Archive for June, 2006
This will make you cry..
Dan Nadel got his whole line of books rejected by Diamond for distribution. I’d really like to know exactly what Diamond’s standards are? Why wouldn’t they want to offer a more diverse line of books? And why they say ‘Oh we love small press’ then reject something cool like Paper Rad, Incanto, Me a Mound, and BJ and the Dogs. Granted this would only fall in the few comic shops that order indie. But that hasn’t stopped Diamond from carrying anything else. They didn’t even give it a shot.
Well I tried the Blade contest as a last ditch effort to go to San Diego. I didn’t make the cut. What makes it worse is I saw some of the finalists. Here are the pages from my entry. Didn’t matter that it was colored but I thought it would help during the online voting. It wouldn’t of flowed for me but I could of cut more. The pacing really needed five pages. Which would of ran over the limit. And also why I never saved the scan of the last page. I redrew that page twice and I still wasn’t happy with it.
Your political moment of the day
So the newly revamped Alive is carrying Jon Stewart’s syndicated column. From this week’s rant about the Senate voting not to raise the minimum wage:
“I just want to say, Good. I’m glad they didn’t do it, because the lower strata of American society have had a free ride for too long.If you were to give them $7.25 an hour, you know it would just go up their nose and out their hose. You know what I’m talking about. You don’t want to give them walking around money.
So kudos to Congress for taking a giant dump on the poorest people in the country, because they deserve it. Good job.”
Up their nose and out their hose is now my favorite new phrase. I shall henceforth endeavor to work it into my conversation during meetings at work at least once a week.
More Comfest photos
Courtesy of the folks at CD101:
Part the A
Part the B
Part the C
And here’s the Pride Parade.
Forbidden Planet’s got a fever for small press
Caught another bit off the Engine. Sounds like the Brits are taking a note from Mile High Comics…
I run the Forbidden Planet International website –
FPI sells a lot of comics but mostly this is superheores and to a lesser extent product from the bigger alt comics houses like Fantagraphics and D&Q. I know some of our stores run locally produced comics on a one to one basis between managers and producers tho’ I couldn’t tell you which ones and what they carry. It occured to us that we can however carry everything online, and should, as we try to expand the range of comics product we carry.
In July we are going to have a British comics month and feature some story about British comics every day on our Blog – we would like this to range from a feature on 2000AD or Beano thru to interviews/features on smaller UK producers like Typocrat and the small press community.
To go along with this we would also like to offer to list any and all comics being produced in the UK on our site. We would run a picture of the cover and a synopsis of the story and make them available to buy. In truth we aren’t looking to make a lot of money out of this – we see it as a way of just making us truly live up to the tag of UK’s largest comics seller by expanding the range to feature all comics.
We can of course search through sites and find the producers and mail them directly, and we will possibly do this, but it occurred to us that if you were to list it as a bulletin point it might reach the small press community easier that way. I know you are interested in mentioning things that might help the small press get wider recognition and I think this could fit the bill.
Would it be possible for you just to tell the community we are now looking to take and carry all self published and small press – we’d have to negotiate what margin we would need – but I am probably willing to work on something that merely covers our costs – listing, packing etc so we aren’t neccesarily looking for 50%+ discounts here.
Of course it isn’t entirely philanthropic. We expect that down the line some of these producers will become bigger names, new customers will be attracted who buy other items also but in truth it is more a currying favour excercise and an attempt to make us a more prominent player in the ‘whole’ comics scene rather than our own little mostly superheroic backwater. Josh and Gosh have done a fine job of carrying the material and I feel we at FPI should be also.
If anyone is interested in getting their products listed they should contact me and we can talk it through.
I can be reached on this e-mail – MANPEN(at)aol.com- or by phone on 01708 346305.
If you have any questions or need to talk it through a bit more give me a call.
Do you think it can work? We have over 100,000 visitors to the site monthly (not all for comics of course) and it could be a place where people’s work would get seen by a greater number. We also would be happy to blog any upcoming small press events if people just let us know what they have coming up.
all the best
Kenny Penman
Director Internet Services
Forbidden Planet International
Luck and the Lost Girls (plus Robots!)
