Lorelei Queen of the Whole Entire Universe Launch & Workshop!

Come one, come all! On Sunday, June 30th the Beguiling & Little Island Comics welcome David Missio and his comics making class to the shop for an event to celebrate Lorelei: Queen of the Whole Entire Universe!

Lorelei developed out of David's work with youth in the TDSB through Story Planet and the JCC after school programme where he has been teaching cartooning and story-making workshops.
Drawing with all of the students, has now drawn David to bring Lorelei Queen of the Whole Entire Universe with him to help spark ideas and give kids a place to publish their work. It's an open source shared universe that spans the cosmos!

Art from the year will be on display, a collection will be available in print and refreshments will be served as we celebrate the first art and stories for "Lorelei: Queen of the Whole Entire Universe"!

As if that wasn't enough, there will be a comics-making workshop led by one of our favourites, Georgia Weber, writer/artist of Dumb!

It all begins Sunday, June 30th at 1PM! See you there!

Komiks Zine Fair with Kwentong Bayan Collective →

Kwentong Bayan Collective in partnership with the Lillian H. Smith Branch - Toronto Public Library invites you to our Komiks Zine Fair!

Please join us in celebrating Kwentong Bayan's 1 year anniversary of hosting a weekly Comics / Komiks Meet-Up at the library.

There will be lots of activities for all ages including an art-making table, merch displays featuring work by Meet-Up artists, short movies about comics, and a chill reading spot featuring our favorite Filipino komiks!

Saturday July 21, 2018
1 PM - 4:30 PM
Lillian H. Smith Library - 239 College Street, Meeting Room A, Lower Level
FREE EVENT

Kwentong Bayan is a collective of two Toronto-based artists, Jo SiMalaya Alcampo and Akin King member Althea Balmes. Their artistic mandate is to explore a critical and intersectional approach to community-based art, labour, and education. Althea Balmes is a multidisciplinary visual storyteller and artist educator interested in collaborative creative expressions to tell stories and make art.

First Meeting of the Akin D.I.Y. Comics School! →

Interested in continuing your education and development as a cartoonist and in helping others do the same? Join us Monday, July 2nd, from 7pm to 9:30pm at the Akin St. Clair Studio in the “Don’s Meats” building at 1747 St. Clair Avenue West for the inaugural D.I.Y. Comics School Meeting.

The new D.I.Y. Comics School is just one of the member led projects to evolve from the Akin Comic Day that occurred in May 2018. Founded by Akin St. Clair member Christopher Green, aka Mumblethief, a cartoonist, educator, and fictional character who comes from the Alaskan wilderness, the D.I.Y. school will meet the first Monday of every month at Akin's St. Clair location and is open to everyone. The first meeting will include a show & tell, a visual vocabulary exercise, a 1 page comic exercise, a critique and more!

Photo of Akin Comic Day by Jen Pilles

TCAF Panel: Building a Comics Community Feat. Althea Balmes →

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) kicks off this weekend with a stellar line up of artists, writers, panels, workshops, kids programming and more. One event of note is the Building a Comics Community panel featuring Akin King member, Althea Balmes.

What: Building a Comics Community Panel

Where: Marriott Hotel (Summerhill Ballroom)

When: May 13th 2018 at 2:45PM

Althea Balmes is a multidisciplinary visual storyteller and artist educator who is interested in collaborative creative expressions to tell stories and make art. Her work has been shown at Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, Kaohsiung International Film Festival, Scarborough Arts Bridging Festival as well as Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, A-Space Gallery, Blackwood Gallery, Mayworks Festival among others. Her illustrations and comics has also been published by Briarpatch Magazine, Rice Paper Magazine, The Peak Magazine, Our Times Magazine, and Looseleaf Magazine.

TCAF exists to promote the breadth and diversity of comics, and what is considered comics, as legitimate medium of literary and artistic worth. The festival seeks to promote the creators of these works in their broad and diverse voices, for the betterment of the medium of comics and to reach as wide an audience as possible for them.

Comic Making Workshop + Residency for asian youth - Althea Balmes & Kwentong Bayan

Althea Blames of Akin Lansdowne presents The Comic Making Workshops + Residency program - learn, explore and practice the craft of combining drawing and writing (for Asian youth 16-29).

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: DEC 7 2016
9 weeks | Jan-Mar 2017 | no fee | honorarium

The Comic Making Workshops + Residency program is a series of free comic making workshops for self-identified Asian (mixed race, South, East, South East, newcomer, new generation, 1.5, LGBTQI-lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, and or with disability) youth (16-29).

The goal of the project is to financially, culturally, mutually support marginalized Asian youth who are homeless or at risk of being homeless to improve their literacy, creative writing, drawing skills and encourage creative collaboration. Youth will develop strategies to write stories from real-life, design characters, page/layout composition, inking and texting, and put together zine comics. The project is meant to give access to a group of youth interested in building an art community and share a positive space for exploring the complexities and issues around being an Asian in Canada. This project is made possible by the support of Ontario Arts Council