posted
I went to my first-ever Small Press Expo today in Bethesda, Md., to see what the nation's alternative "comix" creators and fans are all about
My initial impressions:
1. It was a different scene than the Baltimore Comic-Con last month. For one thing, there were a lot of young women — the brainy, hippie types with pale skin, sharp noses and chins, piercing eyes and Lisa Loeb glasses ... if you're into that sort of thing. Sadly (*sigh*) I totally am.
2. Even the guys looked different. Super-hero comics guys are two-thirds fat slobs, one-third skinny geeks. Indie comix guys are two-thirds skinny geeks, one-third fat slobs. Indie comix cost more, so maybe their readers can't afford food.
3. It's hard to casually flip through comix for sale on a table, then walk away, when the artist is sitting right there, staring at you. I felt guilty. A similar problem: Opening a comic, realizing it's very explicit gay porn and worrying that I'm going to look like a homophobe to the artist two feet away if I quickly close the comic and put it down. So, um, how long do I have to stand there?
4. Lots of self-published comix have colorful, well-drawn covers with clean lines ... but then you open them, and the interiors are black-and-white scribblings from an epileptic chicken that must have clutched a Bic pen in its claw. One guy was charging $5 for a comic in which he had simply scratched out typos, rather than use White Out.
5. I think I'm the only fanboy who does not want to write or draw comics or comix.
6. Scott McCloud packed a room to share his latest theories on comix storytelling, which bored the crap out of me. He drew a four-box grid, divided it into "classicists," "animists," "formalists" and "iconoclasts" and talked at length about the wars between those camps. He referenced ongoing debates on THE COMICS JOURNAL message board — in-jokes that provoked waves of nerd laughter. I left early. My seat was claimed immediately.
7. The panel next-door, on political cartooning, was much more interesting. Ted Rall is very funny. The cartoonists agreed that America is so badly polarized now that nobody is going to change their minds on any serious issue, such as the Iraq War. So they see their job as rallying the liberals, the way Fox News Channel rallies the conservatives. A dozen lost elections in a row — way to go, cartoonists!
8. Rick Veitch, our Comicon lord and master, is a truly nice guy. I walked up to his table, stuck out my paw, gave him my real name and said I was one of his message board idiots. He smiled and asked for my screen name, which he claimed to recognize. And he didn't tear-gas me! We had a pleasant chat about Comicon, which he says he enjoys doing, except for the occasional defamation lawsuit threat. Veitch and co-owner Steve Conley apparently are thinking of ways to make this place bigger and link it to other parts of the fanboy Web world.
9. Fantagraphics sells a ton of lovingly produced comix and books (boox?) that I'd read for free at my local library out of curiosity, but I don't see myself plopping down $5 to $45 to buy it. Like a comic about an unshaven clown who weeps. For the entire 20 pages. In French. Drawn with chalk. On black paper. Who has the money to fill their house with this?
10. My apologies to those who suggested questions for me. I had no chance to ask McCloud anything, because I left his panel to hear the political cartoonists. I started to ask Gary Groth a question at the Fantagraphics booth, but as I opened my mouth to speak, he snarled at some guy that he wanted to catch the next flight the hell out of Washington and get back home. It wasn't a "come introduce yourself, my friend" snarl. Groth is a relatively short, compact, wiry guy with dark hair fading to gray — ironically, he looks like Harlan Ellison did about 20 years ago.
11. I think I like super-hero comics fanboys better than indie comix fanboys. Comics guys don't take themselves half as seriously as do comix guys. Even John Byrne, on his most arrogant day, isn't waiting for his MacArthur genius grant so he can start his 1,400-page autobiographical graphic novel.
Posts: 6239 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
I feel like I was there,thanks! Were all the companies,besides Fantagraphics,one or two man operations? Did any outfit seem likely to graduate from small press to mid level player?