A trio of reviews for ya:
First, former Alive contributor and Columbus mainstay J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews Panel: Luck over at Newsarama.
“…Panel’s number seven anthology is pretty lucky, because it’s pretty strong from start to finish—certainly this team’s strongest to date.”
Next, Neil Gaiman reviews Alan Moore’s much-controversial Lost Girls.
“As an exercise in the formal bounds of pure comics, Lost Girls is remarkable, as good as anything Moore has done in his career.”
And finally, Optical Sloth reviews friends-of-the-ferret Alice and Leighton Connor’s mini-comic, Robots.
“A pretty solid effort overall, the robot mayhem and the “historical” piece make for a nice contrast.”
Spied this off the Engine…
Nice interview with Demo/American Virgin artist Becky Cloonan. It’s good to hear she’s living off the art full time now. Can’t find her Tokyopop book anywhere yet. Either it’s sold out or not carried in town.
Then again, It did take a while for Road Song to hit the local shops.
Spider-man 3 trailer
Is now online. Enjoy a teaser look at Sandman, the symbiote “Venom” costume, and other stuff.
Superman Returns
Somehow, my local movie theater skirted the official Wednesday opening date of Superman Returns and had a 10:00 showing last night. Although I’m not the biggest Superman fan, I saw it (and at $3.75 it was quite a bargain).
It was a good, if not great, movie. Brandon Routh exceeded my low expectations, but neither he nor Kate Bosworth (Lois Lane) seemed old enough/mature enough to play these parts. Routh does a good job of channeling Christopher Reeve and Bosworth is a fine enough actress for the role. Kevin Spacey does a good job of chewing scenery as Lex Luthor, but Parker Posey is wasted in her role.
The plot was fine, but the Christ symbolism was poured on thick. Bryan Singer made the right chose in staying faithful to the original movies (the John Williams theme is rousing), but Marlon Brando’s lame voice-over work shouldn’t have been rehashed.
I can’t quite believe this was the most expensive movie ever made. The effects are fine, but any of the Lord of the Rings movies seemed more special-effects laden. With Superman, out of all the superheroes, I’d like to see some more primary colors; everything seemed washed out and dingy.
I’d give it a solid B. It doesn’t surpass the first two Christopher Reeve movies like the newest Batman surpassed its predecessors. But, unlike any other superheroes, Superman still is able to provide a sense of awe. I did get chills during one scene.
More importantly, there is a teaser trailer for Spider-Man 3. Venom, Sandman, black costume. I haven’t been able to get it to work online, but in the theaters it looked very cool.
Activism, music, beer, boobs…and comics: a Comfest 2006 report
Ferret Press and the PANEL writer/artist collective once again had a booth at Columbus, Ohio’s long running community festival known as Comfest. Now in its 34th year, Comfest is the largest all-volunteer run, non-corporate sponsored, and above all, free community festival in the US. With an emphasis on peace, love, community, and social activism, Comfest brings together people from all walks of life. Exact attendance figures are hard to come by, but most estimates place the number of people converging in Goodale Park for the 3-day event at well over 50,000. This year, the festival featured 200 exhibitor booths (from arts and crafts to social and political organizations,) 220 live bands on 7 stages, and a plethora of spoken word and performing arts acts. Not to mention all the food vendors, and the beer taps that fund this free festival. We were lucky enough to secure one of the 200 competitively juried arts marketplace spots (out of a pool of 450+ applicants!)
(Note: for a full set of Comfest 2006 pictures, go here)
Friday, June 23:
Fellow PANEL member Tony Goins and I set up the tent by 9:30 AM, at which point it started to rain at a steady pace. It continued to rain well into the afternoon, finally clearing up around 5 PM. Needless to say, sales were slow, as attendance was low and we had a hard time putting out any of the comics, due to the extreme humidity warping all the books. Oh well, that’s the downside of exhibiting at an outdoor event.
Wendy and Hanna stopped by in the afternoon and we took in some of the sights and sounds. Hanna found several playmates from the nearby booths, and they had a blast chasing each other around. Later on, she got her face painted like a panda. It was pretty darn cute, even though people kept thinking she was a member of KISS.
