Iqaluit’s mighty Thor launches first book

MIRIAM HILL

IQALUIT — Thor Simonsen has been offering comic relief to readers of Nunatsiaq News for more than a year. Now he’s launching his own book, filled with his creations.

What’s most impressive is that Simonsen is only 13.

Out and about with a friend on Monday afternoon while hanging about 40 posters on bulletin boards, Simonsen said he’s very excited about the book launch and signing planned for Saturday, May 19, at the Fantasy Palace coffee shop from 2 to 4 p.m.

He said that after working on the pieces for several months, he decided to make a big project out of them and garner some recognition.

“It’s just a collection to show people my work,” he said.

He draws the comics by hand, he explained, then scans them into a Macintosh computer where he can do additional work on them.

The completed project was sent on a CD to a design company in Ottawa that his stepfather uses, Hoselton Brunet, the owner of which is also a family friend. The owner decided to accept the book, although Simonsen had to find sponsors to help with printing costs.

“I just wrote out a letter and sent it out to all the possible companies in town here and in the end I ended up with three large sponsors,” he said.

He also used $2,000 of his own money, which he saved from working a couple of months last summer at the Fantasy Palace as an assistant coffee server.

Rannva Simonsen, Thor’s mother, said she has always encouraged her two children to draw and play music, even going so far as not having a TV until the family moved to Canada from Denmark about four years ago.

“He had good teachers along the way that taught him perspective and things like that also, during his first year here when he was in Grade 4,” she said. “I have an education in architecture so pen and paper is my pal.”

She said Simonsen sits down pretty much every day after school to draw these cartoons.

“He’s been very consistent and just taking one thing at a time, one comic strip at a time and he’s been amazingly patient in keeping it up,” she said. “It’s been wonderful to watch him just do it, not hesitate and not come up with excuses, but just sit down and do it.”

Part of Simonsen’s talent may be genetic. While his mother’s training is in architecture, his natural father is a musician and his stepfather, Kirt Ejesiak, works in communications.

“That also has been part of the success, that he has had easy access to computers and we have helped him in showing him how to get prices and get contacts with the right people,” his mother explained.

The Grade 8 student, who speaks six languages, including Pig Latin and Danish, isn’t stopping with the book launch.

“If the book does well I hope to maybe sell it to a bigger publishing company like Scholastic or something,” he said.

Next on the agenda, though, is to burn a CD of his own rap music. In the future he hopes to further his education in Denmark and then move to Toronto to begin an acting career.

At only 13, Thor has many years ahead to fit it all in.