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What is TCAF?

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is one of the largest independent comic arts festivals in the world. 

 

Each year, TCAF welcomes 28,000+ visitors and 315+ artists from across Canada and around the world to our two-day celebration of the breadth and diversity of independent comics. 

 

TCAF is unique in our commitment to accessibility. Unlike other large comic arts festivals in North America, TCAF has remained completely free to the public since our launch in 2003, and our programmers seek to spotlight emerging talent alongside established creators.

 

Over the years, TCAF has drawn prominent names such as Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Daniel Clowes, Junji Ito, Chris Ware, Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, Chester Brown, Seth, Kate Beaton, Adrian Tomine, Kamome Shirahama, and Bryan Lee O'Malley, and we seek to serve as a platform for international artists to showcase their work.

 

TCAF 2026 will be held from June 6-7, 2026 at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Mattamy Athletic Centre. To kick off the festival, we’re also offering a full day of professional development programming for comics librarians and staff (Libraries and Education Day) and comics creators (Word Balloon Academy) on June 5. 

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  • Exhibitor Marketplace: Meet the creators of your favourite comics, and shop their latest releases. In 2024, over 315 artists and 30 publishers exhibited their works on the TCAF marketplace floor.

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  • Festival Programming: Learn about the historical and contemporary trends in comics through panel talks, Q&As, workshops, and artist spotlights. Programming will occur onsite throughout the festival. 

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  • Kids Programming: TCAF is all-ages! Bring your kids for drawing and creation workshops and comics storytimes led by educators and library workers. 

What to expect at   
TCAF 2026

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  • Professional Programming: Work in comics? TCAF presents two streams of professional development: Libraries and Education Day (LED) and Word Balloon Academy (WBA).  LED focuses on developing skills to build library comics collections and tools to use comics in lesson plans. WBA offers two streams of programs dedicated to developing business and artistic skills for cartoonists

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  • Offsite programming: Starting June 2nd, TCAF will also host off-site programming events in the week leading up the festival. In past years, these events have included film screenings, manga swaps, queer mixers, comics jams, and more.

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Our
Team

Amie Wright - Executive Director

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Mandy Folsom - Festival Administrator

 

Jalen Innis - Festival Producer, Logistics & Production

 

MJ Lyons - Festival Producer, Programming & Partnerships / Word Balloon Academy Lead Programmer

 

Kate Fane - Manager of Marketing & Communications 

 

Aaron King - Digital Experience Manager

 

Ho Che Anderson - General Programming Artistic Coordinator 

 

Claire McDonald - Volunteer Coordinator & Publisher Relations

 

Allie Landy - Libraries & Education Day Coordinator

 

Matthew Noe - Libraries & Education Day Coordinator

 

Cleo Peterson - Exhibitor Curation and Evaluations

 

Lauren Suna - Festival Archival Curator

 

Erika Chung - Academic Conference Coordinator 

TCAF Board

  • Peter Birkemoe

  • Simon Cheeseman

  • Michael Duboff

  • Gary Sherman

  • Emma Wakelin

  • Stephanie Winter

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