Address: 986 Bathurst Street (inside the Story Planet storefront)
Website: https://www.canadacomicsol.org
Email: info@canadacomicsol.org
Instagram: @canadacomicsol
Goals/mission:
- Representation: The library management team has created a unique system for cataloguing comics that highlights the diversity of work in this medium. They invite cartoonists-in-residence to curate displays and share themed reading lists on their website and social media accounts.
- Accessibility: The library is a community space where people can access a wide variety of comics, from celebrated graphic novels to stapled zines, without cost as a barrier.
- Community: CCOL is a space where comic readers and creators can gather and collaborate. The Library hosts workshops and panels—and the basement couches are a great place to draw with friends.
Notable activities:
- CCOL volunteers maintain an online database of Canadian cartoonists. Users can filter the database by genre or style of work, as well as by biographical tags that cartoonists identify with. Comics creators can use this database to find potential collaborators.
- The library has hosted a series of workshops for cartoonists. Past workshop topics have included “Making Choose Your Own Adventure Comics in Twine” and “Collaboration! C-collaboration?!”
- CCOL has also organized panels related to making and studying comics, including a discussion by and for Indigenous cartoonists.
- In 2021, CCOL organized a Comics Out Loud event. Participating cartoonists described their artwork to make comics more accessible to visually impaired people.
Ways to get involved:
- Browse the collection at 986 Bathurst Street.
- Become a CCOL member to borrow books from the library’s circulating collection. The membership fee is $5 per year and can be waived with no questions asked.
- Donate an extra $5 to cover another person’s membership.
- Volunteer to sort through donations and catalogue comics.
- Submit an entry to the Canadian Cartoonists Database.
- Apply to join a cartooning workshop.
Information compiled by Hannah Monger