New Books Debuting at TCAF 2010!
Posted Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The 2010 Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Graphic Novel Debuts at TCAF!
Brand new book releases!

The 2010 Toronto Comic Arts Festival
Saturday May 8, 9am-5pm & Sunday May 9, 11am-5pm
@ Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St,
FREE TO ATTEND

Presented by Toronto Public Library and The Beguiling

WWW.TORONTOCOMICS.COM

TORONTO, Ontario – The 2010 Toronto Comic Arts Festival is the fifth gathering of international authors and cartoonists under the TCAF banner, and it’s the biggest and best yet! Returning to the awesome Toronto Reference Library after its smash-success 2009 event which saw more than 10,000 people fill the library over the course of the weekend, TCAF 2010 will featuring more than 200 cartoonists and two dozen book debuts!

Spanning genres from literature to historical fiction, speculative fiction to memoir, and outré art objects, there’s a comic or graphic novel debuting at TCAF to appeal to any interest! Here’s a run-down of some of the most prominent book debuts at TCAF 2010. All books will be available for purchase at TCAF, and all authors will be in attendance at the event. Following TCAF all books will be available at The Beguiling Books & Art and other fine booksellers.

Images for all book covers available at http://www.torontocomics.com/press2k10/debut

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Literary Fiction:

WILSON
By Daniel Clowes
$22.95, Hardcover, Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Meet Wilson, an opinionated middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of one-sided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor. After his father dies, Wilson, now irrevocably alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption. Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family - a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.By Daniel Clowes, author of the smash-hit graphic novel Ghost World and the groundbreaking alternative comic series Eightball. Official launch event Friday May 7th, 2010. See www.torontocomics.com for details.

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MARKET DAY
By James Sturm
$22.95, Hardcover, Published by Drawn & Quarterly

An expectant father, Mendleman's life goes through an upheaval when he discovers he can no longer earn a living doing the work that defines him— making well-crafted rugs by hand. A proud artisan, he takes his donkey-drawn cart to the market only to be turned away when the distinctive shop he once sold to now only stocks cheaply manufactured merchandise. As the realities of the market place sink in, Mendleman unravels. Sturm draws a quiet, reflective and beautiful portrait of eastern European in the early 1900s–bringing to life the hustle and bustle of an old-world market place on the brink of the Industrial Revolution. Market Day is a timeless tale of how economic and social forces can affect a single life. From James Sturm, author of the acclaimed The Golem’s Mighty Swing. James Sturm, in conversation Thursday May 6th, 2010. See www.torontocomics.com for details.

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KOREA AS VIEWED BY 12 CREATORS
By Various
$19.95, Softcover, Published by Fanfare/Ponent-Mon

Twelve insightful short graphic stories into the "Hermit Kingdom", six by European and six by indigenous creators, including award winning Park Heung-yong and "Best Manga 2006" artist Vanyda. Long-awaited companion volume to the Eisner Award-nominated "Japan As Viewed By 17 Creators".

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Speculative Fiction:

GOATS: SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN
By Jonathan Rosenberg
$14.95, Softcover, Published by Del Rey

In the tradition of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy! God is dead, reality isn’t real, and the end of the multiverse is coming just a few short years from now. Most everyone is in agreement that this is problematic. Tech-geek barflies Jon and Phillip and their menagerie of mutant sidekicks are the only ones who can challenge the likes of goat demon Toothgnip, corporate demon One Death, and psycho chicken Oliver in order to stop the apocalypse. So everyone everywhere is almost certainly screwed. Goats: Showcase Showdown -- the third collection of strips from the hit webcomic -- continues the pandimensional party begun in the two previous collections from Del Rey, Goats: Infinite Typewriters and Goats: The Corndog Imperative.

“This all has the refreshing spontaneous unforced high weirdness of the weirder Monty Python sketches, and it will reset your freakiness thermometer to a higher threshold than you thought possible.”--Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

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SWORD OF MY MOUTH
By Jim Munroe and Shannon Gerard
$14.95, Softcover, Published by IDW Books

“It’s completely nuts.... It’s a book about what if the Rapture actually happened, and that’s all I’m gonna tell you.” --Pulitzer Prize Winner Junot Díaz on Therefore Repent!

Ella’s baby isn’t quite right. But since the righteous floated into the sky and magic started working, not much is. A stand-alone story continuing on from the acclaimed graphic novelTherefore Repent!, Sword of My Mouth moves the focus from Chicago, under siege by angels with machine guns, to the urban prairie of Detroit. Folks in the D have banded together to turn land with burned-out crackhouses into farming tracts, and seem to be on a road to self-sufficiency... until Famine rides into town. Official launch event Thursday May 6th! Check out www.torontocomics.com for details.

