The Diminishing Romance of Train Travel

I took a sleeper train across the country. I learned Via Rail is still stuck in the twentieth century

Coach is a land-based version of steerage: in this section of the train, aside from one or two sixty-two-seat cars, there’s a combination modest cafe and dome car; that’s about it. Then, there are the “Sleeper Plus” options: in ascending order, upper and lower berths, cabins for one or two, and bigger configurations like “drawing rooms.” I can remember, on those long-ago family trips, peeking through open doors at these spaces, which seemed the epitome of opulence compared to our berths. There’s a shower on each Sleeper Plus car, and all these options include meals (prime rib, lake trout . . . ). By contrast, economy choices are described, ominously, as “wholesome and comforting,” code for packets of nuts and microwaved cheeseburgers.

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DEBUTING AT TCAF 2018 - 4PANEL 2 by Various Artists

In the pages of 4PANEL 2, artists Jessica Bartram, Jonathan Dyck, Drazen Kozjan, Hartley Lin, Erik Nebel, Samplerman and Fiona Smyth explore the 4PANEL strip form in unique and beautiful ways, each presenting a collection of new strips in a self-contained section of the book.

In all ways an expansion on its predecessor, the massive 4PANEL 2 anthology demonstrates the ability of individual creators to artistically test the generative nature of the constraint-based 4PANEL template; the wonderful works filling up this book display a range of visual and representational styles, and of visual and narrative structures — and, happily, the resulting sections these seven contributors offer up could not be more different!

The Surprising Appeal of Winnipeg’s Garbage Hill

How I developed an appreciation for a green space with a past life as a municipal dump

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Illustration by Jonathan Dyck (jonathandyck.com).

There is one place in Quebec where “O Canada” has always garnered some level of respect: at Montreal Canadiens home games. For a long time, the audience stood in silence as a performer sang the tune. “In the last few years, I’ve noticed the fans have started to sing along,” says Patrice Ryan, a lifelong Habs fan and president of the Federal Idea, a federalist Quebec think tank. The crowd sings a bilingual version of the song, belting out the first four lines in French and the final four in English.