TCAF
I went to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend at the Toronto Reference Library! Finally, a non-boring, non-homework reason to go there!
I actually went both yesterday and today LOL NERD ALERT.
My sister and I went with the express purpose of seeing lucylou aka Lucy Knisley of Stop Paying Attention and French Milk fame and beatonna aka Kate Beaton of Hark! A Vagrant!, but I saw tons of interesting booths in the meantime.
I bought all 5 prints (so far) of Lucy Knisley's Harry Potter book illustrations, but my sister and I caught her just before she had to be in a panel, so she asked if it would be okay if she could do it for us afterwards and then invited us to come listen to the panel. Of course we said yes!
It was called "Ask a Freelancer" with Dylan Meconis and Erika Moen and they answered a bunch of questions about being freelance artists and illustrators, like what to do about making a schedule so you don't overwork yourself or slack off too much, the difference between collaboration with friends and working for a friend (basically, avoid working for friends or write a contract if you do decide to do it), making sure any job offer you get specifies when and how you'll be paid and how much you'll charge hourly if any revisions need to be done, whether or not you should go back to retouch an older comic to make it perfect, how you should call yourself a professional artist if you get paid for your work even if it's barely anything (and how you should never call yourself "an aspiring artist"), how to properly turn down offers without burning bridges, how to self-publish, and other stuff like that. It was pretty interesting, even though I'm not an artist myself.
Too bad the entire conference room was BOILING HOT, but when the panel was over, she came out and chatted with us for a bit as she signed all my prints as well as the print my sister bought, which was a bunch of different cheeses. How sweet of her, right?! I'll have to get mine framed sometime so I can hang them up on my wall.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
After that, we went upstairs to find Kate Beaton's table and we walked the whole way around and couldn't find her because there were so many people, it kind of created a wall on one side and then we overheard that the wall of people was actually a lineup to buy stuff from Kate Beaton! WHAT! She is crazy popular. So we got in line, but then one of the official people working TCAF pointed to a guy a couple of spots ahead of us and said he was the last one to get anything signed and the rest would just be buying because Kate had to rush out to a panel discussion of her own and that was kind of a downer, so we decided to come back the next day to see her properly.
When I got home, I was still all excited about meeting Lucy Knisley (OMG SHE IS LIKE A REAL PERSON AND SHE'S NICE AND NOT AWKWARD LIKE ME) and getting those prints and I was looking through the TCAF papers with the list of exhibitors and stuff and I saw Anthony Clark's name and Pendelton Ward! I had actually seen the Adventure Time table, but for some reason it didn't click in my mind that it would actually be Pendelton Ward because... he has a legit TV show... on a station we don't get in Canada... so I didn't think it would be him? IDK WHY I'M SO DUMB. So in a way, it was good that we didn't get to see Kate Beaton on Saturday because this was all giving us more reasons to go back today.
So one of the first things I did today was meet Pendelton Ward and Phil Rynda of Adventure Time! And Phil complimented my Threadless t-shirt! Too bad it's really old because it's not on the website anymore; otherwise, I'd post a picture of it. It's purple and has this pink monster thing design on the front...? idk what it is really, but it's my favourite shirt, so yay. I tried to buy two Adventure Time prints, but they'd all sold out (duh), so they took my email address and they said they'd send me a message when they're ready and they'd sign them for me too :') I'll have to post a picture of them once I get my hands on them because they were very cute too.
I also met Scott C. today (I'd passed his table yesterday, but I didn't talk to him); he's the guy who runs Great Showdowns (and he told me he liked my t-shirt too, lol). I think he'd almost run out of most of his prints and coasters, but I saw him drawing a picture of a dinosaur monster thing for some little boys next to me, which was really cute. He's very nice in person!
Then we went upstairs and searched for the Nedroid comics table, but he had a sign up that said he'd "gone poutinin'" lol, so instead we hunted around for Kate Beaton and finally found her! She'd run out of things to sell though, but luckily I'd brought my copy of Never Learn Anything From History with me and she actually drew a little picture of me inside!
LOOK AT HOW CUTE THIS IS
She was super nice and I was really awkward and too shy to talk to her properly, so I kind of mumbled some crappy small-talk while she drew this for me. idk, it was just so exciting to meet her and I am easily overwhelmed with stuff like this!
Then we walked around for a while longer and I saw Ananth and Yuko who write/draw Johnny Wander and I would have bought one of their books if I hadn't already spent so much money this weekend (and I still had to see Nedroid!)... Alas. I wish I could remember all the artists I saw, but it's kind of a blur right now.
I did finally get to meet Anthony Clark aka nedroidcomics (and I did resist the urge to say "TELL emmycic I LOVE HER EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T KNOW ME SO THAT WOULD BE A WEIRD CONVERSATION LOL NEVER MIND DON'T SAY ANYTHING SORRY D:") and I grabbed the very last copy of Beartato and the Secret of the Mystery and bought a Party Cat poster, both of which he signed, and a Reginald button, which he gave to me for free! Super generous! Also, apparently this was the first time he'd come to TCAF (mine too, but w/e), so I hope he comes back next time.
He asked what I would like drawn inside and I went "REGINALD!"
And he spelled my name right! How nice of him!
SO BASICALLY I NERDED IT UP ALL WEEKEND. It was really fun to be around a bunch of people whose comics I read online. ...Though also kind of weird. I was like "Wait... I am talking about internet things... irl... I don't know if that's allowed."
