Pictures from SPX

Quinn reading a comic based on Aztec mythology.

The hotel was quite fancy.

Yuko of Johnny Wander and Jamie Noguchi of Yellow Peril.

JUST. ROWS AND ROWS OF COMICS.

People buying comics... and Kevin Bolk behind them.

Realized later that I caught Katie Olmburg of Gay Kid chatting up fellow exhibitors.

Pizza Island ladies! Minus Julia Wertz, I think.

That dude with the backpack got in the way of a spectacular beard.

It's been a while, hasn't it...

I was in Washington D.C. this past weekend for SPX (Small Press Expo), which was a blast. This is what I got (and I did take a couple pictures which I suppose I'll post eventually, but I really was too busy browsing comics and reading comics and COMICS COMICS COMICS okay):

Gay Kid by Katie Olmberg- the third issue. I like Katie Olmberg’s Gay Kid series, it’s relatable and engaging. Though I think out of the three (I picked up the first two at SPACE earlier this year) volume two is my favorite. There was something rushed about this latest volume. http://fancy-graphics.blogspot.com/

Steak and Cake; Wolf City by David Mack- these are so cute, asdfkjhslf;. Both the drawing and the handling of the book design are great. The first one is about a steak and a cake that are in love, and the second one is about a sheep in wolf’s clothing. www.monkeyfingers.net

Cedar St. Tavern by Seamus Heffernan- A truly minicomic about the abstract expressionists and their views on beauty. It made my mom laugh, which is always a plus. He doesn’t seem to have a website, which is sad.

Heavy Flow by Jen Vaughn- An educational comic about something called a menstrual cup, which I had never heard of but seems like a pretty good idea. I actually just picked it up because her analysis of tampon/ pad ads made me giggle. And I went to a panel she was on about the human body in comics which I also greatly enjoyed. www.mermaidhostel.com

Turtie Needs Work by Steve Wolfhard- Steve Wolfhard is famous for Cat Rackham (Don’t get me wrong, they’re great, but those comics make me laugh, and then feel like I’m about to cry) but I picked this minicomic up and immediately started to crack up. Turtie tries everything from cab driver to psychoanalyst. www.stevewolfhard.com

Stay Away From Other People by Lisa Hanawalt- I went to her panel on drawing the grotesque and it made me very happy. The first I saw of her work was her “How to Tell When Martha Stewart’s Been Drinking” strip, which is hilarious. This minicomic has a little bit of everything—doodles of animal-people, what to do while stuck in traffic, ideal wedding plans, etc. www.lisahanawalt.com

Super Baby Jesus by Adam Aylard- In the words of the artist, “witness the adventures of Super Baby Jesus as he solves the world’s problems in a way only he can.” A present for a friend. (But I read it anyway, ha!) www.superbabyjesus.com

Surviving the World’s Guide to College- A present for my sister. But pretty useful. http://survivingtheworld.net/

Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell- I had read some of his stuff before—I met him at SPACE and bought Please Release, a shorter autobiographical comic. But dear lord. His art is just… graah. Makes me so jealous. It’s a little bit reminiscent of Jillian Tamaki’s work, except he uses only ink, no pencil. This book is joining my list of favorites next to Ghost World and Skim. Just go look at his site, I don’t have the words. http://www.seemybrotherdance.org/

And that was it. I kind of wanted to buy more (okay, I REALLY wanted to buy more) but I felt I should chill a bit. When I come back next year I’ll make sure I have a little budget set aside for comic purchases. I got a small pile of free comic pages and postcards and business cards and the like, of course.

The panels were great, generally. I was a little disappointed with the Cultural Identity panel, which I wrongly assumed would be about people like me, caught between countries and cultures and not really sure where I belong… but it turned out to be a collection of Americans who made comics about places other than America. And their attitude was a bit staggering, to be honest. They talked about perceived American arrogance and then proceeded to demonstrate it without shame. Made me a bit sad.

But! The panels on the grotesque and the body and publishing were great, and Chester Brown read some of his book Paying For It, which I really should have bought but oh well… yeah SPX! See you next year fo sho!

