Why is it an excellent show, though? Because it's what a comic book convention should be.
I went to my first conventions back in the 1980s. They were small, local ones and gave me the entirely wrong idea of what a convention should be. Not because they were small, not because they were local, and not even because they were small enough that they didn't have any guests or featured programming. They were a hotel ballroom lined with dealer tables. Don't get me wrong, I was amazed at and excited about them at the time, but they were entirely about buying stuff that you couldn't normally see at your local shop. It was basically like a very large comic shop.
As I got older, I was able to go to larger conventions farther away. Because they were larger, they had more dealers of course, but they also had guests and programming. You could get something signed by John Byrne, or hear Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird talk about this new idea of theirs about turtles who were ninjas. But it was still mostly about the commerce. Eastman and Laird wanted to talk about their idea to convince you to buy a copy. Byrne was signing your old X-Men comics, sure, but he wanted to get you to buy whatever book he was working on at the time too.
I was digging through my old posts and found this bit from 2011...
I left the con feeling like I could have done it better. It's actually a feeling I have after pretty much every comic convention I've been to: I always feel like I could have done it better and gotten more out of it. Doesn't matter if I've been there for the whole show or just a couple hours; if I found great bargains in the quarter bins or some rare treasure that blew my budget or nothing at all; if I attended a bunch of panels or none at all; if I liked the creators in attendance or not; if I met friends at the show or was just by myself... It seems that regardless of what I do at a convention, even if I enjoy myself a great deal, I leave with the nagging feeling that I could've done it better. Taken more advantage of being around thousands of other comic book fans.It took me many years to figure out what makes a convention great. It's none of that stuff I listed just now. It doesn't really matter how big the show is, what guests are there, whether you find any great deals, if the panels were interesting... what makes it a great is that you connect with people there. Off the cuff, I know Heidi Macdonald and Johanna Draper Carslon are moderating panels this year; Jaime Coville usually attends and can be found wandering around; I know my friend Elaine Will is tabling (although I don't think her husband Mark will be there); I know folks from First Second Books and the Graphic Medicine International Collective; I even know a couple co-workers from my day job who plan on showing up at some point. What made the show so excellent last time was hanging out at the hotel bar with a bunch of those friends who all loved comics; going out to dinner with friends who made comics; talking with some friends in one of the aisles only to be interupted by another friend who was doing some drive-by huggings; randomly finding yourself in an elevator with another comics fan and you both know each other by reputation...
What made the show great was only tangental to the comics. We were all there for comics in some capacity. As creators or reporters or publishers or fans or whatever. But that only gave us our initial connections, what we talked about and laughed about and bonded over was each other. "How's your leg healing up?" "When were you there?" "Where do you know them from?" "Did I ever tell you about the time I..?" You can do that at any convention, really... but it's probably made a little easier at TCAF by it's size (large enough to attract some good talent but small enough that you can still find people easily) and the focus on comics as a medium (as opposed to a venue for intellectual property).
I'm bummed I haven't been able to get back to Toronto since 2019 but if you're able to make it yourself, do say "hi" to everyone for me. Maybe if I can't be there to join in the fun myself, my name can at least be thrown around in the mix of it a bit.
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