Comic Book Resources

SPX '09 | The Critics Roundtable, transcribed

Here's what we talk about when we talk about comics.

In front of a packed house at September's Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, a group of critics from around the comics Internet and beyond talked shop at the annual Critics Roundtable panel. Moderated by Bill Kartalopolous, the panel featured Comics Journal founder Gary Groth, New York Times critic Douglas Wolk, bloggers Joe "Jog" McCulloch, Tucker Stone, and Rob Clough, and a pair of Robot 6ers, Chris Mautner and myself. I'm happy to present a transcript of the panel below.

Sure, I'm a little biased, but I think it's a fascinating discussion. The topics include the differences between print and online criticism, the notion of "the critical discourse," negative critiques and much more. For some panelists, things have already changed since the panel took place: Groth, who gets quizzed on why he isn't a bigger contributor to the comics Internet, is getting ready to jump in with both feet with the relaunched Comics Journal, of which Clough is going to be a part; while my membership in Robot 6 wasn't even a glimmer in JK Parkin's eye yet. And with a good deal of familiarity between the critics -- I believe seven out of eight have written for the Journal and half write for The Savage Critic(s) -- the back-and-forth was fluid.

If you'd like to listen along, you can download this mp3 recording of the panel. It's worth it just to hear the chaos surrounding Tucker's bathroom break.

Click the jump to read the transcript. Now, without further ado...

Continue Reading »

More Con War skirmishes and Con Love treaties

(Yes, I'm enjoying the metaphors. Why do you ask?)

Full-scale warfare between convention promoters isn't universal, believe it or not -- some are giving peace a chance. In addition to the recent arrangement worked out by Heroes Con and Supercon to avoid a date conflict, Emerald City ComiCon's Jim Demonakos tells Robot 6 that following an unavoidable conflict with Orlando's MegaCon the weekend of March 13, 2010, he and MegaCon's Beth Widera collaborated on choosing dates for 2011 so that future overlap could be avoided. "We ended up on the same dates for 2010 and neither of us could move, but we've talked and coordinated and our mutual 2011 dates will not be on each other's dates at all," says Demonakos. "Con planning, always an adventure."

Continue Reading »

Heroes Con & Supercon make Con Love, not Con War

Heroes Con

Not every comic-convention conflict has to end in tears. So Heroes Con organizer and Heroes Aren't Hard to Find retailer Shelton Drum discovered when he ran into a seemingly unavoidable scheduling overlap with Florida Supercon, the Miami-based show organized by Mike Broder. The two shows have announced that Supercon has voluntarily switched its 2010 dates to June 18-20 in order to accommodate Heroes Con, which will be held on June 4-6.

According to Drum, the increasingly busy convention season and a booked-solid schedule at the Charlotte, NC convention center during the June-July timeframe during which Heroes Con is traditionally held combined to limit his scheduling options.

"I had actually just about given up on doing anything at the Charlotte Convention Center in 2010," Drum tells Robot 6. "Using a smaller venue was an option as well as just taking a year off." But when Drum put out feelers in these directions at the Baltimore Comic-Con, he was met with such an overwhelming response that he feared hosting the show at a smaller site would lead to overcrowding.

Continue Reading »

Is Brian Michael Bendis a casualty of the Con War?

"Last minute cancellations" at last weekend's Big Apple Comic Con (via The Beat)

With the initial salvos -- head-to-head scheduling, employee ejections -- out of the way, the battle between Reed Exhibitions and Wizard Entertainment's Gareb Shamus that began in earnest this past weekend may have produced its first major fallout.

Following Shamus's scheduling of next year's Big Apple Comic Con directly against Reed's New York Comic Con, previously announced Anaheim Comic Con guests of honor Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev and Phil Jimenez -- all marquee names under Marvel-exclusive contracts, for what it's worth -- are now nowhere to be found on the Shamus show's guest list. Will Shamus's apparent loss be Reed's gain, particularly for that same weekend's C2E2 con?

For now, Con War watchers' eyes must turn to the PR front for answers -- and there, the battle's been mostly one-sided. Reed showrunner Lance Fensterman has been taking to news sites to discuss Shamus's Big Apple/NYCC maneuver. (Not to mention his pitting Anaheim against C2E2 -- itself seen as a rival to Wizard's Chicago Comic Con -- and Toronto against Boston's PAX East.)

