TCAF REPORT PART ONE :: Toronto Comic Arts Funtimes
See a ton of pictures in my Flickr set, with way less words!
Well Good Gravy, after all my excitement and lack of sleep getting ready for it, TCAF is not only been and gone, but two days gone--heckfire, it's already Wednesday! As you can see in the photo above (which I swiped from my man Chris Pitzer's Flickr stream), I came to Toronto ready to conquer it. But in the end, it was I who was slain by sweet Toronto. All my villages were razed; even unto the foundations thereof.
But I will get to the coolness of Toronto in due course, make no mistake. Let us begin at the start of the beginning:
Barely in time for TCAF (the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, for those of you who don't know [hi Mom!]), I finished stapling and folding 120 copies of DHARBIN! #2, the second iteration of my heavily self-referential minicomic. Unlike the first one, this one is good, so you can imagine my excitement in traveling to Canada armed with a book I was actually proud of. Just with the time I saved apologizing to each and every person who bought one, I could be halfway through drawing #3, but instead I spent all that time just relaxing and having fun. OOP--It's time for the LOST finale. I'll be back in a little bit.
WHOA! That was some season finale. WHOA! Okay so anyway.
I've been to Toronto a couple of times, and both times were AWESOME! But I think this time was the awesomest of them all. What is it about this city? I suspect that I spent all my time in fancy regions of town or something--the idea that all of Toronto is as cool as the parts I was in is mind-melting. I love my home city of Charlotte, but Toronto is like the clean friendly smallishness of Charlotte, except with a ton of culture and stuff to do like New York City. And even better, a ton of people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. A TON. I kept preventing myself from commenting on it; I'm always accidentally backing into racially charged conversations, OR just outright making fun of something like a jackass and then bending over backwards to apologize. TO AN ENTIRE NATION.
So I was psyched. But on the plane out of Charlotte I went into such a paroxysm of fear upon takeoff that I was exhausted by the time we got to NYC. But then running into Adrian Tomine--who immediately distanced himself--in LaGuardia, followed by Paul Pope and Jimmy Aquino, all of whom were on my flight, made me straighten up and act manly.
Once into town I immediately forgot all about meeting Pitzer to catch the shuttle bus, and caught it all by myself. Fortunately we somehow bumped into each other on the streets of Toronto while both hunting the Toronto Reference Library--both of us like to get our bearings before we get too adventurey. We had lunch at some Italian place, where we struck up an incredible conversation with two older ladies, both Toronto residents, although one was a native Kiwi ("not New Zealander," she told me) and the other British. We pretty much talked to them for two solid hours, and it was a great relaxed re-intro to the city for us. THEY WERE SO NICE! I wish I could meet them in every city I travel to.
Good God I'm going into too much detail here. It's still Friday afternoon. I'll try to speed it up.
After meeting up at The Beguiling, which is about a well-stocked store as you could hope for if you're into comics, although their superhero section looked kinda anemic. I say "looked"--I didn't really. Superhero comics are not my bag either, Beguiling! Oh crap I wrote that first sentence all wrong. Man that LOST finale was so good it's addled my grammar. At any rate, after dinner we met Pope and Jimmy and Mike Dawson and Awesome Marcus Ninja writer and artist Joel Buxton and Shane Heron and had some brewskis down the street. I have to say that one of the only low points of the weekend was not getting to see Paul more--this was really the only time we got to hang out. Oh wait there was a party. But we never got to really get down like in the old days. Plenty of time on the next go-round, but I like that dude.
But who I DID get to spend a lot of time with was Scott Campbell, who me and Mike met up with and headed over to a party at Ryan North's house with. L'party (that's how they say party in Canada) was pretty chill, and Ryan's house is perfect. I met a ton of people there, including Kate Beaton, who I struggled to not embarass myself in front of all weekend, and Chip Zdarsky, who I'm pretty sure I didn't embarass myself in front of. Oh! And also Roberta Carraro, which was a real blast from the past--not only a blast, but she and Chip were married? ZAP! Color me mystified! ***NOTE: while hunting the link for Ryan North, I read my first ever (maybe) Dinosaur Comic. And I LOL-ed!
Okay but let's get to the convention already. But should I call it a convention? What's the difference? I'm not sure, but let's say "festival" instead, which is I think how organizer Christopher Butcher would prefer it. Regardless of what you call it:
What are you kidding me? Totally packed. The Toronto Reference Library is the coolest library of all time, five floors wrapped around a big courtyardy-atriumy thing. Plus I kept imagining Knives Chau and Ramona Flowers jumping around in a great big battle above the convention festival. I had the best seat in the place too--with Scott Campbell and Graham Annable on one side, and Joe Lambert, Chuck McBuck, and Alexis Frederick-Frost on the other; plus a little Alec Longstreth/Greg Means for dessert. AND a little scenic pool behind us, complete with babbling brook sound effects! I'm pretty sure that's the difference between a convention and a festival. Vive La Difference!
One thing TCAF did NOT have going for it was people wanting to give me money, at least not on the first day. The show opened at ten, but I don't think I sold my first book until after noon. Although I did give a lot away to buddies I knew or people whose work I just plain loved. I told myself I would be really tough and make everyone pay, but when they pulled their money out I just couldn't take it. Ray Fenwick walked up and I practically threw one at him--I love that dude. He actually put me at ease in a weird way--I have a hard time meeting people whose stuff I like sometimes, but he started talking so much smack that I was like "okay I know how to do this" and relaxed and smacked back. I was so relieved too--I'm not very good at these quick con interactions, despite my work and kind of ridiculous exposure to bigtime comics types.
Oh man it's almost midnight. Okay I'd better wrap up this first part. Tomorrow: panel with Frank Santoro, macking on pretty girls, and wild karaoke! See all the pictures over in my Flickr set!
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