Comics and commerce in Canada by Jesse Jacobs

Comic festivals across Canada, many of them normally scheduled to run this spring–in May even often–are banding together for the great #CanCAF initiative!

#CanCAF is a cross-festival joint initiative by the programming teams at TCAF, VanCAF, DCAF, MCAF/FBDM and Québec BD, to promote and share online content featuring creators and publishers. All the content and online activities they have planed in May will be promoted and taged all month with the #CanCAF hashtag to creative a full coast to cost virtual comics festival in Canada and beyond!

The current planned events are listed in a GIANT table you can find here on this page.

There is trully a lot going on, so while we won’t have the pleasure of a festival market floor to sell books from, fans and lovers of comics, along with the curious and newcomers to the medium will not lack for opportunities to discover, read, and if they are creators maybe even share their work. See the bottom of this post for info about how you can contribute content to #CanCAF 2020.

“The internet-based initiative will promote the work and careers of cartoonists and publishers scheduled to participate in their festivals this year, most now cancelled or postponed due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Events will take place across social media platforms using the hashtag #CanCAF, and a complete schedule of events through the month of May will be listed at www.cancaf.com.”

“We were all disappointed to cancel our respective events,” said Miles Baker, Managing Director of TCAF, The Toronto Comic Arts Festival. “But when we reached out to our colleagues it was incredibly heartening to see that so many of the festivals across Canada are still planning on creating original programming and promoting artists, writers, and publishers in this incredibly difficult time. #CanCAF will be the first-ever cross Canadian comics festival. And we can’t wait to begin sharing it with you.”

CanCAF programs will range widely from workshops to interviews, live drawing to panel discussions, podcasts to videocasts, and a few surprises along the way. Comic book and graphic novel fans, old and new, can look for the #CanCAF hashtag on their favourite social media to find great content and new ways to support and enjoy the work of Canadian and international creators.

Creators, publishers, and other comics events who would like to create content for the #CanCAF digital event, please reach out to contact@cancaf.com.