The only program I attended at the show was the “Gestural Aesthetic” panel with Frank Santoro, Dunja Jankovic, and Austin English. I think the panel was a little too scattered and perhaps spent too much time on introducing the three artists’ work. Frank, as he readily admits, tends to “riff” on the same subjects, so I’ve heard most of his comments before (though it was interesting to hear he seems to coming around more to coloring with computers if I understood him correctly). Austin is an interesting talker, but I think I’ve also heard most of what he said before (some in my interview with him from earlier in the year). I’m not super familiar with Jankovic’s work. I didn’t think much of Department of Art when I got a review copy, but she is doing interesting work with collage on some of her shorter works (including in the new issue of Küs!). So the panel at least enouraged me to keep an eye on her future output (this “cover” of a Fantastic Four page is pretty fabulous). I would have liked to stick around for some of the later panels (C.F and Brian Ralph, the literary one with John Porcellino), but as it was my return trip got me home pretty late in the evening (the voyage takes car, train, subway, and walking).

Here’s a round-up of some of the work I got at the show (not all of it, sorry if you gave me something and I didn’t end up writing about it I didn’t have the energy/time to be real thorough). When I got home and unpacked everything I realized I hadn’t purchased anything that was even close to a perfect bound “graphic novel”: everything is either newspaper, minicomic, pamphlet, or something unique. That was really surprising to me. I guess part of it was that I’m already caught up with books from the “big” publishers (Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, etc.) and I’d already pre-ordered from Picturebox (before I knew they were going to have it at the show) assumed book-of-the-show Kramer’s Ergot #8.

Anyway, some brief comments, in no particular order:

Smoke Signal 11 edited by Gabe Fowler (Desert Island): The latest from this free tabloid anthology starts with a long DeForge/Marra team-up which is a sure way to get a lot of people super-excited and me bored. I don’t think I’ve seen a Smoke Signal issue for awhile but I get the impression that editor Gabe Fowler’s taste and mine are very different. Was pleased to see a spread with one page from Porcellino and a one page from Julie Delporte (though they spelled it “Delaporte” on the table of contents (but… bonus points to them for having a table of contents at all)). Otherwise… Kupperman, Kaz, Negron, Henderson, etc. it’s a lot of goofiness, genre-pastiche, and grossness, which all seem to be too prevalent modes in comics these days. Which is to say, you, the average art comic fan, would probably love this (though maybe that’s not the people reading my site), but I, not so much.

Study Group Magazine 1 edited by Zack Soto and Milo George: This is a really nice production, printed all in two-tone yellow and purple that adds a unity to all the parts (comics, illustrations, articles). A lot of comics (stands-out from Aidan Koch, David King, Trevor Alixopulos, and even the first Jonny Negron comic I’ve liked), two interviews (a short one with Eleanor Davis and an excessively TCJ-esque one with Craig Thompson), and even a short review essay by Greice Schneider on The Wrong Place. I hope they can keep it up for future issues. It’d be nice to see more short essays and less of the ginormous feature interview. We get that from TCJ and lord knows we don’t need more epic interviews in the comics press.

King-Cat #72 by John Porcellino: If you’ve seen King-Cat this will be what you would expect, another wonderful issue. One oddity is a series of 6 strips entitled “South Beloit Journal” that are quick and rough 4 panel diary strips. It’s interesting to see less planned out work from Porcellino. This has two short comics “Christmas Eve” and “Under the Stars” that are easily on my list of favorite King-Cat pages. Both are short and meditative, visually poetic. Worth it for those few pages alone. I was really happy to finally get to a show and meet Porcellino, but then didn’t know what to say to him when I got to his table. I at least worked in that I’m a big fan of his and give him a copy of one of my comics. (I gave out a bunch of comics during the show, some people got “Untitled [Aug 2011]” and some people got “No Way Constant” (maybe some got both), so many that I ran out (wished I had brought more).)

“Sorbet” by Blaise Larmee (self-published): It was nice to meet and talk with Blaise after following his work for so long. This item was one of a number of unique books he was selling. All were 8.5″ x 11″ and of varying pages (mine is a bit more than 100 pages by a quick count). This one is a series of screen printed shapes that basically look like the gutters of a six-panel grid (or the dividers between panes of a window, see above). The pages are mostly a kind of peach color (with smudges of blue and white) that briefly turns to red and pale green (which I believe are what mixed to form the peach). The pages vary in print quality from a very complete “grid” to ones that are almost non-existent. It’s oddly fascinating in it’s own way. He had a few others there made with a mirror and a photocopy machine, and at least one (if I recall correctly) that was kind of the opposite of mine (it was just the squares without the gutters. I think the title was created on the spur of the moment, but it fits as the color is reminiscent of sorbet. This is definitely one of those places at the show where the “art” overtook the “comics” in “art comics.”

