Back from TCAF

I’ve just this minute landed back in France after a glorrrrious week in Toronto and an incredibly fun weekend at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Met loads of really nice people and bought hundreds of wonderful books!

The picture above is from a live drawing session I did, so everyone could watch my trembling hands as I scribbled in front of the audience.

I also did as much sketchbook drawing as I could in between all of the running around: here’s a selection of the best of them!

Here are a couple from the airport. I hate airports and I hate flying. 

But when I finally arrived in Toronto, everyone was wonderful. And Canadians are so friendly. I showed my ticket to the metro inspector and she said “awesome!” – as though even the ticket inspired awe in her. Here is a really funny building – a now-closed-down bargain shop called Honest Ed’s (which I imagine will be familiar to anyone from Toronto), which is enormous and covered in all these hilarious puns about how cheap it is.Here’s a little sketch of the street at Palmerston and College, which was a lovely place to stroll around.Here are some old ladies in a park.And here’s my lunch. In chinatown. Yum! 

I also went to a few museums – and spent about six hours in the art museum! – but the place where I saw the funniest things was the Gardiner museum, a museum of ceramics (ceramics are my secret love!) Here are a few Olmec figures from around 3,000 years ago! They’re so characterful and lifelike!

And then, almost as characterful and lifelike were the real human beings I met at TCAF! 

So the whole time was wonderful! And I very much hope it be there next year. Until then –

Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Guys! This has been in the pipeline for ages but now it’s only a week away – it’s finally upon us! I’m going to be launching Her Bark & Her Bite at TCAF. So here’s a bit of information for anyone who happens to be in Toronto on the weekend of the 13th of May. 

The event will be in the Toronto National Reference Library, in the Yonge/Bloor – all of Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th. I’ll be there with my publisher, Top Shelf Comics/IDW, and you can find their table somewhere in the festival. There’s more information here!

On top of that, I’ll be giving a talk along with the brilliant Sandrine Revel about Heroines in Graphic Novels. It’s at the Alliance Française in Toronto, on Thursday 11th, around 6.30 pm, and there is more information here. Be warned though, the talk will be in French.

That’s it! If you follow me on twitter then I will hopefully provide a constant barrage of photos and brainless observations the whole time I’m there. And I’ll write more about how it all goes when I’m back. See you cool kids soon!