Showing posts with label Small Press Expo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small Press Expo. Show all posts

Monday, September 28, 2015

Meet a Local Cartoonist: Chatting with Afrofuturist's J.T. Wilkins

JT with Rafer Roberts' banner
by Mike Rhode  

JT Wilkins was at Small Press Expo this year as part of the DC Conspiracy, and selling copies of his new Afrofuturist comics. He kindly agreed to answer our usual questions.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?


 I'm known for Black Dayz, The Afrofuturist, and stuff in Magic Bullet.

How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?


I'm a Pen and Ink type of guy.


When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?


Call me an 80's Child!

Why are you in Washington now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?


I live in Southeast, but I'm really from Maryland.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?


Drawing and Sketching got my groove on!

Who are your influences?

Spain, S. Clay Wilson, Crumb, Fletcher Hanks, Wood, Kirby, Beardsley, Ditko, Lee, Kubert, Lynch, Panter, Knight just to name a few.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?


I would have never gone in the military!

What work are you best-known for?

Mostly my Magic Bullet stuff, but my indie stuff stands the test of time.


What work are you most proud of? 


Everything!

What would you like to do or work on in the future?


Anything art-related that would make me happy.


What do you think will be the future of your field? 


Computers world wide!

What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Intervention, or others? Any comments about attending them?

MOCCA, SPXPO, PIX, STAPLE, BCC, CC.

 
What's your favorite thing about DC?

The Museums!

Least favorite?

Crowds.

What monument or museum do like to take visitors to?

The Smithsonian.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

Anything with seafood.

Do you have a website or blog?




Friday, September 18, 2015

Did you miss the pre-SPX Little Nemo and Dylan Horrocks events?

Did you miss the pre-SPX Little Nemo and Dylan Horrocks events?

If so, not to worry. ComicsDC had people there covering them for you. We got audio recordings of both events. The Library of Congress filmed the Little Nemo presentation, and it'll eventually be on their website, but for now, you can listen to it here. Click on the title to be taken to an audio file.

  

DRAWING ON HISTORY - Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream

Bruce Guthrie has photographs of their presentation on his website and you can follow along by syncing his pictures and the audio.






Dylan Horrocks was last at SPX in 1999, talking about his book Hicksville and bring a traveling exhibition with him.

He's back and better than ever. 

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Jennifer Hayden, her breasts and their autobiographical comix: A pre-SPX interview

by Mike Rhode

A few years back I was doing an academic talk and paper which eventually was published as Graphic Tales of Cancer. Jennifer Hayden was working on her own story about cancer and was kind enough to talk with me then about her cartooning project about cancer. It's finally out now and I couldn't be more pleased to present this Q&Q with her. Everyone should go to the Small Press Expo this week, and buy her book.

Why will you be in Washington?

I'll be in Washington as a guest of Small Press Expo (SPX), where I'll be debuting my new graphic novel The Story of My Tits.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I write and draw autobiographical comix. My new book is a 352-page graphic memoir about my life and my experience with breast cancer. My first book Underwire (published in 2011) was a collection of short-storylength comix about my family. I post a short-form four-panel webcomic
called S'Crapbook at activatecomix.com and a webcomic diary called Rushes at thegoddessrushes.blogspot.comthegoddessrushes.blogspot.com, part of which I self-published in 2013.

How do you do it?

With my diary comic, I draw with a copic pen in a blank Clairefontaine notebook. With all my other comics, I draw on Bristol paper with a rapidograph, which has begun to hurt my hand, so I do some details with a dip pen. I now also add tones with a black watercolor pencil, which I wet for a softer, painted look. I work panel by panel, not page by page, and go straight to ink, no pencil. If I don't like the panel, I toss it out and start over. I write in a notebook at my side, where I test the words until I get them right before I start the panel. I never really know what's next--I like the surprise. When the art is done, I scan it and assemble the pages in Photoshop, cleaning things up, but always keeping the hand-drawn look.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

Oh, it's time for me to be classy about my age. I was born in 1961 in New York City.

