Showing posts with label TCAF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TCAF. Show all posts

Monday, June 16, 2025

TCAF answers! from Alex Lupp

 by Mike Rhode

A few local cartoonists were selected to attend TCAF in Canada this year - it's a curated show, and not a lottery like SPX is. I think it has invited guests and people who apply to exhibit. I reached out to ask about their experiences. Alex's profile interview is here and when I saw him recently at Fantom Comics, he said new issues of Sand are coming.

How did you get selected for this show? Did you have to apply?

I did have to apply and was selected. TCAF is a curated show, and from what I can tell a lot of thought goes into that decision making process. I also applied last year, and was not selected, but that rejection came with an email explaining their decision. This is relatively rare in my experience. They specifically took the pains to explain that they reviewed my work and would consider me a stronger applicant this year, and encouraged me to apply again. These application processes can often be fairly opaque, so that small touch truly went a long way. 

Was this your first time?

Yes and no. I've been to TCAF many times starting in 2015, but all prior times it was either as a table helper, with maybe one comic on the table, or just attending for fun. Even though this was my fifth TCAF, it was the first where I applied by myself and was accepted. 
 
 Why do you go to TCAF so often? It's got to be a fairly expensive trip from the DC-area....
 
 Initially it was because my partner at the time was accepted to table, and I tagged along to help out & cover the event for my blog at the time (now defunct for years). That fist time I just fell in love with the show & Toronto, so tagged along again in 2017 & 2019. It's really one of the premier shows of its type & size. Finally in 2022 I went for fun, and it was honestly part of what motivated me to return to Sand and finish writing the story. There was a hiatus of six years between the first issue and the second, which was then finished the following year in 2023. After all that, I was fully motivated to be accepted on my own, and so here we are!

How was the experience? How does it compare to SPX or other local cons?

TCAF is always a great time. Comics are frequently a solitary experience, so these periodic pilgrimages we undertake to shows like TCAF are a good reminder that we're not alone on this creative journey. 

TCAF is in many ways very similar to SPX, but with some clear advantages. Whether previously when it was located in the Toronto Reference Library or this year at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, TCAF has always been located fairly centrally in Toronto. It is also free to attend. All of which makes it much easier to attend and makes for a very diverse & receptive audience. It is also much more carefully curated, while the SPX lottery feels very arbitrary. I've only ever tabled at SPX thanks to being able to share a space with friends. I've never won the lottery myself, meanwhile it feels like other creators are there every year. 

That said, I live about five minutes away from SPX, so it will always have a special place in my heart. 
 
 

How were your sales? Did you reach a new audience?

Sales were okay. I reached the minimum amount where they didn't feel bad, but I definitely had higher hopes. It was actually somewhat shocking that I did better at Zenkaikon, a smaller anime show in Lancaster, PA. Some of this might have been due to the general uncertainty of the times, or maybe just that I was located at the back of the smaller room, which may have impacted foot traffic. It also did not help that I was in the room that literally had a waterfall spring from the ceiling. My own table was not damaged, but some were, and from what I understand TCAF intends to refund table fees for those individuals. It is worth noting that this was TCAF's first time in a new space, and clearly that came with some growing pains. 

That said, it's always great to engage with a new audience, and see their excitement for your work. One person in particular returned on the second day to buy all of my comics, after buying & reading one the day before. How can that not feel great? 

How did Canadians react to Americans in light of the current administration's misbehavior to our ally?

People were exceptionally friendly. It was actually impressive how little the current administration's misbehavior actually impacted things. There were some remarks for sure, but all in good jest like people mentioning the Trump/Musk breakup. It was also interesting to note that I did have a couple of expats come by my table, and mention that they specifically left the US due to the volatility of the past several years. You hear people joke about that, but I was surprised to see it manifest. 

Lastly, I did attend a baseball game while I was in Toronto (and specifically as a Nats fan enjoyed seeing the Phillies lose to the Blue Jays), but was genuinely surprised at the amount of people genuinely clapping after the American anthem played. I would have expected either a lack of response, or even booing. 

Saturday, June 14, 2025

TCAF answers! from Richmond's C. A. P. Ward

by Mike Rhode

A few local cartoonists were selected to attend TCAF in Canada this year - it's a curated show, and not a lottery like SPX is. I think it has both invited guests and people who apply to exhibit. I reached out to ask about their experiences and C. A. P. Ward (they/them) of Richmond was suggested by Angela Hsieh as a fellow tabler. They can be reached at artcward.com or @cevarra (Instagram, Bluesky & Twitter)

How did you get selected for this show? Did you have to apply?