Cartoon Dialectics Vol. 2 by Tom Kaczynski (Uncivilized): A bunch of shorts by Kaczynski, including a reprint of an earlier mini that he bound inside this book as its own smaller book, which was a fun surprise to stumble upon. One thing I really like about his work is how much the text becomes the driving factor in the work rather than the images. These are often more about ideas and concepts and less stories. Kaczynski mentioned he has a book coming out from Fantagraphics in the future that will collect his Mome stories. Looking forward to that.

San Diego Diary by Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized): The latest of Bell’s small diary comics, this one about her trip to ComicCon in San Diego. I enjoy these for some reason despite my general recalcitrance about this type of autobiographical comic that is a little too much about the artist as an artist. Partially it’s that these are not presented with a lot of pomp and circumstance, a humble but nice design in a small size. I also like the excerpts of the sketch/draft versions of some of the content which shows a bit how Bell edits out/in parts of the story. The way Bell spots her blacks is also really attractive with tight curved lines that overlap into these little swaths of darkness throughout the panels.

“Seeking the Spirit” and “Skin, Deep” by L. Nichols (self-published, not sure where you can get these): L is really moving in an interesting direction working with mixed-media/collage/layers. Both are these pieces are non/semi-narrative, more (personal) essay than story with a real focus on figures. Great figure drawing in both, kind of cartoony schematics in “Skin Deep” and gestural life drawings in “Seeking the Spirit.”

“Monica et les fourmis”, “Prudence, Balthazar”, “Sous l’influence des mots”, “You will always be my cat” by Julie Delporte (self-published, not sure if you can order these from anywhere): I’ve had a growing appreciation of Delporte’s work since I first saw it (a not terribly successful piece in the Colosse anthology Lecture à Vue). Her work is becoming more skilled and interesting over time. The first three minis are all 8 4.25″ x 5.5″ pages in color (see above) playing off films (they are numbered “Cinema” 1-3 on the inside), mixing what I assume is autobiography (most of Delporte’s work reads as autobiography) with content from the films. These are beautiful little minis, some of my favorite work I picked up at the show, that I’ve reread a few times already. The last of the bunch is an English language mini done for the show, basically a single 11″x17″ page folded twice. It has a four page comic and then unfolds to display a large one page comic (the same as in Smoke Signal 11). The large page works in a lot of collage (which seems to be trending in comics lately). Both, I think, would look a lot better in color, Delporte’s work really needs those colors. She draws directly in color, so seeing the work in black and white really loses an integral part of the aesthetic.

“Here I Am” by Austin English (Domino Books): An 32 page minicomic version of a story that originally appeared in the Astral Talk anthology (on which more in the near future). In the anthology it was printed shrunk down so four images appeared on each page, but in this version each image is it’s own page much to the comics betterment. This is another of Austin’s comics about close living quarters kind of like Disgusting Room but this mini is less rich visually (it’s all grey tones in pencil/crayon/charcoal). I finally got to officially meet Austin at the show and I enjoyed chatting with him a bit. He’s got a lot of things going on with Domino Books so keep an eye out for their upcoming books.

“John Blaze” by Leslie Weibeler (self-published): Got this mini from Blaise’s Gaze Books table. It’s a of couple short comics. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about this one. I’m not even sure how I feel about it (I like it, but I’m not sure how much). I am intrigued, and I’ll be following Leslie’s flickr stream to see what else she does. Here’s a one page comic that’s in the mini to give you an idea of the style.

“Real People: Through Discipline Power” by Anya Davidson: Not sure that’s the title (I have something else by Davidson called “Real People” too). Got this from the Picturebox table. Davidson was there signing Kramer’s Ergot 8 (really looking forward to see what her contribution is like). This is an 8.5″ x 11″ black and white comic (see above) with silkscreened covers. Davidson doesn’t seem to make a lot of comics, but her work is really fascinating. It’s narrative but often really discordant as if there were a whole bunch of narratives interspersed. And I’m pretty sure at least some of the content is appropriated. Again, something I’m not ready to write about in detail, but an artist you should keep your eye out for (this might make it on to the Picturebox site).

I’ll add that if you were there and lucky, you grabbed a copy of Frank Santoro’s Blast Furnace Funnies from the Picturebox table. I know he had copies (Matt Seneca had one when I met him), but by the time I got to actually browse the table there didn’t seem to be any left. I got a copy in the mail a few weeks back and it is the best comic Frank has done, a really great comic (I hope to post on it soon).

I’ve not looked at a ton of other reports from the show yet, and when I talked with most of the other critics/bloggers they had all just arrived at the show, so I’m curious to see what people thought were the highlights of the show (besides Kramer’s). A lot of people seemed to be excited by the work that doesn’t interest me Deforge, Marra, and No Brow in particular. In the end, there didn’t seem to be a lot of surprises.