Posts: 536 | From: Tallahassee,FL | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: DC sells a ton of lovingly produced comix and books (boox?) that I'd read for free at the local pediatrician's office out of curiosity, but I don't see myself plopping down $3 to $20 to buy it. Like a comic about a man who dresses up in a stiff-necked headpiece with pointy ears, a cape, and leotards just to punch bank robbers - when he's not swinging through the city on ropes with his fourteen year old scantily-clad male partner. For the entire 20 pages. In bad Film Noir dialogue. Drawn with what appears to be Bic pens. And a heavy use of a gradient color fill script in Photoshop. Who has the money to fill their house with this?
quote: DC sells a ton of lovingly produced comix and books (boox?) that I'd read for free at the local pediatrician's office out of curiosity, but I don't see myself plopping down $3 to $20 to buy it. Like a comic about a man who dresses up in a stiff-necked headpiece with pointy ears, a cape, and leotards just to punch bank robbers - when he's not swinging through the city on ropes with his fourteen year old scantily-clad male partner. For the entire 20 pages. In bad Film Noir dialogue. Drawn with what appears to be Bic pens. And a heavy use of a gradient color fill script in Photoshop. Who has the money to fill their house with this?
With lots of planning, in the 1930s, Batman and his leotard wearing cohorts help maintain, define, and grow the popularity of a fringe art form begun in 1896, that Fantagraphics utilizes in the present.
Posts: 946 | Registered: Sep 2005
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eel O'Brian: [QUOTE] DC sells a ton of lovingly produced comix and books (boox?) that I'd read for free at the local pediatrician's office out of curiosity, but I don't see myself plopping down $3 to $20 to buy it. Like a comic about a man who dresses up in a stiff-necked headpiece with pointy ears, a cape, and leotards just to punch bank robbers - when he's not swinging through the city on ropes with his fourteen year old scantily-clad male partner. For the entire 20 pages. In bad Film Noir dialogue. Drawn with what appears to be Bic pens. And a heavy use of a gradient color fill script in Photoshop. Who has the money to fill their house with this? [/QUOTE
Okay, you've made your point that the one is no more or less absurd than the other. But it's pretty clear which one more people find entertaining, at least.
Posts: 1489 | Registered: Jun 2005
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"Okay, you've made your point that the one is no more or less absurd than the other. But it's pretty clear which one more people find entertaining, at least."
Yes, but, in America at least, you're speaking of a culture that rocketed both Whitney Houston and Celine Dion to the top of the charts. So, I think you're not damning what your'e trying to damn.
Matthew
Posts: 4993 | From: Seattle, WA USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Peasily: With lots of planning, in the 1930s, Batman and his leotard wearing cohorts help maintain, define, and grow the popularity of a fringe art form begun in 1896, that Fantagraphics utilizes in the present.
I was originally just going to post an “Internet. Serious Business.” pic as a reply, but as your sense of humor appears to be broken about these types of things (unless, of course, it’s someone dismissively taking a dump on independent comics, which you evidently had no problem whatsoever with), I’ll bite.
Holy smoke, I don’t really even know where to begin, there’s just so much wrong here. So I’ll just start at the top and work my way down:
quote:Originally posted by Peasily: With lots of planning, in the 1930s,
If by “lots of planning,” you mean publishers saying “Holy SHIT this Superman thing is selling like Gangbusters! Who the hell saw that coming? It’s almost like printing money! We need 20 more just like it, NOW!” Then yes, there was lots of planning.
quote:Originally posted by Peasily: Batman and his leotard wearing cohorts help maintain
“Maintain” meaning Batman is still punching out the Joker nearly 70 years later, only now the artwork is a little more graphic, and there might be a “Fuck!” or a “God Damn!” thrown in there to, you know, make it all adult and stuff. As far as sales go, they’re not really maintaining anything. The best-selling comics nowadays would have been cancelled thirty or forty years ago. If “maintaining” means selling fewer monthly copies worldwide than the total population of the dinky NC beach town I live in, then that’s setting the bar awfully low.