P.S. this is my boyfriend's list--he is a comics enthusiast and I read most of what's in this list anyway:

Johnny Wander vol. 1: http://www.johnnywander.com/ by Yuko Ota & Ananth Panagariya - yay! And with a little cute drawing of a kitty on a hat which I would post if I hadn’t lost my camera battery in the move

Schrödinger’s Cat: http://www.k-wong.com/ by Ken Wong - This dude does baller 3-D origami comics. I love this concept so much. Kinda similar to an art project I saw at a MFA show that decorated an entire room in drawings. Additionally the sheer density of references adds another dimension. (Get it? Get it?)

Incredible Change-Bots 1+2: http://www.theholyconsumption.com/ by Jeffery Brown - holy crap, I liked the Transformers as a kid. But reading this makes you realize how terrible Transformers really were and how awesome Jeffrey Brown is.

Pang, the Wandering Shaolin Monk (vol. 1): http://www.shilongpang.com/ by Ben Costa - I have such a special place in my heart for Kung Fu (due to my childhood Power Rangers/Bruce Lee/karate phase) that I don’t think I’ve ever disliked these kinda stories. The art seems simple in this work until an action scene, then you’re like “OMG YES MOR PLZ” I wanted this book to go on foreeeeeever.

Lords of Life & Death: http://www.jonathondalton.com/ by Jonathon Dalton - Set in the borderlands of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire. There, right there. Full disclosure, this kinda thing was basically my undergrad major. So I’m biased. But this is quality work, faithful to the Mesoamerican artistic tradition and surprisingly historically accurate. (Except Nahuatl was the capital’s prestige dialect, Nahua was used more widely at the time; the Mexica god of warfare was more their tribal patron Huitzilopochtli than Tlaloc; tobacco wasn’t exactly used that way on the mainland; and Chaak’s nose is far larger. Funny story about that, actually…) There’s real hunger for this kinda thing in indigenous areas of Mexico, Mr. Dalton should see about getting this translated into Spanish and/or Yucateco.

Tortoise and Hare: http://www.mikelucas.com/ by Mike Lucas - saw this guy on Tumblr before the show. Which also reveals my bias formed by reading Usagi Yojimbo.

Bikeman Issue 1: http://www.jonchad.com/ by Jon Chad - Yeah, imagine the bad guy from Afro Samurai who talks to bikes. Also, it’s a Western. Kinda wanna see these in every bike store across the land.

Any Empire: http://www.seemybrotherdance.com/ by Nate Powell - Holy crap. Sometimes I read a book and am just blown away by how good it is. Art Spiegelmans’s Maus was like that, so was Flannery O’Conner’s Wise Blood. Powell’s books are like that. The ladyfriend got Swallow Me Whole, which is even more goddamn brilliant, but I think Any Empire speaks to me more. I can’t believe I didn’t know who Nate Powell was before I met him. And I was all casual and normal. Jesus, if I’d read him before I met him, I’d be waaaaay too intimidated to speak English.

Stuff I haven’t read yet!

Azteca Ciudad Paradiso #1: http://www.azteca2012.com/ written by Enrica Jang, pencils by   - Ohio artists represent! Yeah, I got this for the same reason I got the Maya one. Mexico City supahhero!

HEALED! vol. 1 & 2: http://www.homelesscomics.com/ written by George O’Conner, illustrated by S. Griffin - Hey, I liked the concept; no disease, no illness, now what? Kinda like an opposite zombie story.

The Surrogates & The Surrogates Flesh & Bone: http://comicbookdb.com/title.php?ID=3372/ written by Robert Venditti, Illustrated by Brett Weldele - I dunno, I liked the art. There was apparently a Bruce Willis movie about it, but I just wanted a sci-fi book

Stuff that ran out!

Hark! a Vagrant: http://harkavagrant.com/ by Kate Beaton - and no goddamn wonder, the line was going down the hallway!

CMY cat T-shirt - seriously, I shoulda mugged that guy walking across from McD’s but he was bigger than me.

