Reminder: Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 8th and 9th
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is a celebration of comics and graphic novels—and their creators—that takes place annually in Toronto, Canada. The next TCAF is happening Saturday May 8th, 9am-5pm, and Sunday May 9th, 11am-5pm, 2010, at Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, and it’s FREE TO ATTEND!
The 2010 Festival will feature over 200 comics authors and artists, including including Daniel Clowes (Wilson, Eightball, Ghost World), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth), Paul Pope (Wednesday Comics), Dash Shaw (Body World), James Sturm (Golem’s Mighty Swing, Market Day), Charles Vess (Stardust, Blueberry Girl, Instructions), and Jim Woodring (Frank). Other special installations include The Webcomics Pavilion featuring Kate Beaton, Jeph Jacques, and Ryan North, The Toronto Small Press Schooner (presented by Broken Pencil and Wowee Zonk!), The Publishers Pavilion, and more than two-dozen creators from outside of North America!
For more information on TCAF and related events, please visit http://www.torontocomics.com.
– Christopher
How’s Chris?
Chris is good, but busy.
We launched the TCAF website last week, and I think we finally have all of the bugs worked out and the little changes I wanted made, made. We haven’t really done any official PR yet, letting people discover it on their own through word of mouth, but I imagine that’ll change next week some time. I have one really big meeting tomorrow, and then one ridiculously big meeting on Friday morning, so work time and free time is kind of eaten up by that.
In addition to being angry enough to throw a couple of finger-pointy blog entries up, I decided to forgo 5 or 6 hours sleep this week to write a review for Manga.About.Com, on my favourite release of 2010 (to date), not simple by Natsume Ono. Go check it out. It was interesting because About.com has very strict guidelines about format and length, and it’s the exact opposite of my experiences writing here at the blog… or literally anywhere I’ve freelanced. I’m going to try to keep writing reviews for the site, because I think a few harsh formating choices will make me a better writer. Thanks to Manga.About.Com Guide Deb Aoki for the opportunity.
As for Manga Milestones… #9 is International Manga, probably as typified by Yen Plus #1/Night School by Svetlana Chmakova. I can’t decide how much I want to write about this. I could literally write 2 or 3 thousand words ripping Tokyopop and ADV new assholes, but I’m not entirely sure there’s enough of a point to it. I’ve been going back and forth in my head for a few weeks, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be too busy to write it, but manga influenced comics from Korea and North America were utterly shit-on, 2000-2008. I wonder if dredging up every single way that happened is worthwhile, when the future is so much brighter for all involved now? Still working on it in my head.
#10 is still a secret though.
– Chris @ The Beguiling
So
The TCAF 2010 site is up. A proper PR will go out a little bit later today, but I figured I’d ping everyone first thing in the morning. http://torontocomics.com.
Now it is 5:39am and I am going to go to bed.
– Christopher
TCAF 2010 Poster by Daniel Clowes
– Chris
TCAF Posters 2003-2009
While the TCAF site is being overhauled I didn’t have a handy archive of our Festival posters anywhere, so I’m going to post them here. Gallery below, full-size versions behind the cut.
Meanwhile, in the Hall of Justice!
Just a quick reminder that the deadline to apply to exhibit at The 2010 Toronto Comic Arts Festival is this Sunday, November 15th. If you or a talented comics person you know might want to exhibit, get your application in at http://torontocomics.com a.s.a.p.!
– Christopher
In Stores Weds Oct 28: Key Moments from the History of Comics
So the orders came in and they were very good, basically cleaning us out of all of our remaining copies (we had a thousand copy print-run on this one). It looks like, surprisingly enough, Francois Ayroles’ Key Moments from the History of Comics is a success. Thanks to all of the great retailers out there who ordered and stocked copies for their stores, and have made this book available to readers and fans.
I sincerely hope that anyone who’s been curious about our adorable little chapter book will go and visit their local comic retailer this Wednesday to pick up a copy. Thanks again to D&Q for soliciting the book for us, and to M. Ayroles for allowing it to be published in English.
For those of you that had missed the earlier blog postings, Key Moments is a book that The Beguiling published to coincide with French comics creator Francois Ayroles’ trip to Canada this past May, as a Guest of Honour of The Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It’s a collection of wry gag cartoons about the inception of the comic industry and the beginnings of various creators’ careers, from Eisner to Ware to Schultz to Herge. It rewards readers with broad tastes 🙂
Here’s a gag from the book, and if it gives you a chuckle make sure to look for Key Moments at your local shop this week.
😉
Best,
– Christopher
Tatsumi Interviewed
Over at Comics Comics, they’ve printed an interview with Yoshihiro Tatsumi conducted at the 2009 Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It’s by one of our customers (and a freelance writer/interviewer) named Chris Randle, and it’s really good. Randle’s got a deeper interest in comics in general and Tatsumi’s work in particular than many interviewers I’ve read, and as such I think he manages to get a little more out of Tatsumi about his life and work.
Long story short, it’s a good one. Go check it out: http://comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com/2009/10/tatsumi-in-toronto.html
– Chris
