Some Canadian creators won't travel to the USA this year

CTV News says some Canadian artists and writers either don't want to travel to the USA this year, in what they call "tumultuous times":

Much can change in a year.

Last April, with talk south of the border about 51st states, tariffs and the like really only starting to ramp up, Canadian comic book artist Tom Grummett (Superboy, Robin) was “thinking very carefully” about attending U.S. trade shows.

The Canadian artist had just finished a comic book cover poking fun at the situation.

Now, he’s steering clear of the country that’s home to many of the comic book properties he’s worked on.

“We’re staying strictly in Canada this year and likely next year,” he said.

It’s not a small stance to take.

The biggest shows on the comic book convention circuit are in the U.S.

But Grummett says there’s too much confusion around travel.

“We have no idea how to approach the border. We checked into what sort of paperwork we needed and (got) multiple, different answers,” he said.

“They can deny you entry for up to four or five years, I hear, so why risk that?

“We’re quite happy to stay closer to home.”

Canadian comic book writer Jim Zub (Conan the Barbarian) says he’s still doing U.S. shows, but fewer of them these days.

He says he knows of “a bunch” of his colleagues who won’t go at all.

He says there’s a bit of “bracing yourself” before travelling south.

“No matter how many times I cross the border, I’ve got Trusted Traveller and it’s relatively straightforward, but you always have that little tense moment,” he said.

“What if this time it’s different?”

From what's told at the start, the political climate does possibly have something to do with this. And that's very galling. They're allowing their potentially leftist dissent impede upon everything. Not that such ideologues are a big loss to USA conventions if that's how they're going to go about their business. But it still makes for bad PR to refuse paying a visit to the USA because you don't dig Donald Trump's policies or anything similar. Do these Canadian artists/writers/editors really think they're going to improve relations if they act like virtually everything a right-leaning politician does is inherently wrong? Maybe not, but their failure to avoid divisive steps on their part certainly speaks volumes.

It'll remain to be seen if the above creators from the great white north come to realize they're not doing any favors for their reputation by refusing to visit the USA or anywhere else just because they don't like the host country's politics. But who knows, they probably won't, and what'll be really reprehensible is if the leftists in comicdom solely blame Trump for that kind of selfish attitude. I hesitate to think what they might say if they were invited to visit Israeli conventions. I hope they know to be polite about that.