EDIT: This is the t-shirt I was wearing! Ugh, I wish they would reprint it!
I actually went both yesterday and today LOL NERD ALERT.
My sister and I went with the express purpose of seeing lucylou aka Lucy Knisley of Stop Paying Attention and French Milk fame and beatonna aka Kate Beaton of Hark! A Vagrant!, but I saw tons of interesting booths in the meantime.
I bought all 5 prints (so far) of Lucy Knisley's Harry Potter book illustrations, but my sister and I caught her just before she had to be in a panel, so she asked if it would be okay if she could do it for us afterwards and then invited us to come listen to the panel. Of course we said yes!
It was called "Ask a Freelancer" with Dylan Meconis and Erika Moen and they answered a bunch of questions about being freelance artists and illustrators, like what to do about making a schedule so you don't overwork yourself or slack off too much, the difference between collaboration with friends and working for a friend (basically, avoid working for friends or write a contract if you do decide to do it), making sure any job offer you get specifies when and how you'll be paid and how much you'll charge hourly if any revisions need to be done, whether or not you should go back to retouch an older comic to make it perfect, how you should call yourself a professional artist if you get paid for your work even if it's barely anything (and how you should never call yourself "an aspiring artist"), how to properly turn down offers without burning bridges, how to self-publish, and other stuff like that. It was pretty interesting, even though I'm not an artist myself.
Too bad the entire conference room was BOILING HOT, but when the panel was over, she came out and chatted with us for a bit as she signed all my prints as well as the print my sister bought, which was a bunch of different cheeses. How sweet of her, right?! I'll have to get mine framed sometime so I can hang them up on my wall.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
After that, we went upstairs to find Kate Beaton's table and we walked the whole way around and couldn't find her because there were so many people, it kind of created a wall on one side and then we overheard that the wall of people was actually a lineup to buy stuff from Kate Beaton! WHAT! She is crazy popular. So we got in line, but then one of the official people working TCAF pointed to a guy a couple of spots ahead of us and said he was the last one to get anything signed and the rest would just be buying because Kate had to rush out to a panel discussion of her own and that was kind of a downer, so we decided to come back the next day to see her properly.
When I got home, I was still all excited about meeting Lucy Knisley (OMG SHE IS LIKE A REAL PERSON AND SHE'S NICE AND NOT AWKWARD LIKE ME) and getting those prints and I was looking through the TCAF papers with the list of exhibitors and stuff and I saw Anthony Clark's name and Pendelton Ward! I had actually seen the Adventure Time table, but for some reason it didn't click in my mind that it would actually be Pendelton Ward because... he has a legit TV show... on a station we don't get in Canada... so I didn't think it would be him? IDK WHY I'M SO DUMB. So in a way, it was good that we didn't get to see Kate Beaton on Saturday because this was all giving us more reasons to go back today.
So one of the first things I did today was meet Pendelton Ward and Phil Rynda of Adventure Time! And Phil complimented my Threadless t-shirt! Too bad it's really old because it's not on the website anymore; otherwise, I'd post a picture of it. It's purple and has this pink monster thing design on the front...? idk what it is really, but it's my favourite shirt, so yay. I tried to buy two Adventure Time prints, but they'd all sold out (duh), so they took my email address and they said they'd send me a message when they're ready and they'd sign them for me too :') I'll have to post a picture of them once I get my hands on them because they were very cute too.
I also met Scott C. today (I'd passed his table yesterday, but I didn't talk to him); he's the guy who runs Great Showdowns (and he told me he liked my t-shirt too, lol). I think he'd almost run out of most of his prints and coasters, but I saw him drawing a picture of a dinosaur monster thing for some little boys next to me, which was really cute. He's very nice in person!
Then we went upstairs and searched for the Nedroid comics table, but he had a sign up that said he'd "gone poutinin'" lol, so instead we hunted around for Kate Beaton and finally found her! She'd run out of things to sell though, but luckily I'd brought my copy of Never Learn Anything From History with me and she actually drew a little picture of me inside!
LOOK AT HOW CUTE THIS IS
She was super nice and I was really awkward and too shy to talk to her properly, so I kind of mumbled some crappy small-talk while she drew this for me. idk, it was just so exciting to meet her and I am easily overwhelmed with stuff like this!
Then we walked around for a while longer and I saw Ananth and Yuko who write/draw Johnny Wander and I would have bought one of their books if I hadn't already spent so much money this weekend (and I still had to see Nedroid!)... Alas. I wish I could remember all the artists I saw, but it's kind of a blur right now.
I did finally get to meet Anthony Clark aka nedroidcomics (and I did resist the urge to say "TELL emmycic I LOVE HER EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T KNOW ME SO THAT WOULD BE A WEIRD CONVERSATION LOL NEVER MIND DON'T SAY ANYTHING SORRY D:") and I grabbed the very last copy of Beartato and the Secret of the Mystery and bought a Party Cat poster, both of which he signed, and a Reginald button, which he gave to me for free! Super generous! Also, apparently this was the first time he'd come to TCAF (mine too, but w/e), so I hope he comes back next time.
He asked what I would like drawn inside and I went "REGINALD!"
And he spelled my name right! How nice of him!
SO BASICALLY I NERDED IT UP ALL WEEKEND. It was really fun to be around a bunch of people whose comics I read online. ...Though also kind of weird. I was like "Wait... I am talking about internet things... irl... I don't know if that's allowed."
EDIT: This is the t-shirt I was wearing! Ugh, I wish they would reprint it!