Autographed Jonathan Roberge Book

Yesterday and today, I went to tapings of Piment Fort, a French-language comedy quiz show filmed at a bar (Café Campus) and hosted by Normand Brathwaite; the shows will air next Tuesday and Wednesday on TVA and will feature comedians Katherine Levac, Rémi-Pierre Paquin and Jonathan Roberge:

Roberge, Levac and Paquin

You may remember Roberge's name from the last time I featured him, in 2012, when he and a couple of other comedians (Jérémie Larouche and Martin Félip) gave me a signed diaper.

This time, I got him to sign his book Fiston in black sharpie for me, which he did, adding "Bonne lecture", which translates as "have a pleasant read":

The book is actually a written compilation of a web series he had that ran for 100 funny episodes. As you can see by the bookmark, I'm roughly a quarter of the way through.

Kirsty Lingman Autograph Card

Since I featured her yesterday, I might as well show another Kirsty Lingman card, this time from Benchwarmer's 2012 National set, signed in black sharpie, manufactured at only 99 cases (12 boxes per case, 10 cards per box) for the 2012 National Sports Collectors' Convention held in Baltimore.

This time, she added both an ''x'' and an ''o'' at the end of her signature.

Two Kirsty Lingman Daizy Dukez Autograph Cards

After first posting one of Benchwarmer's 2012 Daizy Dukez autograph cards three weeks ago, I decided to go with two more - this time of the same model, although I fail to understand why in a 75-card sub-set of signed cards, they'd feel the need to feature the same model twice, wearing the same pants and underwear but a different tiny (torn) flimsy t-shirt sporting the brand's name.

But I ended up with both, the one in red (my favourite of the two) being card #72, and the one in blue being #65. Both are signed in black sharpie with a heart on top of the ''i'' in her last name, but the card I prefer has the added bonus of an ''x'' at the end!

For those who don't know, Kirsty Lingman (also known as Kirsty Lingman Santos) is a model from New Zealand who has been living in Las Vegas Los Angeles (standing corrected from the lady herself... priceless!) since 2001. She also writes for various music publications and is a rock photographer who has worked with or featured nearly a hundred acts, usually of the ''hard rock'' variety.

Billy Tucci Autographed Comic Book

Billy Tucci is an American writer and comics author best known for his creator-owned title Shi, a Japanese/American female martial artist and swordsperson. Shi is usually considered of the ''Bad Girl'' genre of comics: typically, they are tough, mean and violent female characters, whether they're heroes or villains.

Tucci publishes under his own imprint (company), Crusade Comics; he often portrays Shi with heroes from other publishers - these titles are called ''crossovers''. This particular book, Shi/Vampirella #1: Crusade Collectables Edition is actually a crossover with the character Vampirella, a vampire-hunting vampire who, depending which origin story you follow, is either from a planet called Draculon, or is the daughter of Lilith, Adam's first wife before Eve (you know - the Bible story Adam and Eve).

Like the Jude Millien comic I wrote about in February, this was purchased from a reliable seller on Ebay, who got it signed in black sharpie at a comics convention and is liquidating most of his stuff. Some go for big money, I was the winner of two of the lowest-priced items.

Jude Millien Autographed Comic Book

Jude Millien is an artist whose work in the comic book industry is mostly concentrated in the 1995-99 era, before the distributors' war. He is most known for his work with London Night studios, notably the Razor titles for which he was writer, penciller, inker and cover artist. His specialty was drawing femme fatales.

When the comics industry downsized at the turn of the millennium, he went back to university to finish his bachelor's degree in animation.

These days, he takes orders for commission work, drawing any comics character of your choice, even some he didn't work on (Superman, Batman), at prices ranging from $25 (pencil) to $35 (pencil and ink) to $70 (full colour), background not included.

Here is a copy of Lethal Strike #3, which at the time sold for $3 in the U.S. and $4.25 in Canada, signed in gold sharpie at the bottom by Millien himself at a comics convention.Through the magic of Ebay, I got it for less than the cover price. Much less.

2 Autographed Rick Trembles Books

Talk about symbiotic - a post I can put in 3 different blogs - my regular one, my collectibles one, and my film criticism blog!

Last night, I went to a show at the Fantasia Film Festival called Lost Myths, a dual slideshow/storytelling performance, with the first half consisting of texts and narration by Claude Lalumière over art by Rupert Bottenberg, and the second half consisting of an oral history of Rick Trembles' autobiographical film criticism comic strip Motion Picture Purgatory, that runs in the Montreal Mirror and often has Trembles himself in them, and at times also mentions his ''weird punk'' band American Devices (whom I have featured in my Video Of The Week segments here); the MPP is kind of a cross between film criticism, the honesty and autobiographical themes of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor series (especially those with the art of Robert Crumb) and the sex scenes of Caligula - with more shit - literally - and a sensibility for humour reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson's.