Can you tell us a little about your new book that you'll be in town discussing?

The Story of My Tits is a graphic memoir about my bout with breast cancer, but it includes a lot of other stories that ripple out from mine and resonate with it, like my mother-in-law's cancer story, my mother's cancer story, the story of how these marriages were affected by cancer, and how my own childhood, teenagehood, adulthood, marriage and motherhood influenced the way I reacted. I have to add that I think of it as a graphic novel, not a memoir, because I was less interested in being accurate and more interested in giving the reader the same ride through life that I had had, which involved some tragicomic tweaking here and there.

Breast cancer is a serious illness much discussed in the media, but it's also very personal. How did you decide to do a comic on it? Where did the amusing, but perhaps off-putting book title come from?

Cancer has been a popular subject for graphic novels, it seems to me. It's the perfect medium for this disease, because you can be almost simultaneously hilarious and desperately sad. And ironic, and informative, and real, and anything else you want. Comix are so utterly free. From the moment I was recovering from my breast cancer experience--which was when I discovered graphic novels--I knew this would be the best way for me to tell my story. I was very inspired by Marisa Marchetto's great strip Cancer Vixen in Glamour magazine, which I saw before she turned it into a book, and that helped convinced me this was the way to go.

I don't remember really considering any other title. When I wrote it down I thought, uh-oh. This isn't going to be one hundred percent popular. But then again, I'm not writing this book to tell anything but the truth. So that's the title and I stuck with it. And my publisher Top Shelf never asked me to change it.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

I have none. I studied a lot of literature in high school and college, where I majored in art history, so I also studied a lot of great art and loved learning how visual narratives were built into those images. I always drew, and read Archies compulsively when I was growing up, but I lost track of comics as a grownup. Then, having written a few (very bad) novels that were never published (thank the   Goddess) and illustrated some children's books (which were just too rated G for me), I stumbled on
graphic novels and I just felt like I had come home. I knew exactly what to do. I gave myself a year to read all the best graphic novels I could find, then made myself sit down and start. The Story of My Tits begins with the first comix panel I ever drew.

Who are your influences?

Oh, so many. Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Charles Dickens, Albrecht Durer, Maurice Sendak, Hilary Knight, Goscinny and Uderzo (Asterix and Obelix are the gold standard for me; the most comedy and emotion in comics per square inch!), Garry Trudeau, Alison Bechdel, Lynda Barry, Julie Doucet, Dame Darcy, Will Eisner, and Jeffrey Brown. For a start.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

Discover comix in college, before I started losing my eyesight and getting sore hands. Go to art school and get some training in other media. But I probably would have just ruined art for myself, since I ruined everything then, being so hell-bent on "being an artist" (actually, at that time, a writer) and not on living a life that would inspire me to make art. So, I guess, actually, I would change nothing. It was all supposed to turn out this way.

What work are you best-known for?

Best-known for!? Possibly my pioneering work in conversational swearing. I'm not sure I'm known at all!! Underwire was my first  webcomic and my first book, so if I'm known for anything, it would have to be that.

What work are you most proud of?

Well, I really have done great work advancing the art of conversational swearing. But I'm also very proud of The Story of My Tits. All the years I was writing, all the years I was drawing, I was trying to grasp life, hold it for a moment, trap it, get it down where someone else could see it and feel it, just like me. And I think that in this book maybe at last I have.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I have two more autobio projects I'd like to see in print--my diary comic and a collection of my S'Crapbook strips--but then I feel like getting my feet wet in fiction again. I have another graphic novel in mind that's a mix of family history, autobiography, and fiction. I've taken notes on index cards for a while and thrown them in a box, so I'd like to open that box and see what happens.