quote:Originally posted by Peasily: define,
Again, Superhero comics aren’t “defining” anything, at least not anymore. No matter how you want to dress it up, it still boils down to dudes wearing Halloween costumes beating the hell out of each other while striking impossibly awkward poses, in essentially the same way they were doing it in 1940. That’s hardly growth. Injecting dire realism into this genre just brings home the inherent silliness of it. A Very Special Issue of frigging Blue Beetle tackling the subject of child abuse is just as silly as any independent comic about a clown weeping, whether you want to accept that or not. A Garth Ennis or a Warren Ellis writing a sequence about some superhero forcing a superheroine to give him a rimjob isn’t a defining adult moment in the medium – it’s the same kind of shit some snickering teen illiterate doodles in his notebook during detention.
quote:Originally posted by Peasily: and grow the popularity of
Well, this is just flat out wrong all around. Any superhero contribution to the popularity of comics as an art form outright ceased (or at least slowed to a crawl) long ago. Sales figures bear this out. While there have been some excellent stories over the past 20 years or so, they’ve catered to a very specific audience, and that’s not growth. Again, sales in decades past dwarf the sales of today, so I can’t see how you’re possibly seeing any popularity growth there. And if we’re talking about awareness of superheroes in other media, you should note that Batman on lunch boxes, action figures, beach towels, etc. has almost zero bearing on the awareness, the sales figures, or the popularity of Batman comic books. Batman as an icon in other media is indeed a popular character. That hasn’t transferred over to comic sales. Same deal with Spider-man, or any other superhero who has leaped tall marketing buildings with a single bound and landed in film, television, or consumable products. At the most it’s a small spike in sales for a couple of months, and it never lasts. It never lasts because superhero comics aren’t about growth anymore (if they ever really were); they’re about holding on to the same audience of primarily thirtysomething males who have been buying this stuff for the past 15 or 20 years. I mean, you can point out a Dark Knight Returns, or a Watchmen, or a Frank Miller Daredevil (all of which I liked, by the way), but where did that lead? To a thousand other comics copycatting that style, much the same way the breakout popularity of Superman led to a thousand other copycats in 1938. And it hasn’t lasted, because it’s the same basic stories being told over and over to the same core readership base. Your statement of popularity growth simply isn’t born out by the numbers.
quote:Originally posted by Peasily: a fringe art form begun in 1896.
Well, again, dead wrong. You have to be talking about newspaper comic strips here, because up until the early 30s (pre-superhero), almost anything resembling what we now know as a “comic book” were collections of…you guessed it, newspaper comic strips. And newspaper comic strips were never, ever “fringe.” Newspaper comic strips were, and currently still are, more widely read than any comic book, superhero or otherwise. I mean, I hate to burst any fanboy bubbles here, but you do realize that more people read “Hi and Lois” than Batman or Marvel’s new big hit Civil War, right? Hell, more people probably read “Pluggers” than Batman. And online versions of newspaper strips add exponentially to the readership base. The top-selling comic book for August 2006 was Justice League of America #1, at approximately 225k copies. That readership is sort of a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people across the country who read a single daily or Sunday newspaper comic strip.
As far as “Fringe art form” goes, you maybe need to read up on your comic book history a little more, as just about every creator from the Golden Age of comics has repeatedly mentioned newspaper strip artists such as Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond as seminal influences on their work. Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy definitely had an impact on the Batman artists and writers. Comic books have their roots in the mass-market popularity of newspaper strips. Even Superman, that carefully planned 1930s comic book blockbuster, was originally created by Siegel and Schuster as a newspaper comic strip (you can still see the numbering on the panels in the final comic book form). Millions read newspapers every day, and the birth of comic books sprang directly from newspaper strips. Hardly fringe.
quote:Originally posted by Peasily: that Fantagraphics utilizes in the present.
