p r e s e n t s

Welcome to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Our mission is to recognize and promote the unique and independent voices of comic art, both from Canada and abroad, to the best of our abilities, and to continue to grow with every event to serve as many talented creators as possible. Initially our emphasis is going to fall on people who have not visited Toronto before, particularly those we have wanted to have as guests at The Beguiling for some time.

The first annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival is currently scheduled to be held Saturday, March 29th 2003 at Trinity St. Paul's Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Check the site frequently for updates and news.

***NEWS***

March 19th Item: Tickets for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival can now be purchased online via The Beguiling's website, http://www.beguiling.com.

March 9th Item: Major updates have been made to the ABOUT and EVENTS pages. The Events page now lists full pricing information and the full range of events.

March 4th Item: We're very happy to confirm that the Highwater books crew, consisting of Tom Devlin, Megan Kelso, Brian Ralph, and Marc Bell will be attending! Though they were previously listed as guests, they just confirmed their travel arrangements and will be bringing someone special with them -- Ron Rege Jr.! The outstanding creator of Skibber Bee Bye will now be attending the Festival, to sign and discuss his work. For more information, please see the GUESTS page.

March 3rd Item: Final guest confirmations! We invited a number of guests to appear last year, and we've finally received (what we assume to be) our last round of confirmations. Added as honoured guests of the festival are: French painter, speaker, and comics artist Edmond Baudoin, recognized the world over as one of the most talented and interesting comics creators working today, and French-Canadian comics creator Michel Rabagliati, who will be debuting his brand-new graphic novel PAUL HAS A SUMMER JOB at the Festival.

Other new guests scheduled to attend the show include Ho Che Anderson (KING), Gabrielle Bell (WHEN I'M OLD), Arthur Dela Cruz (KISSING CHAOS), Joe Ollman (CHEWING ON TINFOIL), Ben Shannon (Illustrator), Cameron Stewart (CATWOMAN), Jose Villarubia (VEILS, PROMETHEA), Michael Noonan (FANCYPANTS), and Mu Dafaka and Jason Sacher of Meathaus.

For more information on new (and previously confirmed) guests, go to the Guests Page.

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ITEM: Lots of new guests! The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to welcome our newest featured guest, Phoebe Gloeckner to the Festival! Pheobe Gloeckner is the creator of the emotionally resonant works A CHILD'S LIFE AND OTHER STORIES and the recently released DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL. visit the GUESTS page for more information on Pheobe Gloeckner.

In addition to the wonderful Ms. Gloeckner, TCAF will be welcoming the Frecklebean Comics Anthology creators, including Dominic Bugatto, David Cullen, Walter Dickinson, Ron Kasman, Sean Menard, Richard G. Taylor, Noel Tuazon, and Rob Walton. TCAF will also be welcoming hometown-hero Chris Hutsul, better known under his pseudonym ACE HAMMERSMITH. Still more guest announcements are coming, surprisingly enough, as a few creators firm up their schedules.

ITEM: In addition to the new site design, there are three new pages you should take a look at. First, there's the EVENTS page which has a tentative list of the TCAF related events in March, with more coming all the time. The second is our SPONSORS page, listing (and linking) the fine folks who are helping us put together the Festival. Finally, there's the PRESS page, which lists information for members of the press to contact us, as well as an image bank for folks looking to help us advertise the festival. Oh, and the ACCOMODATIONS page is now online too!

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ITEM: We've just added still more guests to the roster on the GUESTS page. Included are Maurice Vellekoop, Jay Stephens, Lorenz Peters, Jeffrey Kilpatrick, and Jason Bone. More to come!

ITEM: We've just added a bunch of new guests to the GUESTS page. Included are Darwyn Cooke, Tom Devlin, Catherine Doherty, Sam Hiti, Megan Kelso, Jason Little, Sean Menard, Scott Mills, Diana Tamblyn, and Lauren Weinstein.

ITEM: Click here to sign up for e-mail notification regarding TCAF and BEGUILING related events, as well as updates March 2003 TCAF event. You can also send an e-mail to the address chris@beguiling.com with the subject SUBSCRIBE to achieve the same results.

ITEM: The ABOUT, GUESTS, CONTACT, and LINKS sections are now available to be browsed by clicking above. Check back frequently for updates.

ITEM: Currently our exhibitor/artist attendence for TCAF 2003 is by invitation only. This is because it's our first year, and we're hoping to best plan for future years by making this a controlled event. All artists/exhibitors are welcome to attend the event as patrons, of course. If any tables do open up for creator spaces, notification will be made here as well as on our mailing list.