TCAF – The Toronto Comic Arts Festival – is probably my favourite Toronto fan event all year. No offense to Fan Expo, which is wonderful, but TCAF is such a different and wonderful environment that I just can’t help but have an amazing time. Whenever I have to describe TCAF to someone who’s never been, I usually ask them to picture a regular con’s Artists Alley, multiply it by twenty, and spread it out over one of Toronto’s best public libraries. Pretty rad.
I have to hold myself to a pretty tight budget when I hit up TCAF annually (or else I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent), so I’m never able to support all of the artists that I wish I could. I did manage to pick up a couple of awesome goodies, though; so, in the spirit of sharing my haul – and, of course, the wicked work of some incredibly talented folks – here are my fave TCAF finds of 2013!
The Graphic Canon – Volume Three
I’ve talked before about how The Graphic Canon, published by Seven Stories Press, is an absolute must-read. After receiving the first two volumes as gifts, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the third volume, which covers great works of literature from the twentieth and twenty-first. Not scheduled for release until June 25, 2013, Seven Stories had a table at TCAF and were selling advance copies of Volume Three! I’m so excited to start perusing H.G. Wells, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot in all their illustrated glory.
Kate or Die!
If you read anything I post probably ever, you know I have a teensy bit of a girl-crush on Kate Leth, Haligonian creator of Kate or Die! webcomics (who I’ve previously profiled in Ladies Make Comics Too!) After awkwardly fangirling over her art, I picked up an incredible-in-its-sarcasm “Girls Don’t Read Comics” button, a small Game of Thrones print, and a great print of her super-cute Avengers comic. I was so flustered I left before she could even sign anything. Who even am I?
Joe Quinones
An incredibly accomplished comic artist, Joe Quinones is currently working on covers for Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run of Captain Marvel. Ms. Marvel has always been my favourite super-heroine and this new incarnation of Captain Marvel is incredibly bad-ass, so I knew I had to get a signed print of one of Quinones’s great covers. I ended up picking up a print of the Captain Marvel #11 cover, because I love the juxtaposition of Captain Marvel taking down baddies in real time in front of a 60’s-style pin-up poster of herself.
Jonathan Rosenberg
Creator of webcomics Goats, Scenes from a Multiverse, and megaGAMERZ 3133T, Jonathan Rosenberg is absolutely killing it in the online comics scene, winning the National Cartoonists Society Online Comic Strip Award in 2011. Embarrassingly, it was none of these things that drew me over to his table; instead, it was his hilarious and accurate “Republicans for Voldemort” bumper sticker, which has now reserved a place on the back window of my future first vehicle.
Fey Winds Volume One
Nicole Chartrand’s Fey Winds is a fantasy/epic adventure webcomic which lands somewhere between love letter and spoof. Following the adventures of Kit, a fox-turned-human girl, and her companions, Chartrand’s beautiful art and witty writing take you into a world worthy of any D&D or Dragon Age player’s time. I picked up the first collected volume of Fey Winds, and I can’t wait until she releases the next issue!
Sadly, that was it for me at TCAF 2013. Did you stop by and grab any goodies? Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter @SamMaggs!
