Original Artwork Promoted at Vancouver Comic Arts Festival
Free-admission event brings smiles to attendees and exhibitors alike
After attending low-energy art conventions, Vancouver Comic Arts Association event coordinator Shannon Campbell felt inspired to create a festival “where, first and foremost, everyone was just pleased to be there—attendees and exhibitors alike.”
Campbell admired the atmosphere at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival and decided to bring something similar to Vancouver, where she could help hundreds of artists, writers, and publishers promote their original creations. Today that event is called the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, held for the first time six years ago.
This year the no-admission event was held at Roundhouse Mews in Yaletown . Over 260 exhibitors set up booths between May 21 and 22 to showcase and sell their art to admiring attendees.
Some of the big names at the con include comic artists Lynn Johnston, Faith Erin Hicks, Ian Boothby, James Lloyd, and Nina Matsumoto, but despite the varying levels of exhibitor notoriety and VanCAF experience, there wasn’t a whiff of elitism at the Mews that Sunday. Each artist exhibiting seemed happy to be there, and that feeling was contagious for the crowd.
Painter and Graphic Novelist Camilla d’Errico has been exhibiting at VanCAF for years. She says her primary reason for returning is the event’s focus on original content.
“I really like it because it’s just about comics and original art, whereas a lot of comic book shows are more about fan art, games, movies, and stuff,” she says. “This is very community-based and feels like they really support the artists who try to express their own vision of art.”
Charles “Zan” Christensen, founder and editor-in-chief of Seattle-based comic book publishing house, Northwest Press Publisher, agrees with d’Errico. He travels all over the world for cons but appreciates VanCAF for focusing on original art in particular.
“I like the fact that it’s a place where people come to appreciate independent work and to appreciate artists and books in general,” he says. “It’s much less pop culture-y, it’s more about the art and independent work. I really love being here.”
Campbell explains that instead of having to rely on fan art sales to make money, VanCAF “helps them in two ways.”
“Because our show is curated and affordable, we prioritize exhibitors who have original titles and characters, and because VanCAF has developed a reputation based off of that, we find that our attendees are mostly only interested in original content,” she says.
Compensating artists for original work, along with VanCAF’s low exhibitor entry fee and free attendee admission, means they can afford to get their name out there at cons. It creates a “feedback loop” that keeps the event affordable and accessible for everyone involved, Campbell explains.
“Even artists who are just beginning their career can justify the expense. Likewise, we make the show free to attend so that if attendees want to drop some cash, they only have one place to do so—on the exhibitors,” she says, “That is VanCAF’s goal in a nutshell, to make a show that helps advance careers and promote new artists, while remaining accessible to the attendees, who should never feel like they’re being excluded by a steep entry fee or a pre-existing interest in comics.”
One of the exhibitors, illustrator Roberta Chang, is proof of the positive effect that VanCAF’s “feedback loop” can have on new artists. A local to Vancouver, VanCAF was Chang’s first experience with cons, and she came to sell a book that she co-wrote and designed titled Friends and Food. After having the event recommended to her by loved ones and instructors, she finally signed up as an exhibitor and was encouraged by the reaction she received.
“Hearing all the great responses about the art makes you really feel psyched about doing more,” she says. “It’s really friendly, actually. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like to begin with, but you can see that a lot of people who are here for the art, not exactly for the money.”