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EXPLODED VIEW
By Various
$10.95, Softcover, Published by Cloudscape Comics

A science fiction anthology featuring twenty-five artists, all current or former residents of Vancouver, Canada, Exploded View showcases the broad range of talent in the comics artist community. The group includes established artists, underground cartoonists, web comic creators, animators, illustrators, and manga artists all working together to tell meaningful, intelligent stories through the medium of comics. This book represents the Cloudscape Comics collective's most ambitious project to date, with a huge roster of talented artists and its highest production quality. Motivated by a desire to see their work in print, Cloudscape's artists are moving ahead without an established publisher or outside funding, raising the money they need exclusively from the artists within the group.

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TUMOR
By Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon
$10, Hardcover, Published by Archaia

A brand new L.A. noir graphic novel created by the team by the critically acclaimed Elk's Run team of Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon. A hefty and beautifully designed hardcover for fans of noir and pulp.

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Webcomics In Print:

PROBLEM SLEUTH
By Andrew Hussie
$20, Softcover, Published by Topatoco

“This is what being a hard-boiled Problem Sleuth is all about: It's about being a strong, silent type, oozing with confidence, charisma, and other fine qualities such as not being trapped in your own office. It's about having a working phone. A real desk. Not one, but two steak dinners. And some hysterical broad on the line, yackin' about some fella she's got troubles with…”

Problem Sleuth Volume 1: Compensation, Adequate contains chapters 1 through 5 of the smash-hit webcomic series about a very strange P.I. in a very strange situation. By Andrew Hussie, creator of the ridiculously popular http://www.mspaintadventures.com/

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ABOMINABLE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER
By Karl Kerschl
$40, Hardcover

This prestige hardcover book collects the first chapter of Karl Kerschl’s Eisner-nominated webcomic, ‘The Abominable Charles Christopher‘. A charming and lushly illustrated series, The Abombinable Charles Christopher visually recalls the beautiful newspaper strips of yesteryear, but with an updated sensibility. Wrapped in an embossed, faux suede cover, this 144-page tome collects all of the comics from the first two years of the series, along with many additional illustrations and a gorgeous 40 gatefold at the end of the book, featuring a dramatic pencil rendering of the key players, all in one scene. This book will be available from the Transmission-X installation room, on the first floor.

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Biography and Memoir:

KENK: A Graphic Portrait
By Richard Poplak, Nick Marinkovich, Alex Jansen, Jason Gilmore
$27.95, Softcover, Pop Sandbox Productions

KENK: A Graphic Portrait is a ground-breaking 304-page journalistic comic book detailing the life and times of Igor Kenk, "the world's most prolific bicycle thief" (The New York Times and The Guardian). In summer 2008, Kenk was arrested and nearly 3,000 bicycles were seized in one of the biggest news stories of the year. Built from more than 30 hours of never-before-seen intimate footage taken over the year leading up to his arrest, KENK is a thought-provoking and surprisingly funny portrait of an outsize neighbourhood figure and a city in flux, both wracked by the forces of gentrification and by a burgeoning global environmental and economic crisis that promises to define our generation. Official launch party Thursday May 6th. Seewww.torontocomics.com for details!

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À LA BRUNANTE SUR UNE PLAGE D’AGATES
(Twilight on a Beach of Precious Stone)
By Various
$25.00, Softcover, Published by Premières Lignes

À la brunante sur une plage d'agates (Twilight on a Beach of Precious Stone) is a graphic novel of historical fiction made of photographs. The book follows artists Paul-Émile Borduas and Alfred Pellan as they travel to Percé, Québec in 1944 to meet André Breton, leader of the Surrealists. There they write a manifesto that eventually leads to le Refus Global, a manifesto that brought about the Quiet Revolution in Quebec in the early sixties. However, conflicts arise as they write.

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RUTS & GULLIES: NINE DAYS IN SAINT PETERSBURG
By Philippe Girard
$17, Softcover, Published by Conundrum Press

With both adventure and introspection Philippe Girard has turned a trip to a comic festival in Russia with his friend and publisher Jimmy Beaulieu into an inner journey. Throughout the book, Girard is haunted by the spectre of his deceased friend, Guillaume, who tries to remind him that he should really get those varicose veins fixed and that its about time to let go and move on. The genial Girard plays the tourist and the professional equally well as the reader is taken on a nine-day journey through the sites, sounds, and culture of St. Petersburg, with glimpses into the architecture, bars, and real people of the city (not to mention a first-hand account of what its like to lose your passport in Russia). Comparable to Guy Delisles travel journey graphic novels (such as Pyongyang and Burma Chronicles).