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

I do not say those last two words. Ever. I had troubles as a writer I have never had as a comix creator, so I make it a point now just to keep moving forward. And never to judge my subject matter. The greatest skill I have learned is how to recognize that particular tickle of humor/sorrow/ aliveness that makes me know I have a story to tell. I go where it takes me and I do not question it. When I'm in a rut or too swamped with emotion about the subject to go on, I take a break. Hours, days, weeks. I adhere to no schedule, thanks to my publisher. I work every day, but I am the mistress of my own material.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

Many more people are reading graphic novels now, especially women, than two, five, ten years ago. I believe this is a very wide-open art form right now, and it's appealing to some great verbal and visual talents. What you can do in great art and in great literature, you can do in graphic novels, only it's better, because you can use techniques from both at the same time. I think we're going to see some incredible masterpieces, which will establish the graphic novel, like jazz or rock 'n roll, as a vital new channel of expression.


You've attended the Small Press Expo previously - do you have any thoughts about your experience? Will you be attending it in the future?

Oh, I absolutely love Small Press Expo! This is my sixth year, and it is the highlight of my comix calendar. The organizers are fantastic, the venue is relaxed, the exhibitors are nothing but the best. I've exhibited there, I debuted my first book Underwire there in 2011, and I never miss it. Last
year I got a chance to tell Jules Feiffer--a guest of the show--how much I adored his book Kill My Mother--and in the next moment I met a brand-new cartoonist visiting from Switzerland and had lunch with her at the bar, talking about autobiographical comix. Everyone is there for the love of
the art form, and it just seems to erase all barriers.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

I grew up in New York City, so what I love about DC is that it's such a small city, and yet there's so much in it. It also feels European to me, with all those big pretty streets and monumental, classical buildings. When I first went to the Smithsonian, I was just running along the mall, in and out of all those unbelievable museums, cackling at my husband: "It's free! It's all free!"

Least favorite?

It does seem to be a company town. Everyone seems to be either working for the government or probably a spy.

What monument or museum do like to or wish to visit when you're in town?

Our family favorite is the Spy Museum. Yeah, we like spies. But I also love the Lincoln Memorial. And all the art galleries, I couldn't even pick one.

Do you have a website or blog?

My website is jenniferhayden.com and my blog is goddesscomix.blogspot.com. I have another blog where I post my daily diary comic called thegoddessrushes.blogspot.com. And if you're on Facebook, my author page is jenniferhaydenauthor.

Small Press Expo exhibit at Library of Congress


The Serial & Government Publications Division of the Library of Congress has been collecting material at and from the Small Press Expo (SPX) for a few years. They've got an exhibit of some of the material in the main Jefferson building through October. Images courtesy of the LoC.

SPX opens Saturday at 11 am. 

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Q&A: Keeling on his ‘DC Punk' series

by Matt Dembicki
 
Local comic booker and co-DC Conspiracy founder Evan Keeling is putting the final touches on his new comic DC Punk Presents: Nation of Ulysses: Part 1: ’88-’90. Over the past few years, Keeling has reached out to various members of the defunct D.C. punk band to pull together this book. Below, Keeling answers a few questions about this book—which is premiering at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Md., Sept. 19-20—as well as his previous book in the series on the band DC Punk Presents: The Warmers: Part 1.

What inspired you to do this series on D.C. punk bands?

I grew up in D.C. and got really into punk music and the music coming out of D.C. in high school. D.C. has a long history with punk and a very influential one, but what mostly gets documented is the '80s. While that was an extremely fertile time and hard a larger impact on punk at a national level, most of the histories I’ve read or seen stop right before they really get into the bands that meant a lot to me growing up. Also for some of these bands, I wasn’t finding a lot of information available on the them so I could either wait around till someone else maybe wrote something or I could go find it myself.

