When I applied to attend this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival I wasn’t really expecting to be selected. The organisers had the choice from the wealth of talent in a city famed for producing great comics plus the rest of Canada’s fertile scene and some of the best American artists working today. So being a little known British webcomic artist I was highly surprised when I was invited. I feel privileged to have been given the chance to exhibit there and to be considered on par with everyone else there.

Before I tell tales of what I did and who I met, I should explain how TCAF works so you’ll see why it had such an effect on me:

Firstly, TCAF is a curated event meaning that anyone can apply to attend but only 200 exhibitors are chosen. This meant that the quality of work on show was staggeringly impressive. Not one pitiful, amateur superhero comic in sight. This approach may take more time for the organisers, for them to look over every submission, but when compared to a first come, first served system, the result is surely more fair for the audience.

Secondly, the show is held in the Toronto Reference Library in the centre of the city. A public building that is free to enter. People who are interested in reading things go there anyway. People pass by there daily and already know where it is. People know it is free to get in to and don’t have to pay to go and buy things. It also happens to be a spacious and well designed space with rooms for events, free wifi and public computers. Suddenly, unknown, out of town convention centres with high rental fees seems a perplexing choice.

Lastly, TCAF is organised by staff from The Beguiling, Canada’s, nay, North America’s premiere comic shop. Not only do these guys know good comics they are in touch with a wide network of comic fans that they managed to convince to work the show for free. There were a small army of volunteers in TCAF t-shirts there to fetch us exhibitors water and juice boxes, provide us with change and watch our tables while we spoke on panels or filled our faces. After the show was done, The Beguiling even bought left over books, meaning bonus sales and less weight to take home for exhibitors, and an influx of international self published work for the comic readers of Toronto.

I fully enjoyed both days of the show. The audience were diverse, interested, smart and, as pointed out to me by Cameron Stewart, socially adjusted. I didn’t once have to politely nod while wishing for someone to move along and stop talking at me. There was a palatable enthusiasm as audience and fellow exhibitors alike surveyed the room and discovered new comics, creators and ideas. I’ve been inspired by seeing so many different approaches to the medium in the same space, and encouraged to try new techniques and avenues.

(Photo by Chris Butcher from his Flickr)

However, my highlights of the show were the events that surrounded it.

To kick off the festival on the Friday evening to a backdrop of a raging storm at dusk, Dan Clowes presented his new book, Wilson, in a two hour talk and Q&A. Led by culture critic for the National Post Marc Medley who had clearly done his research, Clowes’ entire career was covered and featured some of his most obscure work, a Ramones music video and an OK Cola can design for The Coca-Cola Company. Clowes himself was witty, open and charmingly disgruntled. His opinion of the the iPad is that artists will the last to benefit from it and the first to be screwed over. I name Clowes as one of my three big artistic influences, so to hear him openly discuss his work and views on comics, to ask him a question (which I had to repeat a few times, due to a mixture of nerves and my accent) and chat to him briefly while he signed my book, it was for me a rare delight.

I was asked to speak on a panel called The Perils of Autobiography on the Saturday. It was the first panel I’ve been asked to speak on so I was excited and a touch nervous too. Luckily my good friend and convention buddy Marc Ellerby was on the panel too so I knew at least one person had read my work. We were joined by Erika Moen, Tory Woollcott and Doug Wright nominee Adam Bourett. Greg Means, the editor of the fantastic anthology comic Papercutter, was called in to lead the talk and he did a great job. Any nerves I had quickly fled. We started by discussing the benefits of doing autobio and how friends react to being in it, or how they plead when they’re not. We joked about the fire alarm that went off half was through. The panel agreed that we all stretch the truth to serve the story sometimes, a point I was about to disagree with when Marc mentioned Little Adam, the pixie version of myself that appears in The Everyday occasionally. And I humbly listened as the others talked about very personal things that they’ve show in their work, from sexual confusion, schizophrenia, self harm and childhood abuse. Despite those topics the talk was great fun, everyone seemed to enjoy it and the were lots of laughs. I hope any more panels I do in the future are as enjoyable.

The Doug Wright Awards annually celebrate achievements in Canadian comic past and present. This year they were held on the Saturday evening and were free to attend. Having never been to a comics award show before and eager to take in as much of TCAF as I could I went along with Kayla and was really glad I did. It was presented by actor Peter Outerbridge who had the smoothest announcer voice you could imagine and started the show with a few anecdotes and an animation of him inviting the characters for nominated books to the awards. On to the awards, The Best Emerging Talent award put me on to some great comics that I bought from the creators the day after. Winner Michael Deforge‘s Lose #1 and the work of John Martz especially. The Giants of the North (or Hall of Fame) award commemorated the work of late, avant garde artist Martin Vaughn-James with a detailed discussion of his work by a slightly nervous Kate Beaton. Some of the examples shown on the screen absolutely perplexed me.

