Animal Man

As the end of 2011 approaches, websites and publications are unveiling various year-end lists and gift guides — so many that keeping up is a challenge. Here’s just some of what’s been released in the past few days:

• The Village Voice shares their list of the best comics and graphic novels of the year, a list that includes several collections of older material, Animal Man, Spaceman, Mister Wonderful and more.

• Comic creators Jim Woodring and Anders Nilsen, along with Thor star Chris Hemsworth, landed in the bottom quarter of Pop Candy’s annual 100 People of the Year list. The rest of the list will roll out all this week.

• The top ten comics list by Joe Gross of the Austin-American Statesman includes Criminal, Journey Into Mystery, Finder and Hark! A Vagrant, and is topped by Love & Rockets: New Stories #4.

• John Lucas at The Straight lists his favorite graphic novels of 2011, including The Cardboard Valise by Ben Katchor, Paying For It by Chester Brown and Habibi by Craig Thompson.

• Multiversity Comics wraps up their various “best of” categories with their list of the best ongoing series of the year.

• Spectrum Culture’s best books of the year list includes Luchadoras by Peggy Adam, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol 1. Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson and Paying for It.

• Justin Giampaoli lists the best mini-comics and small press titles of the year, including The Wolf by Tom Neely, Soldiers of God by Kelly Clancy and The Disgusting Room by Austin English.

• Comic Attack shares a list of their top 15 all-ages comics of the year, which is topped by Reed Gunther.

• Meanwhile, the Good Comics for Kids bloggers, a group that includes our own Brigid Alverson, share their picks for the best all-ages comics. Their list includes Around the World by Matt Phelan, Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol and Bad Island by Doug TenNapel.

• John Hogan, Nathan Wilson, Peter Gutiérrez and Dr. Katie Monnin at Graphic Novel Reporter share their favorites from 2011.

• Johanna Draper Carlson shares her favorites ( and “Noble Failures”) of the year’s manga releases.

• FearNet’s list of favorite horror books of the year includes The Hidden by Richard Sala and The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti by Rick Geary.

Founded by Marc Arsenault and altcomix lifers Tom Hart and Sam Henderson back in 1988, the publisher/record label/mail-order business/what-have-you known as Wow Cool was a mainstay of the 1990s zine scene and has operated on and off in the venn-diagram overlap of comics, zines, and indie music ever since. But now it’s back in a big way, thanks to a spiffy redesigned web store that Arsenault recently launched. The Wow Cool website boasts some of the best books in the alternative and underground comics world, and a lot more besides. From back issues of legendary anthologies like Zap, Weirdo, and Arcade to newer comics by Michael DeForge, Lisa Hanawalt, and Kevin Huizenga, from punk rags like Cometbus and Maximum RockNRoll to comics mags like The Comics Journal and Comic Book Artist, from books to records to beyond, it’s a well-curated collection of comics and cultural ephemera. Heck, even superhero readers scarred by the loss of precious continuity in DC’s New 52 ought to have fun with Arsenault’s “Oh No!!! Retconned Again!!!” t-shirt, available for the insane price of $6.99. The Wow Cool blog is a great read, too — witness this recent post on the artists of Adventure Time. Go ye and browse.

While he is handling all this, Brown, who recently won two Ignatz Awards, continues to self-publish his own work, and Blank Slate will publish his graphic novel The Survivalist in December. We talked to him this past weekend about the genesis of Retrofit Comics and what it’s like to run a really, really small press.

Robot 6: Why did you decide you wanted to publish print comics, as opposed to going the digital route?

Box Brown: It wasn’t really so much about print comics as much as it was about small format comics, shorter stories. It’s more of a response to graphic novels than to digital. I have no problem putting Retrofit Comics on digital — I think they would probably sell well — but there are a bunch of different companies doing the digital download thing and none of them cater to me yet as a small publisher.

I love reading graphic novels, but it’s difficult for new artists to all of a sudden produce a 200-page work. It takes a really long time to do that, and I don’t think that is the best way to develop. For one thing, you are working in hiding, and you are not building an audience while you are working on a graphic novel, unless you are serializing it in some way, and also, when you finally finish it, you are still an unestablished artist and you are asking your readership to plunk down 10, 20 dollars for a work when they don’t know what they are getting into — and you are asking a publisher to invest a lot of money in a work without being established. So I wanted to re-legitimize the short-format story, where an artist could work on smaller works, get them out faster, build an audience, and get some money while they are working on their bigger work.

If you go to a convention and go to see a young artist at work, they are all making minicomics, so it is still a viable format for artists. It’s just because of the business landscape it has been difficult to get them to work. So I want to revitalize it a little.

Robot 6: How much of the prep work do the creators do, and what do you do in-house?

Box Brown: Some artists are better than others at getting their stuff print ready. James [Kochalka] just sent me finished pages, and I had to get them formatted for print, but with Colleen Frakes, who is probably much more accustomed to self publishing, all I had to do was forward them to the printer. So that’s just an artist’s quirk. But it’s mostly just me in my studio dealing with everything — the printer, the subscribers, the post office, who has been the biggest headache out of anybody, and everything from A to Z.

Robot 6: How do you handle the problem of distribution?

Box Brown: I am trying to do it all myself so we can circumvent Diamond. For one thing, I don’t think all these comics are appealing to all the people on Diamond’s distribution list. I would rather print less of them and have them go to comics stores where the clients are interested in them than print a thousand extra copies that will sit on a shelf forever. And they are monthly, and soliciting for Diamond would be the worst thing ever. I would need so much lead time. As it is, I can have the artists get the comics to me a few weeks before release.

The shops are really cool. Everyone I have worked with has been really supportive.

Robot 6: So the comics shops tell you how many they want and you ship them?

Box Brown: Yes, and I invoice them. I distribute [my self-published work] through Microcosm and Tony Shenton, and through those guys I got to know the comic shop owners. We got like 10 shops before we even started the Kickstarter, and then once I launched the website and the Kickstarter, a couple more saw it and wanted to be involved. Sometimes if I see a good shop, I contact the owner, and they get back to me … or they don’t.

Robot 6: Do you think Retrofit will break even or possibly make a profit?

