My haul from this year's TCAF
I know this is really late. I had totally planned to write this post immediately after TCAF. That didn’t happen. Anyhoo I found out about the Toronto Comic Arts Festival last year and knew I would love it. TCAF is unlike any comic convention I have ever been to. They don’t even call it a convention. They refer to it as a festival which actually sounds like a lot more fun than a convention… and it is!
Comic conventions have never really been what I’ve wanted them to be. Movies,videogames, and wrestlers can overshadow the actual art of comics and the comics that are there are generally focused solely on the super hero genre. The majority of the floor is filled with comic book store retailers with a bunch of white boxes filled with thousands of back issues that I won’t understand because I haven’t been reading the series from which they come from the time I was a fetus. While there are always lots of big name artists at these shows most of them work for Marvel or DC rather than create original properties which are what I’m most interested in.
In contrast TCAF focuses exclusively on comics and art. There is an artist behind every table and a diverse range of genres and art styles are represented and celebrated. Since last year it’s been held in the Toronto Reference Library which is a great venue with lots of natural light. Last year’s show was amazing. I met some of my favourite cartoonists including Scott C., Graham Annable, Kean Soo, and Scott McCloud. This year’s show was even better. There were so many webcomic authors in attendance that they had a whole webcomics pavillion on the second floor of the library.
The amazing sketch I got from Karl Kerschl in my Abominable book
First I got Karl Kerschl’s The Abominable Charles Christopher callection and got a stunning sketch from him. Karl was with the rest of the Transmission X crew in their own little room. Meanwhile my brother got The Book of Grickle from Graham Annable and also got me a Double Fine Action Comics T-shirt. Dave Roman’s Agnes Quill has been on my list of comics to pick up as well. He was at the show so we did just that.
Next I headed to the webcomics pavillion as a lot of the comics I wanted to get were webcomics. There I got Gastrophobia by David Mcguire, and all four volumes of The Book of Biff by Chris Hallbeck, both of which are hilarious. Gastrophobia is about an Amozon, her kid, and all the cazy adventures they have. I hadn’t actually read much of it online so I was looking forward to reading the book. It was really good. David Mcguire has managed to craft endearing and funny characters and stories. The Book of Biff is a single panel gag comic that’s just really weird and funny. Every comic just blows your mind. Meredith Gran was taking pre-orders for the upcoming Octopus Pie book. I’ve always been intrigued by Octopus Pie but I’ve never managed to work all the way though the archives and there seems to be a lot of continuity. Therefore I look forward to reading the book and catching up on it. I had wanted to get Tiny Kitten Teeth’s book, “Tigerbuttah”, after discovering them when they did some guest comics for Penny Arcade and PvP. We couldn’t find their booth at first as it was hidden in the crowds and ended up asking several confused people if they knew where “Tiny Kitten Teeth” was. Eventually we found them and were able to purchase their book which is a homage to the little golden books.
Charles Vess was one of the guests of honor. We bought his new storybook, Instructions, as well as his less new storybook, Blueberry Girl. We also had him sign some other books of his. Finally before leaving the show I had to get one of Dustin Harbin’s “Dharbin Enquirers” which is an entire newspaper funnypages section illustrated by Mr. Harbin himself. The result was pretty cool. I also got a T-shirt from him that had a picture of… him… on it. Who wouldn’t want that?
I didn’t have a table at TCAF but I heard that some people were handing out free mini comics and leaving some freebies by the door so I made ten Lemon Inc. samplers at the last minute. The samplers were made up of the first fifteen comics and a couple of bonus comics. I was actually suprised when I realized that all my samplers were gone by the time I left the show on Saturday. I wish I’d brought more now. I heard from one person who seems to know who I am who had suggested that they would have liked to have seen me at the show had they known I was coming. I’ll almost definitely be attending TCAF next year so if you’d like to see me there let me know. Who knows, if I can print a book come next TCAF I might even be able to get a table there myself. I have heard that they’re very selective about who they let exhibit at the show though. But you never know.
-Tim
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