Erika Moen is a 25-year-old queer cartoonist living in Portland, Oregon. Yes, she’s married to a man but she still identifies as queer. Can’t figure it out? Well, check out her weekly web comic Dar: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary (above) at Darcomic.com. Justin Hall is a gay writer and illustrator from San Francisco. His first book, A Sacred Text, was about the Dead Sea scrolls falling into the hands of a gay black slave. Through All Thumbs Press (Allthumbspress.com) he puts out Glamazonia, his super tranny comic, and Hard to Swallow, his and collaborator Dave Davenport’s hard-core fantasy porn series — all pirates, werewolves, monsters and pornstars getting it on hard and fast.
Both Moen and Hall join the stellar lineup of illustrators, comics artists, graphic novelists and other visually gifted folks for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) running Sat, May 9 (10am to 5pm) and May 10 (noon to 5pm). Growing by leaps and bounds, this year’s free event moves to the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge St).
Celebrated Canadians Seth, Shary Boyle, Chester Brown and Maurice Vellekoop are featured alongside international stars like East Berlin’s Anke Feuchtenberger, Japan’s Yoshihiro Tatsumi and the States’ Adrian Tomine. Hall and Moen also participate in one of the featured panels, Comic Books Are Totally Gay, joining queer comics creators J Bone (Jett Vector), Tim Fish (Young Bottoms in Love), Steve MacIsaac (Shirtlifters), Mariko Tamaki (Skim) and moderator Jose Villarrubia (Promethea, The Mirror of Love). This free evening of readings and conversation runs 7pm to 9pm on the Saturday night at Fire on the East Side (6 Gloucester St). Other events include Kid Koala headlining the TCAF kick-off party at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor St W; $18.50) on Thu, May 7, and doing a super-chill drawing event on May 11 at the Central (603 Markham St). For info go to Torontocomics.com.
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