I seem to get to the MoCCA Festival every other year. I made it up for one day (Saturday) of the festival this year. I wanted to see the first panel of the day, so I showed up despite knowing that there would be lines and that inevitably the doors wouldn’t really open at 11am. Surprisingly, the doors opened not too long after 11 and the line moved pretty fast. Also surprisingly, but in a less nice way, buying my ticket ahead of time didn’t provide any real advantage as far as getting through the line. They only split the line once you got in the door and then the “already have tickets” line seemed to move a lot slower than the “buy your tickets now” line. It didn’t help that MoCCA volunteers had printed-out lists of those with prepaid tickets and had to cross off your name when you showed them your ticket. Seems like they need some tech support to get things moving better. My ticket had a QR code on it, surely that would be code for something. Otherwise, things seemed to running pretty smoothly, and I didn’t hear anyone else complaining about things this year. The move to April they made last year has surely paid off at least from the climate perspective, as it was not overwhelmingly hot in the Armory this year.

I did make it to panel one, a panel about teaching comics with Tom Hart, Bill Kartalopoulos, and Jessica Abel, moderated by Karen Green, Columbia’s graphic novel librarian. I enjoyed hearing their various perspectives on teaching comics, especially with the mix of panelists since Karalopoulos, unlike Abel and Hart, teaches comics in literature/art history classes rather than studio classes. A few nice shout outs to the idea of using constraints as generators for comics. Hart does a comics form of “larding” (“tireur a la ligne” as the Oubapo call it) where you start with a single strip and then expand it out to dozens of panels.

After the panel I made my tour of the tables, I went as systematically as I could (snaking through the room), so I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss at least looking at each table. My first stop at one end of the room was the row of tables held by the Scandinavians (many of whom were, I think, at the last MoCCA I attended in 2009). I know there were Danes, Finns, and Swedes, not sure if there were any Norwegians. A lot of nice looking comics at their tables, much of it not really to my tastes stylistically, though. They did have the lastest split issue of Smoke Signal and the Finnish anthology Kuti, which was free (haven’t gotten a chance to read that yet).

Chatted a bit with Allan Haverholm, who I met in 09, and whose comics I enjoy quite a bit (see my review of some of his work). He sold me a bunch of volumes of the C’est Bon anthology he co-edits. It’s a decent anthology that usually features four or five artists. One highlight in volume 13 is a comic Allan made appropriating the imagery of Super Mario Brothers to visualize the long distance between he and his girlfriend (they live in different countries). I’m, of course, a fan of appropriation. I also discovered the work of the American Chad Verrill in two of the volumes I purchased. Verrill’s work is kind of woodcut, kind of stained glass/medieval illustration. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of him before, but I’ve already ordered one of his books.

I went back later and got a copy of the Finnish Comics Annual 2011, a huge, bright pink volume featuring 20 Finnish artists including some familiar artists like Jenni Rope, Tommi Musturi, and Amanda Vähämäki. It has a good mix of narrative and visual styles in it, though I came to regret it’s great size later in the day as I walked the streets of NYC on my way to other locations.

Overall, I have to say, I wasn’t thrilled by most of what I saw as I walked the floor. The quality of much of the work seemed pretty amateurish (I understand there were a lot of students with tables), and there was a real dearth of forward thinking and/or experimental type work. Of all the places I hoped to find something really new and exciting, I figured MoCCA might be it, but alas, that was not really the case.

I browsed quite a bit at the bigger publishers tables but didn’t buy from any of them, since I know I can get their books easily enough later. Drawn & Quarterly had the new Shigeru Mizuki book Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, their first manga to be published in unflipped format. Looks to be a good read. They had a few copies of Chester Brown’s new book, but I hear they sold them out extremely quickly and didn’t seem to keep one around for browsers to look at. Fantagraphics had a lot of new books, including the huge Comics Journal 301, which really looks like it was at least partially modeled on L’Association’s now defunct L’Eprouvette (it has very similar dimensions). They also had the new Trondheim autobio book (which looks great), the new Captain Easy, and the new Dave McKean book.

I was happy to stumble upon the Closed Caption Comics table, where, luckily enough, two of the artists whose work I liked best from their latest anthology (which I discussed briefly here), Chris Day and Connor Stechschulte, were manning the table. I got a pack of books from Day (which as it turns out are part of a loose series with the story in the anthology). Stechschulte didn’t have any books, but I was at least happy to tell both of them how much I enjoyed their work.

I found the Sundays anthology table, which was one of my goals going into the show, as their latest anthology, Sundays 4 (Forever Changes), includes work by Warren Craghead (and, as we know, if Warren’s in it, I’ll buy it). There’s also an interesting piece by Scott Longo in it. Despite my anthology bitching last week, I ended up buying more anthologies than not at MoCCA, it’s a deadly trap I guess. At the Sundays table I also picked up a copy of “Medusa” by Jessica Abston and Alex Kim (can’t find a link for it), which is a accordion folded comic that looks interesting (haven’t read it yet).

Sakura Maku seemed to have the original pages from her forthcoming Dark Tomato on display at her table (I’m pretty sure that’s what the pages were, I neglected to ask). They were really beautiful pages with a good bit of collaged images. I’m looking forward to her book.

