Caity Comic...Saturday?

Photos from @torontocomics 2016 including…

Ahhh I meant to type this up and post much earlier but all the hubbub of life and work and getting ready for Anime North meant the time got away from me!

So as you know May 14-15 was TCAF: aka. the Canadian comics mecca, a glorious weekend of comics!!

Above photos: my table, a comparison of the traffic viewed from the second floor, awesome things I bought/traded, and my super excitement at the artist Poutineville get together Sunday night when I learned I could check off four types of cheese without increasing the base price of the build-your-own-poutine.

The photo of my treasures is as follows:

24 by 7 collection of 24 hour comics from LICAF (I finished reading this - they’re really good and so inspiring)

Home anthology by @bopusquad plus a bonus handmade fabric whale pin (these artists were soooo sweet!)

super adorbs Reginald Barkley instruction manual by @torymaybe

intriguing Mezmer by @jonchad - the cover even has a diecut diamond pattern, and the dialogue is fascinating!

Gorgeously illustrated Sashimi and Welcome to China Town by Fei Fei Ruan

The first must-get I had on my list, @chirault vol 2 by @varethane!

(I was also hoping to get Guardians of the Louvre by Jiro Taniguchi but it was sold out by the time I got my butt to the table… alas!)

I check this event out every year because it's so inspiring, but the previous (first) time I tabled was in 2012 when I only had about 4 books. This year I had, uh, a lot more. It went really well! I actually sold out of the copies of Tokyo Daze and Tiles of Toronto I had brought on Sat, and had to restock for Sun (good thing it's close enough that it's super easy to commute!). And my copies of This Tastes Funny are officially sooooold out! (You can still get them from the other @suddenlysentai artists at events!)

I was in between @luckyjuicepress​ and @bopusquad​, who are such incredibly lovely people. It's always such a treat and a pleasure to get to be table neighbours with such fun and friendly artists! I saw so many familiar faces, including new friends made at recent events, and blasts from the past I totally didn't expect to see! It was really quite nostalgic! I also got to meet lots of new people and even have inquiries about Now Recharging, so that was really wonderful ^///////^

It's hard to pick a favourite moment or conversation because there were so many great interactions. I gotta say that talking to people about Now Recharging and hearing their feedback about the comic, not to mention cooing over the little charm wipers, was really really nice (p/// w /// q ) THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT! I'm going to work really hard on sticking to my pages outpput schedule and finishing this chapter!! TCAF has grown so much in the last few years, it's incredibly exciting to watch it expand. There were more exhibitors on the second floor, and a third floor was added. There was even a separate venue, the Masonic Temple, with more exhibitors and live drawing! I wish I could have checked it out but it was too far - @atorier was super awesome in helping me watch my table so I could go shop, and my lovely neighbours Bopu Squad helped baby sit too when I had to go to the bathroom or run to get my last purchases, but I didn't want to get too far away on foot. If they keep that expanded space next year, I look forward to checking it out!

Kudos as always to the incredible team behind the event, staff and volunteers. I can only begin to imagine the amount of labour and planning that goes into making something like this run so smoothly year after year, plus we had the worries about the library strike heading into the beginning of the month (so glad the workers were able to get a deal hashed out! Our library system is really awesome and we're super lucky as a city to have access to all the services they provide).

It’s been a while since I posted one of these, huh!? My trip to TCAF was great. I hope you like this little comic about it.

!!SPRING 2016 COMIC TOUR RECAP!! 

Dirty Diamonds ( @dirtydiamondscomic ) has been running wild this spring and spreading the word about lady-made comics wherever we go!

Here is a quick blow-by-blow of all the places we’ve been celebrating our always-inspiring comic-making chickies (with a special shout out to Natalie Riess ( @gearfish ) who I photographed twice without realizing it!):

- MOCCAFest (@moccafestnyc) (including our annual comic-lady smooch fest at @drinkanddrawlikealady)

- a panel on ‘Real Geek Girls: Celebrating Women in Fandom and Fiction’ at Camden Comic Con (@camdencomiccon) 

- a panel on ‘Diversity in Comics’ at the MontCo Comic Fest (@MontCoComicFest) 

- Atomic City Comics’ AtomiCon (@atomiccitycomics) as part of the Philadelphia South Street Festival

- Spreading love in the international sense at TCAF (@torontocomics) 

- and bring treated like the comics-royalty we are at the Haverford Kids Comic Fest (http://www.hkcfest.org/)

WHEW!  WHAT A TRIP!

Now we’re back on our couches in Philly, catching up with our local comic peeps and gearing up for Dirty Diamonds Issue 7: IMAGINATION (premiering at SPX ( @spx ) this September!)!! 

Thank you all for visiting us at tcaf this year <3 we hope that you all had a wonderful time!

If you missed us at the event, we have HUMAN PLANTATION, Do it For You, and LIFE AS A KRILL up on our webstore now~

We’ve updated our events/projects/links list on the side bar. 

13 Panels from TCAF in audio and the heartbreaking Doug Wright Awards

Jamie Coville has, as always, recorded the best of the panels from TCAF, including a shocking number in which I participated. YOU can hear the audio of the panels here and the DWAs here. The DWAs are notable for the extraordinary remembrance that Seth offered or Dawwyn Cooke and also the induction of James Simpkins into the Giants of the NOrth hall of fame and Jeet Heer’s trbute to Alvin…