Pesto Comics - Audio Edition

Con Journal: TCAF

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Con Journal: TCAF

Finally tabling at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival

Adriano Ariganello

Jun 11, 2025

Transcript

Welcome Back

My original plan for this post was a vlog. The truth is I don't have enough video to make it interesting. Most of the video is people milling about the show floor.

Another thing that held me back is keeping this schedule, doing a post every week, and it feels like a lot more than I can chew at times. I don't get to experiment so much with the format. I don't think it's necessarily bad thing.

I see that the podcast numbers are going up more and more. A lot of people this weekend, at TCAF, who subscribe to the newsletter told me that their favorite part is that I actually read this as a podcast.

That reason sounds good enough not to mess with the format.
I'll keep reading this out to you if you keep listening.

Expectations, and trying to keep them in line, is really a big theme of this week’s post as I reflect on my time at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF).

Not to give it away, but I had a really good time…at first. A mix of fatigue and a couple concerning trends soured my experience by the end of the weekend.

We'll get into all the details shortly, but first...

Worklog Updates

This week, I did the following:

Received print copies of From Parts Unknown #3
Tabled at TCAF
Made basic updates to pestocomics.com
Got some words down for Project Hollywood

This is the plan for next week:

Send out From Parts Unknown #3 & delayed enamel pins for FPU2 and NKW
Table at East Coast Comic Expo on the weekend.
Hit word count goals for Project Hollywood.
Take a short break, enjoying lobster rolls and a slower pace of the Maritimes

Project Updates

A couple standing action items to note and an update for a highly anticipated project:

From Parts Unknown #4 launches on June 25th. Follow the prelaunch page!
Follow From Parts Unknown #4
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 is available on KU from now through August.
40 incredible stories from 40 excellent authors - including yours truly.
Read 'Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1' on KU
I’ve received page 20/32 from Rafael for Naked Kaiju Woman #2. We’re on track for launch this Fall. I’ll get the prelaunch page up for this as soon as possible.

And now…

Main Story

Made It to the Show

TCAF's long been a wish list convention for me. I've been wanting to table here since I started as an independent creator.

The fact that I made it into Thought Bubble before I made it into TCAF always felt strange to me (though I understand the novelty of a Canadian at Thought Bubble versus yet another hometown creator at TCAF).

I found myself comparing the two conventions all weekend. They're very similar in goals and audience, even though they're a world away from one another. Both are focused on indies, though Thought Bubble does bring in a couple of big names to try to draw attendees.

They put those big names right at the back of the convention, forcing you to cross all of the indies on your way to get your latest issues of Batman or Daredevil signed by Chip Zdarsky.

TCAF, on the other hand, is a free convention.

Locally speaking, bigger conventions like Fan Expo Canada and Toronto Comicon provide a barrier for those wishing to attend. Anyone can walk in and buy some indie comics at TCAF - in theory.

You’ll also see a lot more of your fellow indie creators coming to say “hi” than you would at Fan Expo. It becomes a very valuable networking event in that way.

This year, there was a huge change to all of it.

It now took place at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, which is the former Maple Leaf Gardens. For the hockey fans in attendance, it was a really cool. I found myself in front of the visitors bench where I would normally lace up my skates to play my Sunday hockey league games.

With the ice melted, we were on the hard concrete which made it slightly uncomfortable, but a unique experience in many ways - both good and bad.

The Good

One of the best parts of nearly every convention I've been to is getting to meet the people that I know online in the flesh. Sometimes it’s folks I only get to see at conventions.

The big bonus this time was that I was tabling next to a couple familiar faces in Steve Bynoe of Comix Asylum and my Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast collaborator,

Roberto Viacava

. I also got to meet new folks with the Silver Sprocket crew to my other side.

It was also a great opportunity to hang out with my long-time friend, Danon Hennessy (BTW, his episode of the Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast just went live yesterday!)

Not only is it great to have him with me to help with setting up and tearing down, but he is an excellent salesman. A lot of times, I would just defer to him as he pitched the comics so much better than I could have. It's always a good time hanging out with Danon. I’m looking forward to the next time we get to table together with the project (codename: Project West) that we’re both working on.

It wasn’t just the people directly around me that I got to catch up with. I won’t list them off in fear of missing some names, but there were a couple people I didn't expect to see.

