Scary Suburbs: In Guelph, Dwellings & The Dragon

My experience in the Greater Toronto area was particularly... well, great. Pleasant even.

My last few days in town I took a rideshare out to Guelph, Ontario. The driver played two of his GenAI assisted "original" songs: one about enjoying my Uber ride (yes really), and a followup about his newborn daughter that replaced their names with Mufasa and Simba. I'd declined to plug my own phone into the car's infotainment system – and that was all the music he had readily available. Thankfully, we had plenty to talk about since he was also a fan of comics, because of course he is in this lovely part of the world.

Guelph is the home of animation and comics luminary Jay Stephens as well as a satellite office for comics publisher DSTLRY, which I credit with physically getting me back into comic shops (eventually sending me down the path of launching a comics news startup.) I was there to grab lunch with DSTLRY's Chip Mosher for a long overdue catchup, and of course to visit Eisner Award winning comic shop The Dragon.

Though it also ended up being a bit of an educational voyage about why these Canadian suburbs also harbor inspiration for plenty of horror. Admittedly, I didn't really get it. Maybe it was Guelph's perfect weather, or how many people seemed happy to be out and about in it. It's plausible my overwhelming love for the TV series Supernatural is coloring my perception; the Winchester boys never having crossed the northern border to vanquish demons and ghosts despite filming all 15 seasons in Vancouver. The small glimpse of its downtown area was warm and inviting, like the sort of folksy pro-farmers market community they try and fail to recreate in Hallmark movies. If Lacy Chabert walked past us on the way to the comic store, I'm not sure I would have blinked. (Honestly, we were in a rush so she might have.)

That changed soon after being handed a collected edition of Stephens' Dwellings, a series I was aware of but hadn't stopped long enough to digest. The art is meant to give off a classic comics style, which succeeded when I realized it only debuted in 2020. I knew Stephens from his animation background, specifically the contributions to the Nickelodeon cartoon variety show Kablam! via his JetCat shorts that began as comics. That show (and Stephens) is widely credited for acting as a bridge between indie comics creators and children's animation.

But thumbing through Dwellings later that day, all I saw was an alluringly colorful book coyly attempting to disguise murder versions of breakfast cereal mascots as something your mom wouldn't bat an eye at. All of it extremely intentional, and out in the open. I had no idea it was filled with such exquisite examples of both horror and comedic sequential storytelling. Stephens is a master of the medium...