(Image taken from The Walrus’ obituary of Vaughn-James)

Lastly, the Best Book Award was won by Seth for George Sprott: (1894-1975) . Seth is one of the founder’s of the Doug Wright Awards, a fact he pointed out may seem like nepotism in his eloquent acceptance speech. It was this speech that made attending the awards more than worth it, as he went on to discuss the current climate of the comics industry. He spoke about how when he began he just did what he liked as he didn’t ever think anyone would publish or read it. With the success of the medium over the last decade, young creators can get carried away with aspirations of publishing deals and current trends. He encouraged all young artists not to think of themselves as professionals, “You’re not professionals,” he said “you’re artists”. This closing statement rang in my mind for the rest of the weekend.

Though these events made TCAF such a joy to attend it was also a pleasure to meet a lot of the people in the Toronto comics scene. I treated myself to a two and a half week holiday to Toronto around the comic show and unlike anyone in town for the weekend I experienced the city when the weather was nice, gorgeously sunny in fact. Staying with my girlfriend Kayla, a former employee of The Beguiling, I was fortunate enough to meet a few people before the show. On my first day there we attended a Jeffrey Brown talk about his working method which featured a lively slide show comic and reading from Brown. There I met TCAF organisers Christopher Butcher and Peter Birkemoe, whose gruelling work ethics resulted in the splendour that was TCAF. It was a pleasure to meet them both and I thank them for inviting me to their show.

In those first sunny weeks of my trip I also paid a visit to The Beguiling itself for Free Comic Book Day. There, we bumped into Andrew Wheeler, a Englishman himself now living in Toronto. After grabbing a few free books, we enjoyed a pint in The Victory Cafe down the street. At lunchtime at the show on Saturday this generous man brought us all home-made sandwiches. On Sunday the show started at 11am giving all of us who stayed up for karaoke some blessed sleep. All of us except Wheeler it seems, who after bellowing pop songs all evening, somehow got up early enough to bake breakfast rolls, a kind of bacon, egg, pastry twist, as well as chocolate caramel muffins for us all. Thank you Wheeler, you are an angel.

On the Wednesday before the show I was invited by Michael Cho to come along to “Comics Lunch” a weekly meeting of Toronto’s comic artists. I met most of the TX Comics crew there like Arthur Dela Cruz, Eric Kim, Brian MaLachlan and Ramon Perez, but meeting Michael was great as I’ve been following his work and chatting to him online for years. He’s a joyful character and good conversation and I’m glad I kept bumping into him at the many TCAF related parties.

Speaking of parties there was so many. Book launches on the Thursday, a launch party on Friday after the Dan Clowes talk and a webcomics house party uptown, an official after party on the Saturday followed by the TCAF tradition of Karaoke and a closing shindig on the Sunday. After a long day at the show everyone still seemed up for drinking and socialising and it really felt like the whole weekend was one long celebration.

The Karaoke was especially hilarious. I’d never been to a private room Karaoke place before and at first the underground venue in Korea Town seemed a little dingy, and well it was, but we had a great time regardless. Jim Zubkavich was a wailing troubadour all night long, Wheeler showed his love for girly pop music and Kayla put everyone to shame but it was Chip Zdarsky who wins. Chip’s rendition of Careless Whisper had me streaming warm tears from both eyes. Spellbinding, funny and so, so wrong all at the same time. As for me I lent my vocal talents to Don’t Stop Believing, Killer Queen and, chosen by Jamie McKelvie, Du Hast. It was a great end to a tremendous day.

I met so many other new people and I liked an awful lot of them but I won’t write a big list as I’ll forget someone or spell someone’s name wrong.

I feel really energised by TCAF, a sentiment Marc shares in his write up of the show. It’s the perfect comic show. The almost overwhelming variety of comics there have me thinking about fresh ways to do what I do. The Everyday is ending shortly and Blood Blokes is soon to arrive, so it’s a great time to look at the the way I work anew and thanks to TCAF I’m brimming with confidence about the future. Let’s hope it last, at least ’til TCAF next year.

(Marc and me, with Kayla peeking from behind. Photo by Abe aka ab81.)

P.S. I’ve posted a bunch of photos from my whole trip to Flickr. Go and laugh at my dorky poses.