ELCAF 2014

Yesterday was the East London Comic Arts Festival (or ELCAF) which I went to last year and thoroughly enjoyed. The main agenda last year (as well as spending lots of money on beautiful books of course!) was to try and make some contacts and get feedback from my graphic novel that I'd done as my FMP at uni. 

This time I just talked to a few publishers for advice and made the most of the day by looking round all the stalls and chatting to lots of lovely like-minded creative folk and illustrators.

I made a beeline for Isabel Greenberg's stall the moment I spotted it. She's one of my all time favourite illustrators and a big inspiration of mine. If you haven't already bought her graphic novel 'The Encyclopedia of Early Earth' you really should, it's beautiful! She has a wonderful lino/wood-cut style of drawing which I'm just in love with. I knew she had a new little book out based on her Encyclopedia ('Rites, Customs and Histories of the Great Empire of Migdal Bavel') which isn't a comic but does have some lovely spot illustrations, and her 'The River of Lost Souls' comic also caught my eye, so obviously I snapped both up!

Next to Isabel's stall, 'Magic Capes' (aka Lesley Barnes and Thereza Rowe) were selling some lovely cards and books. I particularly liked Lesley's 'The Firebird' concertina and Thereza's cute little 'Hearts' comic:

I went to Jesse Moynihan's talk about his work as an Adventure Time storyboard artist:

and Anne Simon's presentation on her Freud book with Nowbrow:

I really liked the hand screen-printed books at the Innuit stall, but unfortunately they were (understandably) quite expensive so will have to save up for one next year! I was instantly drawn to one called 'My First Book' which had Haida-style artwork on the cover.

My haul of the day!

Books I bought: 

Krystyna Baczynski's 'A Measure of Space'

Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann

Isabel Greenberg's short zines/comics: 'The River of Lost Souls' and 'Rites, Customs and Histories of the Great Empire of Migdal Bavel'

Along with of course lots of freebie postcards, comics (like 'Offlife') and bushiness cards:

I met the lovely and super talented Kristyna again, and am likely to meet her at future festivals this year, but it's always a pleasure to meet her and see what she's been up to. I reeeeeeally love her new risograph printed comic 'A Measure of Space', as I just instantly related with the main character and how she deals with her impending doom. 

I took my Isabel Greenberg books from home in the hope that she might sign them at ELCAF, and she did! She drew my favourite characters (Kiddo and the wolf)

She also signed my 'Snow Queen' book: 

I met Luke Pearson again and this time he signed my hardback first edition Hilda, yay!

My last purchase of the day was this lovely hidden gem of a screen print by Melissa Castrillon, a very limited 1/5 edition, can't wait to frame it in my room! I was hoping to find some of Melissa's work at the Brolly Lolly stall, and was so pleased to find something so beautiful of her's to take home

I love the funny little animals and plants in this!