The Devil's Artisan

A ROGUES' GALLERY
OF THE CANADIAN BOOK AND PRINTING ARTS

Paul Forage

Paul Forage grew up in Mississauga, Ontario. During his undergraduate years at the University of Toronto he worked summers at the Ontario Science Centre, helping to demonstrate letterpress printing. As with everything that Paul did, he dove right in, and printing became an obsession. He studied the history of printing, which dovetailed well with his East Asian studies.

While at Victoria College at the University of Toronto Paul became one of the founders of The Devil's Artisan, with Glenn Goluska and Will Reuter, in 1980. He is listed on the masthead as an editor for the first three issues (1980), and as a contributing editor from issues four through fifteen (1981–84). Paul made several contributions to DA on Chinese themes, including a keepsake, and had the honour to publish the first article in the first issue of the journal, `The Introduction of Western Typography to China Re-examined'. Paul left DA as his passion shifted to the study of the history of war.

He travelled to China, Japan and Taiwan as part of his East Asian history and language degrees. After achieving his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in this field Paul went on to teach at the University of Michigan, Florida Atlantic University and Indian River State College (Fort Pierce, Florida). Dr Paul Forage passed away in 2015 at the young age of fifty-eight. His collection of printing and typography books was donated to the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto as well as the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

Paul established a programme to provide future humanitarians with a hands-on experiential learning exercise that would simulate the field experience. This is carried on today by his past colleagues at the Forage Center (www.foragecenter.org). The center will be establishing an annual Paul Forage Humanitarian Educator Award in his honour.

—Sarah Lough