I was able to catch local-boys-gone-WB-recording-artists The Sun on the Bozo Stage (aka main stage) at 10 PM. Despite the late start and the audio problems, it was a good set and a nice way to close down the first night of the show. Our booth was located close to the Jazz Stage, which runs notoriously late each night. As midnight approached and Tom Williams and I were packing up to leave, local funksters Flypaper were rocking a crowd of several hundred by the jazz stage. Complete with stilt walkers and go-go dancers. It was quite the sight.
Quote of the Day: a hippie-type guy with braided hair and a huge hemp belt stopped by the booth to ask where the Libertarian booth was. After giving him directions, we noted his all-black attire and the myriad of objects hanging off his hand woven belt (mugs, bags, flashlights, etc.) All of which prompted Tony to say “wow, that guy was like the stoner Batman!”
WTF Quote of the Day: a guy dropped in and started talking about Frank Miller’s Sin City books. Since he seemed to be unaware of Miller’s earlier works, I started telling him about The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil: Born Again. Which made him pause, think for a moment, and say “Daredevil…yeah, I think I know that character…he’s like a Mexican, right?”
Saturday, June 24:
With the rain behind us, the festival finally kicked into high gear. Sunny skies and huge crowds greeted us on Saturday. Sean McGurr helped me set up and man the booth in the morning. Stealing away, I did a bit of shopping, picking up a book of poetry by Columbus native Is Said, who was making his 30th consecutive appearance at Comfest. Also bought a kitchy 1960s Batman alarm clock. Don’t know why. I picked up information on hostels in the US from our neighbor booth, as well as pamphlets from a couple of great volunteer organizations: Third Hand Bicycle Co-op (who promote cycling as safe and environmentally responsible transportation, as well as providing free facilities, tools, and skills for cyclists) and Free Geek (who provide free computers and education to those in need through the reuse and recycling of old computers.)
Traffic to the booth was steady. We met a lot of different people, introduced a whole slew of folks to the world of small press and indy comics, and handed out tons of free indy comics (courtesy of Gib at the fantastically awesome Laughing Ogre comic book store!) Sales were good across the board, as people picked up our inexpensive small press books as well more expensive fare like Tom’s No Dead Time graphic novel. Andy Bennett dropped by to help out later in the day, and sketched up a storm while his wife worked the Ohio Roller Girls booth.
Several of my friends dropped by in the afternoon, and we caught the funkalicious shenanigans of The Fabulous Johnson Brothers on the Bozo Stage at night. Joining them on stage were 4 stilt-walkers and a hoola girl, from Dr. Grimaldi’s Circus Fantastique. It was quite the spectacle. And then it was back to the Jazz Stage to close down the night with Jamnesia. Time of departure for some much needed sleep: 1:30 AM.
Quote of the day: The stickers somebody had stuck above all the urinals in the men’s port-a-johns, which read “Ken Blackwell’s Voting Device” with an arrow pointing down. (For our out of state readers, Ken Blackwell is our very Republican Secretary of State who many have accused to rigging the 2004 election to favor Bushy Bush.)
Sunday, June 25:
No beer for me today. I tried to take it easy, and even took a nap behind the booth in the afternoon. We had beautiful weather again, and sales surpassed our Saturday figures. Tom, Andy, and Tony were all on hand to man the booth, meet and greet, and do sketches for fun. I caught my coworker’s band Black Cat Revival at the Offramp Stage, and in the process ran into several other coworkers. This was also the day of Tony’s infamous conversation with the lady who knew about the secret greenhouses built on the moon in the 1930s by a Canadian company, with help from Columbus’ own Jeffrey Mining and Manufacturing Company.
The topless women sightings for the 3 days came out to around half a dozen. Alas, no guy-in-chainmail-thong like a couple of years ago, but them’s the breaks. Comfest: a little something for everyone. (By the way, it’s perfectly legal for women to go topless in Columbus. That, combined with Comfest’s very liberal leanings, has made the whole topless-women-walking-around phenomena a Comfest tradition. Some do so with elaborate body paintings, while others opt for the au naturale look.)
By the way, to the drunk redhead who chatted us up on Sunday night: you couldn’t remember the name of the comic book artist who did the cover to the latest CD from local band Denovo, and it was driving you nuts. It made me curious enough to look up their site, and from the looks of it I’d say the artist is Paul Hornschemeier.