SPX/ Photo of the Day

So I just found out about SPX, and I don't really know how I hadn't heard of it before, but when September rolls around, I am SO going. Julia Wertz will be there, as well as Yuko and Ananth of Johnny Wander, and Kate Beaton of Hark! A Vagrant and various other people I saw at SPACE (like Katie Omberg of Gay Kid).

Holy moly I'm tres excited! Agh!

Here's a photo of me being excited, I don't have any fancy photography for you today:

 (Unrelated note, I really really look like my sister Shonali here.)

SPACE Columbus- the artists!

Well, right off the bat, I started following Katie Omberg at her blog. She does a comic called "The Very Real Story of a Real Gay Kid," an autobiographical comic following the story of her own coming out. The drawing style is cute, loose but not sloppy. Go look at her work, it's on her blog and on The New Gay.

Next up is Nate Powell, whose style really reminds me of Jillian Tamaki's. I bought his "Please Release" comic, but after reading it, I wish I had bought at least one other one. It is autobiographical, thoughtful and definitely worth a few more reads to take it all in. Look at his gallery of illustrations as well as his comics, I think they're really freakin awesome.

Ryan Dow won the SPACE prize last year for best webcomic, and I totally see why. In the spirit of Sinfest, but more personal at the same time, his Lil Buddha comics are hilarious and honest.

I got really excited when I saw Michael R. Neno's "Pictures of Benevolence" minicomics, because they are really similar to what I'm working on currently. His are more specific (and more ambiguous at the same time). I can't really describe them properly, but he can.

John Porcellino's King-Cat Comics are also autobiographical in nature, more anecdotal than some of the others in this list, but still really thoughtful. His drawings are sparse, but well executed and buoyed by his excellent writing. I got two of his and I'm thinking of getting some of the earlier issues, too. Here is his publishing blog.

I really loved one of the many free comics I received, called "FYI, IDK," by Max Ink. The drawing are lovely and the characters really well-formed.

Another free comic I received was titled "Sacred Heart" by one Liz Suburbia. I loved the character design, it kind of reminded me of Damon Albarn's Gorillaz designs, and also of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World. (Side note on two things--I bought myself a copy of Ghost World at Half-Price books while I was in Columbus, yay, and Gorillaz has some new tracks up here, holy smokes!)

There were a few people at SPACE doing hand-bound comics and one of the nicest was by Jessi Zarbarsky (and I'm not talking staples here, it was really nice paper bound in the 5-stitch method). I bought the one titled "Thursday," which has this adorable little out-of-panel character hanging out just outside the panel border on some of the pages. The drawing style is distinct and very clean, I'm definitely going to explore her work some more.

The last comic artist I bought a comic from is Nathan Kissel, who has really really nice color work. I bought his "Deserted Aisles" comic about a grocery store clerk who meets a magic genie, and it's well written and the main character is so forlorn-looking you just want to give him a hug.

I got some sweet business cards from about a kazillion people, so I'll just roll out a short list here, click at your leisure:

Evan Yeti by Mat Washburn.

Kenn Minter, comics and graphic design.

Peculiar Comics (this guy was handing out mustaches, I wore mine around until it started to itch).

E.J. Barnes had the cutest/ funniest greeting cards ever for sale. Example A.

I could go on and on and ON, but those were the highlights. Here is a picture of our table, with Carol Tyler's books there at the front.

From right to left: Allison Weyda, Amanda Ashley's coat (I have no idea where she went, she managed to avoid my camera the whole trip), Meredith Waddell.

SPACE Columbus

Goodness gracious me. I have so many people to talk about, I might have to do a whole second post on the comic artists whose work I got to see/ buy at SPACE.

Carol Tyler was there, of course, she was at the table with us and had her lovely books (You'll Never Know parts 1 and 2!) next to our sad little portfolios (next time I will DEFINITELY have some printed comics to give away or sell--the business cards were a wonderful idea). As it was, I managed to sell a few of my mini drawings, which I thought was neat since I hadn't intended to sell anything at SPACE and only brought my little box of mini drawings on a whim.

