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General Comics Chat: The Toronto Comic Art Festival 2011

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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    Here's my personal report on the Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2011.

    If you're not bothered to read the whole thing, just know this... TCAF is great.
    It's exactly what I want from a comic book convention. There isn't an over abundance of superhero stuff squeezing everything else out, there aren't crowds of people dressed as obscure manga characters... TCAF is all about the comics.
    Key publishers exhibiting there this year were Drawn and Quarterly, Blank Slate, Koyama Press and Fantagraphics amongst others, so that gives you an idea of the kind of stuff to expect.

    If you're a fan of a diverse range of comics and graphic novels looking for something new, you should go.

    If you self publish your own comic and you're looking to meet people who will be interested in what you're doing, you should go.

    If you're a small to mid size publisher wanting to get your books out to a welcoming network of enthusiasts, you should go.

    If you're a comics retailer looking for new stuff to expand your product range, you should go.

    Photographs that relate to much of what I've written here can be seen on the OK Comics facebook page...
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/OK-Comics/88486657488?sk=photos#!/media/set/?set=a.10150280114397489.374837.88486657488
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    I've been wanting to go to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival http://torontocomics.com/ for a few years now. My wife's Canadian, and grew up in southern Ontario, so I've been to Toronto quite a few times, but our visits have never coincided with TCAF. Until this year.
    We planned our trip months ago and as the festival got closer, more and more quests were announced, and I got more and more excited.

    While waiting at Manchester airport we bumped into another anglo-canadian couple, Adam Cadwell and Kayla Hillier. This would not be the last time this would happen.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    Another good reason for visiting Toronto was to buy shoes.
    I'd been looking for somewhere to buy the limited edition Jim Lee Superman Converse All Stars http://www.journeys.com/product.aspx?id=170250 . They're exclusive to a chain of North American shoe shops who happen to have an outlet in Toronto just a short train ride from where we were staying.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    My good mate Chris lives in Toronto. Chris and I met in Leeds when he studied here for a year or so. We worked at Space Odyssey, now Forbidden Planet, together so obviously share a love of comics.

    As my wife opted not to attend the opening night event at TCAF, Chris would be my date for the evening.
    The opening night was an evening with Seth, Chester Brown, Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware. They were interviewed on stage by Dan Nadel. Actually, Dan didn't have to ask too many questions, once things got started the obvious friendship and respect of the four graphic novelists keep things moving.
    I was worried that we may have been subjected to a painful, depressing couple of hours but the whole thing was pretty upbeat and fun, particularly the banter between Seth and Chester 'Chet' Brown.

    We were sat next to Adam Cadwell and Kayla Hillier.

    After the onstage talking there was a bit of a 'meet and greet', which looked to be turning into a bit of a scrum, so Chris and I opted to got for Burgers and Beers.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    TCAF opened to the public at about 9am on the Saturday. My wife and I met up with Chris again and we got to the festival venue at about 11am.
    One of the best things about the Toronto Comic Arts Festival is that it's held in a very public library http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?R=LIB018 , right in the heart of the city, and it's completely FREE TO GET IN!!! So people who may never have been to a comic convention, or comic book shop, can wander in and accidentally be exposed to the best that comics and graphic novels have to offer.
    It's split over two exhibition halls on two floors of the Toronto Reference Library. The second floor is accessible by a staircase very familiar to fans of Scot Pilgrim.
    The first people we saw were Adam http://www.adamcadwell.com/ and Kayla http://kaylamariehillier.com/. Adam was selling his new comic Blood Blokes a slacker vampire tale set in Manchester, and Kayla had a collection of her autobiographical Galavant series. Their stall was right between Blank Slate Books http://www.blankslatebooks.co.uk/ and Jamie McKelvie http://mckelvie.tumblr.com/ .
    Over the next five hours my wife, Chris and I met, spoke to, got sketches and signatures, and bought comics, graphic novels and books from...
    Kenny and Isobel at Blank Slate
    Zach Worton http://crosshatchballad.blogspot.com/ author of one of the best books of the year, Klondike
    Chester Brown http://torontocomics.com/chester-brown/ who was launching his new book Paying For It
    Nate Powell
    Jeff Lemire http://jefflemire.blogspot.com/ who gave us some of his limited edition sketchbooks to use as prizes in the shop at a later date.
    Salgood Sam
    Dylan Williams of Sparkplug http://www.sparkplugcomicbooks.com/
    Jason Turner http://newreliablepress.bigcartel.com/product/true-loves-combo-pack
    and Becky Cloonan http://www.estrigious.com/becky/ , amongst others.
    Fantagraphics http://www.fantagraphics.com/ , Drawn and Quarterly http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/index.php and Adhouse http://www.adhousebooks.com/ all had a great range of new books.
    Jay Stephens was on the Adhouse table with preview copies of his new book http://www.adhousebooks.com/books/welcome2oddville.html .
    The main ground floor hall had been pretty busy all day, but by about 4pm it was packed.
    Before packing it in for the day we went to the Spotlight: Chris Ware event moderated by Tom Spurgeon.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    Sundays are always a bit slow to get started at comic conventions, and TCAF is no exception.
    The 'Her Majesty's Comics' panel, about comic publishing in the UK, was a good reason to make the effort, though, unfortunately not many people did. Panellists included Adam and Kayla, as well as Joe Decie, Tom Humberstone, Phillipa Rice, Sam Arthur and Kenny Penman.
    Chris wasn't with us on Day Two, so it was just my wife and I. As she'd already put up with a full day of my comic book nonsense on Saturday I decided to keep Sunday's TCAF as short as possible, but we still managed to meet...
    Jason Little the author of Motel Art Improvement service http://www.beecomix.com/
    Chris Pitzer of Adhouse Books
    Sean Azzopardi http://phatcatz.org.uk/
    Ben Towle http://www.benzilla.com/
    Jason Kieffer http://jasonkieffer.com/
    Nick Maandag
    Lucy Knisley http://www.lucyknisley.com/
    Jim Stolen http://www.jimtheillustrator.co.uk/ , Owl Kids and Jeffrey Lewis amongst others.

