We’ve been mostly on the road or hanging out with visitors for the last 10 days or so, and while more than a week of living on chicken fingers and Guinness has left our innards in ribbons, at least we have a few photos to show for it. So before we move on to the “Stay at Home Season”, here’s a photo parade of the Baltimore Comic-Con, the Diamond Retailer Summit and the Big Apple Con. And we start it out with DC’s hand model, the Lord of the Rings himself, Stuart Schreck, whose modeling of the Lantern ring promotion has made him one of the most in-demand people in comics.
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Speaking of Los Bros, their Facebook Fan Page has an incredible pageant of photos through the ages. Here, an early publicity shot.

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.

Technorati Tags: huge massive posts, SPX

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By Steve Bunche

As a dyed-in-the wool comics fan I have wanted to attend the senses-pummeling annual San Diego Comic-con. As a fan, think about it: shitloads of comic books everywhere, movie and TV celebs who’ll be signing autographs, comics creators from all over the globe, and a myriad of fun and geekish possibilities, all within arm’s reach in sunny California. Seriously, what’s not to like? But in recent years that pipe dream has slowly been deferred since I first imagined hitting the big show in San Diego way back in 1994, during my days as a member of the illustrious (yeah, right) Marvel Bullpen of the 1990’s boom-and-crash. Due to the multi-headed bitch and a half that includes the prohibitive costs of plane fare from coast to coast and accommodations in a decent hotel for the duration of nearly a week, as well as the con insidiously being co-opted by Hollywood interests as a source of R&D for television, movie, and video game properties to exploit, I’ve found its appeal eroding year after year, so much so that now I have no desire whatsoever to go. I may not be in the biz anymore but I’m still in close contact with many of my friends and former colleagues, and I can honestly say that each and every one of them dreads their yearly trek to the west, but it’s a necessary evil if they want to put themselves out there and further their careers by showing goodwill to the fans (to say nothing of shilling whatever latest project or any original art they may have up for grabs). And while it’s much easier for me to deal with the logistics of New York City’s Javits Center show, even that convention is morphing into an impossibly overcrowded nightmare on wheels that’s equal parts dry-humped-by-the-devil nightmare and the most spectacular thing going for geeks here in the east. No matter what, it seems like I, and my fellow geeks, can’t win for losing. So what the ever-lovin’ eff is a geek to do?

Two words, effendi: Dragon Con.

For the first time in about eight or nine years I hauled my high-yella ass from the naughty north to the sexy south — Atlanta, Gee-Ay, to be precise — to immerse myself in what has always in my experience been the most fun and unabashedly enthusiastic convention of its kind in these here United States, and I was amazed by what I witnessed. A hell of a lot can change in a mere decade (or less), and Dragon Con has now grown to the point of requiring four hotels and their convention centers to handle all the madness on display. And it’s a good thing they were all available; the Hyatt, the Marriott, the Sheraton, and the Hilton were all bursting at the seams with the faithful, many in wild and geekish costumery, all eager to see and be seen while checking out the dozens of panels, live shows, costume contests, and such, along with the specialized shopping one always finds at such events.

Eager though I was to see and cover as much as I could, it immediately became apparent that it would be physically impossible to see even half of what was going on, even if I could pull a Jamie Madrox and multiply myself into at least six people, so instead I’ll just give you a brief overview of the cornucopia of fun.

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LITERALLY!

We dropped by the signing for Josh Neufeld’s A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge last night. Arrived late, and the place was crowded but we heard it had been absolutely mobbed earlier, and Josh was still signing books right until things broke up at 9 pm. So, a success! It couldn’t happen to a more deserving cartoonist or project. Josh told us the signings in New Orleans over the weekend were “amazing,” selling out at one location. “People were really grateful to have their stories told,” he said.

We didn’t get any pictures of Josh, but we did snap this iconic one of Dan Goldman and Dean Haspiel, which represents the way graphic novels are conquering the world!

We also snapped this pic of Tim Hamilton and Joan Reilly, conveniently showing the front and back covers of the book, and you can actually see Josh’s ear behind Joan’s right shoulder. That’s Joe Infurnari and his awesomely fashionable friend to the left. Anyway, Josh was really busy the whole, we just couldn’t get near him.

Other folks we chatted with: Chip Kidd, who enjoyed last week’s Bryant Park event, although he’d suffered terribly in the heat; Ada Price, Hilary Florido, and Sean Pryor, who are apparently forming some new kid gang; Larry Smith of SMITH Magazine, which gave birth to A.D., David Heatley, Tom Hart, Joey Manley, and a lot of people who we waved at but couldn’t talk to.

It was yet another night of good comics and good energy. People are making progress, slowly in some cases, but moving forward.

