Word Balloon Academy

Word Balloon Academy (WBA) is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival’s in-person full day of FREE professional development, skills-building and career management programming for comics creators. Kicking things off on the Friday leading into TCAF’s main festival weekend, emerging comics professionals delve into the ins and outs of making comics with artists and creative industry professionals. WBA is served up in two development streams: (1) creative (2) business.

In the creative development stream, artists explore the multifaceted creative process of making comics, from inspiration and outlining to physical and mental health care. Over the past few years artists such as Lara Antal, Sami Alwani, Georgia Weber and Scott Chantler have contributed their expertise to WBA’s creative development stream, among many others.

The business development stream sessions explore the multitude of ways aspiring and emerging artists engage in the funding, marketing and publishing side of a career in comics, exploring topics lsuch as grant writing, creative law and crowdfunding. Artists and writers including Ryan North, Kat Simmers and Johanna Draper Carlson have presented in the business stream alongside publishers and editors from Renegade Arts Entertainment, Drawn & Quarterly, Conundrum and Silver Sprocket.

This year we will be facilitating sessions on illustrating emotionally effective panels, portfolio preparation and best practices, marketable skills for young professionals, working on smaller comics to learn about managing projects and, of course, the ever popular Creative Law 101 by leading entertainment lawyers.