Walter Ball was born to a farming family near Cookstown, Ontario in 1911 and grew up with designs of becoming a Electrical Engineer upon reaching adulthood, but fate chose a different path entirely for him. Newspapers & magazines were the most accessible media in the day and Walter's dreams were swept up in ads for mail-order drawing lessons. Often, the first lesson was sent free, costing just a postage stamp on the letter of request for the less...
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With the world economy tumbling around us, we couldn't blame one for being mindful of a time when our ancestors faced these challenges in the 1930s, the deepest days of the Canadian depression.

There seems not much specific about where the present crisis may take us, nor has it reached a point where anyone has given it a name, but the warning signs of depression are clear. We hear about it in the news internationally. However, the rubber test is when things are affected locally. More real esta...
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Fifteen year-old Toronto youth Leo Bachle had just been dismissed from the Canadian army for lying about his age and through a chum, had taken a job delivering lenses. During one delivery at the Percy Hermont building, Bachle came across a stack of comic books in front of an office for Bell Features. He began to thumb through several, when a middle-aged man stormed out of the office and confronted him. A heated exchange ensued, which led to the gent challenging Bachle to do a rehearsal...

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    Canadians have watched their game flogged and marketed like soap, ever since the game was introduced to Americans. The game just never reached the level of football, baseball and basketball, despite the sports greatest efforts.
    One of the techniques explored has been comics and cartooning, with varying and variable degrees of success. Animation icon Walt Disney, (whose father actually lived in Goderich, Ontario briefly), produced a couple of the earliest hockey cartoons: "The Hockey Ch...
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