Another one of my pre-planned goals, was finding the Sparkplug table. In my attempts to get a look at Austin English’s new book (don’t forget my interview with Austin from last week), I ran into fellow critic Marc Sobel and got to chat with him a bit. Sparkplug also had the new issue of Reich (8) by Elijah Brubaker, a series I’ve been enjoying for quite awhile.

I ended up walking around a bit with the esteemed Matthias Wivel, as we talked and looked at comics. He and Stephen of Fanfare tried to sell me on a few Taniguchi comics I haven’t read, but ended up selling me on Kazuichi Hanwa’s Doing Time, one of their earlier releases that I hadn’t ever read.

Kevin Mutch and Geoff Grogan at the Pood table were kind enough to give me a copy of their latest issue (#3). And Kevin lamented the lack of appropriative tactics in comics (though with Geoff and I there he was preaching to the choir).

Karl Stevens, whose weekly strip “Failure” you can read online, was at his table working on one of his comics, a lot of which is drawn from photo references. If you haven’t checked out his latest, The Lodger, you can order it direct from the artist.

Later in the afternoon Matthias took me back to the Scandinavians’ tables to make some recommendations, though he wasn’t very successful at it (no fault of his). One book that looked really nice, but was a bit expensive for me that late in the day (and will hopefully see if not an English at least a French version I can read in the near future) was Glimt by Rikke Bakman (Aben Maler).

I ran into Ian Harker, editor of Secret Prison a local (to me) free comics anthology from Philadelphia, and Pat Ausilio. Secret Prison 4 was making it’s debut at the show (didn’t get one as I’m expecting a subscriber copy). I also stopped by L Nichols (who’s already written about the show) and Darryl Ayo’s table as I’d promised them a copy of Badman’s Cave (I gave them out to a bunch of people throughout the day) which they kindly traded for their minis.

I only saw that one panel. I missed the Dash Shaw/Brecht Evens conversation as I was out having lunch, and none of the other panels on Saturday seemed all that interesting to my tastes. After the show I ended up walking down to the Strand, but in missing a turn ended up in the New School area, so I stopped in at the Cartoon Polymaths exhibit at Parsons. The highlight was the Steinberg work, though the Kevin Huizenga comic in the show brochure is worth reading too (you can find it in this pdf).

All in all, MoCCA was more successful to me for the conversations I had then the comics I bought or saw. I should expect as much since my tastes seem to be moving ever further away from the mainstream of comics (and here I mean “mainstream” in its normal sense, not as a code for “superheroes”), but I would love to see more people moving away from the new mainstream genres: autobiography, “literary” fiction, and all the non-superhero genres like action, horror, fantasy. If not moving away from them, at least finding non-traditional ways to handle those genres, either visually or narratively. For instance, Chris Day’s comics (mentioned above) are sci-fi/horror-esque but they are narratively elliptical and visually unusual (collaged/appropriated imagery that is eschewing most of conventional comic tropes). More ranting another time…

Maybe I missed something great at the show, so any recommendations are welcome in the comments.

Since most of my work is online only, when I decided I’d try exhibiting, I didn’t have much in the way of print comics to show. I had copies of my 20 Out of 30 Days print-on-demand issues and a handful leftover minicomics from a few years ago, but that didn’t amount to much. So I decided I’d make a bunch of minicomics for the event. I ended up with the Three Minis Wrapped in a Micro set. I’m pretty happy with the results (though I wish the DeChirico one were drawn better), so in that respect, the con as a source of minicomic making motivation was a success. I also worked up a minicomic of my “Flying Chief” piece from the Abstract Comics anthology, since I figured most people haven’t read the book and many might be intrigued enough to check out a small segment of it. As a way to plug my website I also got a bunch of tiny Moo cards made featured 10 different cropped images from my comics. Those turned out really nice, too.

I’ve got a good day job, so this wasn’t about trying to make money, or even trying to break even, I was just hoping to get some comics out there, so I priced my comics fairly cheap, rounding up the cost of the comic to the next dollar. In retrospect, I think I should have priced them even cheaper and just gone with the “losing money in favor of exposure” proposition.

I made a bunch of signs on orange paper that gave the comics name, format, price, and a really brief description, so people might have an idea of what they were. I also brought along a copy of the Abstract Comics anthology for people to browse and a copy of the print-on-demand book of Things Change (with a note that the whole thing can be downloaded free online.

My table from my side of it.

The con was in the Rotunda, a community center like place near the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia. There was a full house of tables filling the room. It was hot and stinky in there (of course! it’s a comics show), but I was extraordinarily lucky enough to be the guy literally sitting in front of what I think was the only air conditioner in the room. I stayed cool the whole day and didn’t even notice the smell. (Thanks, Pat for that location!)