Box Brown: I would say that Fungus has broken even, if not made a little bit of a profit. The biggest expenditure in this whole thing I have found is shipping. Printing is actually really cheap, relatively.

Robot 6: You mentioned that the artists are being paid in books. What happens if Retrofit turns a profit?

Box Brown: It just goes back into the business. If it doesn’t—I am doing enough work, I think it’s compensation for that. When you are printing small runs of books — I have dealt with this before — [the publisher] keeps the majority of the books, you get 25 free ones, and when you go to a convention you have to buy the books from them, which is OK, you get them wholesale or less. But when you are dealing with royalties, every once in a while you get a really small check. Honestly, this is from a small press guy, I feel the quickest and best way for them to get the most money out of their book is to get a lot of free copies to sell at conventions and on their websites. That’s the best way for them to get paid. I’m trying to keep it small basically so I can manage it.

Robot 6: How did you choose the artists who will be part of this? Were they people you already knew?

Box Brown: A lot of the people were people I knew from going to conventions; a few I just reached out to on the off chance they might be interested in working that way. Guys like Tom Hart and James Kochalka, who are established guys, I look to them for advice a lot anyway. I sent an e-mail to them to see if they thought it was possible, and James wrote back 10 minutes later saying “I’ll d the first issue.” People got really excited about it. I thought of this idea, I sent out an e-mail, and by the next day I had the start of the company without knowing all the pitfalls involved. I want to do it. I don’t care. I want to do something epic. I believe in comics, I believe in the format, and I want to be involved in any way I could.

Robot 6: Are the majority of the comics selling through retailers?

Box Brown: I think so. We get a decent amount of orders every week. That was part of the point. I came up with this quandary a while back. I was walking from inner-city Philadelphia to my house in West Philly and looking for something to read at the comic shop. I couldn’t get out of there with something I wanted for less than $20, but then, if I liked superhero comics, I could get three comics for less than $10. So I was like, this is not fair that they can go in every week and get a couple comics for a couple of bucks and have something to read on the bus, and I can’t because it doesn’t exist any more. I wanted to make it so you could go to the comic shop on a regular basis and get an alt comic. The retailers like that because they want people in the comic shop more often, not just coming in every few months when a Daniel Clowes book comes out.

Robot 6: So what’s coming up after Fungus?

Box Brown: The second issue, Drag Bandits, by Colleen Frakes and Betsy Swardlick, will be going out early next week. Colleen has this really good, really controlled cartooning style — she’s really good at simplifying things down to their basic elements, which is what cartooning is.

The next two issues after that are really art comics. They both have stories, they are both narrative, but they draw influence a lot from art comics. I was talking to Jessica Abel in baltimore right before SPX, and we were talking about this artist Josh Bayer whose book is coming out in December, and Jessica said, “You can tell right away that his art style is painterly. There’s a large part that wants to be Gary Panter and there is an equally large part that wants to be Jack Kirby.” I am excited about these guys. They probably have the smallest audience. Josh has been around for a while, he has been putting out comics and teaching comics, he works in New York and teaches comics full time, but I don’t think he has ever had a major widespread release. His first comic, Bike Rider, got an honorable mention in the Best American Comics anthology.

The November release is Bowman, by Pat Aulisio. He has an art school background and he has been making comics since he was 13 — he’s 25 now. He has a lot of kinetic energy, so I’m really excited about that too.

Robot 6: Why have you chosen not to publish your own work via Retrofit?

Box Brown: I kind of feel like it’s a conflict of interest. The other thing is I’m looking to have other publishers publish my work anyway, and they can do that work. It’s one less thing for me to do. I have a book coming out in December from Blank Slate books, Microcosm published Everything Dies 7. I’m working on a book about Andre the Giant, so I’m trying to find a publisher for that too.

Right now I have a big box of books, and I know the next few days will be the worst of the month. Shipping is the worst, packing and spending, you’re just dripping postage, but once they are out it’s not that bad. It’s just a lot of organization, and sending e-mails.

Robot 6: Will you stop after publishing 17 comics?

Box Brown: I feel like if we get to 17 comics we might as well keep going. I would love it to continue, I would love it to be an outlet for emerging artists and undiscovered talent, as much as we can be. This is the first time I have ever really run a business that wasn’t just my own stuff. I’m doing my best. It’s volatile times, and it’s difficult, and I’m hoping we stay afloat as best we can.

SPX, or the Small Press Expo, returns to the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Bethesda, Md. this weekend.

The show’s special guests include Roz Chast, Jim Woodring, Diane Noomin, Jim Rugg, Ann Telnaes, Chester Brown, Johnny Ryan, Craig Thompson and Matthew Thurber, and fans who attend will also have the opportunity to meet and/or hear from Kevin Huizenga, Anders Nilsen, Jessica Abel, Sarah Glidden, Alex Robinson, Brian Ralph, Mike Dawson, Meredith Gran, Roger Langridge and Julia Wertz, just to name a few. I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out that our own Chris Mautner will be attending and conducting a Q&A with Johnny Ryan on Saturday, so be sure to tell him hi for us.

In addition to a lot of great talent, SPX also offers a full schedule of programming and the yearly Ignatz Awards. And a whole lot of new books and cool things will be available at the show:

• Drawn + Quarterly will have a ton of new books at the show, as detailed here, like Brain Ralph’s Daybreak collection, the Death-Ray hardcover and Big Questions, among many others.

• As we noted yesterday, AdHouse and Tom Scioli will have an American Barbarian print at the show. They’ll also have guests like Jim Rugg, Lamar Abrams, Ethan Rilly and Sterling Hundley at their table.

• Jennifer Hayden’s Underwire, from Top Shelf, makes its debut:

Underwire

• Roger Langridge’s The Show Must Go On! collection from BOOM! Town will debut there, and Langridge will also have a Snarked! print:

Snarked!

• Kevin Huizenga will have some new stuff at the show, not the least of which is a new Ganges book from Fantagraphics.

• NBM will debut Stargazing Dog and Ernie Colon’s Inner Sanctum at the show.