I applied earlier this year. The application is similar to other tabling events at this scale, they ask for name/publisher, best contact, if you have debut work, etc. From what I've heard, TCAF accepts independent cartoonists on alternating years to keep fresh work at the show.

Was this your first time?

No, this is my second TCAF, I'd tabled in 2023 as well.

How was the experience? How does it compare to SPX or other local cons?

From my two experiences it's an amazing time. There's a love for comics by participants and attendees that's hard to find in day-to-day life. On the creative side of things, TCAF is a great place to find an audience, collaborators, publishers, and reconnect with other cartoonists. I had multiple people say that they remembered me from a previous TCAF which was very sweet.

There were logistics hiccups (and a water leak), that are likely due to the new venue, but the show staff were very responsive.

I can't speak very well to SPX as I haven't tabled there outside of representing a publisher. The local shows in Richmond, VA have solid attendance considering the smaller metro population but TCAF's size and depth of programming reflects its longer history.

How were your sales? Did you reach a new audience?

My sales were slower than 2023, but absolutely still worth the trip north. Something I appreciate about TCAF's show curation is the mix of self-published, small press, and traditionally published work. Most of my table is self-published comics, but this was my first time with a small-press anthology for sale and people were interested in everything on offer.

How did Canadians react to Americans in light of the current administration's misbehavior to our ally?

It wasn't mentioned often. When it did come up there was a joint commiserating and sense of solidarity. The current border & trade situation just creates difficulties for everyday people.

Thursday, June 12, 2025

TCAF answers! from Angela Hsieh

by Mike Rhode


A few local cartoonists were selected to attend TCAF in Canada this year - it's a curated show, and not a lottery like SPX is. I think it has invited guests and people who apply to exhibit. I reached out to ask about their experiences. Angela's recent interview is here.

How did you get selected for this show? Did you have to apply?

I applied back in January and was accepted at the end of February. The TCAF application was fairly straightforward: they want your portfolio and your bio, and notably, they're interested in what comics work you'll be debuting the year you apply. I believe I was selected this year because I had a graphic novel come out this year, plus I'd never been to TCAF before.

Was this your first time?

First time at TCAF, not to mention first time in Toronto! I went a few days in advance so that I could explore the city, but I tired myself out even before the con began. Unwise? Perhaps. Regrettable? Not in the least. 

How was the experience? How does it compare to SPX or other local cons?

This was my first international con. I tend to stick with local cons and festivals, so this was by far the furthest I've ever traveled for one—and probably the biggest con I've ever tabled at. Imagine SPX times ten. It's frankly overwhelming how much talent is on display. I wish I had more time to walk around and admire all the incredible work.

How were your sales? Did you reach a new audience?

I did pretty well! But because this was my first TCAF, I have no previous experience to compare to. For what it's worth, I heard some people who exhibited in the past say that sales were slower this year compared to previous years. 

I saw a couple of familiar faces, and I met a whole lot of new people. Plus, I finally got to meet some artists I've been mutuals with for years but have never met in person. Definitely one of the highlights. Another highlight: meeting kids and their parents who'd borrowed Lu and Ren's Guide to Geozoology from the library and stopped by my table to tell me how much they loved reading it. 🥺


How did Canadians react to Americans in light of the current administration's misbehavior to our ally?

With sympathy, when it came up, which it rarely did. People generally assumed I was Canadian, and when they found out I wasn't, the most frequent response was a nod of commiseration before we went back to the thing we showed up for: comics. 



Wednesday, June 11, 2025

TCAF answers! from Sierra Barnes

by Mike Rhode 

A few local cartoonists were selected to attend TCAF in Canada this year - it's a curated show, and not a lottery like SPX is. I think it has invited guests and people who apply to exhibit. I reached out to ask about their experiences. Here's Sierra Barnes' thoughts on it. Her 2020 interview can be read first here for background. And here's a brief 2022 interview about Lower Your Sights, a Ukrainian benefit anthology that I didn't know she had work in.

How did you get selected for this show? Did you have to apply?

This year was my 6th year applying for TCAF and the first year I got in! I'm not sure if it's a lottery or not, but I do know it's not uncommon to take a couple of years to get in and a ton of people apply every year.

So, this was this your first time?

Yes!