When I go to cons I always hate the feeling of passing by a table and seeing a desperate looking artist looking up at me hoping I’ll look at or (after I look at) buy their work. I didn’t want to have that desperation. I don’t think I did. I tried to chat with people who actually picked up work. Telling people that my abstract “Spill” comic is images taken from the oil spill video feed seemed to garner interest. As did the Abstract Comics anthology (a few people either had it and loved it or were wanting to get a copy after seeing it). I think I had too much on my table and would, in the future, pare down the offerings to fewer items so that people could more easily scan the table and focus on individual works. Setting out just my “20 Days”, “Three Minis”, and “Flying Chief” probably would have been the best way to go, with a copy of each for browsing and one spread open to a representative page.

I didn’t end up selling a lot of comics. It made me realize how much my work is on the alternative side of “alternative” comics. I did trade a few, and I ended up giving out a couple to some people who seemed interested or who I thought might be interested. Though, again, not a lot of potential there either. So I’ve still got a lot of minicomics left. Which is either depressing or not depending on how much shelter I take in my sense of the aesthetic worth for my work, or how much ill I want to think of the attendee’s taste.

Comics shows are also about socializing, never my strong suit with people I don’t know (particularly in a face-to-face context). Limited success on that front, especially since I came to the show not really knowing any local comic artists (other than brief online interactions with a couple folks). I did participate in the comics jams that were going around the show: gridded out pages where each person fills in a panel. Luckily, I had a few sharpies in my bag to draw with.

One of the best parts of comics shows is finding new and interesting work. PACC was kind of a bust for me in that respect too. A lot of work that looked either conceptually or technically lacking. I had some other people tell me that too, so it’s not just me. The little interesting work that was there was stuff I’m already familiar with, like the publisher Secret Acres. I ended up buying only one comic, traded for a couple items, had one given to me, and found a couple things in my stuff when I got home (I guess they were dropped in the box under my table at some point, cause I don’t remember picking them up).

Comics Section:

The first thing someone gave me when I walked around the show was “Make a One Page Book” by Claire Folkman (print out your own online), a single page photocopy that shows instructions on how to fold and cut the page into a small 8 page book (kind of like a lot of the little minis Warren Craghead makes). The part that really got me was that when you have the book made, the pages are… step-by-step instructions on how to take a piece of paper and make it into a little book. I love the self-referential aspect and the way the process leads into an invitation to create and perpetuate the process. Very clever. Looks like Folkman offers a lot of her webcomics in a pdf version for folding into a book. I tried this with my “Three Minis”, but mine really needed double-sided laser printing to get the right effect and not lose content in the margins (most printers won’t print as far to the margins as my comic required). This way’s simpler, if less refined.

The one book I bought was Dina L Kelberman’s Important Comics, which I’d seen online previously. It’s a small 42 page color book of small comics that I believe were originally sent out to Kelberman’s email list. The comics fail to impress narratively, conceptually, or thematically, they’re little absurdities or gags that aren’t particularly funny, primarily featuring geometric stick figures talking. Autobiographical origins seem to linger in the background of many of them, though you can’t say that any of the little figures really come through as characters or author stand-ins. So, while certain pleasures are not to be found here, Kelberman’s book caught my eye because of the materiality of the images. Aesthetically, this is a lovely book to just look at.

Most comics have a flat printed, two-dimensional, uni-media aesthetic, a historical necessity that has become not only traditional but also an aesthetic ground zero. Kelberman’s comics, on the other hand, look dimensional, textured. Comics in this collection appear on the back of receipts, on movie tickets, on paper cut into shapes, notebooks, and lined pieces of paper. Colors are made with pencil, marker, ink, paint, and crayon, colors that are vibrant and varied, often eschewing the convention of black line filled with color. The materiality of the comics is present in all these things and in whited-out patches of textured paint. The panels of the comics are often formed into shapes, or have a wide variety of border weight, type, or color. The lettering also takes part in this variety, from a conventional comic-y san-serif, to cursive script or large block letters that look ripped out of a notebook doodle.

Kelberman shows a lot of promise in this book, I hope she finds something interesting to do with what is clearly a great sense of design. I’ve already ordered her more recent series to see what she’s doing next. comics section, yes?).

Ian Harker, editor of the free comics newspaper Secret Prison, had the latest issue (#2) which I am in. I think it’s an improvement over issue 1, I guess he got more submissions this time, so he could be more selective. The cover and color feature are by Benjamin Marra, who I just don’t get the draw of, but I know people love his work, so that might attract some extra attention to the paper. I also got two of Ian’s comics, “The CIty” and “Rockbox”.

