NEW SERIES FOR LEMIRE

Netflix to make Sweet Tooth

The hottest comic creator from Southwestern Ontario will meet the world’s premier streaming service when Netflix turns Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth into a new series produced by Robert Downey Jr.

The upcoming show was announced by Downey on Twitter this week. “The sweetest things are worth waiting for. Susan (Downey’s wife and producing partner) and I are producing a Netflix original series, Sweet Tooth, based on the comic by Jeff Lemire,” tweeted Downey, who is known for playing Iron Man in the Marvel superhero movies.

Lemire, who lives in Toronto, is a native of Woodslee. He rose to prominence with the book Essex County, set in Southwestern Ontario, about hockey players and farmers. He is arguably the most prolific artist/writer on the scene today and has worked for Marvel, DC and a number of other publishers.

In interviews, he has credited his ability to churn out material — without compromising quality — to a work ethic developed on his family’s farm.

Sweet Tooth was a 40-issue limited series published by DC’S Vertigo Imprint beginning in 2009. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, its central relationship is between Gus, a human-animal hybrid, and Jepperd, a tough guy who is a former hockey enforcer. The title is a reference to Gus’s penchant for candy.

The Netflix show will star Saturday Night Live alumnus Will Forte. James Brolin, who terrified audiences as Thanos in the Avengers films opposite Downey, has signed on to narrate.

Essex County was picked up by the CBC in 2015 for a smallscreen adaptation to be produced by First Generation Films. One of Essex County’s three chapters, Tales From the Farm, had been announced as a movie four years earlier, but that version never got off the ground.

In 2014, Lemire was a featured artist in the first edition of the Ting Comic and Graphic Arts Festival at the TAP Centre for Creativity.

“On top of being one of Canada’s best cartoonists, he is also an incredibly generous, nice, humble person,” said Diana Tamblyn, Ting Fest’s founder.

He has worked on such series as

Trillium, Extraordinary X-men and Old Man Logan.

For his work, Lemire has won industry plaudits including Doug Wright and Joe Shuster Canadian cartooning awards and the American Library Association’s Alex Award.