• The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund will host the first Jeff Alexander Memorial Benefit Auction, named for a cartoonist and an organizer of SPX and the Ignatz Awards. He passed away earlier this year. The auction includes pieces from Alexander ’s collection that he donated to the CBLDF, including original art by Charles Vess and Jeff Smith, Tony Millionaire, and Roger Langridge. The auction also includes contributions from Keith Knight, Raina Telgemeier, Jeffrey Brown and many more.

• A signed and numbered edition of Craig Thompson’s Habibi will be available from the CBLDF during the show. And Sara Varon will be at their table on Saturday signing Bake Sale.

• The SPX has a whole bunch more listed on their site, including Mike Dawson’s Troop 142, Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly, Old-Time Hockey Tales by Robert Ullman and Jeffrey Brown, Monster Isle: Big Monster Stuff by Joey Weiser and more.

Amazing Arizona Comics

Russ Kazmierczak will head west from the Arizona desert to the much cooler San Diego area this weekend in support of his new comic, Amazing Arizona Comics #4, which feature stories about current events and politics in Arizona.

“Amazing Arizona Comics #4 is a flipbook, and in the lead story, a jealous Lou Ferrigno (recently deputized by Sheriff Joe Arpaio) tried to trump fellow celebrity law enforcer Steven Seagal by busting crooks on the Mexican border, and a local superhero, Dust Devil, tries to control the chaos,” Kazmierczak told Robot 6. The comics will recent featured by the local ABC and Fox news affiliates in Phoenix.

Find Amazing Arizona Comics at the small press K.O. Comix table.

If you are a comics creator or publisher, and you’re planning to bring something new to the con — a sketchbook, a print, a graphic novel debut, etc. — then we want to hear from you. Drop me an email at jkparkin@yahoo.com and let me know if you’ll have something cool on hand that attendees should know about. Feel free to send any artwork as well.

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Aspen Comics sends word of two variant covers they’ll have at the show, for Executive Assistant Iris and Charismagic

Executive Assistant Iris by Joe Benitez

Charismagic by Khary Randolph

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A Treasury of Murder: The Lives of Sacco & Vanzetti

NBM Publishing writes to let us know: “We’ll be debuting Rick Geary’s latest Treasury of Murder volume, The Lives of Sacco & Vanzetti and offering copies of a limited (to only 25 copies) hardcover edition of the book, bound in cloth with a silver-stamped jacket. Each copy will have an original plate signed and numbed. Rick will also be at SDCC and will be happy to personalize them as well.”

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And creator Mary Bellamy will be in the small press area with her new sketchbook and a plush toy line: “I have a table over in Small Press under Zorilita-Mary Bellamy and I’ll be debuting my new sketchbook: Sugar Bits, a 150 page sketchbook full of sketches, inked drawings ranging from super cute to pin ups. I also will have volumes 1-3 of Faux Facts – The Truth Can Be Strange! and volumes 1-2 of Ah Heck!! The Angel Chronicles. I also have my brand new plush toy line available this year.”

I was exchanging e-mails with Sean O’Reilly, the founder and CEO of Arcana Studio, just before Borders filed for bankruptcy, so when the other shoe dropped, I asked him to talk a bit about how it affects his business. Arcana is a small publisher, and I assumed the bankruptcy would have a big effect on them. What interests me about his response is the importance of the middleman, Diamond Book Distributors, in this case.

As always, I also wanted to talk about the different ways the company gets its books out to readers, and the relative importance of the different channels. Having spent the weekend at C2E2 talking about these different factors, I was interested to hear how they directly affect a single publisher.

Brigid: How much of your revenue comes from each channel—comics shops, bookstores, online sales, digital?

Sean: While digital is an ever-growing market to keep an eye on, that part of the industry is still in its growth phase. The majority of Arcana’s current sales come from bookstores and online – still primarily through Diamond Comics and Diamond Books, Amazon, eBay and of course you can find our product in local comic shops as well. That said, we’ve made a significant turn away from the ‘floppy’ comic market and are concentrating on the graphic novel market. Digital is the next step and we’re working with Comixology, Wowio, Graphic.ly and others.

Brigid: Looking just at the bookstore piece, how big a part of your business was Borders?

Sean: Borders made up a huge chunk of our sales from the bookstore market making up about 25%.  Their bankruptcy will be a huge hurdle to overcome and we’ll have to try to develop our other revenue streams to make up for the loss.

Brigid: From your perspective as a small publisher, what are the advantages and disadvantages of selling through bookstores versus comics shops, online retail, and digital?

Sean: Bookstores like Borders allow you to reach a much broader audience than the more niche audience you’re able to access in comic shops and online. Again, while digital and online sales will continue to expand and drive a lot of growth, there are still people who actually want to go into a store and hold the book in their hands before they decide they want to purchase it. At the same time, ‘brick-and-mortar’ bookstores are limited by their locked physical and geographic space. That’s why the potential in online and digital is so promising.  For us our orders have gone up 50% in the last six months (even with the Borders announcement) and sadly I believe it’s more of a state of the industry rather than Arcana’s growth.  That is, even though we are a small fish, with so many companies gone we’re become bigger relatively and as a result have been getting bigger numbers.

Brigid: Back when things were going well, did Borders stand out in any way? Were they easier to work with, offered better terms, did more marketing, or in some way help you establish yourself in that sector?

Sean: I did love how Borders would contact us and help us work together on marketing, what’s coming up and they always wanted to see what we were working on.  There are a number of measures being implemented to allow consumers choice and previews.

Brigid: How did Borders’ problems impact your relationship with them, and when did that start to happen?

Sean: Ultimately Borders’ relationship was with Diamond Books, and other than the previously mentioned, we really didn’t work together first hand.

Brigid: Were you able to do anything to protect yourself?

Sean: I was able to protect myself by not relying too heavily on the income from the books.  Sounds weird from a publisher, right?  Well it might be but Arcana is a transmedia company that relies on building brands, not just book publishing.  We’ve been working hard on The Clockwork Girl animated feature film, working hard for Mattel on a number of projects and a couple more feature films.  Ultimately we were protected because we have developed enough of a cashflow to publish 140 graphic novels in about two years and make sure we give enough of a runway so that revenues can come in the door.

Brigid: I understand Borders stopped paying their vendors in December. How much money do you have tied up with them, and do you think you will actually get any or all of it?