“Rockbox” is a larger comic printed in black on day-glow green paper and a yellow cover with a little rectangular red sticker on it reading: “Mangaka: Ian Harker”. That’s the front cover, until you realize he’s printed this like a manga (the “mangaka” is your clue) where one reads right to left. Flipping it over, a small slip of paper with reading instructions is inserted into the comic. Each page of the comic is done with the panels as if they were printed on a rectangular prism, the reader able to see two sides at once. You read through the comic first reading the panels on the right facet of the prism, then going back through again reading the panels on the left facet. It took me two tries to understand this. The first page only shows the the right facet and the last page only shows the left facet. In between the pages slowly shift from showing more of the right facet to showing more of the left facet. The facet that is less shown is more foreshortened, forcing Harker to make the panels starker and less informative. As such, he enforces a sense of rising and falling pacing, where the beginning the comic has larger panel with more information, the middle has smaller panels with less information, and then the end again has larger/more. The story itself is more like a scene from something larger, than much of a story. Golgo 13 (from the very famous manga) seems to be following a guy that looks like a robot (or he’s just a guy with odd taste in facial wear) who is checking into a hotel. Golgo 13 follows him upstairs, there is a shoot-out. Most interesting for the formal elements, both the structure of the pages/pacing and the way Harker has positioned the comic as a kind of minicomic manga.

“The City” is a small square comic that reads like a chapter of Moebius’ The Airtight Garage as drawn by Gary Panter and Ron Rege featuring another Golgo 13-esque character. The story is minimal, again, more scene than story. It’s starts in media res and action follows action, ending in a page of abstraction rather than any conventional resolution. The comic is interesting as long as it takes you to read, but not longer, and I wonder if the draw for Harker is more about the process than the product. “The City” is a later work than “Rockbox” and you can see in the comparison how much his drawing, line, and compositions have advanced in the time.

Harker’s single page piece in Secret Prison #2 continues with the Golgo 13 theme. This time the page is designed as a series of stacked cubes with panels on them. The panels seem almost randomly sequenced, but can be pieced together as a kind of ur-plot of how I imagine Golgo 13 stories go: guns, women, smoking, assassination, sex. The art is all angles and straight lines, which inside the cubed panels really flattens out the whole page, adding to a greater sense of abstract design as would not be achieved if the cubed straight panels contained a more curved and lush drawing (which would not work as well, I think).

And that’s it.

Overall, I’m not sure it was worth the trouble, time, or money. I’m probably better off just walking around giving out comics than sitting in one place trying to sell them. That’s what the internet’s for, right?

August 2010
14 p., 11.25″ x 16″
black and white (plus limited singlecolor), newsprint

This free comics newspaper from Philadelphia features a number of artists (many local) including a single page piece by me entitled “Iron Thews,” which is a mash-up of appropriated Robert E Howard Conan story text, a D&D-esque dungeon map, and a woman ironing clothes. The issue also features work by Ian Harker, Box Brown, and a cover plus two page spread by Benjamin Marra (who I don’t get the draw of, but maybe you do/will).

Free. I have a bunch of copies, I’ll throw it in when you order any of my other comics.

The Armory (which just as we were about to leave my wife notice the display that informed this was THE ARMORY, as in “The Armory Show” that is so prominent in art history) is an improved location over the Puck Building. It’s big and open, all the tables fit in one room with a bit more walking space. I thought it was cooler than the other building, though maybe it was just a nicer day.

Having learned from Matt Madden on Twitter that Pantheon had limited copies of Asterios Polyp (David Mazzuchelli’s forthcoming book) I made a bee line for their table and bought a copy. While I did end up dragging the rather heavy book around all weekend, I was glad for the early purchase the on Sunday when Pantheon was sold-out.

With the lateness we caught Charles’ talk, primarily an excerpt from his in-process book on Jack Kirby. The chapter was on the “technological sublime” in Kirby, the sense of awe and fear that accompanies a certain view of technology. Charles had a number of slides, primarily from the Fantastic Four (a few of those collage panels) and the issue where Johnny Storm heads out into space to get some weapon to defeat Galactus. I failed to take notes, so I’m not clearly explaining this, but suffice to say it was an interesting talk, for me, who is not really a fan of Kirby but has read that part of the Fantastic Four, and even for my wife, who knows of him but has never read any of it. The talk was followed-up with some talk between Charles and Issac Cates, which got a little too Kirby-knowledgeable for me (I can’t follow the references to specific characters, scenes, etc.). Briefly met Gene Kannenberg and started handing out my criticism zine (I gave one out to most everyone I talked to during the two days).

After the talk we walked around the show for a couple hours, only managing to hit the outer perimeter of the show before heading off to check-in to our hotel. Got a bunch of mini-comics from different sources, and said brief hellos to Tom Devlin at the D+Q booth (Ron Rege was signing, but I didn’t have anything to get signed (and I already had the work on sale)), Dylan Williams and Austin English at the Sparkplug table, and talked to one of the CCS students about the Schulz Library (we donated a few boxes of books to them a few years ago).

One of the highlights of the show, personally, was getting to Fantagraphics’ table and getting a chance to page through a display copy of the Abstract Comics anthology. I found my piece in it, looks great! The whole book looks fabulous and Jacob Covey did a beautiful job with the design. This book is going to get some attention, I think. The line-up of artists is fantastic, many artists whose work I’m a fan of (Andrei Molotiu (the editor), Warren Craghead, Jason Overby, Richard Hahn, Elijah Brubaker, Grant Thomas, Blaise Larmee, and more). Even if I weren’t in it, I’d be excited about it.

