I thought it was about time I made some kind of announcement here about appearing at this weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2011. After having a brilliant, invigorating time at the show last year I have been invited back to exhibit again and I can’t wait. Featured guests at the show this year include Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, Darwyn Cooke and Jillian Tamaki! Plus every other decent cartoonist you’ve ever heard of.

The big news for me this time is of course Blood Blokes #1 will be available to buy for the first time. While I’m waiting for replies from publishers I’ve had printed a limited run of 100 copies of issue 1 to sell at shows and hopefully generate a bit of buzz. Of course, I will have badges too. A 7 page preview of the slacker vampire story can be found at BloodBlokes.com. Those with long memories may remember I had a print copy of this 7 page preview “debuting” at TCAF last year, and it mystifies me the most why the full issue has taken a whole year to be released. But that’s how life goes sometimes and I really hope you’ll find the final comic was well worth the wait.

I am also very excited to introduce my children’s comic The King of Things & The Shrunken Giant Penny to Canadian readers through the delight that is Paper Science 4. I will have plenty of copies of the lush newsprint anthology for sale for just $3 CAN. Here’s a photo of the first page of the comic (click for a larger, readable version):

I will also have a few copies of the Welsh zombie comic Stiffs, which I coloured and lettered. Grab a copy of that while you can.

And as usual I will be bringing a bunch of The Everyday Collections too. Just Collections 3 and 4 are available at the moment, so apologies to any completists who may want all 4. Plus I’ll have ALL of the remaining original art for The Everyday too in neat and tidy little A5 folders that took me a whole Sunday to organise and like a nerd I loved every second.

Right, that’s a full itinerary of what will be replacing clothes in my suitcase, I do hope I didn’t bore you. Now, what will I be up to during TCAF! Well…

“Her Majesty’s Comics
Panelists: Adam Cadwell, Joe Decie, Kayla Hiller, Tom Humberstone, Phillipa Rice, and Sam Arthur
Moderated by Box Brown
Location: Learning Center 1
Time: Sunday 11:15 – 12:00

There’s an explosion of comics talent that’s been coming out of the UK lately; new artists, new formats, and new publishers. We’ll get you up to speed with the landscape of the changing UK comics scene.”

That about wraps it all up for TCAF news. Just looking at the books being released for the show, all the events and the long list of amazing artists attending I cannot wait to get there. And I really can’t wait to see what people think of Blood Blokes! It’s going to be a heck of a show. I hope to see you there.