All Eyes Drift Up North: TCAF This Weekend

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is being held this weekend in and around the big reference library and nearby Marriott. They were announcing guests as late as last week and I'm not sure they've announced all of their programming even yet -- that's always the way they've played it up there, though, and it seems to work for them. That one has settled into places as one of the four or five big books of Spring and the Spring event for art and alt-comics. Their guest list is sublime. I would have killed to have met Killoffer and Hunt Emerson, but every single artists there could hold my attention for two to three hours at a time.

I don't have a ton of tips for this show, but I have a few.

If you're in the US, get your initial money at your bank rather than at an ATM or, god forbid, a money exchange. That's your best value, and every major bank will let you order some foreign currency at no charge -- at least every major bank I've used. Remember that your bank will likely accept back paper currency but not the $1 and $2 coins that Canadians love to saddle you with (and should). Make those last few coins your last couple of tips, or if you're using Pearson buy a meal at the airport.

Too late for this tip now, but I always suggest flying Porter. It used to be because it was much cheaper. Now it's still a little bit cheaper but it's way easier to get from the island where the little airport is to the neighborhood where the show is taking place than it is coming to that neighborhood from Pearson. If you took my advice there, you can take a cab from the airport to say the Marriott for about $22 including tax. Look around on the shuttle; there's likely someone with whom you can share that cab. One thing I didn't know until last year is that a shuttle bus will take you to subway system, which I've found really easy to negotiate. So you can get up there for about $3 or something, it's ridiculous.

This is the show that put Airbnb on the comics show map. Emerald City and the New York shows are a couple of the others that see a lot of business go through that service. Toronto's a good show for this because of the ease of the subways if one is nearby and the laidback energy of the show doesn't make heading back to a decently far-away room like some sort of horrible thing that's happening to you. I don't use this service, I stay at the Marriott when I go, mostly for those sweet, sweet points.

TCAF has really, really strong evening events that I don't think people use with a passion to match their quality. There are shows where evening events are to be avoided, but this isn't one of them. Hopefully you'll find one or two of interest. I always do the Doug Wright Awards for coverage's sake although that show is certainly at a manageable length for anyone with even a glimmer of comics interest.

As far as informal stuff goes, the hotel bars kind of blow so people tend to drift to a variety of places. The bar across the street from the Marriott I think is gone, which is too bad -- that was a nice place for the olds. The Pilot on Cumberland has been a traditional place for the youngs and for older people to send one of their number in before moving somewhere else. I think I've had late-night drinks at Burg's on the Bloor/Yonge corner when that was Burgundy's and now that one's moved down the street? Either/Both seem like a place where you can get a beer in a short walk from what is likely your hotel. The last couple of years I used a place on Charles called 7 West Cafe for post-drinking late-nights and a couple of breakfasts -- that's close without being a constant parade of comics people. I'm afraid I can't help you more than that, though. It's a good show to go with the flow.

I'd go about 30 minutes after opening at the earliest -- it gets a little jammed up right at first. The show floor is amazing; it's a great buying show, with lots of alt- and art-comics people breaking out a winter's worth of comics, prints and art. Make sure you do all of it. There was a windows area I actually just missed for a couple of years, and TCAF will stick people into the back and side rooms. One person I knew didn't realize there was like 80 people upstairs. Really scout out what's there. Kevin Huizenga last year was selling cheap original art!



Food. There's a small market in the same building as the Marriott. Lunch is pretty solid right around the library, just the walk in off the street places. There's nothing special, but that sort of makes it easier, too: you can pick up a burrito and not have to worry you missed a sublime burrito up the way. Dinner I always recommend grabbing two or three friends and hightailing it via the subway to a destination restaurant, perhaps in Chinatown or over by The Beguiling. And yes, you need to see the Beguiling at some point, if you're not doing an evening program there. I did that with brunch one year, over in that neighborhood, and it worked out great.

The programming is good as a break from the show -- note that some of it is a far enough walk to be 15 minutes on each side. The programming last year went right up to show close, which caught some people I was with by surprise, so make sure you plan for that. The rooms are small, so if you're hoping to see someone, you'll get to see them up close and personal. I prefer spotlights over themed panels at this point, but that's just me. Go to anything Anne Ishii does.

The afterparty last year got great reviews from my fellow olds from Peter Birkemoe's effort to diversify the space so that young people could dance and old people could sit around and complain about young people. Don't be afraid to ask around for that. If you're not supposed to go, tell them you need to cover it for Comics Reporter.

Mostly: have fun. That's a good energy show because people are buying and cartoonists feel less horrible about themselves when people are into buying what they have to offer. Toronto is one of the great cities, The Beguiling is one of the great comic shops, and it's been a long, long winter. Enjoy!

*****



You should buy some comics.

This may be the strongest line-up of debut books across the board I've ever seen for a comics show. The only thing I think might be there that's not list is a collection of Steven Gilbert's Colville, one of the great, lost comics of the 1990s. Gilbert is back now -- he won a recent Doug Wright honor -- and it'll be interesting to rexplore the work that made his comeback anticipated rather than ignored. That's treasure worth hunting down.

The Drawn and Quarterly book will be the book of the show for its size, for its content (I'm one of ten thousand in there, but trust me: you can cut my entry out with a razor blade and the value goes down .0001 percent), and for the central role that Drawn and Quarterly plays at the show and in Canadian comics. Enjoy being at the show where that one makes its debut.

I'm not kidding when I'm saying almost every book on the list is worth checking out if not buying outright without taking a look at the insides. So it's hard for me to pick a few more. SuperMutant Magic Academy strikes me as a potential major-league fun book. Joe Decie is giving this one out until 100 are gone. The Pigeon Press books look good to me: Burns/Killoffer, a graphic novella from short-story oriented Simon Hanselmann and new (officially self-published) Nick Mandaag. Dustin Harbin is a special guest, and people root for that guy and his work. Who doesn't like the Immonens? Who doesn't enjoy Ed Luce? The Pow Pow Press books look intriguing, there's a new Berlin... it's ridiculous. I can't cover all of them. I'm very jealous of those of you at this show with money for comics.

Remember that because of TCAF's giant guest list you can get a lot of these signed, and as always, remember your local comics shop, particularly if they might have ordered some of this stuff for you. The one great thing about that is that there is work and art to buy that has nothing to do with out weekly buying habits, if that's the direction you wish to go.

*****

The only tip that anyone cared to write the site as an add so far -- one person tweeted it at me -- is that the car service facilitator Uber is in full effect up in Toronto and is a way many folks up there save some money. I've yet to use that service, although like most people visiting New York I have some experience with favorite car services and the like.

******


 
posted 12:05 am PST | Permalink
 

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