There was a long line of tables of Scandinavians (I know there were at least Finns, Norwegians, and Danes). Many had a made English translations of their books which they printed out and folded into the front of the book. I ended up going back the next day a grabbing a copy of the Norwegian Rui Tenreiro’s Hoytiden which looks fabulous.

After he uncovered his name tag, I realized, at one point, I was standing in front of Allan Haverholm, whom I follow on Twitter. We chatted a bit and he sold me a bunch of his works, including a “single” was his in process comics “album” and a mix-tape comic in a plastic tape case.

Talked a bit with Matt Madden who gave me a copy of his new mini and who was soliciting submissions for the next Best American Comics anthology. Found Frank Santoro at the Picturebox table and talked a bit with him and picked up the latest Cold Heat Special before we left for the day.

My wife had a wonderful dinner at Gobo (8th and Broadway), an all vegan restaurant. Really great New England Rolls, which were almost like egg rolls, but way better. Sweet and sour soy protein. Avocado tartare. Seitan skewers. Some nice sake too. Then we headed up to the theater district and saw the revival of Guys & Dolls, which featured Lauren Graham (from Gilmore Girls) and Oliver Platt (he was the chief counsel of The West Wing), my first Broadway musical. The musical was great (I still remember a lot of songs from seeing it as a kid at my high school and from the movie version with Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando).

Sunday we started off at the MoMA. Some highlights included a wonderful blackboard and chalk diptych by Tacita Dean (that image does not do it justice, there are small words written on to the board also), finding the small stair landing that included Duchamp’s Network of Stoppages (which I don’t recall ever seeing in person, and it is much more interesting than I expected (lots of detail that is hard to see in the reproductions)), large canvasses by Henri Rousseau (he has such a wonderful density and depth of composition despite the flatness of his paint), Matisse’ Red Studio (which always attracts me for the way he has the furniture painted almost schematically), and a piece by Cy Twombly I’ve not seen before that looked like it had floating pieces of paper drawn on it (can’t find an image of it). Sadly Twombly’s Four Seasons, which was on display last time we were at the MoMA was no longer up.

After the MoMA we headed downtown to the MoCCA museum to see the David Mazzuchelli show that is up. One detriment, I imagine, of the new festival location is a lot less people probably took the time to visit the museum. Mazzuchelli’s work was worth the extra trip. The show featured original pages from all his work (or almost all, at least all the ones I know and some I didn’t), including two short stories I had never seen before (post Rubber Blanket work). The highlight was seeing the hand drawn color separations from “Discovering America.” A two-page spread of black ink that was later printed as blue and then acetate (mylar?) pages with black ink on them that were printed in orange over top of the blue. Turns out Mazzuchelli got into printmaking at that time, which is what inspired that way of working.

There were numerous pages, sketches, and notes from the new book Asterios Polyp. One page featured the same bits of dialogue written over and over again, seemingly in an attempt to best arrange the words into lines of text. Another page showed a bunch of Dick Tracy villains that seemed to serve as an inspiration for one of the characters. Comparisons of the original pages to the printed work also showed that he is clearly using computers to manipulate the images.

I only got a chance to read the first 20 pages or so of the new book, but I can safely say this is one of the (if not THE) comics of the year.

Back at the festival on Sunday, we stopped in at First Second, so my wife could get Sara Varon to sign her copy of Sweaterweather. Sara drew one of her dog characters into the book. Then stood in line to get Mazzuchelli to sign his book (this is where I learned they sold out of copies). I gave him a copy of my crit zine, as it had the piece I wrote on one of his pages from Rubber Blanket in it, which it turns out he had read already. He thought it was a little overboard, but to me that was kind of the point of writing a whole article about a single panel/page.

Walked around more, in a bit of a hurry by this point, as I didn’t want to miss the Gary Panter/Frank Santoro panel. I found Andrei Molotiu and talked to him a bit, looking at the Abstract Comics anthology more. Andrei also drew me a pear inside my copy of his new book Nautilus. Andrei also convinced me to read some Ditko Spider-man issues (he discusses a page in the introduction to the anthology). Met Mike Getsiv (Edit: spelling corrected. Sorry, Mike!), who’s also in the anthology, and he showed me some lovely pages by Blaise Larmee (whose work I love, I bought the latest Sundays anthology just because I knew Blaise was in it) from an anthology Mike’s been editing . Also met Kevin Mutch from Blurred Books who gave me a few review copies of their work.

Further along I said hi to another Twitter friend Leigh Walton at the Top Shelf booth, and then found Geoff Grogan (also in the anthology) to get a copy of his Look Out Monsters.