Sean: Diamond Books is ultimately the one that gives me a check and as a result I’m not sure how it’s affected the numbers at that level of detail.  I have to say Diamond Books have been amazing during this time being professional, and even more than that, they’ve been very communicative to publishers.  The faster and clearer we know a problem exists, the faster and more realistic we can respond.  Here’s a public thank you to Kuo, Kate and the Diamond Books team!

Brigid: How has the bankruptcy filing changed the situation from your point of view?

Sean: It’s unfortunate, but it likely needed to happen. They’ll be able to restructure their finances and hopefully, pay off their debts.  It’s a Chapter 11 so they should be looking to reduce overhead (storage costs, facilities) and after the crash in 2008 it seems like most finances are being relooked at to see if it can be done better.  I’m hoping they can get things together and we can start working together again.

Brigid: Going forward, how will you do things differently?

Sean: Honestly, keep doing what we’re doing.  I’ve never had a financier I’ve had to listen to, I’ve been able to be quick and nimble with our decisions and we’ve had continual growth since 2004.  I’ve learned a lot of lessons through other publishers and we’ve accumulated a library of nearly 150 graphic novels being distributed worldwide.  We’re doing more international publishing deals, digital distribution deals, deals with Scholastic and Harper Collins more than ever, and ultimately I think we just keep driving with the same passion we started with.

Brigid: Do you think that bookstores will continue to be a viable channel for your books, or are you going to look elsewhere?

Sean: With regards to the advantages of ‘brick-and-mortar’ I mentioned earlier, I don’t see traditional bookstores disappearing completely and we have had great success in books in the last year and will continue to pursue this as a great channel. We love holding books, we love graphic novels and while there is real potential in online/digital markets it is still emerging. Arcana was already looking at expanding our efforts there even before the Borders bankruptcy and we’ll have to continue our efforts there. If the right fit comes along for a more ‘traditional’ bookstore partnership, we’d be open to looking at that too.

Armageddonquest

I vaguely remember reading about Armageddonquest back in the 1990s when it was published by Sirius Comics. The 900-page graphic novel by creator Ron Roach chronicles the life of the Anti-Christ from birth to Armageddon. “And in this story, the Anti-Christ is the good guy.” The book has received accolades from Scott McCloud and Warren Ellis, among others.

“AQ saw its first few chapters published by Starhead Comix in the 1980′s before the whole story was spotted, snatched up, and published in three 300-page volumes by Sirius Comics between 1996-1998,” Roach said in a press release. “Unfortunately, this was smack in the middle of the comic industry’s implosion during the mid-to-late 90′s. Armageddonquest was largely overlooked, and has since faded into obscurity. Tragic, I know. Now I’m hoping to achieve something I’ve always wanted to do: put the whole thing into a single giant-sized volume.”

Roach has teamed up with literary agency Killing the Grizzly and is using Kickstarter to bring the graphic novel back into print. If funding is successful, the new volume will feature a cover by Thomas Scioli and Bill Crabtree of Godland fame; design by Ronnie Casson, who did Viz’s Cat-Eye Boy volumes; and printing by Malloy, who did Bone: The One Volume Edition.

“If we can raise a minimum of $8500 we can reprint the first 1/3rd of AQ in this new edition, make it a ‘Volume 1 (of 3)’ kind of thing,” Roach said. “But if we can achieve the wild goal of raising $17,000 we can fit the whole 900-page monstrosity, plus bonus material, into a single ‘One Volume Edition’ a la BONE – the way it was always meant to be read. Either way, my hat’s off to anyone who helps us achieve even a stepping stone toward putting these comix back into readers’ hands, whatever the page count.”

Roach is offering various incentives to his Kickstarter supporters, from digital copies of the book all the way up to getting yourself drawn into a story. Head over there to see additional art and get more details on the project.

The Small Press Expo, or SPX, has announced programming for their show on Saturday, Sept. 11-12 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Bethesda, Md.

You can find the complete schedule after the jump, but I wanted to point out two panels that feature our own Chris Mautner:

Spotlight: James Sturm
1:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
James Sturm is the author of several comics and graphic novels including The Golem’s Mighty Swing, Unstable Molecules, James Sturm’s America, and Market Day. He is also the founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies, a unique two-year degree granting institution dedicated to cartooning. In this spotlight presentation, Sturm will discuss his work and answer questions from moderator Chris Mautner.

Critics’ Panel: How We Judge
3:00 | Brookside Conference Room
The accessibility of online publishing alongside traditional media has enabled a diversity of critical voices who are addressing the broad spectrum of comics being published today. A diverse group of critics will discuss the disparate bases for their own critical opinions, and the extent to which they regard different kinds of work in different ways. Join moderator Bill Kartalopoulos for a discussion with Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading), Gary Groth (The Comics Journal), Tim Hodler (Comics Comics), Chris Mautner (Robot 6), Joe McCulloch (Jog the Blog/Comics Comics), Ken Parille (Blog Flume), and Caroline Small (The Hooded Utilitarian).

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Comics and Worldbuilding
1:00 | Brookside Conference Room
This panel will consider the challenge of developing original settings for comics, individual artistic processes, and how the medium of comics is particularly well-suited to creating convincing invented worlds. Evan Dahm will lead a conversation with Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil and Spike Trotman.

Spotlight: James Sturm
1:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
James Sturm is the author of several comics and graphic novels including The Golem’s Mighty Swing, Unstable Molecules, James Sturm’s America, and Market Day. He is also the founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies, a unique two-year degree granting institution dedicated to cartooning. In this spotlight presentation, Sturm will discuss his work and answer questions from moderator Chris Mautner.

A Conversation About Daniel Clowes
2:00 | Brookside Conference Room
Daniel Clowes has long been one of America’s premier cartoonists, and his work has caught the public eye again with the 2010 publication of his graphic novel Wilson. Ken Parille and Isaac Cates, co-editors of the recent anthology Daniel Clowes: Conversations (University Press of Mississippi) will discuss Clowes’s art and career with moderator Bill Kartalopoulos.

Carousel at SPX
2:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
The long running slide show series, Carousel, returns with some of today’s finest comics artists, graphic novelists, and pencil pushers reading and presenting their work. Hosted by R. Sikoryak, this special SPX edition of Carousel will feature Kate Beaton, Dean Haspiel, Lizz Hickey, and more!

