Comics / Spotlight / Knowledge and Scholarship

Who's Who - El Yanosh

By Hervé St-Louis
July 31, 2012 - 18:42

Sources: http://greentea.canalblog.com/

El Yanosh (Yannick Mongrain) is really a comic book artist and graduate of the University of Quebec – Ottawa Region’s sequential art program that was hired by Toon Doctor in 2004 and 2005 (then named Coolstreak Cartoons) to work on an in house project I was planning with a partner. Yan had just graduated the previous spring and was still looking for work. I contacted the University’s sequential art department (or bandes dessinées as it is a French-speaking school) and interviewed several students and had them do a storytelling test I had designed. It was a one-pager to see if they understood the basics of storytelling. Yan’s one pager was the most promising.

As it was usual back then, Yan quickly got interested in my work @ComicBookBin which was related to the project we were working on. My partner and I were trying to develop the first comic book Web comics portal. We also hired an MBA who did all the research for us and validated the study. I remember telling the MBA, a recent McGill University graduate that his first draft read like an undergraduate term paper and that he had to rewrite everything from scratch. Ah the days, when my edginess as a demanding inspirator of men was starting to show... But this article is not about me. Yan and Christine, another designer, the MBA and my partner all worked together for several months to figure out this project. In the end we decided to go against the project because the revenue would be too small even though we had figured out many of the kinks that current promoters of Web comics’ portals still haven’t fixed.

Yan grew quickly as a storyboard artist during this period of time. He really liked European comics and since ComicBookBin was and is still one of the few comic book site to have a respectable European comic book section, he wrote two articles one day when he had little to do. It’s fun to remember those days in 2004 and 2005 when the world was young and I thought I could change the comic book world. The Web Comics’ portal would have been anchored on ComicBookBin of course. Doing the extensive research on the comic book market and crunching actual numbers many are still trying to find allowed me to better understand the comic book industry from a real business perspective. There is no surprise that a few years later I would write the seminal Business Plan for Comic Books series of article @ComicBookbin.

Yan works as a 3D artist for one of the big gaming companies in Montreal, Canada. He still creates his own comic books some of which can be seen on his own Web comics’ blog. Yan, if you’re reading this, I still have your Japanese drawing book which you forgot on your desk one day. One of these days, we’ll have to meet so that I may return it to you.

Who's Who @ComicBookBin is a feature celebrating the 10th anniversary of ComicBookBin where publisher Hervé St-Louis features writers past and present that have contributed to ComicBookBin over the years.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12