#Toronto Comic Arts Festival

[careydraws]

I'm excited for TCAF this weekend! I'm signing at the First Second booth/table 2014 on Sunday from 1-2 PM, and I have a comic in Dragon Ball Zine, which you can get at tables 119, 155, or 2071! I'm not tabling but please say hi & reintroduce yourself if you see me walking around! ✨

I hear first second might have a free giveaway TAZGN6 promo print at their booth...? 👀 Come by during my signing and snag one!!

[quietsnooze]

TCAF's Digital Marketplace is in full swing! Here's a smattering of what you can find in my shop! Be sure to check out the greater marketplace for combined shipping across the whole convention!

My work ranges from official Dungeons and Dragons dice bags and plushies to zines and comics, and keychains and stickers!

[noamsussman]

I think you should leave. WHO’S PSYCHED FOR SEASON 3? I know I am! Also I’ll be selling these bad boys along with some comics and zines at TCAF this weekend at the Toronto Reference Library. Come find me at table 2092 on the second floor!!!

[emiett]

Come see me at TCAF tomorrow! I'm on the 3rd floor at table 311! I'll have zines, new riso prints, my graphic novel Skeleanor the Decomposer, stickers, notepads, pins, and more!

[so-engery]

I'm FINALLY gettin' to come back up to Toronto.

I'll be be at TCAF this weekend - AA 2040 (on the second floor, by the back doors). I'm gonna have a TON of books, including my newest comic (Under Kingdom) and TWO NEW SUPER SECRET MYSTERY COMICS (Hey You! Yeah, You!! and Nosferatu Hunter E).

They'll be available online later, after their TCAF debut.

I'm not going to have any Disco Elysium stuff - but if you ask me, I will draw you a disco sketch. If you want nice paper, bring your own 'cause all I took with me is crappy graph notebook paper.

[maiji]

[image: photo of portable watercolour kit  and drawing tools with two ink-and-watercolour portraits on squares of paper]

Left: Amarantha from Magefront by Shea B, and right: Hana from Kings of Sorts by @crabbng! I loved getting to draw these two! It was so interesting trying to render them in my style, they are visually very different but it was fascinating to realize they both have a strong red colour palette and beautiful freckles <3

Shea B and Jacki/crabbng are both exhibiting at TCAF, and today (Sunday April 30, 2023) is the last day of the physical festival! Please find them at this fantastic event - they’re such lovely people and their work is so well worth it. They’re both on the second floor of the Toronto Reference Library!

Shea is at Table 2024, to your left as soon as you come up the stairs to the second floor, around the curve to your left! Map to table / Photos of table

Jacki is at Table 2082 in the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon! Map to table / Photo of table

[bluedelliquanti]

I’m heading back to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this year! Find me on the second floor at table 2061 from April 29-30, 2023.

This year I’ll have all 3 volumes of O Human Star, Across a Field of Starlight, Adversary, and some copies of the Godzilla Rivals one-shot I worked on with Feriowind!

[stevelieber]

My colleague Stephen Pellnat will be debuting the third volume of his graphic novel series UPSTATE this coming weekend at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, table 2039.

UPSTATE is naturalistic, working class fiction for adults- a wildly underexplored genre- and my studiomates and I are all excited to get our hands on a copy.

[animehouse-moe]

Animehouse at TCAF 2023

So for the uninitiated, TCAF is the Toronto Comics and Arts Festival, and it was held this weekend from Friday to Sunday. Sadly, I could only make the Sunday so I was unable to attend Mayuzuki's panel on the Saturday, but at the very least I made the signing on Sunday morning! All that said, this is just a little post sharing my thoughts and purchases from the festival as I had a great time and wanted to share that with people that were unable to make it there.

I'll get the boring stuff out of the way, my thoughts on it. It's a really cool and fun festival, I got there a half an hour before it opened since I had travelled from outside of the city, so I got myself a really nice spot in line. I was really surprised at how lax it was lining up, there were maybe a dozen people total in front of me, and the line only really started piling up in the last 15 or so minutes to get in.

Once I was in I got to take in the layout, which was rather cramped. I get it, they're operating it out of a library, there's not a whole lot of space. But I do still think it made for a bit of a suffocating experience when squeezing past people to walk in the narrow pathways between booths and bookshelves. Given the attendance, and the fact that it's free entry, I feel like they could really afford an upgrade if they required purchasing a pass for the festival. I'd 100% support it because it means the people that are behind it and participate in it as exhibitors could expand what they're doing and offer even cooler stuff.

Now, this is a comics and art festival, so I don't quite have a right to complain or voice my opinion, but I'll do it anyways. I love how they're integrating manga into the festival and using it to pull in people that might not otherwise experience comics in the more genuine sense outside of what's marketed by Marvel and DC. But I do also feel like they might try a little more to get a stronger response from that demographic. Both Denpa and Glacier Bay Books were there, and I feel like it's a bit of a missed opportunity to not have had them run a panel or anything for manga fans.