Critics’ Panel: How We Judge
3:00 | Brookside Conference Room
The accessibility of online publishing alongside traditional media has enabled a diversity of critical voices who are addressing the broad spectrum of comics being published today. A diverse group of critics will discuss the disparate bases for their own critical opinions, and the extent to which they regard different kinds of work in different ways. Join moderator Bill Kartalopoulos for a discussion with Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading), Gary Groth (The Comics Journal), Tim Hodler (Comics Comics), Chris Mautner (Robot 6), Joe McCulloch (Jog the Blog/Comics Comics), Ken Parille (Blog Flume), and Caroline Small (The Hooded Utilitarian).

Center for Cartoon Studies Self-Publishing Workshop
3:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
Robyn Chapman, Jon Chad and Alec Longstreth join us from The Center for Cartoon Studies, a two-year college for budding cartoonists in White River Junction, Vermont. Alec will offer a short presentation chock full of self-publishing tips. Afterwards, each participant will draw, fold and bind a comic using the Hidden Book format. This simple process allows you to create an 8-page comic with a single piece of paper. No matter what your experience level, you’ll leave this workshop with your own handmade minicomic!

Remembering Harvey Pekar
4:00 | Brookside Conference Room
When comics writer Harvey Pekar died in July 2010, he left behind an influential legacy of independent autobiographical comics that highlighted the forgotten moments and ignored people of everyday life. In this special panel event, a group of Pekar’s former collaborators will discuss their experiences of working with the creator of American Splendor. Heidi MacDonald will moderate this conversation with Vanessa Davis, Dean Haspiel, Jeff Newelt, Rick Parker, Ed Piskor, and Sean Pryor.

Spotlight: Jamie Hernandez
4:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
The 1982 publication of Jaime, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez’s Love and Rockets #1 by Fantagraphics virtually created the model for the post-underground alternative comic book series that characterized art-comics for nearly two decades. In the intervening years, Jaime Hernandez has emerged as one of the most distinctive visual stylists and compelling storytellers in modern comics, as he crafts the still-continuing saga of Hopey, Maggie, and his other post-punk Locas. Publisher and editor Gary Groth will ask Jaime about his art and life in this special spotlight session.

Comics for Younger Readers
5:00 | Brookside Conference Room
Book-length comics for younger readers are increasingly following graphic novels for adults into the bookstore and library shelves. Johanna Draper Carlson will discuss the pleasures and challenges of creating comics for younger readers with the collaborative duo Metaphrog, Aaron Renier, Raina Telgemeier, and Drew Weing.

Return of the Monster: The Fort Thunder Legacy
5:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
From 1995 to 2001, the Fort Thunder artists’ and performance space in Providence, Rhode Island was a fertile creative center. Work produced by artists living at the Fort – both at the time and in the years since it was shut down – has been enormously influential in the worlds of fine art, music, and comics. A new issue of the de facto Fort Thunder anthology Monster debuts at this year’s SPX. To mark the occasion, Bill Kartalopoulos will moderate a discussion with artists and former Fort Thunder residents Brian Ralph and Paul Lyons and publisher/editors Tom Devlin and Dan Nadel.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 12 PROGRAMMING SCHEDULE

Telling Stories
12:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
How do creators shape inspiration and life experience into memorable stories and characters? Join moderator Heidi MacDonald for a lively discussion about vision and process with a panel of cartoonists including Meredith Gran, Roger Langridge and Jon Lewis.

Teaching Comics
1:00 | Brookside Conference Room
Comics have increasingly gained a berth as the subject of courses within the academy, and classes about comics production are increasingly a part of studio art departments. What do students need to know about comics? To what extent do studio art students need to know about comics history and theory, and to what extent do humanities students need to know about the practice of comics production? Professors Marc Singer and Isaac Cates join Center for Cartoon Studies founder James Sturm for a conversation moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos.

Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz in Conversation
1:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
Two of the most popular and entertaining cartoonists of their generation, Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz have both attracted dedicated audiences online with their uniquely humorous comics. This special conversation moderated by Dustin Harbin will investigate the similarities and differences between the creators of Hark, A Vagrant! and The Fart Party.

Brave New Comic Strips
2:00 | Brookside Conference Room
The newspaper industry, long the home of American comics’ first popular dedicated format, faces an existential crisis presented by the emergence and proliferation of digital media. Against all odds, artists interested in the daily strip format continue to produce work with an eye for print. Mike Rhode will discuss the present and the future of the newspaper comic strip with Marguerite Dabaie, Keith Knight, and Richard Thompson.

Developing Iconographies
2:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
Distinct from drawing as an art discipline with its own self-ratifying purpose, artists in comics create pictures as part of a visual language. Moderator Ken Parille will investigate the ways in which comics artists develop visual iconographies in individual works and throughout bodies of work. Cartoonists Eamon Espey, Kevin Huizenga, and Tom Kaczynski will participate in this discussion, illustrated with slides of the artists’ work.

Autobiography in Pieces
3:00 | Brookside Conference Room
How do you tell the story of a life that’s still in progress? Is “story” even the right way to think about it? How do you winnow down the manifold details and data of your life? Cartoonists Sarah Becan, Gabrielle Bell, Vanessa Davis, and Jesse Reklaw will discuss alternatives to the memoir with moderator Isaac Cates.

R. Sikoryak: Adaptation and Parody
3:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
Comics chameleon R. Sikoryak inventively adapts canonical Western literature using the visual styles and characters of historical American comic books and comic strips. These works have been collected in his 2009 book Masterpiece Comics (Drawn and Quarterly). Sikoryak will reveal his intensive working process and will discuss the history of parody and adaptation in comics in a discussion with Bill Kartalopoulos, curator of the recent exhibit “R. Sikoryak: How Classics and Cartoons Collide.”

Commercial Eruptions
4:00 | Brookside Conference Room
Jim Rugg (Street Angel, Afrodisiac) and Frank Santoro (Storeyville, Cold Heat) have produced auteurial work that shows the influence of commercial comics, and have brought an independent sensibility to work for publishers like Marvel Comics. In a conversation moderated by Tim Hodler, the two cartoonists will reflect on what they have learned from the contents and processes of historical commercial comics and how they reinterpret their influences when working for corporate publishers.

