Our 10th Anniversary, 100% Virtual
The next Montreal Comic Arts Festival will take place on May 28, 29 and 30, 2021. The organizers of MCAF worked until the last possible moment to create a hybrid event with some in-person elements, but given the ongoing (and seemingly never-ending) realities of the pandemic, for the second year in a row the Festival will be 100% virtual, live and direct online, where dozens of creators will be united to connect with thousands of audience members.
So without further ado here is the theme of our 10th anniversary!
10 Shades of Comics
Ten—That’s the number that we’ll be shouting loud and proud come May 2021. Ten, which can seem small in the grand scheme of things, but for us represents a huge accomplishment… After all MCAF is the first and only Montreal festival dedicated to the comic arts to reach that milestone. Not only does 2021 mark the Festival’s 10th anniversary, but it will also be marked by the appearance of X, the second annual album released by Presses du FBDM | MCAF Press, following up on the success of Lettres à Montréal which appeared in 2020.
Ten years after setting up our first, teeny-tiny tent in the heart of La Fontaine park, MCAF is still promoting the comics arts, lifting up creators, and encouraging the public to discover this vibrant art in all its forms.
And when we say all its forms, we mean it! Because you’ll find the work of cartoonists all over our fair city: From beer labels to public service announcements in the metro, the comic arts can be found everywhere you look; communicating, demanding, explaining, and sharing. The comic arts, born millenia ago on cave walls, have evolved and adapted, moving from canvas to paper, and from the screen to virtual reality. And just as the comic arts have changed with the times, so has the Festival.
We may be only ten years old, but we think that we’ve got a brilliant future ahead of us. There is a tremendous amount to celebrate about the Quebec comic arts world, which is bigger and better than ever before. Of course, we can’t help but think about the new generation of readers who is the first one to grown up with Québecois comics (think about the young fans of Agent Jean, Adventuresaure, and the inimitable work of Élyse Gravel), locally-created series and characters which were all too rare in years past. The Québec comics industry has certainly come a long way from the days when it was limited to a few underground comix, or a few strips in the local weekly paper. But while we’re extraordinarily proud of the current growth in the Québec comics scene, we’ll certainly never forget the pioneers of the artform, who laid the groundwork for generations to come, like Albert Chartier (Onésime) and Sylvie Rancourt (Melody).
And so, simply put, that’s the theme of our 10th annual Festival: Celebration! Celebrating our tenth anniversary, celebrating the best in the comic arts from from near and far (but always first and foremost here in this wonderful city of Montreal, because there is so much to love), and celebrating as we look forward to the next ten years as well!