Through my research, I did find Brandon Gentry who wrote the great eBook Capitol Contingency that is covering some of the same ground. He has been a great help getting me e-mails. But while his book focuses on individual albums, I wanted to dive a little further into how the members of the bands lived outside of their musical accomplishments. I also found some great resources’ for information like the D.C. Library Punk Archive and the UMD D.C. Zane archive, which is curated by John Davis (Q and not U, Title Tracks). That I will be utilizing and contributing to as I continue the project.

What connections did you have with the bands members in both books? Was it difficult in finding them after so many years?

Previous to this project, I didn’t know any members of these bands personally. I had talked to Alec [MacKaye] a couple of times back during the time the Warmers were active, but not much more than that. But I did know a number of folks that were in other bands that I am going to cover in the series and I started with them and it spread out from there.

Basically, I just started going through some of my friends Facebook friends, and when I recognized a name I would blind e-mail them and ask if they would let me interview them. Then, as people agreed, I would ask them to pass the word along or get me in touch with other members of their bands and get more e-mails and send out queries.

Luckily, a lot of folks are really happy to talk about the bands that they were in and have been very forthcoming with information. One of the first people to get back to me was Tim Green from Nation of Ulysses, and he was really forthcoming and a fountain of information, and Alec has had me over to his house a couple of times and shown me a lot of great pictures from his personal stuff. So far I would say for the most part the people I’ve interviewed have been super helpful.

I especially liked the endnotes at the end of Nation of Ulysses; they give deeper context to the events in the book without breaking the natural flow of the story. How did that idea come about?

It’s been over 20 years since most of these bands were together so sometimes memories are short and have to fabricate events for the flow of the story. I wanted to make these comics a narrative not just a string of facts and I remembered in [the graphic novel] From Hell how Alan Moore had extensive end notes that told page by page what he made up what lines were taken from different writings and such. I thought that would be a great way to get the information out and still have a narrative. There are also a lot of people and places that are going to appear in the stories. I didn’t want to crowd the pages with informative text boxes or have awkward introductions like “Hello, Christina Billotte from Slant 6” or “Let’s go to independent music venue d.c. space.” Nobody talks like that and I want the conversations to be as natural as possible. This isn’t like Harry Potter or some such thing where everyone and everything is getting introduced, these people have known each other for years.

Local label Dischord Records now carries The Warmers. Can you tell us how that came about?

When I was tabling this year at the DC Zine Fest, Ian MacKaye [Dischord Records founder] came by my table. I had talked to him before briefly about the project. His partner Amy Farina was the drummer in the Warmers and I had sent her a copy of the book. So he knew about the comic and wanted to pick some up for some other folks. I had a bunch of misprints that I had cut out to make buttons of peoples faces from the book and Ian had his and Amy’s son with him so they were having fun digging through the buttons and grabbing ones of people they recognized. While this was going on Ian asked me if Dischord Direct was distributing it. I told him that I was having trouble getting in touch with them. So Ian emailed me and got me in direct touch with Brian who runs Dischord Direct. It’s pretty exciting to be distributed there because if someone were to go to the Dischord site and look up the Warmers, my comic is listed right there along with their albums.

What bands are you eyeing for to cover in future issues?

[Local cartoonist/artist] Eric Gordon of Vinyl Vagabonds is going to draw at least one issue about Circus Lupus for me once I get him some more info. With a little more legwork I’m hoping to put together a comic about Corm-Tech. Then I have a number of other bands like Monorchid, Bratmobile, The Meta-Matics and the All-Scars where I have some information but need to conduct some more interviews to develop a narrative. I’d really like to do one on Slant 6 and Frodus, but I have to get in touch with some folks to get those going.

There are so many bands that it is going to take a while. I started with Eric but I am still scouting around for collaborators so I can get more issues out faster. 

