{"id":5647,"date":"2010-06-23T18:50:31","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T23:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=5647"},"modified":"2010-06-23T18:50:31","modified_gmt":"2010-06-23T23:50:31","slug":"tcaf-2010-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=5647","title":{"rendered":"TCAF 2010 Wrap-Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The 2010 Toronto Comic Arts Festival Wrap-Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Friends!<\/p>\n

My name is Christopher Butcher, and I\u2019m the co-founder and\u00a0festival director of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF)! As you might\u00a0know, TCAF is dedicated to celebrating comics and graphic novels and their\u00a0creators, with a specific focus on all of the great comics that Canadian\u00a0creators have to offer. <\/strong>I had the pleasure of presiding over our fifth\u00a0festival last month, and I\u2019m pleased to report it was our most-successful and\u00a0best-attended yet. Perhaps the best example of this is that TCAF was the number\u00a03 trending topic on Twitter in Canada for much of the Sunday of the show, even\u00a0beating out Canadian supercrush Justin Beiber<\/em>. It\u2019s a heartening example of\u00a0how many people TCAF speaks to, and to their affection for the event.<\/p>\n

Rather than send out a big PR, and in keeping with our\u00a0tradition, on behalf of the staff and executive of TCAF — and whom I thank for\u00a0their hard work and dedication — I’m sending out the following informal note\u00a0talking about TCAF 2010 and announcing exciting plans for the future.<\/p>\n

Thanks For All Of The Support!<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

We\u2019d like to thank our partners and presenting sponsors\u00a0Toronto Public Library for supporting, promoting, and hosting TCAF 2010 at\u00a0their fantastic flagship location, Toronto Reference Library. By incorporating\u00a0the gorgeous new Bram & Bluma Appel Salon into the TCAF floorplan we were\u00a0able to comfortably more-than-double our footprint for 2010, expanding to more\u00a0than 200 exhibitors and honoured guests, and dozens of comics-related readings\u00a0and symposiums. The increased space allowed us to easily accommodate a great\u00a0increase in public attendance — a record high 12,000 TCAF-specific\u00a0attendees visited the Festival over the weekend (a 10% increase over 2009)! <\/strong>2010 marks TCAF\u2019s second year of partnership with TPL, and it\u2019s a partnership\u00a0that reinforces that TCAF is a not-for-profit event<\/strong>. We\u2019ve always\u00a0maintained that making TCAF free removes a key obstacle – finances – for anyone\u00a0who might be interested in the comics medium, and TPL continues to be a\u00a0wonderful partner in that goal.<\/p>\n

Of course there\u2019s no Festival without great creators and\u00a0works to celebrate, and so we\u2019d like to thank all of the wonderful cartoonists,\u00a0publishers, writers, artists, and other agencies that took the time to exhibit\u00a0and present at TCAF 2010, it made for a truly diverse and excellent look at the\u00a0medium of comics, touching on every corner of the medium. Special thanks to\u00a0featured guests Daniel Clowes, Roger Langridge, Jeff Lemire, Paul Pope, Dash\u00a0Shaw, James Sturm, Charles Vess and Jim Woodring<\/strong>, all of whom chose to\u00a0premiere their wonderful new projects with TCAF, and for participating in\u00a0panels and workshops and presentations and general support.<\/p>\n

About The Festival\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

TCAF tried a number of new initiatives this year that used\u00a0Toronto Reference Library in new and unique ways, and we found them to be\u00a0generally quite successful; our Publisher\u2019s Pavilion was significantly\u00a0cooler than last year, our Sunday kids area was packed all day, and the new\u00a0Webcomics Pavilion was busy all weekend!<\/strong> Of particular note were our art\u00a0installations. The biggest and boldest installation from Toronto art collective\u00a0Trio Magnus (Clayton Hanmer, Aaron Leighton, and Steve Wilson) was fantastic,\u00a0featuring a massive installation, live drawing, and a unique and vibrant\u00a0set-up! Canadian webcomics collective Transmission-X transformed a learning\u00a0centre into something unique and fun, and the fine folks at indie-lit magazine\u00a0Broken Pencil and artist group WOWEE ZONK teamed up to create \u201cThe Small Press\u00a0Schooner,\u201d a rotating assemblage of fantastic non- and nominally-narrative\u00a0artists, producing unique visual works over the course of the weekend. It was a\u00a0great space with a great vibe and Chris Kuzma, Patrick Kyle, and Ginette\u00a0LaPalme deserve big thanks for their hard work making it look so good.<\/p>\n

At TCAF we\u2019ve definitely strived to integrate ourselves into\u00a0the rich fabric of cultural events and exhibitions that happen around Toronto, and a big part of that has been the support of the local and national media that\u00a0help to draw out comics aficionados and newcomers from all corners. Again this\u00a0year, the Arts & Life section of the National Post newspaper went above <\/strong>and beyond in their coverage of TCAF, running over a hundred Q&As with TCAF <\/strong>exhibitors and cartoonists in addition to numerous feature articles\u2014the kind of <\/strong>coverage they reserve for massive events like NXNE and The International <\/strong>Festival of Authors<\/strong>. Our 2010 lead media sponsor Eye Weekly ran a cover\u00a0story and many other pages of coverage on the 2010 festival and guest Daniel\u00a0Clowes, and cross-town rivals NOW Magazine got in on the act with a cover\u00a0feature on TCAF-debut graphic novel KENK. We also received fantastic coverage\u00a0from the CBC, Toronto Star, Torontoist, BlogTO, Publishers Weekly, Quill\u00a0&Quire, Sequential, The Walrus, Comics Reporter, RGB Filter, Open Books\u00a0Toronto, plus dozens of blogs, thousands of tweets, and a general increased\u00a0awareness of what we do and why we do it was the end result. Thank you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We Couldn\u2019t Have Done It Without\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Finally, we\u2019d like to thank some of the organizations and\u00a0individuals who worked to make TCAF 2010 such an unprecedented success:<\/p>\n