Speaking with CBR's Kiel Phegley, Fensterman called out Big Apple's practice of allowing its big media guests to charge for autographs:

But to be honest, we've always shied away from "pay-to-play" guests, meaning you have to pay to get a signature, because we've always tried to view ourselves as all-inclusive. When you buy a ticket, the many guests of honor that we've lined up are there for free. You buy a ticket, and you have a right to see those people and get a signature. We never felt it was our philosophy to say, "No. Buy your ticket, and then everyone you want to see costs $100 to get a signature." It wasn't our thing.

And in this interview with The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon, Fensterman gingerly addresses rumors of misconduct by Shamus's organization:

Continue Reading »

APE '09 | Some quick thoughts on Saturday

Brandon Graham & Marian Churchland

• After a bout of torrential rains earlier in the week, San Francisco welcomed the Alternative Press Expo with sunshine and warm weather yesterday. APE is one of three shows put on by the folks at Comic Con International. There's San Diego every summer, of course, and San Francisco's WonderCon, which is usually in the winter/spring (next year it's the first weekend in April) and then in the fall comes APE. All the shows have their various charms ... San Diego is, well, San Diego. WonderCon offers a similar type of programming to San Diego without the chaos of being the mammoth event that SDCC is, while APE has a more laid back, intimate feel.

• I got there shortly after the doors opened, when the crowds were still pretty light. They'd grow as the day went on, so it was kind of nice to have a little elbow room. Most of the mainstays were in their regular places, with a few noticeable exceptions -- Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, Buenaventura, SLG, VIZ and Drawn & Quarterly were all where they usually are, but IDW, Oni and AiT/Planet Lar, who have been there in recent years, were missing. (Larry Young told me he wouldn't be there because he didn't want to be setting up for a show on his birthday, which was Friday ... happy belated birthday, Larry!) And while Image didn't have a table, they were represented by some of their creators, such as Richard Starkings, who had his own booth, and Brandon Graham and Marian Churchland, who were at the Neon Monster booth.

Continue Reading »

APE '09 | A few more items to add to your shopping list ...

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, kicks off at 11 a.m. tomorrow at The Concourse in San Francisco. Here are a few more updates that I almost missed thanks to an overzealous spam filter ... my apologies for not getting these up earlier.

First up is Lee Post, an illustrator who is traveling down here to the Bay Area all the way from Anchorage, Alaska -- the land of "Sarah Palin, meth shacks, and aerial elk-massacres," he said in his email.

"My friend Pat Race and I will be coming down from Alaska to take part this year at booth #549," Post writes. "I've been down the last four years, hanging out with Jon Adams of Truth Serum fame, but I've finally made the jump to booth owner this year."

Post will be selling The Best of Your Square Life as well as a new mini-comic he did for 24 Hour Comics Day called In Alaska Everyone Has a Beard. He'll also have this APE-themed print:

Post says that Race is an illustrator from Juneau and is part of the collective Alaska Robotics, who do webcomics, T-shirts, and video shorts, one of which was recently featured on BoingBoing.

*****

Dogtown

Next up is Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. of K.O. Comix, who you can find at table 510. They'll have the self-published Dog Town by Brent Otey, a post-apocalyptic dogs vs. cats western sci-fi epic, and Karaoke Comics #1 by Kazmierczak, an anthology featuring fictional and biographical tales inspired by karaoke -- both hot off the press! Their usual assortment of superhero comics and fanzines will be available, too. Russ has more info on other stuff he'll have on hand at his blog.

*****

And finally, I mentioned the other day that Jamaica Dyer is a special guest and will be hanging out at the SLG table, but she sent over a few more details on what she'll be up to ...

I saw your post about APE, and wanted to say hi! I've been going to APE for about 7 years (a wee teenager when I started) sharing tables with friends to sell my mini-comics. This year is super exciting because my first graphic novel is coming out! I'll be at the Slave Labor booth signing copies of the book fresh-off-the-press and have some home-made wallets and art prints, I'm on a few panels, and I'm a special guest. Very exciting!

I think her email probably encapsulates everything I love about APE -- folks making comics with their friends who go on to be one of the show's special guests.

Here's the trailer for her new book, Weird Fishes, which you can buy at the show tomorrow:

NYCC staffers kicked out of Big Apple Comic Con

Attention, con warriors: shots fired! The battle between Gareb Shamus's Big Apple Comic Con and Reed Exhibitions' New York Comic Con, kicked off today by Big Apple's announcement that its 2010 show would run on the same weekend as NYCC, has claimed its first casualties: NYCC director Lance Fensterman is reporting on the show's official blog that three NYCC staffers have been ejected from Big Apple.

The group was reportedly escorted out by security, though their tickets were refunded by Wizard's Vice President of Business Affairs Peter Katz. (As we reported earlier, Wizard has some experience with kicking rival con staffers out of its shows.) "World War Con" rages on ...

