TCAF 2023 is excited to announce our first round of esteemed guests! Hold onto your seats; more announcements to follow in the coming weeks!
Nina Bunjevac is a Toronto-based artist and illustrator. Her other books are Fatherland (2015 Jonathan Cape), Bezimena (2019 Fantagraphics), The Alchemical Journey Through the Major Arcana of The Tarot (2021 Zarabatana Books, Brazil), and La Reparation (2022, Editions Martin De Halleux, France). Her books have received multiple Doug Wright awards, the French Artemisia Prix, Italian Grand Jury Prize at Lucca Comics and Games, and Joe Shuster. Her art has been exhibited both at home in Canada and internationally, most notably at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Galerie Martel in Paris.
Lawrence Lindell is an artist, musician, and educator from California who works in many artistic disciplines, including comics, music, illustration, and mixed media. He is the co-founder of Laneha House. His graphic novel "Blackward" (Drawn and Quarterly) is out in Fall of 2023 and his middle-grade graphic novel "Buckle Up!" (RH Graphic) is out in the near future. You can also find Lindell's comics in the SF Examiner, Razorcake and The New Yorker.
Breena Nuñez is a cartoonist and part-time adjunct professor living in San Francisco, CA. She creates diary comics that often explore themes surrounding the awkwardness of racism, understanding what it means to be a queer AfroSalvadoran-Guatemalan mix from the US, and nowadays she archives her
experiences as a new mother. Their hope as a cartoonist & educator is to help BIPOC folks give themselves permission to express their personal stories through the language of comics.
Breena’s comics are primarily self-published as zines through the family run small press she co-founded with her husband, Laneha House. You will also find some comics in other publications such as The New Yorker: Daily Shouts and The Nib, as well as in anthologies like Tales From La Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology, Drawing Power (Eisner Award Winner 2020), and Be Gay, Do Comics! (Ignatz Award Winner
2020).
Tommi Parrish (b. 1989, Melbourne) is a trans Australian cartoonist and painter living in Western Massachusetts. Their debut work, The Lie and How We Told It, won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for the best LGBTQ graphic novel, was nominated for the Ignatz award, was featured in many best of 2018 lists, and was translated into 11 languages worldwide. Tommi was the 2020 recipient of the Center For Cartoon Studies Fellowship and their work has been showcased in The New Yorker, Granta Magazine, The New York Times, Pitchfork, Vice, and many more. Their newest book is Men I Trust.
Cole Pauls is a Champagne & Aishihik Citizen and Tahltan comic artist, illustrator & printmaker hailing from Haines Junction (Yukon Territory) with a BFA in Illustration from Emily Carr University. Residing in Vancouver, Pauls has created 3 graphic novels, Dakwäkãda Warriors (2019), Pizza Punks (2021), and Kwändür (2022). In 2017, Pauls won Broken Pencil Magazine’s Best Comic and Best Zine of the Year Award for Dakwäkãda Warriors II. In 2020, Dakwäkãda Warriors won Best Work in an Indigenous Language from the Indigenous Voices Awards and was nominated for the Doug Wright Award categories, The Egghead & The Nipper.
James Spooner is an accomplished tattoo artist, illustrator, and filmmaker. He directed the seminal documentary Afro-Punk. Spooner is also the co-founder of the Afro-punk Festival. Spooner’s work has appeared in NPR, Vice, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Vibe, Fader, MTV, NBC News, and Variety. He is an ongoing guest curator for the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, and previously programmed for the
Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Eric Kostiuk Williams is an illustrator and cartoonist living in Toronto. His work deploys a fluid, surreal visual aesthetic and explores ideas surrounding queer culture, gender expression, and urban upheaval. Eric's comics have appeared in Dazed & Confused, The Believer, NOW Magazine, and PEN American. He
is an Eisner, Lambda Literary, and Doug Wright nominee. This spring, Eric is debuting 2AM Eternal, a new book from Secret Acres collecting a decade's worth of queer nightlife posters and comics. His work is supported by the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) celebrates the comics medium and advocates for their literary and artistic merit. We seek to center the creators of these works in their broad and diverse voices through our hybrid exhibition, programming, and other festival activities. This year, TCAF will take place at the Toronto Reference Library from April 28th - 30th. There will also be a digital marketplace and digital events from April 21st - May 7th. As always, tickets for TCAF and related TCAF events are FREE. Some pre-registration is required for online activities and will be announced beforehand.
TCAF also works with a fantastic group of volunteers each year. Want to be a part of the behind-the-scenes magic? Sign up here: https://forms.gle/agiY1JLuzAJe4GYJ7
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