How was the experience? How does it compare to SPX or other local cons?

I had a fantastic time! The venue was different this year than in years past, it used to be held at the reference library in downtown Toronto but this year was at the Mattamy Athletic Center. There were two floors of comics--exhibitors were split between the hockey rink on the third floor, and the basketball court on the second floor. I was on the basketball court. The hockey rink had a majority of the exhibitors and I think all of the publishers, so if you wanted to go do a lap of the floor on a quick break, it was a bit of a pain to get all the way up and over unless you were already at the hockey rink.

The big drama was on Saturday afternoon, when a pipe broke in the ceiling of the basketball court and water spilled onto the con floor. They managed to move the tables out of the way, but it was a pretty dramatic moment. I wasn't able to talk to anyone affected, but I could see it dripping from my table. I tried to get a picture but I don't know if you can really see it that well.

Biggest frustrations was the inability to take card--Square doesn't work out of country, and while the option existed for international exhibitors to rent Square readers from TCAF, the organizers recommended for first-time exhibitors to just use Paypal with a QR code. Most people didn't have Paypal, and when they did the app was a pain to use, so there was a lot of standing around frowning at phones involved. Fortunately word spread pretty quickly, and most people had cash by Saturday afternoon. If I can get in again, I'm definitely springing for the reader.

Getting Kate Beaton to sign my copy of Ducks was definitely a highlight. Lots of incredible artists were there, and I got to meet some Canadian artists I had been online friends with for a long time in-person and that's always a magical moment.

How were your sales? Did you reach a new audience?

My sales were great! I think with the conversion it was about equal to my SPX sales, maybe a little less, but I got to talk to all new people and meet some really incredible cartoonists.

How did Canadians react to Americans in light of the current administration's misbehavior to our ally?

At least in my experience, people seemed pretty understanding and sympathetic to us Amis. I think the understanding was there that the Americans coming to TCAF were not in support of the regime (if there were any, I certainly didn't see them!). Lots of people were curious about what it was like or what we thought about the news, especially when I told people that I was living outside of DC. I hadn't been keeping up with the news while traveling so I learned about some US news from the visitors!

Friday, September 22, 2017

An SPX Interview with UK's Avery Hill Publishing


by Mike Rhode

Tillie Walden was a guest at SPX this year for her autobiography Spinning out now from First Second. I was surprised to be told that she had already published three works with a British publisher and that Avery Hill Publishing was at the con. On their website, they have a very clever mission statement: "Avery Hill is a publishing company based in South London that helps aspiring creators reach their potential and is a home to the geniuses that the mainstream has yet to recognise. Our canon includes psychogeographical mappings, drunk 19th century scientists,time-travelling beagles, minimalist musings, kids running amok in dance tents, a giant cat called Nemo and much more." I went over and met owners Ricky Miller and David White, and they agreed to an email interview.

How long has Avery Hill been publishing?

We started self-publishing our own zines about six years ago. They were mainly filled with our own work and contributions by friends. Then we realised that everyone else we were publishing were far better than us and so we decided just to put out work by them. It kind of escalated from there, but some of the people from the early days, such as Tim Bird who does the Grey Area series for us, are still with us now.

Where are you based?

We’re based in London in the UK. We tend to get a bit provincial and narrow it down to South London as there’s a faux rivalry between north and south London, in the same way you get in a lot of cities. We both grew up around this area, we’ve know each other since we were eleven and Avery Hill is an actual place quite nearby that we used to go to when we were young. The Avery Hill logo is actually based on a photo of Ricky climbing over the fence into Avery Hill when we were 18.

How many artists do you publish? Just cartoonists?

Over the years we’ve published roughly 25 creators, some multiple times. We mainly do comics, but we’ve also put out a couple of books of illustrations, including Internal Wilderness by Claire Scully, which is a series of images of imagined landscapes and A Is For Amos by Ukranian illustrator Daria Hlazatova, which is an A to Z of illustrations of her favourite musicians. In the UK a lot of the comics creators we work with come form an illustration background rather than a comics/cartooning background, so it’s quite a fluid thing to move from comics to also illustrating things like children’s books and magazine editorial work.

What are your individual backgrounds?

We both grew up within about a mile of each other in the deep, dark, working class suburbs of South East London. We went to school together and are still very close friends with some other people from that time. We shared a common interest in music, mainly Britpop at the time and comics. After university we briefly formed a band, called The Do-Nothing Kings with some other friends and then when we realized we weren’t very good we started doing podcasts and music reviews. Dave then decided to put out a zine, which Ricky contributed a comic to called Metroland (which we still put out and that brings you up to date.

