We are thrilled to be joining the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) in Toronto next weekend once again as a community partner and we’ve got a great slate of programs, signings, and chances to talk graphic medicine together to share with you! GMIC’s Matthew Noe and Shelley Wall, along with several of Shelley’s amazing students, will be on site throughout the show to promote all things graphic medicine. Below are some highlights of where to find us:
TCAF Libraries and Education Day
Full Schedule and Registration (Free!)
A full day of programming and professional development dedicated to librarians and educators, this event takes place on Friday June 5th at TMU Special Collections & Archives and while all of the day’s programming is going to be fantastic, we think fans of graphic medicine will really want to make it to:
- Being Human is Hard: Mental Health in YA Comics
- Growing up human is hard, even in the best of times, and 2026 is by no measure the best of times. But as anyone who survived the process can share, finding out that you are not alone can make things so much better! Join our panel of coming-of-age cartooning masters for a deep dive into how comics can make the invisible visible, the impossible possible, and find out why our young adult students love these books so much.
- Moderator: Lucia Serantes
- Panelists: Vivi Partridge, Katie Hicks, Emilia Strilchuk, Georgina Chadderton, Shreya Davies
- Graphic Medicine Without Borders
- Graphic medicine, or the intersection of comics and health, offers insights into the, often contradictory and too-hard-for-words, experiences of embodied life. Moderated by one of the leading scholars in graphic medicine, Dr. Shelley Wall, and spotlighting creators from around the globe, this panel highlights graphic medicine from around the world, encouraging us to think beyond borders and embrace our shared humanity. Attendees will walk away with a greater understanding of what comics can offer medicine and plenty of comics suggestions to bring back to their communities!
- Moderator: Shelley Wall
- Panelists: Joana Mosi, Maureen Burdock, Arizona O’Neill, Veronica Post, Moka Onmae, Tsubasa Kosaka
- Zines as Graphic Medicine: A Self-care Practice for Librarians
- Librarians devote immense energy to serving their communities, but it’s equally important that they care for their own well-being. Burnout, compassion fatigue, and workplace stress are common in the profession, and we need space for self-care and healing. “Graphic medicine”—comics that explore health and wellness created by or about people experiencing mental or physical health challenges—may be a helpful concept for librarians to be aware of and practice themselves. This hands-on program will introduce librarians to the field of graphic medicine and provide an opportunity to make a zine as an act of self-care. Participants will receive a zine template but can also choose to make freely. This practice could be useful to bring back to library teams to promote health literacy or to adapt into programs for patrons.
- Workshop Host: Cassy Lee
TCAF Programming
In addition to the great programming happening on Friday with LED (and for creators, don’t sleep on Word Balloon Academy (WAB)!), there is programming all TCAF weekend as well! Like last year, we’ll be hosting a panel specifically highlighting graphic medicine, as well has hosting a special edition of Drawing Together. While you’ll want to find all the logistics on the TCAF website, some details about those, and other relevant highlights, are below:
Saturday Program Highlights
- Comics & Parenthood
- Ah, the life cycle of a comics artist; the circle of life at its finest. They are born, at some point in their development they start reading comics, they grow and mature, they start creating comics of their own, and then the arguably just as impressive feat of rearing little comics artists of their own. Join this panel of artists as they discuss exploring families and parenthood in their work, and how they’re raising the next generation of comics artists and fans.
- Moderator: Amy Noseworthy
- Panelists: Chad Anderson, Elisabeth Belliveau, Pascal Girard, Alison McCreesh, Rachael Smith
- Disability in Comics
- Everyone’s lives are touched by disability, whether individually, someone you know and love, or both; comic and graphic novel creators are no different. Even the term “disability” covers a range of life experiences too broad to capture in a single piece of media but every story hopefully works towards creating a more safe, caring and accessible world. Join a panel of comics creators as they explore the way visual mediums can offer a unique and empathetic glimpse into the lives of people with disabilities (and the people who love them).
