COMICS: Art mart’s smart start
If the average Chapters bookstore had been built for the demographic that worships The Big Bang Theory, it probably would have looked something like the inside of Happy Harbor Comics, a strangely tasteful esthetic of functional display, enough pop culture to make you think you’re in Tokyo and a real-life, real-time comic artist in one […]
FAITH: Online, every living room is a congregation
You won’t find many guys out there as optimistic as Rev. Brian Kiely. Despite flat-lined membership numbers, the Edmonton-based president of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists figures his congregation isn’t leaving, just changing. “I spent my sabbatical studying life in the digital age and one of the things it convinced me of is […]
DEEP FREEZE: Frozen Fringe Festival fantastic fun for frosty folk
If you’re going to put on a winter festival in Edmonton, it is imperative that you have a place for people to get away from the winter – and that’s one of the reasons why it’s so challenging to put on a winter festival in Edmonton. Winter sucks, not to put too fine a point […]
REAREND IN VIEW: Our top stories of 2012
The most popular stories GigCity published in 2012 started in January with a viral video of “strange sounds in the sky” that prompted a local debunker to create a hoax video to prove the original was a hoax, but the plan backfired when her video went viral, too, as did the article we wrote about […]
COMICS: Gritty ’60s, lousy ’80s fuel super-powered noir
If the ’80s hadn’t sucked so very, very much, it’s quite possible Bob Prodor wouldn’t have drawn his dark, expressive noir crime comic Road To Ruin. The Edmontonian’s 128-page graphic novel, featuring a gang of Rat Pack-style crooks in the 60s with “limited” superpowers, is on sale now, published by Rosencrantz Comics. There will be […]
REPORT: Taboo takes sexual marketing to a new audience – women
If we had a time machine, a young Ron Jeremy would’ve experienced an existential crisis at this year’s Taboo: Naughty But Nice Show, which wrapped its three day run in Edmonton on Sunday. The world’s most famous porn star likely would have been wandering around the Edmonton Expo Centre in a daze, wondering where the […]
FIGURES ON DISPLAY: Is Edmonton ready to see the nudes?
Rachel Kwiatkowski – the new owner of the Front Gallery – hopes that Edmonton is finally ready for some public nudity. The previous owner received more than a few complaints over an exhibition of nudes and semi-dressed females – including a prominently displayed naked woman in the gallery’s Jasper Avenue window. Patrons even threatened to […]
Oilers hero sour on Lance Armstrong memorabilia
Georges Laraque owns three limited-edition replicas of the Trek bicycles that Lance Armstrong rode during his latter Tour de France victories, two of them autographed, one even decorated with 23-karat gold frame panels – and the former Edmonton Oiler can’t even stand to look at them anymore. “I got sick to my stomach because I […]
ART: Every day was Halloween for medieval monster makers
Zombies want your brains and vampires want your blood, but the modern pop monsters have nothing on the creepy creatures lurking in the Art Gallery of Alberta – they want your souls. The macabre exhibition “Beautiful Monster: Beasts and Fantastic Creatures in Early European Prints” opened just in time for Halloween and is up until […]
SCARY TIMES: 13 Halloween events for grown-ups who don’t want to grow up
It’s no mystery why Halloween has been completely co-opted and dominated by grown-ups – it’s because many modern grown-ups have failed to grow up. Joe Flaherty – SCTV’s Count Floyd, so he ought to know about this sort of thing – complained that many of the adult students in his improv classes back East were […]
Rock photographer Ethan Russell remembers: What was it really like in the ’60s?
Evidence is mounting that the 1960s was indeed the best decade for rock ‘n’ roll. Given how often we hear it, this has got to be more than just the Baby Boomer conceit that because something was important to them, it should be important to everyone else – forever. Sure, there was that pesky Cold […]
WAR ON GRAFFITI: Tagger’s distinctive style leads to charges
Edmonton police used information seized during a June raid at the Paint Spot art gallery to get a warrant to search a graffiti suspect’s home. According to the public court document used to get the warrant submitted by Const. Ryan Katchur, who identifies himself as the Northeast division graffiti resource officer, investigators appear to have […]