APE '09 | Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly and more

The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. Here are a few more items of interest if you're attending ...

Fantagraphics | Fantagraphics sent over their signing schedule for the show:

Saturday
11AM - 1PM: Jon Vermilyea (MOME) & Frank Santoro (MOME)
12:00–12:45 Spotlight on Dash Shaw
1PM - 3PM: Dash Shaw & T. Edward Bak (MOME)
3PM - 5PM: John Pham
5PM - 7PM: Renee French (MOME) & Andrice Arp (MOME)

Sunday
11AM - 1PM: Jon Vermilyea (MOME), Frank Santoro (MOME) & Dash Shaw
1PM - 3PM: T. Edward Bak (MOME) & John Pham
3PM - 5PM: Renee French & Andrice Arp

They'll have many new releases on hand: The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez, Conceptual Realism: In the Service of the Hypothetical by Robert Williams, Pim & Francie by Al Columbia, Sublife #2 by John Pham, The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw, MOME Vol. 16 by various, The Great Anti-War Cartoons by Craig Yoe, and Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga.

"As an added bonus, Dash Shaw is an official APE guest this year and will be signing copies of his new book, The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.," writes Eric Reynolds. "For anyone who buys the book at one of his Fanta signings during APE, Dash will do an original PAINTING on the front cover! You will not want to miss out."

Continue Reading »

APE '09 | Exhibit A, NBM, SLG and more

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. I'll be there covering the show, while Matt Maxwell will have a table to sell copies of Strangeways.

And over the next couple days, I'll be posting what various companies and creators have planned for the show. If you'd like to be included, drop me the details on where you'll be, what you'll be selling and all that good stuff.

Exhibit A Press | Jackie Estrada dropped us a note about what Exhibit A Press (table 312) will have at the show, where special guest Batton Lash will be celebrating 30 years of Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

"He’ll be signing the limited-edition Supernatural Law Tales from the Vault Anniversary Special as well as comics and trades," she writes. "We’ll also have Batton’s 'monster cameos,' one-of-a-kind hand-painted miniatures of everyone’s favorite monsters. Plus: new Graphitti Designs Supernatural Law T-shirt!"

More info at www.exhibitapress.com/pages/index.php

SLG Publishing | Jennifer de Guzman sent over an update on SLG's plans for the show. "Jamaica Dyer will be a special guest, so we will have plenty of copies of her new book Weird Fishes," she writes. "Jamaica will also be on the panel Personal Stories on Saturday at 5 p.m. with Dean Haspiel, Phoebe Glockner, and Dash Shaw. I'll be moderating her spotlight panel on Sunday at 12 p.m."

Things Undone

NBM | Ted Rall and Shane White will be at APE; Rall will have a few copies of The Year of Loving Dangerously, while White will sign copies of the recent release Things Undone (which is sitting on my dresser in my "to read" pile; I should read it before this weekend).

Top Shelf | Brett Warnock posts on his blog that Nate Powell, Grant Reynolds and Jeremy Tinder will be at their booth, along with himself and Leigh Walton. And as always, he'll be at the Isotope party Saturday night.

Creators | Scott Morse will be on hand doing commissions and selling the last few remaining copies he has of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science.

Manga | Deb Aoki rounds up what various manga publishers are doing at the show.

Straight for the art | Cliff Chiang's Baltimore sketches

Zatanna and Batman

One of the fun things about comic conventions is checking out all the sketches that artists drew and post on their blogs afterward -- such as Cliff Chiang, who posts not only this Batman and Zatanna sketch, but others featuring the Doom Patrol, Power Girl and more. Go check'em out.

MoCCA Art Festival moves to April; Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest announced

MoCCA 2009

The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art has announced that its annual MoCCA Art Festival has been moved from its usual summer-months perch in June to the weekend of April 10-11 for 2010. Founded in 2002, the Manhattan-based MoCCA (which, like Frankenstein's monster, has taken on the name of its creator in the popular parlance) quickly became one of the highlights of the alternative/indie/small press convention circuit, drawing on New York City's large number of local comics creators and thriving population of arts-interested consumers to cement its place alongside such venerable shows as SPX and APE.

Last summer's MoCCA spurred a host of complaints about the event's disorganization and the oppressive heat in its unairconditioned new venue, the 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Ave. A move to the comparatively temperate month of April, coupled with a year of Armory experience under the MoCCA organization's collective belt, could go a long way toward remedying those problems. (The cost of a table will likely remain a sore spot, though.) Moreover, given its location in the media capital of the world and its appeal for the graphic-novel wings of major New York publishers (heck, even DC's Vertigo imprint exhibits at the show), moving MoCCA out of the increasingly crowded and competitive summer-fall convention season makes may make it easier for the show to maintain an identity as a major-minor player in the con circuit vis a vis those exhibitors and audiences (although the spring is hardly less crowded at this point).