There is one thing that was really, really notable about the evening in hindsight…no one gave a shit about comics gossip or comics gossip sites. Really. It’s a great way to live.

Jeff Newelt was nice enough to pass along some photos from SD09’s PopCult party, which he helped organize, and I’m nice enough to post ‘em so here goes:

Paul Pope makes his DJ debut at Comic-Con

Pop Cult / Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock and Pop Cult / Kingdom Comic’s Christian Beranek

Jim Mahfood rocking the live art

Jim Mahfood [http://www.40ozcomics.com/] does live art on a live model

Comic-Con goers brought the ruckus to the PopCult party

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We forgot our camera for most of the day yesterday, and our photos are Officially The Shittiest MoCCA Photos Ever, but this one shot of comics blogger/critic Tucker Stone during his show-ending rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at last night’s live band karaoke/CBLDF party should frighten you into repentance immediately.

Luckily, Geekanerd has more normal, less deeply troubling photos.

PS: Last night was a fab night, with Douglas Wolk, Christine Hart, and other folks bringing down the house and a tremendous turnout of cartooners, bloggers, and actual comics readers. Good times. We hear all the other parties were great, too.

We’ll be off to BookExpo America for the next few days so don’t expect too much posting here. (Follow us on Twitter!)

Yesterday’s show kicked off with a full day of programming. We caught only the “African Americans in Graphic Novels and Comics” with Kyle Baker, Carol Burrell, Shawn Martinbrough and Alex Simmons, moderated by Calvin Reid. Part of the yearly “African American Book Industry Professionals Education Program & Networking Reception,” the panel thankfully eluded all those “What’s it like to be a black comics creator” questions in favor of just general talk about the industry from five smart people. Baker and Burrell talked about upcoming projects: Baker’s biography of Obama for HarperCollins, which sounds highly readable, and Burrell’s adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. (Announcement of the latter drew applause from the attendees.) Martinbrough mentioned his upcoming Luke Cage mini and his past How to Draw Noir Comics and his current work with Verge Entertainment. Simmons recounted the history of his successful Kids Comic Book Convention and after the panel mentioned that the concept is probably gong to move to some other venues.

After that, we scarfed down a lot of very, very tasty turkey with spicy cranberry orange relish at the reception to power us for the night ahead and sped off to the CBLDF party at the very swanky Hudson Terrace. It was a really upscale venue for a comics confab, which made for a very relaxed vibe, even if a soda was $6. (We took the above photo at the beginning of the night.) Attendees included DC topper Paul Levitz and VP of sales and marketing Steve Rotterdam; writers Ivory Madison, Martha Thomases , Peter Sanderson, and Marc Bernadin; artists Nikki Cooke and Dennis Calero; editor/agent Denis Kitchen,, Marvel’s Alejandro Arbona, Dark Horse’s Michael Martens, and a sizable West Coast contingent, including Archaia’s Mark Smylie, Mel Caylo, and Stephen Christie, Top Cow’s Filip Sablik, and Image’s Joe Keatinge. There were a lot of folks talking about iPhones and downloadable comics and whipping them out and demonstrating their software, which was cool, and talk of 3.0. As someone pointed out, although people won’t pay for things on the Internet, they will pay for them on their phone.

The schmooze level at this party was incredibly high, and afterward, it turned out almost everyone ended up at the same Irish pub for yet another big comics summit, with talk of James Bond songs and so on.

Anyway we know we forgot some people in the above list, so apologies.

ComicMix’s Glenn Hauman, Image’s Joe Keatinge, Comixology’s David Steinberger and Billboard’s Evie Nagy all whip out their mobile devices and talk about apps.

MTV Splash Page’s Rick Marshall, Stacy, whose last name we don’t know, and Nikki Cooke.

Very much Not Comics, but we were tooling around and found this blog called If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats, which has a feature called “When Legends Gather,” and you will probably spend a lot of time looking at it. As you might guess, it’s photos of famous people together you never thought you would see together. The archeological data on fashions and fame alone will occupy hours. A sampling:

Famed silent film star Harold Lloyd and baseball star Babe Ruth. Gosh, people were funny-looking back in the day. (PS: If you’ve never seen a Harold Lloyd movie, you need to remedy that.)

Film stars Yul Brynner and Gene Kelly yuk it up.

And another silent film star, Charlie Chaplin, chowing down with playwright George Bernard Shaw. What do you think they are talking about? Brussels sprouts?

Much, much more in the link.

Via Jonathan Ross’s Twitter

Even Bono thinks Clive Owen is hot, evidently.

