THE SPIRIT OF INDIE COMICS as an avid fan struggles to keep a copy of KRAMERS ERGOT upright for reading purposes
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You can read my “official” report on SPX at PW Comics Week, but there were some more rambly thoughts I wanted to share. I think Brian Heater (one of my traveling companions and roommates for the trip) nailed something very important in his writeup:
Remember the old location? It was great, so much closer to downtown. The restaurants were much better—and closer—than those around the North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center. Remember when the show was held on Friday and Saturday, so everyone could play softball and picnic on Sunday?
I don’t. I only began driving down to the Small Press Expo three years ago—not quite enough time, I think, to have developed a glimmering sense of nostalgia for those long gone good old days—you know, when the show actually meant something. Three years, however, is certainly long enough to have fallen in love with SPX, and it’s more than enough time to have designated the early autumn weekend as three of my favorite days of the year.
This is, ironically echoed in the report by ANOTHER one of my travellng companion, Josh Neufeld:
But there were so many ol’ pals missing: Dean Haspiel, Nick Bertozzi, Alex Robinson, Tony Consiglio, David Lasky, Mike Dawson, Chris Radtke, Joan Reilly, Jason Little, Gabrielle Bell, Jon Lewis, and Karen Sneider, just off the top of my head. I guess what with book deals, kids, and of course the continuing allure of MoCCA, the drive down to D.C. is losing its appeal for those folks. (I have to confess I stayed away from SPX the last few years because I didn’t have anything new to hawk until this year.)
However, despite my sadness at missing so many folks, I have to admit that SPX is alive and well! The great funky/DIY/artsy tradition is still very much in evidence, and the comix tribe is rejuvenated with lots of new blood. That included my tablemates this year, fresh-faced 2009 Xeric winners J.T. Yost and Sophia Wiedeman. I was under strict luggage (and economic) constraints, so I only picked up a few things, but everywhere I looked there were young cartoonists offering tempting delights. I couldn’t resist some purchases, of course, and came away with Yost’s Old Man Winter, Wiederman’s The Deformity, Jeffrey Brown’s Funny Misshapen Body, Liz Baillie’s My Brain Hurts, Picture Box’s crazy oversize Real Deal #1, and a decrepit Robin T-shirt by fellow SPX returning veteran Tom Galambos.
Between these two opposite yet complimentary views we have some idea of the overall purpose of SPX: as befits the “SMALL” press, it’s a place for creators to emerge, grow, find an audience and, hopefully, evolve, just like the show.
In its 15 years SPX has evolved from the showcase for drawing board warriors like Dave SIm, Jeff Smith, Batton Lash, David Lapham and Colleen Doran, people committed to the comics periodical format and getting their books out on a very regular basis and building a parallel audience to the superhero mainstream. When SPX began, the ascendance of the graphic novel was just an ideal, not something that was expected to occur.
The generation Neufeld is missing is far more indy in its origins — they’re all more Clowes-Warian in their sensibilities and aspirations — and most of them flirted, at least at one point, with the periodical. (Other folks in this generation: Matt Madden and Jessica Abel, Dylan Horrocks, Sam Henderson, Tom Hart, Steven Weissman, Kochalka, Brown, et al.) Aside from getting older and starting families, this generation has become far more established in the publishing world — most of them have had book deals at one points, and — in varying degrees — achieved the dream of being a professional cartoonist. (Reminder: when these folks came to SPX, they used the internet for email and not much else back then.)
SPX (and MoCCA, but I haven’t been to APE or TCAF so I can’t say what the sitch is there) is now the province of the very young and aspirational, and their work is even more personal. As CCS, SVA, MCAD, SCAD, and other art schools turn out class after class of highly competent and well-informed art students, it’s become a bit more of a pageant, in some ways. Young cartoonists get their Xeric, put out a perfect book, spend a season or two as the deb of the year and then…some will go on, some will just become memories in the shoe box.
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