Meanwhile, the NYC small press scene's bustling Brooklyn-based subset now has a show to call its own: The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest. Overseen by two of the Borough of Kings' altcomix anchors, retailer Desert Island and publisher PictureBox Inc., the con will take place on December 5th at Our Lady of Consolation Church (184 Metropolitan Ave.) in the decade-defining hipster enclave of Williamsburg. Charles Burns, Kim Deitch, Ben Katchor, Michael Kupperman, Gary Panter, Dash Shaw, Jillian Tamaki, Matthew Thurber, and Lauren Weinstein are listed as featured guests, and admission is free. With that December date, we're guessing a lack of air conditioning won't be an issue...

(Hat tips: Tom Spurgeon and Heidi MacDonald)

APE is coming

APE Aftermath

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, will take place the weekend of Oct. 17-18 at The Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco. Next week I plan to put together a preview post or two, so if you're exhibiting, please feel free to send me information on your plans -- what you'll be selling, where you'll be ... that sort of stuff.

Also, if you're going to APE and looking for something to do before the show starts or after hours on Saturday, Isotope Comics on Fell Street has events planned both Friday and Saturday night. APE special guest Dean Haspiel will sign copies of the ACT-I-VATE Primer at the store on Friday, while Saturday brings the annual APE Aftermath party and the presentation of the Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. Add'em to your calendar!

Meet Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer in Baltimore this weekend

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Van Jensen, writer of the upcoming SLG graphic novel Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer, sent over a couple of pictures of the "real-life Pinocchio" you can meet in Baltimore this weekend. "I called in a favor to my uncle, who makes all kinds of cool stuff, and he put together a 3-foot-tall functioning Pinocchio puppet," Jensen said in his email.

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Strangeways: The Thirsty - Strangeways in person

For those of you in the Sacramento area looking for something to do this weekend, you could do a lot worse than hitting From The Land Beyond.  Second year for this show, which skews towards the spooky side of things, though there's some comics goodness there, including Dan Brereton and, uhm, me.  I'll be there with copies of MURDER MOON and the limited edition chapterbooks for the first chapter of THE THIRSTY and should have some pages from Luis Guragna's artwork for "Red Hands", which is the upcoming second feature in THE THIRSTY.

Here's a little of what Luis has been working on in the meantime:

Head on over here to check the show out.  Looks like it also dovetails into the fall edition of the quarterly Sac-Anime/Comics show as well, on Sunday that is.  Out of towners are recommended to Weiner Works on Madison near Hemlock for the best chili fries in town.  And if you're not in the mood for that, then there's the Brazilian steakhouse three doors down.  The show itself runs Friday-Sunday, and leads off the mini-convention season that hits around this time of year.

Next week is the first annual Long Beach Comic Convention, which I'm very much looking forward to.  The Wizard shows held in Long Beach were only a million times better than the shows in LA, and it's a great venue.  I'll be right next to David Gallaher (and maybe Steve Ellis, not sure--David you wanna confirm/deny?) of HIGH MOON.  Rumor has it that I'll even be on a panel there, which should be interesting.  This runs Friday to Sunday as well.  Same items up for grabs, unless I have to run to a second edition of the chapbooks.

Two weeks after that is the Alternative Press Expo at the Concourse in downtown San Francisco.  I've been to APE many, many times and am looking forward to finally exhibiting there.  Hopefully it won't rain so damn hard this year.  I couldn't even get to Holy Burger without getting soaked to the bone.

Hope to see some of you fine folks at the above events.  And don't forget, at each one, I'll be doing Fabulous Five Minute Stories, an example of which you can read right here.  Remember, each one is hand-crafted for maximium quality assurance!

If you're going to SPX: A quick Robot 6 guide

SPX 2009

The Small Press Expo arrives in Bethesda, Maryland, this weekend. I'll be there Saturday (assuming this current stomach ache clears up), covering the event for CBR, yakking it up on one of the panels and just generally enjoying myself. I'll be wearing one of my traditional black video game shirts (Capcom no doubt) so be sure and say hi if you see me.

In the meantime, I thought I'd take the time to offer a quick list of suggestions regarding what to buy and what to see. I also heartily recommend checking out Comicsgirl's SPX dining guide and her general survival guide to the show. Reding them will save you a lot of time and worry.

Continue Reading »