Alvin Buenaventura has posted his Angouleme ‘09 photos and they are quite protean. In case you can’t see it clearly, that’s Crumb, Ware, Clowes, Tomine, and Buenaventura all scrambling around on some rocks or ancient battlements or whatever they keep in medieval French towns. Here’s another one:

That Marjane Satrapi sure likes to talk, right? That’s Tom Gauld, Ware, and Clowes again. What do you think they’re talking about? Cheese? I’ll bet it’s cheese.

[Link via Flog]

What would a comic book convention be without folks parading around in every manner of costume imaginable? A lot less magical.

Where else can you get a thumbs up from the Watchmen Banana?

The above photo is from Jürgen Fauth’s photos of costumes at NYCC 09, which also includes the iconic images of Fat Wolverine and Cell Phone Skeletor:

What would comic book pioneers like Joe Simon or Jim Steranko think of all these shenanigans? The truly amazing thing about a show like NYCC is that you could ask them yourself…

Joe Simon, photo by Kendall Whitehouse. Steranko is here.

Posted by Aaron Humphrey.

Photo by R. Pepper

Flickr sets have been rolling in from New York, providing a snapshot of the show for those who can’t be there, or those who are there but are simply too busy to see it all (i.e. everyone). A sampling:

Excellent photos from behind the scenes at the Penguin Books booth.

Pulp Secret has a well-organized collection of photos.

Marvel also has a huge set … although someone needs to tell them how to properly rotate their photos.

For a look at the con’s vinyl toy scene, check out sets from Kris Butiong and Steven Talkowski.

Posted by Aaron Humphrey

Photographer Seth Kushner, whose portraits of various comical types have been appearing online in advance of a book, to be written by Christopher Irving, announced a new website today: NYC Graphic . Kushner has more on his blog:

This Tuesday, January 6th, photographer Seth Kushner (The Brooklynites) and comic book journalist/historian Christopher Irving (Comic Book Artist Magazine Associate Editor) join forces to introduce a new brand of comics journalism, with www.NycGraphicNovelists.com. The site is a preview of the work that Seth and Christopher are doing for Graphic NYC, their photo-essay book that combines Seth’s photos with Christopher’s in-depth interview based essays on New York cartoonists. “I consider Graphic NYC, the upcoming book project that www.NycGraphicNovelists.com is based off of, to be a kind of ‘New Comics Journalism’, combining New Journalism with comics history, and Seth’s lush photography. I’ve been ready to bring a little something new to comics journalism for a while, and this is it.” Graphic NYC not only features conceptual photographs of comic book auteurs in their favorite and symbolic environments, but it also paints a narrative picture through essays that employ on-the-spot interviews and a critical view of their most personal work. Like a graphic novel, it employs the marriage of words and images to tell a story; in this case, it is the story of New York’s position in the development and life of comic books.

Above, Howard Chaykin.

Our post on this photo of a comics shop in 1965 has drawn a few responses. Mark Evanier has a detailed memory of the shop in question, Cherokee Books, for anyone interested in the early days of the comics subculture.

A visit to the store was an adventure. I don’t believe Burt Blum was actually the manager of Cherokee Book Shop. I think his brother Jack was. But Burt presided over the comic book division, which was upstairs and open whenever Burt felt like being there. You’d sometimes go in and be told Burt was off surfing…so too bad. Even when open, the business revolved around Burt’s whims. No prices were marked. You had to ask him and he’d charge you whatever his mood (and his estimate of your desperation to own that issue) told him to charge. Some fans went to enormous lengths to get on Burt’s alleged good side, which I’m not sure I ever saw. Most of the time, I’d see him barking at kids to unbutton their jackets. He treated every one of us as a potential shoplifter, which was justified. There was much thievery, though usually not by the folks he suspected.

Likewise, Scott Edelman was inspired to do more digging in the UCLA photo archives, where we found the picture:

As fascinating a photo as that is—you can see a copy of Action Comics #1 out on a table rather than under glass—I’m not going to share it with you here, since you can wander over to Heidi’s site and check it out for yourself. But as soon as I heard of the existence of those UCLA archives, I immediately went and did some research of my own. I found this fascinating photo of Los Angeles city councilman Ernest Debs holding horror comic books which he had purchased in his district.

I have no idea what Deb’s role was during the comics censorship scare, but from his expression, I’m guessing that he didn’t enjoy the experience!

Click on the link for the photo in question.

And finally, the identity of the photographer behind our own mystery photo from 1993 was revealed in our very own comment section as Ralph Werner.

I’ve been taking photos of the San Diego Con since 1989; two years as an official con photographer, which was when this Eisner Awards photo was taken. Today, Tom DeLeon and his team of photographers have so many more panels to cover. All of it goes into the San Diego Comic-Con archives and perhaps one day they will let the public have access to viewing it through a website. Until then, people can only get a glance of the SDCC and comic book’s long history by whatever fans manage to post like Alan Light’s great 1970s and 1980s SDCC photos on his FLICKR site.

