The National, a comics show here in NYC, was like it always was: a very very old school show that includes low ceilings and lots of long boxes. Val Kilmer felt poorly and went home early so we didn’t get to get a picture with him. We ran into Richard Howell and chatted with him about Claypool Comics impending move to a webcomic model. DEADBEATS, which Howell writes and draws will be the only title actually making the move, but he expects to put out collections of the comic from time to time. He’s looking forwrad to the change, but also admitted that he isn’t quite in sync with today’s instant-access business model. “I remember when you got to look forward to things,” he said. “The Fantastic Four came out once a month!”

We snapped a couple of pics, too.

Legendary cartoonist Shary Flenniken, whose “Trots and Bonnie” was a highlight of NATIONAL LAMPOON. She’s still busy writing a novel and pursuing other projects.

Two people we never get to spend enough time with: Cully Hamner and Steve Leialoha. Steve hadn’t been to New York in 20 years!

Later on, we caught the end of the “Saturday Morning Cartoons” opening at MoCCA.

Speaking of Halloween wrap-up, many pictures of Portland, OR comics notable in costume at the page for the annual Anina Bennett/Paul Guinan Halloween bash. Up at the Big Red Hair website are more photos of Stumptown, Wonder Woman Appreciation Day, and a report on Anina’s taping part of a documentary on Wonder Woman fans. That was indeed a busy weekend!

There are about 8 gajillion SPX photo sets up on the web, but we wanted to spotlight the first time exhibitors. We usually go around taking pictures of our pals, but this time we took pictures of perfect strangers — with the result that we don’t know who half of these photos are! We got business card for everyone, but lost half of them (ert!) so we enlist the group mind in Id’ing the culprits.

Jillian Tamaki’s GILDED LILLIES got some buzz going. Jillian is best known as an illustrator for places like THE NEW YORKER, but she’s getting an increasing amount of comics work.
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Just a few photos — we have many more to post when we have time, but these should give you an idea of what the new joint is like.

Random view inside showing yesterday’s crowd.

Another view.

Swanky snacks for some OTHER conference. Soon, my brothers…

Inside the Whitehall Auditorium where panels are being held. REAL WOOD. Mult-ihued curtains

Jules Feiffer interviewed by Tim Kreider. We had never before had the chance to hear Feiffer speak and it was a very rewarding experience.

At night a special downstairs bar was set up, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Comic Book Resources has red carpet photos of comics personalities and other slebs from the Scream Awards, many shot at an ungodly close range. CELEBRITIES ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN CLOSE UP! I mean it was supposed to be a horror fest but…shudder.

[Link via Tom, incredibly.]

We took few photos at Baltimore, but that makes them all the more precious.

Where the action is! Dean Haspiel. Dan Goldman, Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin all busy themselves.
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When we say we’ve been busy we are almost too busy to even post a few pictures. Wednesday, we went to the opening of TELLING TALES at the Adam Baumgold Gallery, and it’s an excellent show, spotlighting a variety of styles. We have to say Carol Tyler is the star of the show — her color work is gorgeous, and she did a new painting of herself as a bride saying “I’m married to COMICS” which sort of summed things up. A couple of piccies.

Carol Tyler and Diane Noomin, who is in the show. Tyler admitted her output up until now has been sparse, but she is working on a long graphic novel about her father’s war stories. Noomin spends most of her time sculpting these days; she says that’s her first artistic love.
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The Making Comics Fifty State Tour Hit the road the other day

I will tell you that we are in Beaver, Utah again (stopped here on the way to Minneapolis two months back) and the water is still really good. We did not get out of the apartment until 4:30am this morning, that made us miss the first two driving days. I knew we couldn’t afford to miss anymore, so I started driving after we stopped at my mom’s house to drop some more stuff off to go to storage and after we said goodbye to Maddie, our dog, who is staying there for the year.

I then drove for 545 miles. On no sleep. I took two naps today at rest stops, one for about forty five minutes and one for about fifteen. The rest of the family slept much of the day. We all slept on the floor the last two nights that we were in our apartment, so I didn’t sleep very well. I am very tired, so sorry that this is kind of written oddly. The sleep deprived tend to talk this way, or at least I do. I think I have had one hour of rest in the last 36. With only three or four the nights before.

While we urge you to follow along on the LJ feed, we’ll be reading it every day and alerting you to the highlights.

You can see photos from the McCloud going away party here with special guests like Paul Smith. The official tour kick off is 9/9 in BKNY at Rocketship.

We were in Queens at the Flux Factory for the closing night of “Opolis“. Curated by cartooner Jason Little, with Jean Barberis, and Morgan Meis, it’s his third exploration of comics taken to utter extremes of form and narrative, following Cartünnel and Comicx Ex Machina.

OPOLIS presents Comix-Fluxture-as-city. A street plan of Opolis, an imaginary city, has been laid out on the floor of the Flux main space. Individual city blocks have been claimed by individual artists. They have designed the buildings and environments that fill the city blocks (apartment buildings, libraries, factories, parks, junkyards, skyscrapers, bars, office buildings, theaters, etc), and have invented characters to populate these environments. The artists have created the work in such a way that as the viewer walks around the block, the buildings (or images in or on the buildings) function as comic strip panels that resolve into a story.

The results were stunningly imaginative and we couldn’t resist taking some photos:

A panoramic view.
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We’ve had a few reports from the show, most saying Friday seemed to be a manageable day, although Artist Alley was quite busy. If you read our comments section (AND YOU SHOULD!) someone reports that even Knuckles was empty, which we find very hard to believe.

CBR has a photo parade, although Jonah Weiland is covering the show stay-at-home style whilst dining on ginger cookies. We liked this photo of Noel Neill, who has a dazzling smile at age 85 .

The hard-working Wizard website also has a lot of pictures. We especially liked this one of a woman working with Sculpey. Why? Because that’s how we roll.

Wait, here’s one of Richard “JAWS” Kiel playfully crushing a youngster’s head. Sweet!

We took a lot fewer pictures because we were … well, it’s hard to remember what we were doing. Watching panels, editing stories and taping vidblog pieces, actually. We avoided the main floor on Saturday, because it is usually the hottest, stinkiest day of the con, and this year was all that and a bag of pork rinds. Every time we hit the floor, it was a seething mass of tired, cranky humanity. People were just flopped down on the floor, resting or waiting for Jennifer Love Hewitt. The crowds were OFF THE HOOK.

We shot a few pics on the floor and at the Hyatt bachannal however and…here they are

Frank Miller and new best pal Gerard Butler at the 300 panel. BTW, the preview footage looks dark, violent, lusty and savage. NOT for the faint of heart.

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A few photos, and no time to write captions except for one…

SAN DIEGO ‘06 — MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS!

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We took pathetically few pictures yesterday because we were busy Video blogging, and the ones we did are just…lame. But anyway…

Stan Sakai has 20 volumes of USAGI YOJIMBO in print — the first book alone is in its 10th printing. How many other American cartoonists have produced such a consistent body of work?

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