- Moderator: Mariam Elsawy
- Panelists: Georgina Chatterton, Veronica Post, Emilia Strilchuk
- Spotlight on Joana Mosi x Arizona O’Neill (with moderator, Matthew Noe)
- Comics have a special way of leaving you quietly devastated as heartbreak, pain and loss unfolds panel after panel. In The Mongoose (Éditions Pow Pow), Portuguese visual artist and cartoonist Joana Mosi crafts the tale of a woman haunted by grief, loss and a garden-destroying pest. Montreal-based author and illustrator Arizona O’Neill’s Opioids and Organs (Drawn & Quarterly) is a heartwrenching graphic novel memoir of a daughter grappling with the loss of her father alongside her family’s story and the macabre history of organ transplantation. Join these two prodigious artists in conversation as they excavate the hardest emotions and why comics offer such a singular way to explore them.
- Drawing Together with Maureen Burdock
- Join cartoonist Maureen Burdock for a special TCAF edition of Graphic Medicine’s Drawing Together, a welcoming, community-centered drawing session open to all ages and experience levels. This workshop invites participants to visually map an existing project or begin mapping a new comic idea rooted in graphic medicine or lived experience—no drawing background required. The session will begin with a brief introduction and a guided prompt, followed by time to draw together. Whether you’re picking up a pencil for the first time or returning to an ongoing project, this is a space for curiosity, presence, and connection through drawing. Materials will be provided.
Sunday Program Highlights
- Publishing for the Revolution
- It’s 2026, and we’re dealing with genocide, war, and a global rise in authoritarianism. Things are very bad out in the world. Can comics help change hearts, minds, lives, and politics? Four publishers whose mandate is to make the world better talk about their radical mission, and the activist power of comics dissidence.
- Moderator: Lucia Cedeira Serantes
- Publishers: Gina Gagliano (Street Noise), Archie Sarjeant (Gytha), Dylan Box (Diskette Press), Amanda Meadows (Andrew McMeel Publishing), Felicia Low-Jimenez (Difference Engine)
- Exploring Graphic Medicine
- Aging. Addiction. Mental health. Cancer. Just some of the countless health topics that touch each of our lives, in ways both unique and universal, and when explored through comics, all under the umbrella of graphic medicine. Join this panel to hear from creators working in this genre as they discuss their recent work, the power of comics for sharing nuanced health stories, and the challenges in bringing these difficult topics to light.
- Moderator: Matthew Noe
- Panelists: Jeff Lemire, Shreya Davies, Rachel Thomas, Jon Claytor
On the Exhibit Floor!
Graphic Medicine International Collective can be found on both Saturday June 6th and Sunday June 7th exhibiting on Mattamy Ice Rink at Table 197!
We’ll have more information about graphic medicine and what we do as GMIC, students selling their own graphic medicine zines, plus a number of author signings throughout the weekend! Book sales for the signings are courtesy of The Beguiling.
Our signing schedule (subject to change) is below:
Saturday Signings
- 10 am: Shreya Davies, author of To the Last Gram, available from Difference Engine
- 11 am: Georgina Chadderton, author of Oh Brother: A Graphic Memoir, available from Random House Graphic
- 12 pm: Elisabeth Belliveau, author of Birth Story, available from Conundrum Press
- 2 pm: Vivi Partridge, author of Quiet Crossings, available from Conundrum Press
- 3 pm: Nathan Fairbairn and Michele Assarasakorn, authors of the PAWS series, available from Penguin Random House
- 4 pm: Veronica Post, author of Let the Good Times Roll, available from Conundrum Press
Sunday Signings
- 10 am: Maureen Burdock, author of Sleepless Planet, available from Graphic Mundi
- 11 am: Arizona O’Neill, author of Opioids & Organs, available from Drawn & Quarterly
- 1 pm: Julie Fiveash, author of The Froggy Library, available from Levine Querido
- 4 pm: Rachel Thomas, author of Shrink, available from Graphic Mundi
Student Volunteer Work
- Ella Eberhardt is a science and medical illustrator specializing in biomedical communication, working to make the complex and difficult to understand more approachable for everyone! Check out their work at Eberhardt Illustrations.
We can’t wait to see you there!
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