Learning about IAQ led to me getting curious about indoor air quality at schools, which are high points of transmission for airborne illness. I've written a few letters in the form of comics to my local school board here in Calgary (the Calgary Board of Education) asking what is being done about this. If you're interested in that, skip ahead to the long comic strip letter I presented at a January 2023 school council meeting. Otherwise, just scroll down through my most recent blog posts, which provide a bit more context about this subject, before getting to the letter.

The Calgary Board of Education has yet to provide more than just stock answers and form letters to the many families who have been asking about improvements to Indoor Air Quality measures in schools. Stay tuned for more on this subject, as we continue to advocate for conditions that will keep staff and students as healthy as possible!

After sending these letters, I was able to have a on-screen call with my local school board trustee. What happened after that? I wrote about that in my previous blog post - take a look!

But, unfortunately, the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the people I was addressing it to: the school board trustees!

It was written in response to a conversation I had with one of our school board trustees, who asked me to clearly state "the problem we are trying to solve." In the comic, I phrased it this way:

"I'm perplexed as to WHY the COMPELLING EVIDENCE presented by many MEDICAL & AIR QUALITY EXPERTS in favour of the use of HEPA filters as a tool for REDUCING THE SPREAD of airborne illness in SCHOOLS, has NOT persuaded the CBE to RECONSIDER its decision to forbid their use!”

When my school board trustee read this, she said it still didn't seem like a "solveable problem" she was equipped to respond to. (That's another problem, I think!) But I gave it a shot: I drew one more panel, rephrasing the problem in even simpler terms, in hopes that this would be acceptable to her. Here's the panel:

Was this acceptable? I don't think so. I received a letter from the Board of Trustees last week, and here's what it said:

It's just a form letter! There isn't even a glimpse of an answer to my question, or even an acknowledgment of the question. So I guess I will have to write another letter.

In the folder, there's a big file you can use to print the image at a large scale (the original poster is 32x36"). And there's a smaller version that can be used to print the image on an 8.5x11" page. I'm also putting some smaller cropped sections in there, in case those are handy for sharing this story!

If you'd like to use the digital files to print the image on something other than your home printer, may I recommend Little Rock Printing in Calgary - they do great work for me, and they ship all my posters everywhere.

I'm sharing these images for free - but if you'd like to support this work, please consider making a donation to the Royal Alexandra Hospital where Darren and his amazing colleagues are working to keep Albertans safe! It's easy to do with just an online click right here.

Look at the pictures and read along with Ryan and Darren's conversation. Here's a link to the Real Talk episode featuring their interview on November 24th, 2020.

Stay safe everyone, and let's get through this together!

-- Sam

The June comic was created by Aria, a youthful comics-artist-residence who's a student at Ramsay School. You can see her investigative inclinations are placing her on the right track for a career in comics journalism!

The July comic was contributed by Calgary artist Nicole Wolf, who's busy right now being the New Central Library's inaugural artist in residence (wow!!!). When I saw that Nicole had written this comic about a "chicken incident," it just seemed like a story well-suited to Ramsay, a neighbourhood with a long history of strong feelings about chickens. And, I loved Nicole's comic, too. Sorry it is a little bit hard to read in this online blog format.

Here is September's comic on "Ramsay at Night."

For the November newsletter, I compiled a few snippets from past Ramsay comics, over a 2-page spread: here they are!

And the last comic, wrapping up the 2018 newsletter comics artist-in-residence series, is a Christmas card by Calgary artist Al Gerritsen. I can't find much of Al's work online, but I did find a blog written by a visitor to his workshop, who posted some pictures of his wonderful work.

And that is the end of this story. Thanks Ramsay newsletter and Ramsay readers! Happy new year and see you in 2019!

Why should I even care if nobody remembers "Buck Shot?" I care... because the Buck Shot Show is an important part of the Calgary story!

A few years before I wrote that comic, I wrote another comic about Ramsay for the Calgary Herald. In that one, I mentioned that one of my neighbourhood's claims to fame, was that Buck Shot had been a former resident! (I stole the picture of Benny the bear, from that earlier comic.) Here's a piece of that Calgary Herald comic (you can see the whole thing here).

Did Buck Shot really live in Ramsay? All my knowledge is just based on this anecdote. I hope I've got it right!

I just realized that, in this comic, I called Buck Shot an "artist." I guess he was an artist of the beloved children's television show variety. But I wonder if he would consider himself an artist? I hope so!

I saw him perform at Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall a long time ago. It seemed like an opportunity that wasn't to be missed. Around that time, I drew this seemingly self-obsessed comic to illustrate an Aznavour song that felt like the soundtrack to my life, back then - as I went through that gloomy stage of trying to get over a relationship that had ended. Here's a link to the actual song as sung by Aznavour.

Right now I'm laughing because I can't be quite sure, at this distance, who the relationship was with! I guess the boyfriend didn't make that much of a lasting impression. But the song, of course, has stayed. I hope Aznavour's music will be with us to stay, for a very long time!