Initial Immediate SPX Report!
In brief, it was awesome.
That's what you should know. If you like comics, SPX is awesome and if you haven't gone, you should go. It's loaded with cool comics from the biggest names all the way down to the little guys who you haven't heard of whose comics you probably won't be able to find anywhere else.
Also, you get to hang out with awesome comic book people all weekend. Because the convention is in Bethesda, but not in the cool awesome restaurant part of Bethesda, but instead in the giant hotel convention center part of Bethesda, there is really nothing to do and nowhere to go after the convention day ends, so everybody just sticks around hanging out (unlike at MoCCA which in the heart of Manhattan, which offers a bajillion extracurricular activities for when the convention ends). Which means you get to meet cool people, and clink beers with them.
And then on the morning after you might run into some awesome comic book person that maybe inspired you to draw comics, like say Chris Ware, and you'll tell him how awesome he is and that he's one of the reasons you draw comics, and he'll say thank you, and then he'll see that you are buying a gigantic coffee and a bunch of aspirin, and then he'll say, "Nice breakfast. Did you get a few too many free drink tickets last night?"
Not that that happened at all to any one, at least certainly not me.
Sigh.
But anyway, not that I have gone through everything I picked up at all, but here are a few of the awesome things by awesome people that I have gotten a chance to take a look at:
Everybody knows that if you want to be cool, it's not enough just to know that the Beatles, Public Enemy, Leonard Cohen, and Patti Smith are unassailably cool. You also got to know who the most recent hot right up to the minute cool bands are. And this comic book is about that. It had me at the title. This also just happens to be by one of the people I met on Saturday night after the official convention day ended. We talked about men. And women. And aging. And it was really intelligent. (jeremywinslife.com)
Culture Vulture 2 is a collection of drawings done while sitting on public transportation, which as anyone knows is my jam. This guy gets all these wonderful scratchy lines. I love it. (dccreepers.blogspot.com)
Brendan Leach won an Ignatz this year, which means I get to say, "Man, I got that comic when he did it all self-published style three years ago." Anyway, this new book looks absolutely fantastic, and I'm totally jealous of the skills being flexed in it. You can get it from retrofitcomics.com. (and check out Brendan's site: www.iknowashortcut.com).
And then there is this, which is a must have for any cartoonists! Seriously, back pain, arm pain, that rotten posture... it's no good. You gotta take care of that body so that you can draw comics for as long as possible (and also it's pretty lame when you're walking around all hunched over and someone asks you what happened and you have to say, "I threw my back out drawing comics."). (KriotaWelt.blogspot.com)
Whew! So much awesome stuff. That's all for now, but I'll be writing about some more later.
That's what you should know. If you like comics, SPX is awesome and if you haven't gone, you should go. It's loaded with cool comics from the biggest names all the way down to the little guys who you haven't heard of whose comics you probably won't be able to find anywhere else.
Also, you get to hang out with awesome comic book people all weekend. Because the convention is in Bethesda, but not in the cool awesome restaurant part of Bethesda, but instead in the giant hotel convention center part of Bethesda, there is really nothing to do and nowhere to go after the convention day ends, so everybody just sticks around hanging out (unlike at MoCCA which in the heart of Manhattan, which offers a bajillion extracurricular activities for when the convention ends). Which means you get to meet cool people, and clink beers with them.
And then on the morning after you might run into some awesome comic book person that maybe inspired you to draw comics, like say Chris Ware, and you'll tell him how awesome he is and that he's one of the reasons you draw comics, and he'll say thank you, and then he'll see that you are buying a gigantic coffee and a bunch of aspirin, and then he'll say, "Nice breakfast. Did you get a few too many free drink tickets last night?"
Not that that happened at all to any one, at least certainly not me.
Sigh.
But anyway, not that I have gone through everything I picked up at all, but here are a few of the awesome things by awesome people that I have gotten a chance to take a look at:
Everybody knows that if you want to be cool, it's not enough just to know that the Beatles, Public Enemy, Leonard Cohen, and Patti Smith are unassailably cool. You also got to know who the most recent hot right up to the minute cool bands are. And this comic book is about that. It had me at the title. This also just happens to be by one of the people I met on Saturday night after the official convention day ended. We talked about men. And women. And aging. And it was really intelligent. (jeremywinslife.com)
Culture Vulture 2 is a collection of drawings done while sitting on public transportation, which as anyone knows is my jam. This guy gets all these wonderful scratchy lines. I love it. (dccreepers.blogspot.com)
Brendan Leach won an Ignatz this year, which means I get to say, "Man, I got that comic when he did it all self-published style three years ago." Anyway, this new book looks absolutely fantastic, and I'm totally jealous of the skills being flexed in it. You can get it from retrofitcomics.com. (and check out Brendan's site: www.iknowashortcut.com).
And then there is this, which is a must have for any cartoonists! Seriously, back pain, arm pain, that rotten posture... it's no good. You gotta take care of that body so that you can draw comics for as long as possible (and also it's pretty lame when you're walking around all hunched over and someone asks you what happened and you have to say, "I threw my back out drawing comics."). (KriotaWelt.blogspot.com)
Whew! So much awesome stuff. That's all for now, but I'll be writing about some more later.
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