Comics and Printmaking
4:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
Comics have historically been a medium of work made for reproduction, but the means of reproduction have often constrained by technical and commercial limitations. Even as new digital technologies have broadened technical possibilities, a number of cartoonists are exploring the possibilities of reproducing work using traditional printing techniques including silkscreening and etching. Noel Freibart, Lizz Hickey, Brian Ralph and Jon Vermilyea will discuss the relationship between comics and printmaking with moderator Bill Kartalopoulos.

Don't mess with Dharbin

“I can’t BELIEVE MoCCA’s table prices. They are drinking the same hubris Kool-Aid as SPX. Why are the charity shows always the cheekiest? I saw it and I was like *slaps head*. Although to be fair, I’ve never exhibited there, just been a crowded hot attendee. (I read some interviews with them after the super hot year, they were all like ‘hey listen, it’s summer, it gets hot.’) Not to mention how expensive NYC is in general! Just makes it easier to skip. Also today I got my acceptance letter (???) for APE, after applying 3 months ago. Due date for payment: 1 week from now. I had always heard about how well-run HeroesCon is from guests, but now I see why. Indie shows are organized like block parties. Except the kind of block parties where they charge you like $50 to come in, then charge you for beer too. ‘Dude it’s for charity!’ SPX is pretty fun, but TCAF is the best one easily–plus Toronto = my favorite city! Wait, please exclude TCAF from that mini-rant. TCAF is a dream, a dreammmm. Other shows take note! Okay back to lettering, sorry.”

—Cartoonist, Casanova letterer, and “nicest guy in comics” candidate Dustin Harbin has an uncharacteristically grumpy moment on Twitter over the prices that the MoCCA Art Festival is charging exhibitors, and the administration of indie/alt-comics shows generally (except TCAF, of course). It’s hard out there for a minicomics creator.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival (photo courtesy of Sam Walker and Rickey Purdin)

* Organized by Desert Island‘s Gabe Fowler and PictureBox‘s Dan Nadel, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival made its debut on Saturday, and I’m awfully glad I was able to make it. (I didn’t think I’d be able to, but my wife and mother-in-law gave me a reprieve from going to see New Moon for the third time. Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!) I live on Long Island, so having an artcomix convention on my very own land mass is a cause for celebration. And provided you’re willing to brave a dreadful mile or so on the BQE and the Kosciuszko Bridge, it’s not even that much of a hassle to get there — parking in Brooklyn is a snap.

* Less easy was dealing with the weather, which was awful. Freezing rain and, eventually, snow. I figured this would do a real number on attendance levels …

* … but when I entered the tiny church basement where the show was held, it was so packed I could barely move. Maybe the weather drove people inside? Admittance was free, so it was the perfect place for soggy Brooklynites to pop in and soak up some art risk-free. I talked to a couple of publishers who were glad the weather was so rotten, since a balmy day might have driven the crowd to unsustainable, NYCC/Big Apple-style shut-down levels. Most of the publishers and exhibitors I spoke with seemed ecstatic with their sales, too.

* The crowd itself was … ugh, I hate the H-word, but it was a young, stylishly disheveled, Brooklyn-based crowd, I’m sure I don’t need to draw you a picture. The smell of vegan hot dogs and wet neckbeard, my own included, was all-enveloping. But this also means that it’s not a celeb-seeking crowd or a collector crowd, it’s a reader crowd, an art-appreciation crowd, and a heavily co-ed crowd to boot. It’s the kind of crowd that I imagine comics veterans can hardly believe finally exists.

* The talent-to-square-footage ratio was as lopsided as you’ll ever see in North America. As I made my first circuit of the room, Ben Katchor and Gary Panter were cheerfully signing books helpfully provided for sale by the con. Jessica Campbell of “Big Two” altcomix publisher Drawn & Quarterly told me of the chaotic scene at D&Q’s table when Charles Burns and Adrian Tomine’s signing ended as Gabrielle Bell and R. Sikoryak’s began. I myself was lured to the show in large part by an ultra-rare con appearance by Fort Thunder alumnus Mat Brinkman, over whom I gushed like a Browncoat on Nathan Fillion’s autograph line at San Diego.

* Yet as packed as it was with talent and attendees alike, it was, as Heidi MacDonald and Rickey Purdin both report, a show with a really personal, intimate feel. It was the kind of show where I could have a quiet chat with Katchor about how depicting space is his primary interest in comics, and where Tunde Adebimpe — lead singer of big-deal alt-rock outfit TV on the Radio — could spend 40 minutes or so contributing to Ben Herman’s Beautiful Dreamer sketchbook. The one-day-only set-up and festive holiday decorations — it was held in a church basement, after all — helped contribute to a sense that this was a fun day out rather than a weekend-long expedition. (This went double for me as I really was there instead of going to the movies and the mall; for that reason I skipped out on the panels and the post-show festivities, both held at nearby venues.)

* Falling as it did at the ass-end of the year, and announced as it was after the small-press show circuit had drawn to a close, this wasn’t really a con for major book-of-the-show-type debuts. It was more of an opportunity to pick up new minicomics by folks you like — PictureBox was offering a Jimbo mini by Gary Panter, for example — or snag books you’d missed elsewhere.

* My own haul was small but felt substantial: Tunde Adebimpe’s glossy, painted fight comic Plague Hero, his table-neighbor Domitille Collardey‘s sinuously drawn one-woman anthology comic What Had Happened Was…, C.F.’s new minicomic/fetish-pinup showcase City-Hunter Magazine #1 courtesy of PictureBox, Lane Milburn & Noel Freibert’s flipbook My Best Pet/Feeble-Minded Funnies from Closed Caption Comics and Drawn & Quarterly’s last copy of Anders Nilsen’s Big Questions #13.

* The emphasis was at least as much on the “graphics” end of the equation as it was on “comics,” so provided you had the scratch and the rainproofing abilities required, you really could have cleaned up on gorgeous silkscreened prints, handcrafted fold-out art books, and a killer selection of prints from Desert Island, including a gorgeous $30 poster for the show itself. With an eye on my holiday budget I couldn’t dip into this arena very much, but I left with many a business card and a lust in my heart for Panyiotis Terzis’s Jack Kirby-meets-House of Style photocollage and L. Nichols’s He-Man and She-Ra block prints.

* Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a big West Coast contingent, so you had the strange-for-an-indie-show spectacle of D&Q without Fantagraphics, and PictureBox and Bodega without Buenaventura. AdHouse didn’t trip up from the Dirty South and bicoastal Top Shelf were missing as well, but Secret Acres and Sparkplug represented, as did collectives like Closed Caption Comics, Partyka, and the House of Twelve. Indeed, as a curated show rather than a first-come-first-serve free-for-all, the quality level was uniformly high. And (here comes the Con Wars angle) the enthusiasm I saw from publishers, exhibitors, and attendees alike could easily be seen as a shot across the bow of MoCCA following their disorganized and divisive showing this summer. To be sure, the approach of BCGF is different even from MoCCA’s best years, and I assume publishers will have their preferences. But if there’s any city in America with room enough for two major alternative-comics conventions, it’s gotta be New York. I’ll certainly be back to both.

Sean's BCGF haul

Some of my APE purchases

I probably spent more at the Alternative Press Expo this year than I have in previous years. It’s probably my favorite show of the ones I’ve been hitting regularly since moving to California a few years back, if only because at just about every single table in the place you have the opportunity to discover a comic you’ve never seen before. Although living in the Bay Area I have access to shops that not only carry independent stuff, but in some cases also have minicomics, it’s nice to have a venue like this where you can find such a wide range of books and talk to the creators directly.

So here’s what I came home with …

Heirophany by Rebecca “Bex” Freund: Bex is a student at the California College of Arts in San Francisco; her instructor, Matt Silady, introduced me to her. She has the distinction of being the first student at the school to have one of their comics appear in the school’s literary journal, which she had on hand, along with a huge 11 by 17 version of the story that she was selling. It’s a dreamlike, surreal horror story; one of the coolest sequences in the book has the main character getting yelled at by his boss, and the boss is represented by a body with a television for a head. Each panel featuring the TV has a different set of lips that appear to be yelling at the character, with no dialogue … Bex is deaf, and Matt said that’s what people look like to her when they’re talking. Overall it’s nicely done and kind of disturbing … I hope to see more from her in the future.

Carnivale: A Kit Kaleidoscope Story by Nick Mullins: I bought all three of Nick Mullins’ wordless mincomics set in New Orleans. I glanced at them as I was walking by his table and the art really jumped out at me. I haven’t had a chance to dive into them yet, but you can check them out online.

Karaoke Comics #1 by Russ Kazmierczak: This is a really fun minicomic about the author’s love of karaoke, which apparently came about after being bitten by a radioactive Michael Bolton CD (among other theories). It chronicles a couple of awkward moments he’s experienced at karaoke bars. It’s fairly short; the comics take up six pages, plus he reviews The Mint, a San Francisco karaoke bar. It’s a fun concept that I bet he could do a lot more with, both in terms of fleshing out the two stories here and adding some others.

Whirlwind Wonderland by Rina Ayuyang: This one, I believe debuted at the show; published by Sparkplug and Tugboat Pres, it collects several stories that have appeared elsewhere. Another one I haven’t had time to read yet, but I bought it based on Ayuyang’s work in A Girls’ Guide to Guy’s Stuff.

Dog and Mouse by Marian Churchland: You might recognize Marian Churchland’s name from the recent Elephantman arc she did, or from her upcoming graphic novel from Image, Beast, which I also picked up at the show. She only had 15 copies of Dog and Mouse, and each came wrapped in tissue paper for protection. I haven’t actually gotten up the nerve to open it yet; it’s very delicate, I guess is the right term, and I’m afraid of hurting it when I take it apart to get to the story. Soon, though, I’ll work up to it.

North Country by Shane White: White was on hand mainly to sell his newest book, Things Undone by NBM, but he also had copies of North Country, which NBM published in 2005. I read Things Undone last Friday night and really dug it, so I added this one to my buy list when I realized he was going to be there. I haven’t read North Country yet, but it looks like a very different book from Things Undone, at least in terms of artistic style. White said that the two books are part of a trilogy, with NC being the first book and Undone being the third, and both are based on his own personal experiences. He said the second part of the trilogy he’s being very careful with, as it’s about a time in his life and people he really respects, and he wants to make sure he gets them right.

Princess Witch Boy by Storm: I put this after my North Country write-up on purpose, as it shares a similar trait to White’s Things Undone book — both use the fantastic to tell very personal stories. In Things Undone, which a lot of people probably think is a zombie story based on the cover and the press leading up to it, White is telling a semi-autobiographical tale that uses a zombie metaphor to show how the main character is basically falling apart in both his work life and personal life. Princess Witch Boy, subtitled “A Fantasy Memoir,” is about a boy who, at least in his head, can shape shift into various female forms — a princess, a djinn, a supermodel sorceress — to escape from the real world. This first minicomic is pretty much the set up, a glimpse at a bigger story; Storm said he plans to make the next issue longer than the 16 we have here. But he does some nice things here, particularly on the first page, which is a text piece called “Sissy” that lists “advice” on how to be more manly — don’t play with dolls, make a fist when you check your watch, etc. It does feel like we’re only getting a small piece of what this will ultimately be, but I’m looking forward to seeing what it turns into.

Anthology Anthology by Jon Adams: Jon Adams is the mad genius behind Truth Serum, which you can read for free on the web. This is a collection of strips that appeared in various anthologies he’s contributed to (hence the title). I find these all very funny … my favorite in this collection is probably the one about two stormtroopers who discover Darth Vader’s secret journal and read it in the breakroom over lunch.

Comic Diorama by Grant Reynolds: Another one I haven’t had time to read yet; this one is a collection of short stories published by Top Shelf. I believe it comes out this Wednesday.

Dogtown, Book One by Brent Otey: Another one I haven’t read yet; it’s a mash-up of anthropomorphic animals, the Old West and science fiction, so you have a dog sheriff riding around on some sort of hoverbike. But a couple of things I like about it: first up, the art is really nice, esp. the full color cover, and second, it contains some fun “back matter” in the forms of classified ads and a map of the world where this is set. What I don’t like is the printing; I don’t know exactly what’s off about it, but the word balloons are harder to read than they should be. But I won’t let that stop me from reading it …

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.