While I have my problems with some of the people behind Fantagraphics, I believe they’re one of the few publishers actually making an effort to expand (maintain, grow, define) comics as an art form in this day and age. They publish many varied titles, which, while they may not have the flashy sales of a Civil War or a Justice League #1, build a steady audience across a broad spectrum of readers. Recently they’ve begun collecting strips like Peanuts and Dennis the Menace in hardcover form, reaching an even wider base of readers. That’s steady, lasting industry growth, and not just a contrived “event” that spikes sales over 300k for a couple of months, only to see them quickly plummet back down to the same 50k readers who've been buying the stuff since 1986.
Having written all this, I still love superhero comics. Up until the horseshit of Infinite Crisis and Civil War, they made up the majority of my comics reading. I like my comics, for the most part, to be popcorn entertainment. I get enough “real world” in the real world. But I’m not going to build any pedestals for superheroes, especially at the expense of other comics genres which are just as valid (more so, in most cases) and vital to the art form as a whole.
quote:Originally posted by Lawson: 11. I think I like super-hero comics fanboys better than indie comix fanboys. Comics guys don't take themselves half as seriously as do comix guys. Even John Byrne, on his most arrogant day, isn't waiting for his MacArthur genius grant so he can start his 1,400-page autobiographical graphic novel.
I see people making this sort of statement constantly, but I have never been presented with a concrete example of it. And, being that I myself am an independent cartoonist who pals around with mostly other independent cartoonists and travels in circles made up mostly of independent cartoonists, you'd think I'd have seen one or two people with this attitude by now.
posted
With all due respect to the Complete Peanuts reprint project (I wouldn't be helping with it if I didn't respect it), I have trouble seeing it as some "steady, lasting industry growth". It's not as though there haven't been Peanuts books from various publishers for more than 50 years, some selling enormously well. Or is Fantagraphics somehow in a different industry when they reprint Peanuts strips than companies like Rinehart & Co. and Andrews McMeel have been when they reprint Peanuts strips?
Posts: 4618 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Because, by obtaining the rights to produce collected, "higher end" hardcover volumes of what is arguably the most successful mainstream comic strip in history, Fantagraphics lifted their publishing company out of the cramped "Graphic Novels" section of bookstores (where Moon Knight is crammed together with Maus), and onto the featured tables at the front and center aisles of the bookstores, alongside the collections of Calvin And Hobbes, etc. This Christmas, Fantagraphics will be right there on the "Gifts" table by the front registers with all the Doubleday, Viking/Penguin offerings. That kind of exposure leads to readers investigating what other book titles Fanta might publish, whereas they would have had to already been aware in some way of the company's titles in the past. Fantagraphics books has cracked into the mass-market mainstream (a mainstream which has pretty much eluded every other comics-oriented company) by using an already established, successful property which appeals to an enormous reader base. You're telling me that's not growth?
quote:Originally posted by Eel O'Brian: Fantagraphics lifted their publishing company out of the cramped "Graphic Novels" section of bookstores (where Moon Knight is crammed together with Maus)
As far as I can see, their non strip-reprint books remain ensconced on the graphic novel shelves, if anywhere.
quote:That kind of exposure leads to readers investigating what other book titles Fanta might publish,
I've seen no sign of that. I've seen very little publisher awareness in any form for customers who aren't already heading to specialized sections of the shelves. I know that if I were to list for you my five favorite current prose authors, I couldn't tell you which publisher put out their most recent books, nor would I consider finding out one of them came from Doubleday to be a general recommendation of Doubleday books. And if they're not going to the specialty shelves, they won't be running into the other Fantagraphics books anyway. (And if they search out further volumes of Complete Peanuts beyond the one currently on the front table, it's apt to bring them to the humor section rather than the GN section where any non-strip Fantagraphics material is apt to reside.)
quote:Fantagraphics books has cracked into the mass-market mainstream (a mainstream which has pretty much eluded every other comics-oriented company) by using an already established, successful property which appeals to an enormous reader base. You're telling me that's not growth?
Over Peanuts being published by the various other publishers of comics who published Peanuts over the past 50 years? Sorry, but I have trouble seeing of how Peanuts is of the industry when Fantagraphics publishes it, but not when Andrews McMeel does.