Since the show was part of Fantasia, I'd classify the 'performance shorts'' as short ''films'', as it was, indeed, an audiovisual feast for both the eyes and ears. I did enjoy the Lalumière/Bottenberg piece, as it was a fun and innovative look at how myths may have been written in the first place, but the (perhaps Bible-like) repetitiveness of them became an issue after the first half-dozen or so, seeing as (too) many of them had a baby-God born from an unworthy mother who would die during childbirth; unless that is a real-life issue Lalumière is trying to deal with through his art, it had run its course and become redundant way before the last story. But the storytelling itself, tongue-in-cheek and with a certain beat, was fun - and the art was beautiful. Most of the images would make awesome gig posters.

But the true headliner of the night, the one who got the loudest applause, was without a doubt Trembles. His work for the Mirror is read by some 300,000 people weekly, and since he incorporates his own life into the strips, we all know he is in his second stint with them (since 1998), as they had also published him in the 80s but fired him when they deemed one of his pieces to be too controversial and obscene. He - again - told us all about it, with a few strips shown to emphasize his points, but he also delved into his past, such as the fact that his father had also been a cartoonist, and who his influences were.

Of course he also talked about his band, and about a few short films he made. Once it was all over, he even took the time to show us the three animated shorts he made: God's Cocksuckers - based on a drawing he made and keeps recycling into his other works; a video for his band's De-censor-tized song; and the Canadian government-funded coup-de-grâce Goopy Spasms, which, despite being an animated short drawn in the style of '60s counterculture icons with an endless array of things stuck up the animated Trembles plug-hole, is as real a piece of cinematic truth as anything I've seen since Gaspar Noé's Irréversible - ironically enough, reviewed in one of the MPP books. It was realer than a political documentary.

But the best part of the night came after the show, as I approached the table where Lalumière, Bottenberg and Trembles were sitting, selling their books and offering to sign them. I made my way to Trembles' side and he just looked at me and said: ''You're Mr. Hell?''

To have someone whose music I've been listening to for over 20 years, whose writings and drawings I've been reading for over a decade - and to whom I had never spoken to before - know who I was... it made my week. It was way more intense than when Jeffrey Ross asked me which bar he should go drinking in.

So I purchased both Motion Picture Purgatory books, and he signed them in blue ink, with a different blurb for each, both a play on my name.

Good times!

3 Suzi Lorraine Autographed 8x10s

She goes by many names - Kelli Summers, Suzi Leigh, Suzi Shareaux, Suzie Lorraine - but the one name that seems o stick the most is Suzi Lorraine. She's a soft-core queen, but is mostly known for being a Scream Queen, a legend of the b-horror movie genre.

Some of her most-renowned films include: (2003), The Lord Of The G-Strings: The Femaleship Of The String (2003, guess what film it's based on!), Torment (2008), Spiderbabe (2003), Satan's School Of Lust (2002), Holocaust Holocaust (2008), and the amazingly-named Bikini Girls On Ice (2009, should be as obvious as Snakes On A Plane, really), of which here is the synopsis, lifted from the imdb page:

When a bus-load of women's college soccer players get stranded on their way to a bikini car-wash fundraiser, they decide to set-up shop in front of an abandoned gas station on the edge of town. Little do they know the place is the stalking-grounds for a homicidal maniac mechanic named Moe.

Oh yeah.

There's a ''ladies of horror'' blog who has devoted an entry to her.

She has also had bit parts in mainstream films, such as the Hugh Grant-infected Music And Lyrics (2007), as well as a recurring waitress part in the everlasting soap opera As The World Turns.

She is also an accomplished writer - she is a columnist for Horror Mania Magazine, a mainstream horror publication based in Italy and also writes a "Diary of A Scream Queen" column for Gorezone Magazine, based in the UK, as well as writing the screenplay for the movie Won Ton Baby (2009), in which she also plays - and model.

As a model, she has appeared in numerous ads (Nike and Mercedes spring to mind, classy, eh?) as well as graced the pages of countless publications, such as GQ, Esquire, FHM, Modern Bride Magazine, and Filmmaker Magazine, and she has appeared in many music videos, CD covers, and swimsuit magazines; she also appears in the 2010 Hot Honeys And Hunks Of Horror calendar, alongside Julie Strain, Tom Savini, Lloyd Kaufman and Tiffany Schepis, and all proceeds of the sale go to breast cancer research. If you'd like to do your part and purchase one, you can do so here.

I'd love to have her play in one of my movies. I really should work on getting funding.

All three of these autographed pictures can be purchased directly from her website store, for $15 each. She also sells autographed copies of DVDs of her movies ($20 each) and magazines she's graced the covers of ($15).