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<\/a>There will also be professional mentors there who will spend the morning working with the students individually (some mentors include Gareth Gaudin of Legends Comics and Books and Perogy Cat fame, and Jess Pollard, who designed the poster for the festival this year; the festival will also have Scott Chantler, creator of graphic novel Two Generals<\/em>, as a guest speaker). In the afternoon, those mentors will display their work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a sizable convention,\u201d Steacy says. \u201cHundreds of people are displaying, so you have to have something that\u2019s going to stop people in their tracks and [make them] say, \u2018Wow, this is really cool. Interesting. Tell me about this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Steacy stresses the importance of students being an active participant in their tabling.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many years, you\u2019d see people with their heads down, just drawing or knitting or whatever,\u201d says Steacy, with a laugh. \u201cBut it\u2019s really important that they actually are standing up and smiling at people and greeting people and so on, because\u2014it\u2019s interesting\u2014shyness is still an issue, both with artists and attendees.\u201d<\/p>\n Steacy says the impetus is on the students tabling to be the one to get the interactions going, which is another skill students can learn at the event.<\/p>\n \u201cBreak the ice\u2026 just engage people,\u201d says Steacy. \u201cPeople who attend these conventions are there because they\u2019re invested in popular culture in the same way that we are, and they\u2019re looking for something. But they may just need that little prompt.\u201d<\/p>\n Steacy says the collision of words and pictures that makes up visual storytelling is a delicate balance.<\/p>\n \u201cThat in and of itself creates a synergy,\u201d he says. \u201cThat is one plus one equals three; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So the challenge, of course, is the modulation of words and pictures determining how much narrative, how many word blurbs, how many captions, and so on, are required to move the story forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Steacy says that just because comics are a visual medium doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that students have to be good artists, but he does say that length is always a challenge, particularly in our culture.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Japan, comics can run for 300 and 400 and 500 pages, so you actually have the opportunity to do beautiful, very nuanced sequences where somebody can flick a cigarette away and we can watch it tumble and hit the ground, and the coals fly and the wind blows and then a leaf goes by\u2026 they\u2019re exquisite,\u201d says Steacy.<\/p>\n But North American comics, in general, are much shorter.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve only got approximately 22, 24 pages to tell a story, so you couldn\u2019t take four or five pages just to do a scene like that,\u201d he says. \u201cThat would happen maybe in a couple of panels.\u201d<\/p>\n