Favorite cartoonists, or influences, living or dead?

One of the first books that we both got into was Cerebus by Dave Sim. Whilst we find his politics and social attitudes problematic to say the least - Google him if you don’t know the story - the level of artistry in those books by him and his background artist, Gerhard, plus his self-publishing ethos were massively influential. We’d also both consider From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell to be one of the greatest works of art in any form. In recent times anything by Darwyn Cooke or the Morrison & Quietly partnership are essential. More modern creators from around our scene would be people like Jillian Tamaki, Jason, Eleanor Davis and Isabel Greenberg.

Was this your first American con?

Yes, this was our first con in the US. We’ve mainly only done shows in the UK, apart from going to the Toronto Comics Art Festival a couple of times and one in Denmark. We’d definitely like to do more of them and are seriously considering shows in Boston and New York next year.

Why SPX?

We met the Executive Director of SPX, Warren Bernard, at the Toronto Comics Art Festival last year when we were there with our creator Tillie Walden. Warren took a lot of interest in our work and said that he’d love for us to go to SPX this year and that he’d help us out with some of our expenses. We were blown away by the generosity of that and of course accepted. We’d tried to get in to SPX in the lottery prior to that and we also had a couple of Tillie’s books nominated in the Ignatz awards last year (which she won) so we were desperate to make it there. We’d heard such great things about SPX, it’s pretty famous in the UK.

What did you think of it?

We absolutely loved it. The quality of the exhibitors was incredibly high and there were lots of great talks and guests. The overall vibe was just lovely as well, such a great feeling of community and diversity. Little touches, like having free coffee in the morning really make a difference as well. When you do a lot of shows you definitely notice that kind of thing. Having all of the exhibitors in the same room is another great thing as often if people are in different rooms then it can inevitably lead to some feeling they are in an area with less footfall.

How were your sales?

Sales were great, it was busy all weekend. We sold nearly everything that we shipped over, which meant that we didn’t have too much to have to carry back! It definitely stands comparison with some of our best ever events in that regard.

How do you decide what or whom to publish?

Essentially we just publish books that we like. Which doesn’t really tell you very much but it’s how it is. When we started Avery Hill we had no greater aspiration than to end up with a shelf of books that wouldn’t exist had it not been for us. We run this company in our spare time, we both have day jobs, so we have to keep it interesting for us and that means basing what we want to publish more on our personal choice than it does on a commercial decision. One of us will find a creator and then we’ll both discuss whether or not to approach them. If we do then we ask the creator what they’d like to do and more often than not we agree to do whatever it is they’re most interested in doing. Our only real limitation is time, so that dictates how many projects we can take on, but beyond that it really is just a case of trying to find books and creators that we’re passionate about. Luckily, it also often pays off.

How did you become Tillie Walden's first publisher given that she's an American educated in Texas and Vermont?

We first discovered Tillie’s work on Twitter when she posted a couple of images that someone retweeted. We got in touch with her to see if she’d be interested in doing a book and got a reply back from her saying she was too busy with school as she was only 17. This stunned us as the level of her work was already very high and we’d assumed she was much older. We gave it another six months and then got back in touch with her when she had finished school and had enrolled in the Center For Cartoon Studies in Vermont. This time she agreed to put a pitch together for us, which turned out to be her first graphic novel, The End of Summer. We loved working together and so quickly moved on to do another two books with her, all before she turned 19! She’s a great friend of ours and often comes to shows with us. The UK has a long tradition of discovering great US creators before their own country does, so we refer to Tillie as being our Jimi Hendrix.

Does your company have an overall aesthetic?

People often say to us that although we have a very wide range of different kinds of books, they can still see an Avery Hill aesthetic unifying them into a cohesive line. If there is one then it’s probably the midpoint between both of our tastes, plus the strong emphasis that we both put on quality writing. But really, an Avery Hill book could be anything, as long as we both like it.

Did you get to spend any time in Washington?

Yes we got out here early in order to do some sightseeing. It’s such a lovely city! We did the usual touristy things of the Lincoln Memorial/Washington Monument and the National Gallery of Art, of which the Impressionist section was a big highlight! Then on Friday evening we went to see The Nationals vs The Dodgers, which was great fun. We definitely hope to come back some day soon!