Great Moments of TCAF 2013

If you want to see all the great moments of this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival, I recommend scrolling back through Deb Aoki’s twitter feed. My roommate for the fest seemed to know where all the action was. She captured in a retweet from Japan this epic moment when Taiyo Matsumoto and Gengoroh Tagame exchanged books. Tagame’s is a collection of explicit, often brutal gay BDSM comics. Matsumoto’s is about some lonely orphans who sit in a car and dream.

The Matsomoto/Tagame meeting is kind of like what would happen if a Japanese con invited only two Americans and it was, oh say, Greg Capullo and Blaise Larmee. An unlikely friendship would bloom. Comics are like that.

On Friday, cartoonists from all over the world jumped in a bus and went to Niagara Falls. Aoki was on the scene to capture them with a friendly black squirrel:

.@comic_ikki editor/ @torontocomics guest Hideki Egami gets a good shot of that supermodel squirrel at Niagara #tcaf twitter.com/debaoki/status…

— Deb Aoki (@debaoki) May 10, 2013

Later on she and I witnessed the epic line for the Andrew “Homestuck” Hussie signing that would all the way through the Marriott Bloor halls.

Holy crap. There’s an intense, long line for the Andrew Hussie (Homestuck) signing/event at the Marriott for #tcaf twitter.com/debaoki/status…

— Deb Aoki (@debaoki) May 11, 2013

I didn’t not at first know why so many young teens were on hand laughing and giggling like they were about to meet Justin Bieber. And then I realized: Homestuck. I do not understand this phenomenon at all, but I guess that’s why it’s a phenomenon.

Anyway more to come when I wake up…