We’ll close this off with another old photographic memory, above, from 1942 of a German refugee child reading a comic. The way the photo is shot makes this particular issue of SUPERMAN appear to be in a pre-Treasury edition format. Photo from the Corbis archives.

Too much talent #1: Joel Meadows catches Posy Simmonds and Art Spiegelman in the same place in this photo post. Guest appearance by Matt Groening.

Too much talent #2: Workinpana’s photo set from last week’s Graphic Novels from Europe@SVA. Above, a ghostly Max, David Mazzucchelli & David B.

Photographer Seth Kushner updates news of his book on local artists:

On the photography front, I’ve photographed 41 subjects, and have 9 more to go, to bring it to an even 50. At the same time, my co-author, Christopher Irving is conducting interviews. With the help of designer, Rich Fowlks, we have put together sample layouts of several of the profiles,(see below) which is being used by our agent to pitch the project to publishers. I think the layout helps to give a fairly clear picture of how we hope the final book will eventually look. Also, for the pitch, we’ve titled the project, GRAPHIC NYC: CREATING COMICS IN GOTHAM. That’s just the current working title, and not necessarily the actual one. More updates soon.

CBR has a gallery of Red Carpet photos from the Scream Awards, including Stan Lee. The Man is old. =(

Ask and ye shall receive, pictures from Wednesday’s event at Desert Island with Jesse Reklaw, Trevor Alixopulos, Ken Dahl and Dash Shaw, via Desert Island’s Flickr stream.

Ralph presents a photo from a panel at Baltimore Comic-Con. And we just ganked it.

UPDATE: Damn! The Stone family continues their assault on DC!

Uh-huh. I feel like the entire panel was out until 6 am drinking, rolled back to their hotels for a quick shower, met for breakfast and Bloody Mary’s and rolled into the panel. And I feel like every night is that way for them. I can’t tell you how many times the seemed to allude to coming up with plots and twists while out at the bar. You get the feeling that they are just pissing their pants laughing while they come up with plots. And their laughing AT EVERYBODY IN THE AUDIENCE. And the Geoff Johns guy is laughing all the way to the bank. These guys–ugh. They define the word “smug.” Dan Didio slightly addresses how people are complaining that comics are targeted at an older, male audience and not at kids. Then he smirks and seemed to use the demographic of the audience who showed up for the DC Panel – mostly grown men between 22 and 45 – to then pat DC on the back and say something to the effect of, “well, just take a look around this room – look who’s here. Seems like we’re doing the right thing.” Yeah. No.

We received some photos — retrieved at great peril — of our pal Bob Burden at Dragon-Con.

Our roving reporter spotted Bob Burden right after his supervillain panel in the back of the bar area, apparently plotting something with these henchmen types.

When Burden noticed our press badge, he shouted, “Get him!” and sent his “eyeball thugs” after us. Though our camera was taken by brute force, our brave reporter managed to snatch the memory stick and secrete it on his person. Later, the camera was found in a hotel stairwell, inundated with Silly Putty, PEZ tablets and Fun String!

Via Sean Chen, more photos from Eugene Gordon, taken at a comic book convention at the Biltmore in New York, 1974.

You know what’s interesting about these photos to us? The number of women who seem to be reading comics at the show, not just sitting there tending tables.

At least we *think* they’re women. Back in the day these long haired freaks looked more like girls than men.

Artist Sean Chen wrote to us with a real comic book history mystery. It seems that Sean’s neighbor is a man named Eugene Gordon, a former Time magazine photographer. While cleaning up, Gordon found a contact sheet of photos from a comic book convention held at the Biltmore Hotel in 1974. As you can see from the photos (click full a full size version), some things don’t change much. Can anyone ID any of the folks in the photos?

Sean thinks Gordon has another contact sheet around, and if he finds it, we’ll put that one up, too.

Everyone else on Earth has linked to this site, but we still haven’t. Photographer Seth Kushner is working on a book of portraits of some of the greater NYC area’s finest cartoonist types. He’s been posting pictures from his photo shoot over on his blog and there are a ton of great pics, including the above of Becky Cloonan. There are many, many more in the link, and as mesmerizing as they are, bear in mind they are not the final photos for the book.

§ Just for the record. Everyone — but everyone — sent us these links to Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at SDCC. Part 1 and Part 2.

§ Charlie Chu’s photo set of cartoonist portraits is totally excellent. Above, Ivan Brandon.

§ Have you always wanted to go to the Eisners but not been able to? Now you can listen to this year’s ceremony!

§ We have TOTALLY been using the word “totally” way too much today!