Finally we went to the Panter/Santoro panel, which was primarily Panter talking about fine artists who have some comics connection or relation. Frank stressed his sense of always feeling between two camps of comics and fine arts, and how Gary was one person he met who seemed to be equally knowledgeable/interested in both areas. Panter was an amusing speaker and I jotted down some unfamiliar names to look up later. A few quotes (potentially not exact quotes, I did my best):

Panter: “If you are an artist you know you can’t compete with nature, children, or crazy people.”
Santoro: “Comics is so craft oriented it turns off fine art people.”
Panter called Duchamp the Abraham Lincoln of art.
Panter: “If you rip off 100 people no one’s going to know” (as opposed to just copying one person.)
Panter: (In connection to “Photoshop guys”) “You don’t need 5000 colors on a page, you just need two good colors.” (amen)

And that was the festival. I missed a few people I would have liked to say hi to, alas, but that’s always hard with people you only know online. If they aren’t behind a table with a name tag their hard to pick out. Overall, it was fun and I picked up what I hope are so great comics.

Here’s the full list of what I picked up (with links where possible):

• Mazzuchelli, David. Asterios Polyp. Pantheon.
• Blurred Books anthology 1-4.
• Mutch, Kevin. Fantastic Life 1+2 (which I already read online), Captain Adam, Revenge of the Lesbian Folk Singer. Blurred Books.
• Tenreiro, Rui. Hoytiden. Jippi Forlag. (Here’s some info (in English) from the author’s site.)
• Hitchcock, John and Alex Toth. Dear John: The Alex Toth Doodle Book. Octopus Press.
• Stevens, Karl. Guilty. (You can get it from Alternative Comics.)
• Rehr, Henrik. Reykjavik. Fahrenheit. (Don’t see it on the publishers site, but here are some samples.)
• Molotiu, Andrei. Nautilus. Fahrenheit. (Some details and samples at Andrei’s blog.)
• Madden, Matt. Minnesota and other sketchbooks comics.
• Longstreth, Alec. Phase 7 #13 and #14.
• Haverholm, Allan. Black Sabbath (Intro), Astoria: The Doomed to Fail demo. (Site for the project.) Also his “Mix Tape” (in an actual tape case) and “Resistansen.”
• Santoro, Frank and Lane Milburn. Cold Heat Special #9. Picturebox. (I don’t see this on the site.)
• Sobel, Marc. The Red Stiletto.
• Volozova, Olga and Juliacks. Rock that Never Sleeps: Two Stories of Lost Memories. Sparkplug.
• English, Austin. Windy Corner #3. Sparkplug.
• Chad, Jon. Shortstack: The Journal Comic Card Game (it really is a deck of cards), Leo Geo Acquires Ancient Knowledge.
• Wong, Ken. Schrodinger’s Cat. (This one is folded up like a “cootie catcher”.)
• Sundays 3. (Three small books.)
• Coovert, J.P. Simple Routines 9,10,11.
• Palmer, Evan. Cooking with Food volume one. (Recipe comics!)
• Brinkman, Mat. Multiforce. Picturebox.
• Grogan, Geoff. Look Out Monsters.

Mini-Morph: A Second Life Web Comics Comic-Con and Conference. March 18, 2009, 9:00 – 1:00 SL/PST

We’re proud to present a special half-day conference devoted to discussing the comics survey course, showcasing the recent work of several web comics artists. The event is held entirely in Second Life, on the Front Range Island. Everyone is invited.

Sponsored by The Center for EduPunx, The Comic Book Bin, and The Institute for Comics Studies, the conference will bring together practitioners, educators, academics, students, journalists and others for a half-day event aimed at lively discussion and fruitful exchange.

Schedule:

8:30 a.m. SL/PST: Front Range Island Opens

9:00 – 9:30 a.m. SL/PST: Make Like an Action Figure!

Not only can you dress like comics characters in SL, you can act like them too! Let us show you how, following opening remarks from Hervé St.-Louis, publisher and editor, The Comic Book Bin

9:30 – 10:00 a.m. SL/PST: The Importance of Watchmen and Its Place in the Comics Survey Course

A discussion of Alan Moore’s importance by Andrew Edwards of Sequart.

10:00 – 11:30 a.m. SL/PST: Teaching the College Comics Course

Advice and experience from panelists Leonard Rifas of Seattle Central Community College and Gail de Vos of the University of Alberta. Moderated by Peter Coogan of the The Institute for Comics Studies

11:30 – 12:00 p.m. SL/PST: The Librarian’s Role in the College Comics Course

Examples of “transformative constraint” to get students making their own versions of comics even if they can’t draw.
An examination of how librarians support the college comics course, especially by adding resources such as web comics and Web 2.0 tools to the course toolbox.
Mini-Morph librarian-in-residence: Derik Badman, Temple University

12:00 – 1:00 p.m. SL/PST: Open Gallery and Discussion from Comics Creators

Web comics artists: We still have room in our gallery, if you would like to display samples of your work!

[Some of my work will be in the gallery!]

For inquiries and clarifications, please write Beth Davies-Stofka: beth AT comicbookbin DOT com

Second Life is free to access. I’m a novice at it, but feel free to contact me with easy questions. Take note, Second Life time is Pacific Time. So my presentation is at 2:30pm EST.