(Broken Pencil, Fall 2005)
by Liz Clayton
Jeff Chapman, a.k.a Ninjalicious, also a.k.a Milky Puppy, at the Toronto
Small Press Book Fair, circa 2000.Photo by Jessica Westhead.
I met Jeff Chapman
in October of 1999, on which occasion he handed me the first issue of Yip magazine
I’d ever seen. I had met him because
I was a fan of his other, more famous publication, Infiltration — but
I didn’t know about Yip. The theme on its canary-yellow cover read, “Depression
and Boats”.
Among
the zine’s
many useful articles was an introductory quiz to help the reader determine
whether they were depressed, or… on a boat. “Are
you experiencing feelings of sadness, irritability, or seasickness?” it
asked. “Are you experiencing changes in weight, appetite, or location
at sea?” I realized immediately that I had met someone both extremely
funny and extremely unusual. From that moment I held on tight.
Since Jeff passed away from cancer on August 23, 2005, I and countless
others have been very, very sad — or possibly we are on a boat. I have the
sinking feeling, though, that it’s the former.
Jeff Chapman was born in Scarborough, ON and raised in nearby Pickering,
and though his childhood included stints on the outskirts of Vancouver
and Montreal, Jeff always considered the Toronto area his home. Fueled
by his
natural curiosity and a few influential books — Robert Fulford’s
Accidental City among them — Jeff looked at Toronto through eyes
more wondrously open, and a little more off-kilter, than anyone I have
ever met.
His love for cities, and his gift for expressing himself with both
wonder and humour, would ultimately lead him to inspire thousands of
people.
Jeff led his life with a gentle reserve that somehow let him permeate
others’ lives
deeply and easily. Always kind, intelligent, and polite to a fault,
he was the barometer for what made funny to nearly everyone he knew.
Jeff was a
true independent in every sense of the word. From his free-thinking
spirit to his enthusiasm for self-publishing, Jeff made the world his
own, and to
those that knew him and his work, he made it beautiful.
His first publishing endeavour was Yip, which Jeff edited under the
handle Milky Puppy in collaboration with a core group of friends. Yip
lasted
34 issues and 14 years — educating its small readership on subjects ranging
from meat and potatoes to swimming, corn and the internet. The Yip style
is unmistakably absurd: though Jeff’s friends were funny as a rule,
it took an above-average joke — usually something just north and west
of left field — to get the scrupulous editor’s even passing nod.
Tending towards excess, the zine also caused ripples on the home front: two
of his siblings were sent home from school on separate occasions, simply
for having copies of the homemade publication that taught things like “DOS
For Complete and Utter Morons, Like You Fuckhead”, or asserted
that Sears Roebuck was run by satan.
But it was through Infiltration: the zine about going places you’re
not supposed to go that Jeff Chapman really began to change the world.
Writing under the pseudonym Ninjalicious, Jeff found his more serious
writing voice
(though never that serious) as he guided armchair explorers and curious
urbanites through the mysteries just beyond, and in many cases above
or below, our
own front doors.
A perennial adventurer, Jeff’s lifetime love for machine rooms, subbasements
and rooftops blossomed during a particularly lengthy stay after an operation
at Toronto’s Saint Michael’s Hospital. Traipsing around
the hospital with IV pole and gown, as he would off and on for years
as he battled one
illness or another, Jeff would explore tunnels and abandoned wings
with an energy rarely seen in healthy people, much less the infirm.
He began to document his efforts at sneaking around interesting places,
and in 1996 produced a humble black-and-white zine called Infiltration,
the first
issue devoted to his latest obsession, Toronto’s opulent Royal York
Hotel. Inspired by his love for the hotel’s seemingly infinite
supply of comely service corridors, executive meeting spaces and mechanical
rooms,
Jeff created a zine that would, like Yip, find a longevity unusual
for the zine world. The last issue, number 25, was published this spring,
while Chapman
battled the cancer that would end his life at the too-young age of
31.
It was through Infiltration and its website at www.infiltration.org that a worldwide community who united under the banner of “urban explorers” was
spawned. Jeff gracefully led the community of curious photographers, climbers,
and amateur archaeologists without ever acting like he thought he was in
charge. It was his life’s wish that his writings on urban exploration
would persuade people to question the perceived boundaries in their
cities and their minds, to think freely, and above all, to see and
explore all the
amazing hidden nooks and crannies of life.
For nearly six years, I watched Jeff make zines with the same dedication,
earnestness and humility that he applied to all aspects of his life.
He was seemingly inexhaustible in his creative pursuits, even when
slowed by the
wear and tear of cancer, chemotherapy, and the rare liver disease for
which
he had a transplant in 2002. Jeff would publish four or five zines
a year on top of a full-time job, and still complain that he wasn’t
doing enough. During his final months of illness, he published two
issues of Infiltration
along with the last issue of Yip, as well as a 250-page guidebook to
urban exploration entitled Access All
Areas that is available in bookstores
now.
Along with his many loved ones, Jeff left behind an international legacy,
a permanent imprint on the city he adored, and several very, very long
lists of things to do. We should all be so lucky as to live such a
full life as
Jeff Chapman did.