t forget to check out my Wednesday bonus newsletter if these Sunday lists are whetting your appetite. Wednesday’s posts are usually more in-depth and include comics, process videos, works in progress, recipes, q+a’s, journal entries, sketchbook tours, secrets, gossip, crafts, studio tips, life tips, deeply personal illustrated poetry explorations of my darkest inner psyche... basically anything that I think you will enjoy. By signing up you will get lots of good stuff, plus you will be supporting me in my newsletter productions and other creative endeavours, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

xo,

Claire

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What’s coming up on Loobylu (aka The Subscriber Pitch):

The next paid-subscriber-only edition is about travel sketchbooks - part two, where it started, how it’s going.

What came before:

In the last paid-subscriber-only issue, I drew a webcomic about what to wear to the office, for those who have no idea. And recently, I created a print zine and offered to send it to subscribers in the mail (there are still a few more days to sign up for this).

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