Monday, September 07, 2015

Q&A: Goldfield on 'Captive of Friendly Cove'

Rebecca Goldfield is a local documentary film producer who recently has ventured into the world of graphic novels and comics to tell her stories. This week, her first graphic novel, Captive of Friendly Cove: Based on the Secret Journal of John Jewitt (Fulcrum Publishing) its bookstores. A summary of the story: After his ship is burned and his shipmates killed, British sailor John Jewitt lived for nearly three years as a captive of the Mowachaht people, a Native American tribe on the west coast of Vancouver Island. During his captivity, Jewitt kept journals of his experiences and of tribal life. Follow his adventures as he plies his skills as a blacksmith, saves the life of his only remaining crew member, and comes up with a strategy to free them both.

Later this month, Goldfield will be signing at the Small Press Expo in Rockville, Md. 

Below, Goldfield answers a few questions about Captive. (Editor’s note: Matt Dembicki, who conducting this Q&A, inked Captive.)

How did you come up this story? What was it that grabbed your interest?

I was living in Vancouver BC and was in Horseshoe Bay one day, when I discovered this whacky little shop--a combination post office-candy counter-bookstore. I was soon poking through a creaky rotating rack that displayed just a handful of books--and one turned out to be John Jewitt’s journals. I thought it was a great story; a sympathetic young protagonist sets out alone to make his way in the world and suddenly finds himself caught up in an historical conflict he had no idea existed. His personal story was that he was injured in a bloody massacre aboard his ship and then spent several years having to survive both physically and mentally in the wilderness, as a slave in a culture that was utterly alien to him. But the larger story is the conflict between the native world and the explorers and traders of the time and that gave it another whole dimension.

Of all the ways to tell this story—a prose short story, article, documentary, etc.—why did you decide to make it a graphic novel?

Part of it was a matter of my own background, having produced and written TV documentaries for so long, it just felt natural to choose another visual medium. But as I read the source material I found a great adventure story that was a bit buried in descriptions of daily life, of rituals, of hunting techniques, of migratory patterns. I thought the art could very effectively depict those elements as well as action sequences, and even emotion, while I as a writer could focus more on building the characters and structuring plot and creating dialogue and narration. 

You previously wrote a short story for the comics anthology District Comics, but this is your first longer comics project. What were your impressions about the process, from researching and writing, to collaborating with the artists?

I had absolutely no idea of the scope of what I was undertaking. I went from having never created a single panel to committing to a full length graphic novel and the learning curve was about as steep as they come. I was used to writing for film but despite the similarities, I soon learned that producing a graphic novel is its own art form, one that plays out in space, not time, as film does. And structuring a story that took place over several years, a number of locations, different seasons, many characters, all taking place in an environment and culture that was new to me--it was a lot to figure out. My wonderful artists were incredibly generous about letting me, a novice, take the lead--teaching me as we went--because I had a lot to learn.  I’m sure they rolled their eyes often.

This is a historical graphic novel. What was the hardest part of researching it? Did you reach out to any of the descendants of the people in the story?

Research is always the most pleasurable part of any project for me, and I could not have been happier reading every book I could find on the contact period in the Pacific Northwest, and speaking with historians, anthropologists and museum curators. The hard part was connecting with the Mowachaht people themselves---it took a very long time for anyone to really talk to me. After all, they’d been living very successfully in the area for thousands of years, John was there for under three and so was not even a footnote to a footnote in their history. Ultimately, though, I did spend a wonderful day in Yuquot (Friendly Cove) and found the people to be extraordinarily open and willing to share their collective memories of John and contribute their perspectives. And though the story is told through our protagonist’s point of view, I did get some of that in.

Who is the target audience for this book? Do you envision it being used in classrooms?

It is targeted to middle school students and older, and yes, the hope is that it will be used in schools and libraries. It’s a great, true adventure story, with memorable characters and a dramatic historical conflict. I think it will appeal to young adults and not so young adults as well. Hope so, anyway!

Sunday, September 14, 2014

SPX day 2 photos

I had a good time again today, and took a few more shots. All the pictures can be seen at my Flickr site. I think people probably did well, on both sides of the table, but I'm sure the main news sites will cover that. I saw Tom "Comics Reporter" Spurgeon and Heidi "the Beat" MacDonald in passing today.

