Location: Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St.
Attendance: 11,000
165 pictures of the con are here
I entered the event around 9:30-ish and most creators were already set up and ready to go. One thing I noticed right away was the Library made more room for the event which was a major plus. A side room that was used last time (but ignored by most of those at the con) was not used this time. One of the panel rooms was emptied out and used for the Transmission X crew. The back room which was devoted to web comics was instead devoted to primarily to publishers. Top Shelf, Fantagraphics, Boom Studios and Picture Box were among the publishers there. That room quickly grew warm and I heard at least a couple of people mention a funny smell. Some of the panels were held in the Pilot House a restaurant/pub that was very close by. I spent all morning on the bottom floor attempting to get pics of everybody.
I only attended 1 panel on Saturday and that was the 5 creators feature, with Jim Woodring, Dan Clowes, James Sturm, Seth and Chester Brown. (55:23, 50.7mb). It was moderated by Jeet Heer, in place of Tom Spurgeon who couldn't be there. The 5 heavyweight cartoonists talk about going from Comic Books to Graphic Novels, choosing their next books subject, they reasons they want (and try) to draw in a different style and autobiographical comics. Jeet actually held up a comic book and described what it was for those in the audience who might not know what they were, something that Jim Woodring joked about during the panel. All of the panelists said they were much happier doing graphic novels for bookstores and comic ships vs. comic books for comic shops. Jim Woodring mentioned it was very frustrating in the 90s and Seth said it was humiliating. The panel was packed with many people standing against the wall.
Prior to the panel there was a crowding issue with lines. The panel room could hold 100 people sitting down, but the space for the line was only good for about 50 people.
I went out for lunch with a friend then did some browsing around. Later on I joined a crew for a trip to the nearby Starbucks. Much of the afternoon was spent upstairs. The layout was completely different from last year. There was a back room/section that was opened up and used for webcomics and small press. The webcomics room was very busy with a lot of people with long line ups for a number of creators, particularly Kate Beaton who had roughly 30+ people waiting for her for much of the day. The small press section had art laying on the floor for a display.
At 7pm there was the Doug Wright Awards, which was held in the Library. Specifically they took the Web Comics room and used that to do the awards. While there was a stage it was a really small one, and due to the staff lining up the chairs exactly behind one another I often couldn't see much beyond a persons head. The awards show was about 15 minutes late getting started, but it ended before the 9pm time that was advertised. Different this year was the seating was limited to 200 people and attendee's needed to get a free online ticket to get in. No awards show goes off without a screw up somewhere and the funny (and I'm sure embarrassing) one was a problem with the prepared speech about Seth's book George Sprott. The awards talked and showed more about the nominated books, which was great. Normally shows just list them off and announce the winners. But then those other award shows have a lot of categories and nominations to go through.
An audio recording of the awards is here:
6th Annual Doug Wright Awards. (1:24:09, 77mb)
The awards were hosted by Actor Peter Outerbridge. Among the presenters are Matt Forsythe, Carl Wilson, Jeet Heer and Geoff Pevere.
The ceremony was as follows:
- Introduction of nominee's and sponsor appreciation by Brad Mackay
- Pigskin Peters Hat/Award: Marc Bell for Hot Potatoe (Drawn & Quarterly)
- Best Emerging Talent: Michael DeForge Lose #1 (Koyama Press)
- Kate Beaton gives a tribute to Giants of the North Hall of Fame inductee Martin Vaughn-James
- Best Book: George Sprott: (1894-1975) by Seth (Drawn and Quarterly Books)
- Closing by Brad Mackay
Sunday I had shown up early in order to be at the Pilot house for the first panel. That panel was Comics and Social Media (52:45, 48.3mb). Moderated by Robin McConnell, Jeff Rowland, Kate Beaton, Rich Stevens, Ray Fawkes and James Sturm talk about social media, or more generally the internet affects their work. James Sturm talks about his recent decision to cut himself off the Internet for 4 months. Other topics was about dealing with the audience feedback and their own personal privacy, also about when they felt they became legitimate. As the panel was in a bar, beer was available and Rowland had one for breakfast. The room was packed for this panel.
Right after it was the Webcomics and Serial Story telling (53:47, 49.2mb) panel. Web comic creators Ananth Panagariya, Merridith Gran, Spike, Tara Tallan, Cameron Stewart and Ramon Perez talk about doing long form webcomics. The panel is moderated by Holly Post. Without naming it they talk about Jonathan Rosenberg recent blog post about possibly shutting down his long running Goats webcomic and feelings of legitimacy. Other topics include how much of their story they have planned out, how their audience comments changes their stories, having their characters grow, introducing new characters & getting and keeping new readers. With all the webcomic stuff done for a while, the room emptied out for the most part.
Then there was the Re-making History: Curating and Packaging Reprints (52:14, 47.8mb) panel. Dan Nadel, Evan Dorkin, Jeet Heer and Seth talk about the resurgence of comic strips and other old comics. They talk about how the designs of the reprints affects how people view the work. Other topics are good and bad design, without naming some people who were doing the bad designs, the ethics of redesigning other peoples work, a bit about Jack Kirby and Siegel & Shuster legal situations. Nadel also talks about bad design without naming who he's talking about. Based on a couple of Comics Comics blog posts which spurred a lot of comments it appears he's talking about Craig Yoe.
For the rest of the afternoon I spent upstairs for the most part, taking pics of folks I didn't get to yesterday. Again, the busy creators were Ryan North, Danielle Corsetto, Kate Beaton, who was not there at the time (I believe she was doing more panels), and others seemed to have a steady stream of people coming and going. The room beside it got considerably less traffic, despite people having to walk through there to get out. There was also a room for the kids where both panels were held and activities for the kids to do.
Towards the end of the day I began asking around to see how the panel was going for people. The 75% of those asked said it was either Good or Very Good for them. The remaining said it was slow, some said they only made back their table. At 4pm there was an announcement that the con would be ending in an hour and people should finish up their shopping. Sales picked up immediately after that. A couple of people mentioned being next to a very popular creator helped them out, be it last year or this year. A few creators said the con was really good for reasons other than sales, a lot of them love the social aspect of meeting fellow creators and fans. This was particularly true for creators whose work really doesn't fit in at a traditional comic convention. They also like that it's free for the public to attend, so while they may not make as much money selling to the converted they are growing their audience. Perhaps they're growing the audience for comics overall. That feel good buzz can really pick up one's spirits.
Among those that had very good shows were Jim Rugg, at the end of the show Faith Erin Hicks and myself bought the last of his books. Chris Pitzer of Adhouse books said he could fit his remaining stock in his suitcase. Dan Nadel of Picture Box had very few books remaining as well. One creator said he completely sold out of his own stock and had his publisher front him some books to sell. Others didn't do quite as well. Fantagraphics brought a lot of books and while about half a dozen titles had last copy signs in the last hour, there were a lot of books left over, they did say they had a good show though. I somewhat felt sorry for Boom! Studios who had 2 tables but were really in the wrong spot selling their kids and more mainstream material in a room dedicated to alt publishing. They were surrounded by Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, and Picture Box. They probably should have been more to the edge of a kid friendly section.
While previous shows that ran every 2 years seemed to do gangbusters for many of those attending, this years show had less of that. I'm now wondering if running the show every year makes them less special (and creators have less new stuff) has affected peoples buying habits. Still, I suspect for the majority of the vender's having a good/very good show every year is better than sell out show every 2 years. I enjoyed the show more this year than last year, mainly due to space issues.
All of the audio for these panels and others can also be found here.
Regards,
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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