The Argus is excited to feature Kyle Lees in our Monthly Alumni Spotlight series. Kyle is a local comic artist and Lakehead University Alumni who first started making comics for the Argus in 2005.

Until the Argus, Kyle had never made comics before, however he had always been an avid doodler. During his first year of University, he saw an ad in the paper calling for comic submissions, “I was like, ‘hey I want to make comics. And then at the end of the semester, they gave me a cheque and I was like ‘oh, you can make money doing this?’” Kyle recalls.

Kyle explains how he was quite surprised when the Editor-in-Chief sent him a cheque at the end of that first semester, “Then I doubled my output because I was like “oh cool money”.

During his following years at Lakehead, Kyle continued to submit his comics to the Argus. In 2009-2010 he was the Argus “office assistant”, a role that Kyle explains was curated just for him: “The outgoing Editor in chief at the time told the new one, ‘hey we’ve got a position for like an ‘office assistant’... just give the job to Kyle and let him draw stuff”.

During his time at the Argus, Kyle says he submitted comics, and he wrote some articles as well.

“I did some writing. I did some… some of everything. And also, like, washed dishes”. Kyle reminisces on the many hours spent in the Argus office.

At one point, Kyle was making all the comics in the Argus. Sometimes, he’d post under pseudonyms, like “Fingers McGee” to make it appear as if he wasn’t the only one submitting comics.

“Premise Beach” and “Ski Ninjas” were the two main comics that appeared in the Argus. Kyle explains the origins of these comic titles; ‘Premise Beach’ is simply based off an old Kids in the Hall sketch and Ski Ninjas has absolutely nothing to do with skiing or ninjas… or skiing ninjas-- it was just a title that did not generate any results when you Googled it. Of course, now, Kyle explains, “a bunch of ski masks and stuff” come up.

Ski Ninjas was published outside of the Argus as well. The Canadian University Press Newswire accepted article submissions to be published in other student newspapers. Kyle submitted many comics through the Humour section of Newswire. Numerous other universities published his comics, and Ski Ninjas was named one of the Top 5 University Comic strips by Maclean’s (2008).

Kyle continued with Ski Ninjas and has published two books, Ski Ninjas Volume 1 and Volume 2. Despite the ‘volumes’, Kyle assured they do not need to be read in any sequential order. Each volume is composed of various individual comics, Kyle explains “It’s like a gag-a-day sort of thing. Like Garfield”.

You can access Volume 1 of Ski Ninjas online. Kyle notes, “The first book is called This is Free on The Internet, so it is free”.

Here is a link to access Volume 1 of Ski Ninjas:

https://archive.org/details/SkiNinjasVolume1ThisIsFreeOnTheInternet/mode/2up?view=theater

Kyle points out the evolution of publishing comics and how it has changed from when he started at the Argus. Historically, in order to be successful in the comic world, you needed to be published in as many newspapers as possible. Then, the business model shifted towards posting online for free, gaining a following and selling ads and merch.

During his Argus days, Kyle published his comics online, each comic had its own website “to keep the whole, its three different people things going,” Kyle explains “it was never a conscious effort to be like ‘I’m going to rick everybody’. I just did it”.

Nowadays, websites and blogs are less common as comic artists tend to post mainly on social media. “The thing now is like everything feeds through Instagram, or Facebook or TikTok or whatever and like 10 years ago people had websites”

Kyle has also shifted to mainly digital publications now. He uses Instagram the most and you can follow him @thekylelees!

Kyle graduated from Lakehead University with an Honors in Psychology. As he was not interested in continuing to pursue social work, he decided to take a multimedia program at Confederation College. “About halfway through [the program], Elevate, where I work now, they contacted me and they were like hey we’ve seen your stuff, and we need someone to make Hepatitis C awareness comics, like the type of stuff you see in Doctor’s waiting rooms'' Kyle shares.

He worked at Elevate while in college, and eventually continued full time as a project coordinator. Once that particular contract ended, Kyle applied to be an outreach worker, “so, despite it all, I am a social worker”.

Although he no longer makes comics as part of his day job, Kyle explains how his time at the Argus helped him get to where he is today, “If I hadn’t done stuff here, I wouldn’t be where I am now”.

In his spare time, Kyle continues to make comics, prints and he does commissions as well. Kyle also co-hosts a pop Culture podcast called “Zero Issues” with two other local comic artists.

You can listen to the podcast here 🡪 https://zeroissues.com/

Additionally, Kyle has a poetry blog called “No Haikus Ever” available online and in print, however the book has since sold out.

When asked how he has time for all of this, Kyle responded in his jokingly serious way, “I don’t”.

“When it comes to output, I’ve slowed way down. And I try to get stuff going, but stuff gets busy. And I always have commissions on the go. So, its balancing commission work, day job, and making stuff I can hopefully sell as prints, editing the podcast… you know, sleep, remembering to breathe”

The Argus is very thankful to have had the opportunity to sit down with Argus and Lakehead Alumni, Kyle Lees. If you are in Thunder Bay, you can check out Kyle’s work at the Thunder Bay Country Market, where he shares a booth with other local artists called Weird Works Studios. You can also visit his website here: https://kylelees.carbonmade.com/about

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