{"id":4638,"date":"2018-03-10T22:42:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T22:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/?page_id=4638"},"modified":"2023-02-23T15:22:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T15:22:49","slug":"aaron-costian","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/?page_id=4638","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Costain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/a>\"\"
\nBIO<\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron Costain<\/span> is a cartoonist and architect in based in Toronto. He is the author of the Expozine Award-nominated comics Good Neighbours<\/em> and Calamity Coach<\/em>. He is also a member of the disreputable jam comics collective Team Society League; their latest book, the Big Team Society League Book of Answers<\/em>, was published by Koyama Press. Entropy<\/em> was nominated for a 2011 Doug Wright Award Best Emerging Talent and the Doug Wright Spotlight Award in 2015.<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nIN PRAISE OF AARON COSTAIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I think<\/span> if all big questions were asked in such an excellent mix of humour, terror and surrealism, I’d want to get to the bottom of a lot more mysteries. I loved every page.<\/p>\n

– Kate Beaton, author of Hark! A Vagrant<\/span><\/p>\n

I absolutely love the way it looks. The series wasn’t on my radar beforehand, but a certain print caught my eye as I was walking by the table, and I ended up leaving with both the print and all four collections of the comic that he had on hand.<\/p>\n

– MTV News<\/span><\/p>\n

Costain\u2019s black-and-white art is a wonder to behold, distinguished by precise, detailed lines. But he also has an exquisite feel for design, composition, and good old-fashioned cartooning, knowing when to keep it simple and when to provide weight by adding texture and depth. There\u2019s weight in the subject matter as well, with its exploration of basic existential questions. But while that subject might seem suited only to serious book-club discussion groups, Costain is able to strike a palatable balance through humor\u2014as when a dog, held up as an example of the limited helpfulness of talking animals, recounts absently: \u201cI barfed up some meat I ate yesterday. Then I ate that.\u201d The book\u2019s ending offers food for thought, and is open to interpretation as the conclusion of the search described in its pages, or as the renewal of yet another cycle. Entropy<\/em> is entertaining and bizarre, but also deeply contemplative. It\u2019s a unique offering that compels multiple readings.<\/p>\n

– Foreword<\/span><\/p>\n

In Costain\u2019s telling, the journey through an isolated landscape compiled of religious mythology distilled to the essence isn\u2019t much different from any typical post-apocalyptic adventure. But instead of this post-apocalyptic world being a result of our science going wrong or nature revolting against us, it\u2019s created from our mania for explanations crowding us out. There are no humans in Costain\u2019s world because there is barely room for them \u2014 there\u2019s really only space for our ideas, which is just so much grasping into the vacuum. We\u2019ve been defeated by our own desperation to explain ourselves and our universe, and the psychological clutter created by it all. If entropy is an inevitable disorder in the universe, Costain suggests that it is created by the human desire for order \u2014 and that is the creation we should be concerned with.<\/p>\n

– Comics Beat<\/span><\/p>\n

MORE PRAISE FOR AARON COSTAIN<\/span><\/a>\n