Jim Zub

swung by the table and offered some great tips that I'll be carrying forward with my future conventions, plus offered some wonderful compliments for some of the work we had on display.

I also got to meet Sam Kusek, Kickstarter’s Senior Outreach Lead for Comics, face-to-face when mega-editor Allison O’Toole brought him by. We learned a bit about opportunities for not only our comics, but other projects we’re launching in the near future. Both Danon and I felt an extra jolt of motivation after chatting with Sam.

I got to meet a lot of new fans who weren't familiar with my work at all, many of whom didn't frequent Kickstarter or weren't familiar with the platform. This served as a good reminder of why I do these conventions.

One of the best parts of the new location, being at the bottom of an ice rink, was the arena bleachers surrounding us. Folks would go up to the bleachers to read the comics they just bought, and in a couple instances, I had new fans who would come down after having just read something of ours and wanting to pick up the rest of a series or something more from me.

The Not-So-Good

Although the bowl setting was neat and led to that new benefit, the new location brought in a different crowd than the library.

Almost everyone I was talking to said it was their first time at TCAF, which was really cool, but at the same time you could tell that the reading habits were a lot different as well. A lot of folks just weren't interested in indie comics, which was very depressing. It wasn't the majority, but it was enough.

For those that were a little more indie curious, I didn't get the same level of commitment that I have at other conventions where people would dive in with both feet, buying the whole catalog. Given that the prices that I charge at conventions are typically lower than I charge on Kickstarter, it was surprising. (I get to save on shipping and so on - and pass that on.)

Folks were only willing to pick up one comic at a time in a lot cases, many walking with 2-3 comics in hand at most. I wasn’t moving product at the volume that I had hoped.

Even then, my goal was to create some new fans with this convention. I had free digest variants of Stay Cool available for anyone willing to join the Substack - and even that required a hard sell for a lot of people. At Thought Bubble, by comparison, I went home empty-handed of both full-sized and digest-sized comics. Even without something to trade for an email, people were eager to sign up.

And yet, that wasn’t the most disconcerting thing I found.

A lot of budding artists came job hunting. Though I appreciate looking to make contacts and new friends, many came just looking to see if I was hiring cold. No portfolio to review or even offers to join the newsletter. Some just wanted a job drawing comics based on their courage to ask for it.

It showed that they didn't entirely understand what the deal is with indie creators at all.

Again, this wasn't every artist. (If you’re reading or listening to this now, it clearly wasn’t as you as at least made the effort to connect.)

I'm always happy to help artists and fellow writers where I can. We're all in the struggle together. However, as an indie creator, I'm doing my best to make ends meet for my work. As much as I’d love to employ every artist I want to, coming to the table empty handed and making no effort to connect doesn’t get you high on my list (and it’s a long one already).

I appreciate we all have to learn somehow, but the volume of people who did this on the weekend, especially on the Sunday, did start to drag me down as the sales didn’t keep up with expectations.

Looking Forward

All that said, I'm definitely going to go back next year. Whether I do it with a table or not is a different question.

One of the things I regret the most is not being able to leave my table very often to go talk to everyone I would see walking by or I didn’t see and I knew had tables.

The best part of any of these conventions is making connections. It's hard to do that when you're tethered to your table, trying to make the odd sale to make back your table cost.

I even didn't accomplish that this time.

With a lot of readers buying just one book at a time, it was a steep climb. Had I gone for half table, I easily would have cleared my table fee. That’s likely what I will do next time around.

The most surprising thing about this convention is that the high didn't last as long as it usually does. Seeing my friends, making new ones and getting some encouragement from unexpected places barely lasted up until I hit the ice on Sunday night for another hockey game. That was unusual, to say the least.

The good news is I get to do it all over again this weekend at the East Coast Comic Expo. I have no expectations for this convention as it’ll be my first time there.

My ECCE neighbor,

Emilia’s Substack

, tells me that it's a fun show and that the people who organize it are pretty great people, so at the very least, I don't think I'll be too disappointed.

Plus I get a nice vacation out of it as I'll be staying in the Maritimes for a week. It’s somewhere I've never been before, so it’ll be a great recharge.

I'll come back next week my reflections on that, hopefully feeling that buzz I missed out on this time.

Until then…

Have you been to TCAF? Do you want to go?
Do you feel the buzz after a good convention?

Let me know in the comments.