    One of the best things about TCAF for me was finding loads of new comics and books I'd never heard of. The extensive range of stuff available from Koyama Press http://koyamapress.com/products/comics/ really blew me away.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    We left the festival after a few hours and went shopping down Bloor Street, calling at quite a few shops along the way, including Nike Town and Labyrinth http://animationroadshow.blogspot.com/ and ending at The Beguiling.
    The Beguiling is the most respected, and best known comic book store in Toronto. It's thought to be one of the best comic book shops in the world. It has a fantastic range of comics and graphic novels. I never fail to spend a lot of money here.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011 edited
     
    The Beguiling also organises the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.
    While The Beguiling is a great shop http://www.beguiling.com/2008/01/about-beguiling.html , full of loads of great things you wont find anywhere else, and always a big hit with comic fans, the store itself does little to encourage new readers. It's not a shop my wife feels comfortable in, it's not a shop that caters to casual comic readers wanting to try something new, and above all, it needs a good clean and tidy up.
    If the shelves were a little less dusty, the stock were a little more ordered, the dim light bulbs replaced and the carpet a little bit cleaner, The Beguiling could easily live up to it's reputation as the best of the best. A little bit of natural light would be good too.
    That said, The Beguiling is a great shop and well worth a visit.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    After a long day TCAFing and shopping we went back to our hotel. It was only there that I spotted the sketch, very personal to what we'd been chatting about, by Benjamin Rivers in his Snow book http://www.snowcomic.com/ ; what a class act.

    It became pretty clear that I'd bought far too many comics, books and graphic novels. They would definitely not fit in my suit case. I made plans to get everything shipped back to the UK.
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      CommentAuthorOK Comics
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    The next day we went on an open top bus tour of Toronto that surprisingly took us to Casa Loma, the location for some scenes of the Scott Pilgrim Movie.

    The next couple of weeks were spent visiting family and friends in Ontario, going to a good friends wedding, eating meat, enjoying the surprisingly hot weather, celebrating my wife's birthday, getting comics from Future Pastimes, my favourite Canadian comic shop, in Sarnia Ontario, and generally trying to take it easy.

    When it came time to leave, who should be on the same flight home as me? Adam Cadwell and Kayla Hillier!
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeMay 31st 2011
     
    All those reasons why the trip was awesome and what am I jealous of? The Converse!
  12.  
    That was a nice bit of reportage. You sound like you had a lovely time! That's always good to hear! Judging by the pictures of stuff what you ate you are probably the owner of a toilet that hates you with every fibre of its abused being. It doesn't sound very Canadian though; you didn't mention Dave Sim, John Byrne or Alpha Flight once! Are you sure it was in Canada?

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