Well, TCAF is all over. It feels like a week happened over Saturday and Sunday. TCAF is always my best show so my expectations were high - as usual though, the show did not disappoint.
I put a lot into this show, doing up a new comic for the event as well as doing up a bunch of t-shirts at Hardboiled. Also, as mentioned, I was nervous going into this show as my new comic "The Rosie Stories" is so personal - I don't think I've ever put myself out there as much as I have with this comic.
Saturday
I had a great table mate for the weekend, Claudia Davila who was selling her first-ever comic - Spoiled. Claudia was doing awesome business with her mini, and getting a lot of well-deserved attention. Check out her webcomic Luz, to see her latest stuff.
The morning was slow getting started, and I was very foggy-headed for at least the first hour as a result of going to the Doug Wright after-party the night before with my sister Jennifer who came down from Ottawa just to help me man my booth. Apologies to anyone who showed up at this time if I seemed weird and cranky.
At the party I happened to mention to Andy Brown of Cunundrum Press that I loved Rupert Bottenberg's work, and he said well this is Rupert right here! They were both down from Montreal to plug the new anthology Monster Island Three. The book contains comics and essays about monsters and comics and is edited by Billy Mavreas. I know Rupert's stuff from when I lived in Montreal and he did a bunch of illustration work for the local alt-weekly as well as a lot of band posters. It was great to meet him.Things started picked up around 1 PM and got really crazy all afternoon. The venue, Old Victoria College is a big one and there were a lot of people there! Kudos to Chris Butcher and the Beguiling for really getting the word out for this show. I'd love to know the official attendance numbers...
Saturday night, Dave and I went to Sneaky Dee's for the after-party and specifically to see our friend Willow Dawson play the saw in her band Little Brown Bat. I was dead tired, so didn't last very long but the band was really good. Ray, the frontman has a great voice and the saw is surprisingly elegant and melodic as an instrument (I think I was expecting something more along the lines of a washboard!).
Sunday
Saturday is always the busiest day of the show so I didn't really know what to expect for this day. After selling a lot of books and a few t-shirts the day before, I was pretty calm and relaxed though. My sister set up the t-shirts a different way this day and was modelling one of the designs. Her efforts really paid off, as the tees were flying off my table that day! I will updated my website soon with the images, colours and sizes. They'll be available through Paypal.
The morning again was slow so I tried to look around a little bit as I hadn't even been to each room of the show yet. I also brought a bunch of stuff to get signed and was successful in this regard. I got to meet Jillian Tamaki and had Gilded Lilies signed, Rebecca Kraatz signed my House of Sugar, and Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing signed my Blar and Bugbear. Good stuff.
Scott Chantler had the annotated Northwest Passage (which of course I picked up - it's gorgeous!) available and he was doing booming business. He said it was his best show ever and I started calling him "The man of TCAF".
Though it wasn't my best sales show ever (I think this was last TCAF for me which is when the Globe and Mail did an interview with me), it certainly is still my best and favourite show. In total I sold 90 comics and 20 t-shirts so I'm super happy about that!
Special thanks to my sis who not only helped at my booth, but got my lunch both days and babysat for Rosie so we could go out on Saturday night!
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