Day 2 of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Toronto Reference Library, photo by Casey Brienza
“Are you into indie comics?” asked a Toronto Comic Arts Festival veteran shortly after my arrival at the provincial capital of Ontario, Canada.
It’s a question anybody interested in this event ought to put seriously to themselves before planning to attend this biannual two-day event. Needless to say, TCAF (pronounced “tee-kahf”) may be free admission for all at the Toronto Reference Library, but it definitely isn’t going to be for everybody, and this may, depending upon your point of view, be a problem. More on that later. For now suffice it to say that if you aren’t “into” indie comics or don’t even know what “indie comics” are, you will feel more than a bit adrift. TCAF does not succeed as an argument: it is not the place to go if you’re looking for a headfirst initiation into the world of indie comics, but it is a veritable mecca for the already-converted.
The festival’s heart is its large exhibition hall, spread out across the library’s first and second floors. There are a handful of small presses in attendance, such as Fantagraphics, Ponent Mon/Fanfare, Vertical, Prism Comics, and Drawn & Quarterly (with the best location in the house, right in front of the main extrance). But the main attraction are the indie artists themselves, signing at the publishers’ booth or at their own individual tables. It’s a delightful, low-key atmosphere perfect for both shopping and socializing. I had opportunties to chat personally with comics creators Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon; Nightschool), J. Torres and Eric Kim (Love as a Foreign Language), Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy), Barry Deutsch (Hereville), and Abby Denson (Tough Love; Dolltopia).
There is also limited concurrent programming, mostly author signings and informational panels, available on both days. Chris Ware (Acme Novel Library; Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth) was probably the biggest name around, and sure enough his panel was packed. A special stream of panels and signings devoted to comics for kids also ran in one room off to the side of the second floor exhibition space. I, however, was at TCAF primarily to see Usamaru Furuya (Genkaku Picasso; Lychee Light Club) and Natsume Ono (Gente; House of Five Leaves), two Japanese manga artists who, despite being published by some of Japan’s largest trade publishing houses, stylistically pass muster as “indie” in North America.
Furuya was clearly comfortable with the spotlight—no surprise given that his manga frequently feature faithfully representative self-portraits. However, this TCAF was the camera-shy Ono’s very first public appearance, and the story which emerged from her interview was not the most coherent. (She got better with practice; her story was straighter for subsequent interviews.) Nevertheless, one of her comments was painfully telling: her body of creative work thus far has focused upon what to her is the most profound of all human relations, friendship between men. When asked if she believed that friendship between women is the same as friendship between men, Ono answered, “No, I don’t think so.”
No surprise then that she was feted at TCAF. My one criticism of the indie comics scene is that it is riven across gender lines, and symbolic value, I would argue, is systematically correlated to a rejection of the feminine (Brienza, 2011). This can get downright unpleasant at times, and it may have become a stain on TCAF’s reputation in certain circles. For example, Chester Brown, one of the Featured Guests of Honor this year, launched his new graphic novel Paying For It at the festival. This book depicts the author sleeping with sometimes underage prostitutes and advocates the decriminalization of prostitution. It also happens to be, according to some people with whom I have privately corresponded, the latest in an infuriating series of misogynist examples of everything that is wrong with indie comics. One friend wrote me the following scathing reaction:
I was expecting it to be a short-sighted, self-centered book, since most of the guys on the top of the indie comics ladder have already proven themselves to be elitist, privileged, oftentimes hateful dicks. But I never expected it to be this offensive. His lack of basic human decency when it gets in the way of him getting exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it is astounding. He’s one of the biggest indie cartoonists in Canada. The fact that he wrote this book and people might agree with him freaks me out.
As I have not read Brown’s book myself (and have no plans to do so any time soon), I reserve judgment on Paying For It’s merits, yet I do wonder if an event held in a public library ought not to take more seriously the word “public”…with all of the rights and responsibilities entailed.
Now, I would not dare suggest that every public event need cater to absolutely everybody. But on the other hand, why continue to valorize a part of the world of comics that is built upon a rejection of the feminine in a way that strikes some, such as the friend quoted above, as profoundly problematic—in a free-to-all public forum? That certainly seems hard to justify.
REFERENCES
Brienza, C. (2011) “Engendering Autonomy: Comics Books and Masculinity as Symbolic Value in Cultural Production.” Working Paper
Brown, C. (2011) Paying For It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John (Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly)
Good post Casey. I take your point about the Indie Boys Club atmosphere. I’m interested to hear if you had any further thoughts on “indie comics”, which you problematised by putting scare quotes around. Is the “indie” bit defined purely by the economics of publishing and distribution, or has it reached a stage where it is now a stylistic trait characterised by a reliance on memoir, autobiography, the everyday etc.
Interesting post. I really wanted to attend TCAF this year, mostly for the Doug Wright Awards. I can’t help but wonder about the whole “public” space bit, though. I’m not sure about Canadian norms, but I’ve attended many a “library-hosted con” and have seen much of the same—books with naughty content, booth babes wearing next to nothing, and all the trappings of male-centric comic culture. That seems part of the larger culture, though… sex sells, and even prime-time TV is not spared from such representations. Having read Chester Brown’s book a few times through, it seems more sad and depressing than purposefully misogynistic. One of the big critiques is the fact that he obscures the women’s faces, a fact explained away in the introduction (since prostitution is illicit, this protects their privacy). Joe Matt and Seth also make appearances as the voices of reason. Granted, works like Joe Matt’s Spent and The Poor Bastard have their share of female objectification, but even Matt’s character in Brown’s book is cynical of his exploits as a John. Seth’s character is perhaps the most vocal, calling out his “exploitation” and challenging his political views on the matter of prostitution. And still, even with this dialectic present, the work is depressing. Brown does not come off as a hero, and even his heavily cited appendices read with an air of desperation. I’m still not sure how I really feel about it, outside of one observation—his 8-panel-per-page layouts calls to mind the “8-page” style of the old Tijuana Bibles, and I think there’s a nod to that tradition… with a twist; namely, what used to be rendered in somewhat quaint, over the top tones in the “8 pagers” of the 1930’s comes off as cold and calculated in Brown’s work. His facial expression does not change, leading to more than a few moments of irony when he calls the women out for having no expression during their encounters. I’ll have to read this yet again to really get a sense of what Brown is up to, and it might be worth a post of my own if I figure it out :-).