"The Boys" and "injury 1," examples of my tiny drawings. These are both about 2" x 2"--the image on your screen is presumably larger than the actual physical drawing. These are not the ones I sold, I have those scanned and hidden in a folder somewhere, eventually I'll find them and post them as well.

Along with the tiny drawings I had my final comic (featured in an older post) and some doodles and things from my advanced drawing class up. And I had my advanced drawing sketchbooks out. I scanned one of them, below are some of the pages.

These are not quite comics, I think, but I brought them along anyway. I have two more, which I will share later (there must be a faster way to scan them, sigh). I'm still working with the screen, and having multiple windows open (remember my photobooth self-portrait drawing), but in a less literal sense. And I get to make my own books by hand, which is always really fun.

I'll post tomorrow with a list of people I met/ got comics from, and with more pictures of the actual event (and of Columbus, we saw some sights that really cannot be described adequately in words). One last thing before I go, though... Gordon McAlpin of Multiplex was there, and I'm afraid I fangirled a little at his table for a while. Multiplex has great art AND great storytelling, definitely check it out.

SPE Atlanta

That's two road trips down, one to go. Thank goodness the next one is only two hours, I don't know if I could handle another all-night drive.

I don't have too many pictures from the actual conference, but I have plenty of the city of Atlanta and the St. Patrick's Day parade, and I still have some from New York I want to post, so those will be at the bottom of this, in that order.

I went to a slew of lectures, some more helpful than others (the one on color balancing was not so helpful, the keynote speaker the first night was super-interesting, etc). I got my most current work (the YouTube stills) reviewed by three separate reviewers--two professors and a practicing artist--and the feedback I got was mildly helpful. The last reviewer was the most enthusiastic, his names was Jamason Chen, he is a photojournalism professor from Loyola. He gave me a good many ideas for presentation, and we even got to talk a little about the concept behind the whole thing, which I didn't really do with the others.

As for the demos and workshops... I kind of already knew most of what was going on. The one lady demonstrating Adobe products was really entertaining though, so I didn't mind watching her tutorial on how to combine still and moving images in Adobe Premiere.

There was a portfolio walkthrough for anyone who brought a portfolio late one night and I was surprised how much of the work was commercial/ photojournalistic in nature. There was barely any conceptual work, you really had to sniff it out in the corners. Janie Stevens, my practicum professor, was also there, and she said that the nature of the work really depends on the region the conference is held in. The 2012 conference will be in San Francisco, so there will definitely be more conceptual work there.

The Midwest conference is actually being held in Cincinnati in October, so I will most likely go to that, now that I'm a member and all.

Things I learned on this trip:
-I MUST print some business cards/ postcards
-I will forever associate skrillex with gas stations and late-night driving
-I really should develop some sort of shorthand for quick note-taking in critiques (or just learn real shorthand)
-Lecturers really should be screened before being chosen as keynote speakers
-In relation to that, if I ever am to give a speech, I will not READ from a SCRIPT. I will talk like a human being
-I am slap-happy when tired, I don't need alcohol to act ridiculous
-TIP: hit up free sample tables several times
-People don't shake hands so often, it seems, but a firm one is always best if called for--no jellyfish hands
-Southerners really ARE that friendly! Holy crackers!
-Atlanta has like 100 streets all named some iteration of "Peachtree"
-Atlanta is skinny but super-long--we tried walking that first day. Baaad idea

This weeks is finals week, I have two critiques and a paper due, but other than that... I now have time to clean and organize my room, which is something that has needed doing since the beginning of the quarter. Ha.

SPE Atlanta photos:

Laura Fisher checks her email at the conference hotel (check out her iPhone photos on her blog).

Kilts are pretty much awesome.

Knights! On horses!

The flatiron building. Same name, different city.

From left to right: Janie Stevens, Danielle Koval, Jacob Riddle, Caitlin Robinson, Laura Fisher.

So I did.

Fancy-dan men's shoes.

All the free film I got: some 100 TMAX, one 120 color film, one fujichrome slide film, some VC and NC Kodak Portra... awesome.

NYC photos:

Oh, hey there, other flatiron building.

Awesome installation at the Met by Katrin Sigurdadottir.