James Kochalka
Rob Ullman, the former Washington City Paper's Savage Love illustrator

SPX day 1 photos


Ellen Lindner
Day one of SPX seemed like a success to me. It didn't feel as crowded as last year, but there was a good flow of people around. Even at opening, the aisles got busy fast.

Here's a link to more SPX photos I took yesterday. They're mostly DC-area creators. Also included is Jules Feiffer at Politics and Prose on Friday.
Jules Feiffer
Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman

Dean Haspiel and Christa Cassano

Carolyn Belefski

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Sept 12 (tomorrow!): Box Brown speaks at Library of Congress at noon


PR: NBM HEADS TO SPX 2014

NBM HEADS TO SPX 2014
Patrick Atangan's Invincible Days Makes It's Debut
http://www.spxpo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SPX_Poster_Gif1.gif

On September 13-14th, you can find some of the most prestigious names in comics at the 2014 Small Press Expo (aka SPX).

Unlike many conventions that are geared toward pop culture or corporately owned comics, SPX was created in 1994 to promote artists and publishers who produce independent comics. SPX hosts an annual festival that provides a forum for artists, writers and publishers of comic art in its various forms to present to the public comic art not normally accessible through normal commercial channels.

This weekend, you can find NBM at Table F1-F2, where we'll have our latest book on hand, Invincible Days.

http://www.nbmpub.com/fairytales/atangan/invincible_cover300.jpg
By the author of the Yellow Jar and Silk Tapestry, this collection of short stories forms a singular narrative that reveals the tiny moments when you realize you are at the precious end-days of youth.  Atangan creates an intricate mosaic from his own childhood memories as well as those gathered from friends and family. Bittersweet, joyful and reflective, these are the type of marking moments that best define us as adults. 

Unfortunately, creator Patrick Atangan cannot be there, but we'll have some of his original art that's we'll be raffling off.  Purchase any of his books to enter to win.
In addition, we'll have some previews of our upcoming books including Jude Nude by Etienne DavodeauDungeon: Twilight, Volume 4, as well as our special accordion book, Pascal RabatéStreet View, it needs to be seen to be believed!


We'll also have a fashionably EARLY preview of a book that will have everyone talking come SPRING 2015, Annie Goetzinger’s Girl in Dior
We’ll also be offering all of our latest titles and prints are available for free with any $30 purchase, with a signed version free with a $50 purchase.

Throughout SPX, NBM can be found at tables F1-F2.

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

"I would not pursue comix as a career": An Interview with Dean Haspiel


Rhode and Dean Haspiel
My friend Dean Haspiel just attended the Baltimore Comic-Con last weekend and is returning to the area for this weekend's Small Press Expo. Dean's had a good year resurrecting The Fox as a well-received superhero comic from Archie, while also putting out a hardcover collection of his Billy Dogma webcomics. I first interviewed Dean years ago as part of a Harvey Pekar panel that ended up as the foundation for a book. From working with Harvey and being an icon of alternative comics, Dean has built quite a resume with comics as varied as Mo and Jo from Toon Books to Inverna Lockpez's autobio Cuba: My Revolution. Dean kindly answered the usual questions for me today hopefully without any such expectations.


Mike Rhode: What type of comic work or cartooning did you do?
Dean Haspiel: My comix run the gamut between semi-autobiographical to superhero to psychedelic romance. I hopscotch between mainstream and alternative comix. I've collaborated with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, Inverna Lockpez, Jonathan Lethem, Stan Lee, Mark Waid, J.M. DeMatteis, Gabe Soria, and lots of other writers. I also write some of the stuff I draw.


How did you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?  
I draw traditional pencil, ink and erasers. LOTS of erasers. Recently, I've been digitally inking my pencils and I sometimes color and letter digitally, too.


When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?  
I was born in 1967 at New York Hospital. I grew up in Manhattan and moved to Brooklyn over 17 years ago.

