Over the weekend I made a chicken dish with bone on thighs, backs attached.  It was $0.89 a pound so I purchased fifteen pieces.  After I tried to brown the first five pieces the skin fell apart so I removed the skin from the remaining ten pieces.  It was a decent pile of skin and I hate to waste anything so I decided to render the chicken skins to get chicken fat.  The process is simple: put the skins and trimmed fat in a pot on as low as it will go with about 1/4 cup of water.  The water evaporates but provides enough moisture so the skins don’t fry.

I let it go for about four hours on low and ended up with two cups of rendered chicken fat.  The time could be greatly reduced but I kept it going in the hopes of crispy chicken skins but that never happened.  I kept the temperature on low so that the fat wouldn’t brown and get a cooked flavour.  The pot’s contents were strained through a plastic colander; you can filter it with a cloth but I find you lose some fat in the cloth.

The final cooled product is smooth and will be great for frying; some fine pieces of chicken skin settled on the bottom but I’m not concerned.

Above is a pork loin with a dry rub of equal parts brown sugar, black pepper, kosher salt and paprika.  I left the fat cap on to keep the meat moist while roasting but remove it afterwards, along with any excess fat.  I enjoy fat but cold on thinly sliced pieces of roast fat needs to be trimmed off.

You want to heavily apply a spice rub: when sliced thin this flavour is on the outer edge so that little bit needs to pack a punch.

This works great for roast beef using eye of round or sirloin tip.  For roast pork loin is the best cut: uniform in size and easy to trim.  Of course with some prep time you can make pastrami, corned beef, ham and many other charcuterie roasts.

I do have a small meat slicer but a large carving knife and a steady hand will get the job done.  When you get to the end of the roast the slicer won’t work so I lay the piece of meat on my cutting board and carve off thin slices on the bias; don’t want to waste anything.

During my initial pre-show walk around I discovered an alarming dearth of retailers: at best it was five comic resellers set up.  Really only Wes Hagan had items of interest to me: he had purchased a large magazine collection that had a lot of varied material, covering every comics related magazine from the 70s and 80s.  Part of that was also rare Windsor-Smith catalogs, Star Reach issues and other fine gems.  It looks like quite a few regular convention retailers declined because of last year’s abysmal sales and the cost of this year’s retailer space; it’s a chicken and egg scenario that needs to be addressed.

Artist alley was my point of focus for the show.  This year Wizard again failed to have any A list comic creators in attendance; no doubt having the event the same weekend as C2E2 didn’t help at all.  The big names were Phil Jimenez, Yanick Paquette, Mark Texeira, Mitch Breitweiser and Jesus Merino: these are solid creators putting out excellent work but the show needs someone a little more high profile like Carlos Pacheco who was initially scheduled but later canceled.  Francis Manapul is a great Toronto creator and appears at every show, as does Dale Keown and Leonard Kirk.  Mike Grell, Michael Golden and Greg Horn were there as well but they haven’t had regular comic work out in years.

Wizard provided a big stack of 11×17 prints for their featured artists and they were given away if you waited in line to get them signed: this is an excellent practice and one I’d love to see happen at other Toronto shows.

Unfortunately the foreign guests were all late on Friday:  they trickled in between 4:00 and 6:00 PM, much like last year.  The only line was for Phil Jimenez: he had a steady group of fans waiting for autographs and sketches.  Greg Horn is a great salesman and always does a bustling business of prints at his booth.  Leonard Kirk had a gigantic stack of artwork for sale at ridiculously low prices; lots of great bargains in there.

I was able to get sketches from Mitch Breitweiser and Jesus Merino, along with a page from Leonard Kirk and a cover from Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino.  As well I had books signed by Golden and Paquette.  I heard from a few artists that they were approached to do Wizard World shows in the U.S. but they would need to do this Toronto show first.  Spotted Gareb Shamus walking the floor but didn’t get a chance to give him all my convention ideas…

Friday was a slow day for Wizard World and in truth they could cut the show down to two days.  I stopped in Saturday morning to get some books signed by Merino and Golden and the show floor was very busy, crowds everywhere.  I hear Sunday was slow so two days looks like all they need.  Wizard World Toronto 2011 was a significant improvement over last year but they need to get at least one big name to appear and get the crowds in, plus lower table pricing to attract retailers and have the guests appear on time.  Baby steps were made but we could use a leap next time around.

Originally published under my Bound Together column at Comic Book Daily.

The title says it all.  Fables: Covers By James Jean is a 9×12″ hardcover collection of James Jean’s covers of seventy-four monthly issues, ten trade paperbacks, one on-shot and one graphic novel.  If you enjoy Jean’s work then pick up this book.  Nuff said.

Wait a minute, that sums it up but it’s the details and package that make this a stand out volume not only because of the content but the way it’s delivered.  Let’s start with the stunning image above: that’s the front cover once the dust jacket is removed.  Why would anyone want to cover up that image?

The interior layout is sheer brilliance: each cover receives a double spread with preliminary work on the left and the finished piece on the right.  The finished pieces are stunning and you get to enjoy them in all their glory but the work up pages on the left give the real story.  Have a look-see below.

Here we have the preliminary sketch, pencils, published cover, text from the book that inspired the image and notes on media used.  And we have this for every image: a peek behind the curtain.  It’s impossible not to marvel at the skill shown in the roughs, let alone the pencils and completed paintings.

After the art we are treated to an interview of Jean by Fables writer Bill Willingham, an afterward from Jean and a pictorial look at his studio.  These bring a nice close to the volume.

I missed Fables: Covers By James Jean when it was published in 2008; a new printing was released this month and first printings are still widely available.  Until now I had no idea how amazing an artist James Jean is: I hope you find the time to peruse and pick up this hardcover.  A new standard for comic art books has been set and the gauntlet thrown: publishers please rise to the challenge and produce volumes in this stunning format.

Fables: Covers By James Jean
Vertigo, 2008, ISBN 9781401215767