And last but not least, programming. I think it's really awesome that they're being proactive in getting younger audiences engaged in comics that exist outside of those big name ones like I said earlier. It's great to see them foster and encourage an interest that will help keep an industry going in the face of being overtaken in the public eye by superheroes.

Alright alright, manga stuff! Jun Mayuzuki was obviously the main attraction for me at the festival, so I made a B line for the signing table right when the festival opened. While I was there I bought this poster.

And I got this one for free with the signing.

And then of course there's the actual signature. I'm a bit (well really a massive) geek for this stuff so you know I had to get Mayuzuki to sign a JP copy of Kowloon Generic Romance volume 1 (real name omitted/edited out). It was a really great experience and Mayuzuki was incredibly nice, and seemed happy/surprised that I brought a JP volume to get signed.

Now, following that I've still got some cool stuff. Glacier Bay Books had a booth there and were selling some of the volumes they carry, so I picked up a pair I didn't have. Their quality really is incredible. Such a nice weight in the hands, the binding is tight without being rigid, and the paper quality when comparing to something like Viz is just stellar. Oh, and the color of the paper is dependent on the volume (Karman Line is blue/white while Mermaid Town is black with a red trim on the edge so the pages look red from the outside)

And Hollow Press came by and surprised me! These dudes are from Italy and are a horror publisher so I was super surprised to see them come all the way to Toronto for the festival, so I 100% had to pick up some stuff from them (not pictured are Grayworld & Crystal Bone Drive by Tetsunori Tawaraya because Tumblr is squishing the image horizontally for some reason). They've got really similar quality to Glacier Bay but put out a lot more smaller books than them. Still, great stuff (and for those in Canada, both Glacier Bay and Hollow Press titles are carried through The Beguiling!)

So yeah, a really awesome day where I got a lot of really awesome stuff. Being in Canada, there's not a lot of conventions or festivals that are easy or affordable to access, so a very grateful hats off to the team for bringing stuff to the general population that they can experience both in person and online!

[simon-roy]

If you're in Eastern Canada or the Northeast USA, consider coming up to Toronto next weekend for TCAF - I'm going to be there with a stack of hardcovers!

[screentonescast]

Toronto Comic Arts Festival (or TCAF) is coming up and some of the Screen Tones folks will be there!

If you're going too and want to meet up, let us know here ->

[bobdobalina]

That’s the TCAF building!

Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, 1973-77.

Architect: Raymond Moriyama

[noamsussman]

BIG NEWS: I'll be tabling at TCAF this year! April 29-30. Come by and grab some prints and zines!! (like this Last of Us piece). I'll be posting some more info closer to the date.

[stefantosheff]

Gonna be at @torontocomics this year at table 288-289! See you there. April 29-30th.

[graphicpolicy]

Toronto Comic Arts Festival has announced Jun Mayuzuki as a Featured Guest

Toronto Comic Arts Festival has announced Jun Mayuzuki as a Featured Guest #TCAF #TCAF2023 #TCAF23

In their latest announcement of featured guests at this year’s event, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival has announced the attendance of Jun Mayuzuki, the acclaimed creator of Kowloon Generic Romance and After the Rain. A year after Jun Mayuzuki was a featured artist at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, she now receives even more international recognition as a featured guest at one of…

[maiji]

[images: 1) Screenshot of Maiji/Mary Huang's exhibitor page on the TCAF Digital Marketplace, with a creator bio, followed by products. 2) Photo of Now Recharging Books 1, 2 and 3 showing the main robot characters in different states of eyes-closed rest in ink and watercolour with gold foil stamping; 3) Surprise! zine & print pack preview showing an assortment of artbooks, zines, and prints; 4) Surprise! Genjimonogatari print set showing an assortment of ink illustrations from the series.]

It's the wonderful month of TCAF - the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, one of my favourite events! Showcasing 700+ comics, zines, graphic novels, art prints, and other amazing items from 90+ artists, publishers, and comics creators from all over the world!

The physical festival takes place April 29-30, but the TCAF Digital Marketplace runs from April 21 to May 7!

It's super amazing because you can explore and shop from all of these creators in one place instead of dealing with separate online stores/shipping. You can imagine this is such an impressive thing to coordinate, and so great for small indie creators and the readers who support them alike!

Shop page Direct link to my exhibitor shop page

In my shop, you'll find the print debut of Now Recharging Book 3, and lots of other comics, zines and print goodies. Including surprise packs with great deals!

In celebration, I'm also doing a show special on the Genjimonogatari deck! You can use the coupon code TCAF2023 for a 15% discount while TCAF 2023 Digital Marketplace is on!

[image set: Pair of images. 1) genjimonogatari deck mint tin case with ink and watercolour art and calligraphy resting on gold washi/Japanese paper with plum blossom designs. 2) The case next to two cards featuring ink and watercolour illustrations lying next to a stack of the rest of the cards in the deck, also on the same gold washi. A ruler appears alongside for size comparison.]

Signal boosts appreciated! <3 Please check out this event, virtually or in person, if you can!