Conor's Con Pix Galore! (And an ANDY B. retrospective: "A Man and his Beard")
The past few weeks have been a pretty busy time for the K.S. boys. You've seen Anthony jet off to exotic far-flung locales like... Ottawa and... Calgary...But while Anthony was enjoying the high-life, poor lil' ol me has been stuck doing AMAZING SHOWS in Chicago and right here in Toronto -- TCAF 2013.I've been quite the shutterbug as I learn to play with this new Galaxy Tablet and I even took a bit of video of the Kill Shakespeare stage show that played at C2E2. I wanted to share some memories of the events and thank all the amazing fans and friends who came out and supported us in both places. I had SUCH a good time talking with all of you.We've said it before, but I don't believe that any other book has such diverse and interesting fans as K.S. does!Now let's see some photos!Below are a few from the stageplay that went on at C2E2 and was put on by the amazing Strawdog Theatre. I've already posted a few on our Facebook account, but these are a few samples that I took of the show. The rest you can find in this album.
Of course C2E2 was more than just theatre -- we also had fans and cosplay galore. To get a flavour of the delightful madness here are a few shots to whet your appetite. You can see more of C2E2 in this album.
This past weekend was TCAF -- a more "refined" comics experience. While cos-play isn't really a "thing" at TCAF it was a great chance to see old friends and to steal a ukele
For more TCAF click here.And finally, for those of you who haven't seen Andy B. for awhile you may not know that he now owns the 1,965th best beard of ALL-TIME. He just passed this guy and is closing hard on these guys.Andy graciously agreed to pose for a series of photos so we can commerate a time when life was simpler, and all that mattered was a man, his beard, and how many birds could nest within it.
For the entire, surely to be award-winning, collection - click here... if you dare!
HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY, TCAF!
Like many 10 year-olds the Toronto Comic Arts Festival is really precocious. The show has taken on the personality of its founders Chris and Peter from The Beguiling and has come to represent the best place to go to see the edges of comics culture.If you're the sort of person who says they don't read comics, or likely, given that you're reading this post, you're the kind of person who KNOWS someone who says they don't read comics THIS is the show to attend.At TCAF you'll see stories about EVERYTHING under the sun. This year the show will debut a quirky food driven bio (Relish: My Life in the Kitchen), an all-ages book written by Gilbert Hernandez, one half of the amazing team behind Love & Rockets (Marble Season), a comic totally devoid of dialogue (Silent Worlds), a story about facing death at the hands of Cancer (When David Lost His Voice), a love-story set in the World War 1 era Croatia (Black Paths) and a story told from a German Shepherd's perspective (uh, I 'm A German Shepherd).And of course their is plenty of the genre stuff you know and love with Sci-fi, Crime, horror and even superhero stories galore!It's also an amazing show because we get sleep in our own beds (yay!).So come out this weekend to TCAF and say hello to Conor at his sentry position at the entrance of the RAID room AKA Learning Centre 2.The show starts at 9 AM on Saturday and runs until 5pm (another reason they love them -- ample time for dinner!) and on Sunday the hours are from 11-5.
Here come the Aussies to pillage TCAF, Viking-style!
TCAF is always one of our favourite events in the comic's calendar.(and if you haven't gone before then get yourself down to the Toronto Reference Library at Bloor and Yonge this weekend).It is one of the rare places where you can delve deeply into a host of creator owned books as well as read illustrated stories in pretty well any genre under the sun.Organizer Chris Butcher also does an amazing job of bringing in the sort of guests you won't find anywhere else. Guests from all over the world.
One of those exotic guests happens to come from Australia and he happens to know my soon to be sister-in-law, Allison, and so I'm super excited to get to shill for his arrival in Canada.Matt Taylor works in advertising back in Oz (so if you need to hire an amazing concept design firm go here), but he's also a rabid comics fan and creator.He's been crisis-crossing North America as part of the Caravan of Comics, an invasion of sorts of like-minded Aussies with keen wits and pens to match.Matt is a pretty funny dude and he's been kind enough to give the Kill Shakespeare universe a sneak-peak at his book, Lars the Viking.Lars is a perturbed lil' fellow who speaks entirely in verse and mostly is pretty ticked that all the good plundering days seem to have come to an end. It turns out that the Vikings may not be long for this world, and Lars isn't QUITE ready to accept sliding into the dustbin of history.(Oh, and Lars has a pet pig? Did I mention that? A pig who also goes on raids? Yep, a raiding-pig... sweet!)So please enjoy this little gift through K.S. and we hope all of you who are coming to TCAF this weekend will check out our Australian friends as well!Cheers,Conor