On Sunday Mark, Gemma and I attended the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF)! This was our first time attending and was blown away by how huge it was! We focused mainly on the Children’s programming. Gemma chose 3 workshops she wanted to attend. The first one was learning to use your personal experiences to make a comic, run by Raina Telgemeir, the author of Smile. The kids had to think of something bad that happened to them, the list the series of events. Next, they had to decide if some of the events could be put together into one picture. Raina was doing each of the steps as well, to show the kids how it is done. Then they had 5 minutes to quickly draw their comic.
This is Gemma’s quick comic about when her Uncle was playing airplane with her and dropped her and she had to go to the Hospital for stitches.
Gemma loved this seminar! She ended up buying Smile and has already finished reading it and would strongly suggest it!!
The second workshop was Comics Quickfire Challenge! Gemma especially loved this workshop because she was picked to participate!! There were 2 teams and they each got to pick 2 artists to help them draw a Comic. The Audience gave them the title and the twist to the story. They each had 1 minute to draw their part. Gemma’s team went second and their title was The Devious Cat who tried to take over the Litter Box!
Here Gemma is drawing her portion! She go to pick which of her team members would go when.
Here is the finished comic. The twist was the Litter Box tried to eat the cat. Gemma’s team won!!
So then they participated in the Epic Draw! The audience gave them 10 items to draw and the team had 4 minutes to complete it!
Here was the final drawing!! Gemma won a $25 gift certificate to Little Island Comics which is great since we are there every Saturday!! And she got to bring home the art work!!
The third work shop was Author’s reading their stories from the book Explorer, The Mystery Boxes. Gemma was picked once again and got to read along side Stuart Livingston. 4 of the authors were there reading their stories. The book was edited by Kazu Kibuishi, the author of the popular Amulet series (which Gemma loves and would also highly recommend).
We also looked around at all the booths. There were artists and authors from around the world! It was great to see all of their work! I bought this book, My Cardboard Life, by Philippa Rice. I loved her little display.
I found this Octopus attacking 2 skeletons!!
And I loved all these Kitty Accessories. I bought the Two Cats Magazine from this booth.
We spent a lot more money than we thought we would, but we loved being able to directly help out the artists!! We got all of our books signed by the Authors and/or Artists and had a fabulous afternoon. And did I mention that the event is FREE to attend!! We are definitely going back next year!!