Posts: 4618 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Thanks for the con report Lawson. Your point of view was fascinating. Thanks for keeping this message board a lively place.
-------------------- Jeez, granfalloon, that longer post above might be one of the most thoughtful, best written things I've ever read on Comicon. --Lawson Posts: 493 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Alexander Ness: Is this Lawson hard at work at his computer?
Sadly, this photo was taken while I was still in college. I've since gotten much fatter and hairier. Oh, to be able to fit into my size 94 jeans!
Posts: 6239 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Eel O'Brian: [QUOTE] DC sells a ton of lovingly produced comix and books (boox?) that I'd read for free at the local pediatrician's office out of curiosity, but I don't see myself plopping down $3 to $20 to buy it. Like a comic about a man who dresses up in a stiff-necked headpiece with pointy ears, a cape, and leotards just to punch bank robbers - when he's not swinging through the city on ropes with his fourteen year old scantily-clad male partner. For the entire 20 pages. In bad Film Noir dialogue. Drawn with what appears to be Bic pens. And a heavy use of a gradient color fill script in Photoshop. Who has the money to fill their house with this?
Hey! That's ... totally different! BATMAN is 22 pages, not 20! And he's ... an icon! An original American creation! Like ... um ... the banjo!
(Sputter, mutter, gripe, fume.)
Eel, what can I say? You're absotively, posilutely right. Comics and comix both can seem silly in their own ways.
Posts: 6239 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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All I know is that the current comprehensive hardcover "Peanuts" series is a great format for libraries!
Posts: 1489 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Les McClaine: I see people making this sort of statement constantly, but I have never been presented with a concrete example of it.
You have to jerk your knee first.
-------------------- Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable Posts: 13185 | From: AZ | Registered: Nov 2000
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You caption one picture of Ivan Brunetti saying that he's autographing his comic book anthology -- but he's not; he's autographing his entry in the In the Studio book.
Matthew
Posts: 4993 | From: Seattle, WA USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Matthewwave: But, Eel, danny, c'mon... Ted Rall has the most perfect chest EVER -- I know, because I read a woman saying it to Ted Rall in a Ted Rall comic strip!
posted
I like his cartoons, but I'm surprised that Ted Rall claims he has slept with ("sampled") 70 women, much less that he claimed it to ... MARIE CLAIRE magazine?!
I mean, I've met Rall. While he's not necessarily ugly, he has that goofy cartoonist look to him that women tend to find resistable unless it comes with a Garry Trudeau or Charles Schulz bank account.
Are we sure that wasn't a typo? Maybe Rall said that he has slept with a 70-year-old woman.
Posts: 6239 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Lawson: 11. I think I like super-hero comics fanboys better than indie comix fanboys. Comics guys don't take themselves half as seriously as do comix guys. Even John Byrne, on his most arrogant day, isn't waiting for his MacArthur genius grant so he can start his 1,400-page autobiographical graphic novel.
I see people making this sort of statement constantly, but I have never been presented with a concrete example of it. And, being that I myself am an independent cartoonist who pals around with mostly other independent cartoonists and travels in circles made up mostly of independent cartoonists, you'd think I'd have seen one or two people with this attitude by now.
Mmm.
Could be I'm wrong.
Or ... could be that you and the circles of independent cartoonists in which you spend most of your life don't see yourselves the same way outsiders might see you.
That happens in many like-minded occupational groups. When I go to a convention in my line of work (investigative reporters), I'm painfully aware of how we must appear to others (arrogant, pushy, self-righteous). God alone knows what a convention of heart surgeons must be like.
Mind you, I enjoy many comics and comix, and the people who produce them. I'm mostly just teasing here.
Posts: 6239 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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Is SPX worth going to if you don't have a table? Is there networking to be done. Or is simply people pushing their own stuff and not buying? I would want to show my work if I attended, and I'm not sure this is really the venue for that? Am I wrong?
Posts: 19 | Registered: Oct 2006
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