What was your training and/or education in drawing? Do you have fine art training?  
I went to Music & Art High School. In my senior year (1985), M&A married Performing Arts and became La Guardia High School. I went to SUNY Purchase a couple of years later where I studied art and film. I also assisted cartoonists Bill Sienkiewicz, Howard Chaykin, and Walter Simonson in 1985, which helped me train for making comix. 

Who are your influences? 
 Howard Chaykin, Walter Simonson, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Will Eisner, C.C. Beck, Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, John Byrne, Mike Zeck, Ron Wilson, Chester Brown, Mike Mignola, John Romita Jr., Frank Quitely, Baru...

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change? 
I would not pursue comix as a career. I would write and draw comix on the side - for the fun of it. My day job would be a mail man, cook, and/or paramedic.


What work are you best-known for? 
Harvey Pekar's The Quitter, The Fox, and Billy Dogma


What work are you most proud of?
Fear, My Dear: A Billy Dogma Experience.


   
What would you like to do or work on in the future? 
I would like to pursue creator-owned comix, including more Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and semi-autobio comix. I would also like to draw more Fantastic Four; especially The Thing (and bring back Marvel Two-In-One), and I'd like to tackle Jack Kirby's O.M.A.C.
 
What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block? 
I type. I read. I watch movies and TV. I take showers. Lots of showers where my mind wanders.

What do you think will be the future of your field? 
While franchise companies continue to Maim, Rape, Murder, Die, Resurrect, Rinse & Repeat 75-year old icons on a quarterly basis, creator-owned comix will yield more original ideas and characters for other mediums to exploit. No longer will the question be "What if we made this comic into a movie" but more "When will this comic be made into a movie." It's cheaper to beta-test new intellectual property via comix before producing it as something served over easy for lazy readers who don't have the attention span or the imagination to actually read and fill in the gaps between the panels. Meanwhile, rebellious creators will continue to explore the virtues and innovate the art of comix despite competing with the more popular story delivery systems. 

Do you have a website or blog? 
http://deanhaspiel.com/

Sept 12: Box Brown speaks at Library of Congress at noon


Friday, March 14, 2014

Time to submit for the Ignatz Awards

The Small Press Expo is now accepting submissions for its Ignatz Awards. Submissions are open to all independent creators and publishers, even if you are not exhibiting or attending SPX.
All Ignatz nominees will automatically be sent for preservation in the SPX Collection at the Library of Congress.
Categories are:
•Outstanding Artist
•Outstanding Anthology or Collection
•Outstanding Graphic Novel
•Outstanding Story
•Promising New Talent
•Outstanding Series
•Outstanding Comic
•Outstanding Minicomic
•Outstanding Online Comic
Send six copies of work published between June 1, 2013 and May 31, 2014 sent to:
SPX Ignatz Awards
c/o Big Planet Comics
4849 Cordell Ave.
Bethesda, MD 20814
USA
Links to comics eligible for the Outstanding Online Comic category should be emailed to spxignatz@gmail.com.
All submissions must be received by June 7, 2014.
Full guidelines are available a. All questions should be sent to the Ignatz Award coordinator, Eden Miller, at spxignatz@gmail.com.

Friday, February 07, 2014

Sneak Peek at SPX guests

The Small Press Expo has an ad in the new issue of the D.C. Conspiracy's semi-annual comics newspaper Magic Bullet (#8), which hits the streets today. SPX notes a few of the special guests for its Sept. 13-14 show, including Jules Feiffer, Michael DeForge, Renee French, Tom Tomorrow, James Sturm, Lynda Barry and Box Brown (who did the art for the ad).

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

SPX lottery opens Jan. 24


The lottery for exhibitor tables at the Small Press Expo 2014 opens on Jan. 24. If you’re considering putting your name in the hat, SPX recommend you take a few moments to read its lottery FAQs.

Image: SPX