Dash Shaw

• In the words of Jeff Lester, I think I fractured my wallet yesterday. Usually there’s a “book of the show” at APE, but I’m not quite sure what it would be yet. Jamaica Dyer’s Weird Fishes seemed to be doing pretty well at the SLG table. They also had copies of Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer at the booth; Dan Vado said the orders on the book had been great. They also had a new printing of Street Angel, which is on a nicer paper stock than the previous version. Meanwhile, Dash Shaw was not just sketching, but actually painting on copies of his new book The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., which was fun to watch. They also had the third Ganges book, which I would have gotten if I hadn’t already ordered it. Churchland had advanced copies of her Image graphic novel Beast, while VIZ had the sixth volume of Pluto available. I’m not as up on manga as most people, but this seemed to be a really big deal for fans of the book.

I picked up several minicomics as well, from folks like K.O. Comix, Jon Adams and Storm from the Writers Old Fashioned group. I’ll do a separate post on all my various loot in the next day or so.

• As far as lines go, I don’t think anybody beat Jeff Smith. It was also cool to see kids with plush Bones show up for his panel yesterday. Also, I caught the last half of the Batton Lash panel and wish I’d been there for the whole thing. Lash talked about his history in the comic industry, from being taught by folks like Will Eisner to working with Howard Chaykin to the legendary Archie vs. the Punisher one-shot he did.

• I had lunch with Matt Maxwell, David Brothers and Ana Hurka-Robles at the always awesome Holy Grill. I’ve eaten there at every APE, and it never fails to satisfy — both in terms of food and company.

• More later …

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:

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 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!

Today

Cleveland | Claudio Sanchez of the band Coheed and Cambria and writer of Amory Wars and the upcoming Kill Audio will sign at Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop from 2 to 3 p.m.

Los Angeles | Nick Simmons will sign copies of Incarnate #1 at Golden Apple Comics from 1 to 3 p.m.

Ojai, Calif. | Opening reception for the Sergio Aragones art exhibit at the Ojai Valley Museum. This event is sold out, but the art exhibit runs through Oct. 4.

Orlando | The Mini MegaCon kicks off at 10 .m. and runs through Sunday. Guests include Darwyn Cooke, Jeff Parker, Chuck Dixon, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Dick Giordano and many more.

Pittsfield, Mass. | The Storefront Artist Project hosts Todd Dezago from noon to 2 p.m. for a class on “Story Structure and the Language of Comics,” followed by a signing at 3p.m. by Howard Cruse.

San Francisco | The San Francisco Zine Fest kicks off at 11 a.m. and runs through tomorrow at the County Fair Building.

Sunday

Atlanta | The Atlanta Comic Convention runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Marriott Atlanta Century Center. Guests include Heidi Arnhold, Bobby Nash and more.

Wednesday

San Jose, Calif. | A zombie crawl, art show and food drive kicks off at the SLG Art Boutiki at 577 S. Market Street and continues into the streets of San Jose.

More August

Aug. 28 | X-Men Misfits release party in Brooklyn

Aug. 28-30 | Fan Expo Canada in Toronto

September

Sept. 4-7 | AnimeFest in Dallas

Sept. 4-7 | Dragon*Con in Atlanta

Sept. 19 | Week Three Comics Fest in San Jose, Calif.

***

If you’d like to submit an event for inclusion, please email them directly to JK Parkin. Please include the venue, city and state, start time, event details and any related websites where we can send folks for more information. Virtual events, like online creator chats, are also welcome.

Friday, July 3

Bloomington, Minn | CONvergence — “a celebration of the funny side of science fiction and fantasy” — continues through Sunday and will have Dwayne McDuffie and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew as its special guests, among others. More details can be found here.

Brooklyn, NY | The comic shop Rocketship will host a release party for local artist Adam Suerte’s latest comic, starting at 8 p.m. Details here.

White River Junction, Vermont | First Friday Book Release party, with four new books debuting by Colleen Frakes, Denis St. John, Morgan Pielli and Jen Vaughn at Revolution. Details here.

Wednesday, July 8

Chicago | Green Lantern inker Christian Alamy will sign at Challengers Comics. Details here.

New York | A “glittery, burlesque-inspired” launch party for Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt’s Scarlett Takes Manhattan at the Slipper Room. It’s a free event, but an RSVP is mandatory; details here.

More in July

July 10 | Michael Kupperman in Brooklyn

July 10 | Bay Area cartoonists art exhibit kicks off in San Francisco

July 10-12 | Screaming TikiCon in Cleveland

July 11 | The Asian American ComiCon in New York

July 11 | 100 Bullets event benefiting the Hero Initiative in Los Angeles

July 11 | Peter Bagge rocks Seattle

July 15 | Geoff Johns in Anaheim

July 16 | Dave McKean in Chicago

July 17-23 | Watchmen director’s cut screenings in L.A., NYC, Dallas and Minneapolis

July 18 | March of Dimes Sketch Benefit in Puyallup, Wash.

July 18 | Keith Chow, Alex Tarampi, Jerry Ma and Larry Hama in Baltimore

July 18-19 | Frank Santoro teaches a class on line drawing and composition in New York

July 22 | Spider-Man #600 exhibit in San Francisco

July 23-26 | Comic-Con International in San Diego

SPACE

This coming weekend the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo, or SPACE, blasts off at the Aladdin Shrine Complex in Columbus, Ohio. Admission is $5 a day or $8 for both Saturday and Sunday.

About 150 indie creators will be on hand to sell their comics and original art, including Eisner nominee Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole), Ryan Claytor (And Then One Day), Jay Hosler (Optical Allusions) and Matt Feazell (Cynicalman). On Saturday, Carol Tyler (Late Bloomer, Weirdo) will display some of her work from her upcoming book You’ll Never Know Book One: A Good and Decent Man. The Ohio State University Cartoon Library and Museum will host a reception on Friday night to kick off the weekend and will feature original artwork from Bill Watterson, Jeff Smith and P. Craig Russell.

For more information on panels and other events related to th show, check out the official SPACE blog.