Humour:

BOOK OF GRICKLE
By Graham Annable
$18.95, Hardcover, Published by Dark Horse Comics

Get ready for the most extensive journey ever into the brilliant mind of Graham Annable! A classically trained animator with credits in film (including storyboard artist on Coraline), television, and video games, Annable has for years spent his free time creating some of the funniest, most poignant comics anywhere. As befits his animation background, Annable's fluid art pulses with life, in stories that practically jump off the page. Alternately poetic and hilarious, Grickle presents a strange twist on the everyday with heart and humor.

If you've experienced Grickle before, this is the greatest collection yet. If you haven't, there's no better introduction than Book of Grickle!

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Children of the Atom
by Dave Lapp
$17, Softcover, Published by Conundrum Press

From the artist behind the critically acclaimed Drop-in comes an earlier comic strip project, collected here for the first time in its entirety. Originally serialized in Western University’s The Gazette, then weekly in Vancouvers Georgia Straight newspaper from 1996-2001, Children of the Atom is like a Samuel Beckett play in comic strip form. The two characters Franklin Boy and Jim Jam Girl live in an absurdist world of their own making, exchanging philosophies, dancing around any possible love story. Influenced by the comics of Mark Beyer, Lynda Barry, and George Herrimans Krazy Kat, Lapp has created his own tightly concieved but loosely rendered world through poetic language, simple lines and shapes, and surreal settings. This book recreates the format of the strips and includes the entire five year run. Not only is it an accomplished piece of art and storytelling, but also an archival treasure which can now be rediscovered.

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Young Readers:

ALISON DARE: LITTLE MISS ADVENTURES
ALISON DARE: THE HEART OF THE MAIDEN
By J. Torres and Jason Bone
$12.99 Each, Softcover, Published by Tundra Books

Alison Dare is not your typical twelve-year-old, she’s the daughter of an archaeologist/adventurer and the masked hero known as the Blue Scarab. To top it off, she’s also the niece of an international super-spy. So, it’s no surprise that a craving for danger is in her blood! Whether it’s magic genies, super-powered bank robbers, or a dastardly baron bent on world domination, Alison Dare delivers the best thrills since Indiana Jones and more action than Nancy Drew and Tintin combined!

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Milky Way Shuffle
By Chris “Elio” Eliopoulos
$4, Zine, Koyama Press

"Milky Way Shuffle" is an all ages mini comic by Chris "Elio" Eliopoulos. It's about a nerdy boy, a cutie snatching UFO and the latest dance craze straight from Jupiter!

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Art:

THE ANTHOLOGY PROJECT
By Joy Ang and Various Creators
$25.00, Hardcover, Self-published

The Anthology Project collects the comics of artists unified by their delirious pursuit of compelling narrative and notable artistic work in the medium of sequential art. Its humble intent is only to delight.

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Baba Yaga and The Wolf
By Tin Can Forest
$15.00, Softcover, by Koyama Press

“This is story told to me by my great grandmother. She lived in a time when the wilderness was everywhere, vampires roamed the treetops, and devils traded opium and vodka for human souls by the roadside.”

“My great grandmother lived to be a hundred and ten years of age, and until her dying day could walk a hundred kilometres through the rugged mountain trails near her home village. She knew witches who practised occult alchemy, and with her own eyes witnessed animals take human form. Baba Yaga and the Wolf is a true account from the old days, when the heavens and the underworld existed in closer proximity to the earth than today.”

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Spirit City Toronto
BY Aaron Leighton
$10, Softcover, by Koyama Press

Aaron Leighton's debut book combines illustration and photography to depict a series of homeless nature spirits living in the forgotten corners of Toronto.

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All books will be available for purchase at TCAF, and all authors will be in attendance at the event. Following TCAF all books will be available at The Beguiling Books & Art and other fine booksellers.

Images for all book covers available at http://www.torontocomics.com/press2k10/debut

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ABOUT THE TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is a celebration of comics and graphic novels—and their creators—that takes place annually in Toronto, Canada. The next TCAF is Saturday May 8th and Sunday May 9th 2010, at Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street. The 2010 Festival will feature some of the biggest and most respected graphic novelists in Canada and in the world, including Daniel Clowes (Eightball, Ghost World), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth), Dash Shaw (Body World), James Sturm (Golem’s Mighty Swing, Market Day), Charles Vess (Stardust, Blueberry Girl, Instructions), and Jim Woodring (Frank). For more information visit http://www.torontocomics.com.


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