Auction Cameos

Auction Cameos: West of Bathurst and It Never Rains

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Since West of Bathurst days, I've been participating in the annual Massey College talent auction, which benefits at least one Toronto-based charity per year. An item I always put up is a cameo in a Sunday-style comic taking place within the world of West of Bathurst or, later, It Never Rains. There isn't a comic for every year (some years, the people who win don't collect their prizes), but there are still quite a few comics. Until now, I've never collected all these comics together in one place.

I'm not quite arranging these chronologically because of one little quirk: the Elisa-and-Athar comics eventually took on a life of their own, and I kept the series going even after Elisa and Athar had stopped bidding in the auction. I'm thus grouping the six Elisa-and-Athar "welcome video" cameos together, then collecting the rest of the charity-auction cameos.

(One note: I'm missing the very first cameo, which wasn't Sunday-style. I know it's somewhere; I've just forgotten where. It features a gentleman named Barry Rowe. One day, I'll find it again, and it too will appear on this page.)

In 2018, I also started offering this same item in another auction, this one associated with the annual Canadian Kidlit Gala, which is held in the fall. Kidlit cameos will be less Massey themed and more writing/literature themed.

If you click on a given comic, you will be taken to its original home on the WoB or INR website, and you'll be able to read the relevant transcript there.

Massey Charity Auction 2008: Athar Malik and Elisa Chan (published August 23, 2008 on WoB)

Athar won the second West of Bathurst cameo and requested that Elisa appear in the comic with him. The two then won this item year after year after year after year...

Massey Charity Auction 2009: Elisa Chan and Athar Malik (published September 5, 2009 on WoB)

Elisa won this one. Athar enthusiastically bid against her, despite the fact that they knew they would both end up in the comic, no matter who won.

Massey Charity Auction 2010: Athar Malik and Elisa Chan (published September 4, 2010 on WoB)

I honestly don't even remember which of them won in 2010. By this point, it didn't really matter.

Cameo: Elisa Chan and Athar Malik (published September 1, 2012 on WoB)

Athar and Elisa finally stopped bidding on the item in the charity auction, so they didn't appear at all in 2011. In 2012, however, I brought them back, mostly just because I could.

Cameo: Athar Malik and Elisa Chan (published August 31, 2013 on WoB)

Yeah...it just wasn't worth fighting the presence of these two any more. They were clearly regular characters now.

Cameo/Shameless Plug: Elisa Chan and Athar Malik (published September 13, 2014 on INR)

It Never Rains/West of Bathurst Kickstarter crossover

This was me making a fourth-wall-shattering ad for my Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of the monstrously huge West of Bathurst collection.

Elisa and Athar have since gone on to become characters in It Never Rains. Elisa gets to be a time traveller's doctor, which is quite exciting.

Massey Charity Auction 2011: Ryan Doherty (published September 28, 2013 on WoB)

Ryan is a famed jokester, but he takes a long time to get back to innocent cartoonists who just want to put him in their comics (thus the two-and-a-half-year gap between Ryan winning the auction and appearing in the comic).

Massey Charity Auction 2012: Elizabeth MacCallum (published April 28, 2012 on WoB)

Elizabeth, the wife of former Master John Fraser, is very good at 1) flower arranging and 2) staying very still as her husband bounces around her.

Massey Charity Auction 2013: Ruediger Willenberg (published September 13, 2013 on WoB)

Ruedi's devotion to organising Massey film nights is the stuff of legend.

Massey Charity Auction 2016: James Rendell (published September 10, 2016 on INR)

James told me some things about himself. That was not very wise of him.

Canadian Kidlit Gala Auction 2018: Kate Blair (published August 10, 2019 on INR)

It Never Rains auction cameo: Kate Blair

Kate Blair is a Toronto author; click on the comic to read a blurb about her and find a few relevant links. The comic takes place at the launch of her latest novel, The Magpie's Library.