The Comic Art Festival Kuala Lumpur comic convention(CAFKL) brought much fanfare to the public at Atria Shopping Gallery last weekend. Organised by SAYS Youth Society and featuring plenty of activities and art, the two-day fest once again passed with flying colours for bringing much wow to both attendees and artists.

This creator-focused event had over 130 artist booths and everyone was pretty much spoilt for choice when it comes to getting art pieces from a wide pool of diverse talent. One can get prints, fan-arts, art commissions, postcards, badges, charms, artbooks, stickers and of course, comics; you name it, they had it.

With so much to see and admire, you would wish that you were stacked with money so that you can support each and every artist but alas, cue sad anime tears.

Unlike mega-famous and anime/manga-focused conventions such as Comic Fiesta and AniManGaki, CAFKL puts heavy emphasis on original art and creations, hence its popularity among the local art community, in addition to providing a platform for artists to showcase their works. This year, CAFKL’s special guest lineup consisted of Fishball, Reimena Yee, Tan Eng Huat, afu, Kipen, Zid, Surfacage and Stephani Soejono among others.

From art demos to panels talking about “unconventional paths to building your audience”, the aforementioned guest artists & panellists managed to draw some laughter from their attentive audience, in addition to providing much insightful knowledge to many aspiring creative folks. One of the common themes discussed in the panels was the encouragement of more local comic productions. Seeing that we are now in the “New Malaysia” era, many felt that creativity has been given a large boost!

Besides being enlightened with all sorts of information, I personally felt that these panels and booths acted as a source of motivation and inspiration fuel to everyone to go out there and just create, create and create!

One of the strong points about CAFKL was that it invited anyone of any skill levels to draw and obtain some fun from it. Between the Comic Worm activity and the life drawing session, people including kids and artists have plenty of opportunities to pick up something and just draw and doodle.

No one is judging and everyone is happy to share their works! Who knows, maybe CAFKL could kick-start someone’s hidden art talent?

Overall, this event was a success, especially judging from the crowd that doesn’t seem to thin out when Day 2 was fifteen minutes away from closing time. In the last few minutes, a loud and well-deserved round of applause could be heard all around, courtesy of everyone, signalling that CAFKL 5 had reached its end. Hopefully, CAFKL will be back again for their sixth year in 2019!

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