Extra special thanks to Andy, Tony, and Jess for help with the tear down Sunday night. We got the gear loaded in the truck by around midnight.
Quote of the Day…in fact, Quote of the Whole Weekend: the crusty old guy in a faded civil war hat and a big dog on a leash who came up to us and asked “Excuse me, fellas, do you know where they’re painting them titties at this year?” Alas, we didn’t know at the time. But as it turned out, one of the body painting booths was just 5 spots down from us.
Final Thoughts
I love Comfest. The crazies, the hippies, the goth kids, the artists, the musicians, even the Dublin soccer moms pushing their $500 baby strollers. It’s a goldmine for people watching, it’s a 3-day party in the park, it’s a free music festival, and it’s just plain awesome. You get to hang out with friends, picnic, drink beer, and just chill. Then there’s the whole TOG factor, as Tony calls it. “That One Guy” or “That One Girl,” as in “hey, I just ran into that one guy who used to date my roommate’s sister.” It doesn’t matter that there are 50,000 people milling around, at Comfest, you’ll inevitably run into your coworkers, college classmates, ex-boyfriends, or high school coach who is now out of the closet.
Plus, we sell lots of our comics to people who are genuinely interested in supporting local talent, and trying something new.
I’ll leave you now with some random overheard conversations from throughout the weekend:
“I’m gay.”“I think they’re all bongs.”
“Wow, really?”“Dude, do you know how many white tents near port-a-johns there are around here? You gotta’ be more specific.”
“There sure are a lot of…interesting people here.”
We love you, Comfest. Don’t ever change.
(Reminder: my full set of Comfest 2006 pictures are here)
“‘Scuse me, fellas …” Another Comfest Report
Friday: Rain. It rained from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. At 6 p.m., the clouds parted, the sun came out, and Tom Williams appeared. Definitely the slowest day.
Saturday: You’ll have to ask someone else about this, ’cause I pretty much avoided the table on Saturday. I did take my nephew to Comfest, which he was not too hippy-skippy about. He wanted to go to GameWorks, and then he wanted a luchador mask, then he was scandalized by the guy in ladies’ underwear … and so on. Personally, I thought the luchador mask was pretty cool, but his mother disagreed.
Sunday: Beautiful weather, steady sales — can’t beat it with a stick.
Crazy People: All told, three people randomly told me their life stories this weekend. One guy had to put his cat to sleep the night before. Another lady told me a long, rambly story about military moonbases in the 1930s. They required greenhouses built by a Canadian company and Columbus’ own Jeffrey Mining and Manufacturing Co. Nixon either shut the program down or ran it secretly — she was unclear on this point.
Most Irritating: People who walked up, read Sean’s whole “Class of 2006″ book, then left without buying it. It’s only $1, you cheap bastiches.
Quote of the Day: A crusty old guy with a Civil War cap walked up behind the table and asked us, “‘Scuse me, fellas. Can you tell me where they’re painting up the titties?”
We could not.
See you next year,
Tony.
Articles of note-
Independent Propaganda has an interview with Carla Speed McNeil on her moving Finder to the web.
An old find from last week-Chris Pitzer (Adhouse) gets interviewed on Graphic Language. Talks about shows, editing the Project books, and future projects.
Comfest wound down last night. I put down some thoughts and posted a couple of sketches from the show.
I wasn’t there, but that doesn’t stop me from telling the story: Apparently two emo kids threw down right in front of our booth the other day. Word around the campfire is one emo kid just cold-cocked the other emo kid. A bunch of hippies had to come break them up.
My guess is they were arguing over who was more emaciated — the winner of the argument was the loser of the fight. You can take your own guess at the beef in the comments section.
(rude graphic courtesy Rock and Roll Confidential, home of the Hall of Douchebags.
Monday Morning “Guess the Artist”
What, yet another Green Lantern page? Ok, it’s official. There’s some sort of theme here. Anyway, use the comments section to guess the artist. (Hint: I’d say he’s moderetly well known, thought definitely not an A-list artist.)
(click image for a lesson in anatomy)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006)