It’s that time again, when we pay a visit to our neighbors to the north for this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival! So very excited for this year’s show, which includes several very exciting special guests, promising panels, and mouth-watering debut books! It’s all happening at Booth #150 on the first floor! Read on for details!
THE BASICS:
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2019 — Free to Attend!
Main Exhibition: Saturday May 11 and Sunday May 12
Primary Venue: Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, Toronto
Big news! In an attempt to streamline our sale process at the show, we will now be accepting digital payments via PayPal on the show floor!
GUESTS:
We’re thrilled to have an selection of top-notch international cartooning talent signing with us at this year’s show.
The Norwegian cartoonist Jason combines a poker-faced minimalist anthropomorphic style with a nod to the clear-line ethos of Hergé. As he has shown in a series of acclaimed graphic novels, this seemingly limited approach has proven amazingly versatile, allowing Jason to create gag comedy, romantic melodramas, dramas, and genuine thrillers — often without even the benefit of words, and using a stylishly minimalist color palette to boot. Jason will be debuting his newest collection, O Josephine! at this year’s show.
Ezra Claytan Daniels is the author of the Eisner Award-nominated Upgrade Soul and the winner of the 2017 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics. His newest book is BTTM FDRS, with Ben Passmore.
Ben Passmore is the author of the ongoing comic book series Daygloayhole, as well as the Eisner Award-nominated and Ignatz Award-winning comic collection Your Black Friend. He lives in Philadelphia. His newest book is BTTM FDRS, with Ezra Claytan Daniels.
M. Dean is a cartoonist and illustrator originally from the west coast of Florida, where she attended Ringling College of Art and Design. She is the inaugural recipient of the Creators for Creators grant, creator and co-creator respectively of the webcomics The Girl Who Flew Away and Coming Soon: Regents Walk. Her newest books is I Am Young.
Julian Glander is a 3D animator, designer, and illustrator. Mostly self-taught, his work has been featured on Disney, MTV, Adult Swim, and The New York Times. He received the Art Directors Club (ADC) “Young Guns” Award in 2015. In 2016, his animated short film debuted at South by Southwest and GLAS Animation Festival. More recently he debuted his indie game, Art Sqool, and assembled his first print comics collection, 3D Sweeties, out March 2019. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Georgia Webber is a cartoonist living in Toronto, where she is the Comics Editor for carte blanche. She is best known for Dumb, her autobiographical comics series about living with a vocal disability.
Lucy Knisley is a critically acclaimed and award-winning comic creator who specializes in personal confessional comics and travelogues. She lives in Chicago. Her last name is confusing and has a silent K. It’s pronounced kind of like “nigh-slee.” Her books for Fantagraphics include An Age of License and Displacement.
Bill Griffith grew up in Levittown, New York. He attended Pratt Institute and studied painting and graphic arts concurrently with Kim Deitch — they dropped out about the same time. Inspired by Zap, Griffith began making underground comics in 1969 and joined the cartoonists in San Francisco in 1970. Griffith’s famous character Zippy the Pinhead made his initial appearances in early underground comic books, morphing into a syndicated weekly strip in 1976 and then a nationally-syndicated daily strip a decade later.
SIGNING SCHEDULE:
SATURDAY 5/11/19:
11am-12pm: Georgia Webber & M. Dean
12pm-1pm: Jason
1pm-2pm: Jason & Lucy Knisley
3-4pm: Bill Griffith
4-5pm: Ben Passmore & Ezra Claytan Daniels
SUNDAY 5/12/19:
12pm-1pm: Jason & Julian Glander
1-2pm: Lucy Knisley
3pm-4pm: Georgia Webber & M. Dean
4-5pm: Ben Passmore & Ezra Claytan Daniels
PANELS & PROGRAMMING:
SATURDAY 5/11/19
Comics Formalism:
Where artists get their inspiration to explore and experiment with the form. Saturday 10:00 AM – 11:00 AMHinton Learning Theatre
Creators for Creators:
Panel includes M. Dean talking about the C4C grant. Saturday 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM, High Park Ballroom 2 & 3
Serialization
Panel include Anders Nilsen, Hartley Lin, Ben Passmore The benefits and challenges in serializing a comic in issues before the collection. Saturday 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM, Hinton Learning Center
SUNDAY 5/12/19:
Characters of Age
Panel inlcudes Aimée de Jongh, Seth, Ezra Clayton DanielsDiscussion of age, older bodies, and comics obsession with youth. Sunday 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM, Hinton Learning Center
When I Was a Kid: Comics and Early Reading Experiences
Panel inlcudes David Rubín, Jason, M. Dean, Erica HendersonArtists talk about formative comics they loved reading when they were younger. Sunday 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM, Hinton Learning Theatre
BTTM FDRS Spotlight
Panel includes Ben Passmore & Ezra Clayton Daniels discussing their new collaborative graphic novel, BTTM FDRS. Sunday 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM, Summerhill
Alrighty, that’s all for now! We’ll have more details about signing times, booth location, etc. in the days to come! See you there, eh?