A Fistfull of SPX 2009 part 1

I've had a chance to get through a good number of smaller comics at this point, and I am pretty impressed with what I have read so far. I think it says a lot about the things I choose to pick up and buy, as well as a lot about the quality of the offerings at SPX this year that I pulled out a pile of minicomics and really truly believe they were all pretty awesome. I am sure I picked up some things that I won't love this much, but this first batch, pulled randomly, is filled with winners.

Bizcochito - Dennis Pacheco - pigeonholepress.net - This is billed as 'a tale of sweet revenge', and 'a cautionary tale in two acts'. This small square mini is 24 single panel pages, and tells a story that spans a 13 year time frame, and highlights the fact that some people will wait far longer than you might think to exact revenge. It is very cute, very well drawn, and very available to read for free. If you follow that link you will be on a page that shows several of Pacheco's works. bizcochito is toward the bottom of the page. Well worth reading. Budgeting and a desire to get a wide variety of creators are the only reasons I didn't buy more of his work. He was not able to be at SPX, but his work was well represented.

Earth Minds Are Weak (1-4)- Justin J Fox - clifffacecomics.com - here is the blurb about the first issue from his website.

"Issue 1 of an 80 pg. wordless adventure, The Story of Suave Prospects. This surreal tale focuses on four brothers. Born into the world as naive adults, they explore a mythical temple in search of their Ids. Magical candles, the living dead, dancing beer labels, alien plants, shape-changing mushrooms and a tavern in the belly of a whale are just some of the dream-like elements that they encounter. 4.25” x 5.5”/21 pages/b&w"

The art is fantastic in this. I am not sure I understood much of anything in the four small books, but it was interesting and made me think and try to decode what was going on, and what we were being told in each of the panels. In that regard I enjoyed it a lot. It's trippy. I don't think I ever have an opportunity to use that word, but it applies here. There is a heavy sense of design and mythology (central american) represented in the black and white. You get a lot of really heavy black and white, but also a lot of fine textures drawn in very thin lines. There is a strange mystical,sexual, and psychological vibe at work, and while I don't feel I understand it, I get it, and I like it.

Four Stories - Tom McHenry - noncanon.com - I was standing in front of Sara Bauer's table trying to figure out what to buy when I picked this up. I laughed so hard at what I saw on the random page I flipped to, that I felt obligated to buy it. The pieces in here aren't exactly funny, but the title of one of them just killed me... it was "Fucking Comics on the GodDamn Internet", which is a short sort of existentialist piece about two webcomics creators sitting in a cell talking about their place as basically mankind's last hope in some alien gladiatorial arena. It works. This also contains the story No Argument is Ever Won, which hits WAY too close to home for me about the dickish behavior we subject the people we love to, and geek... identity issues? The piece that hit me hardest is probably the Rag and Bone Man. Inside the strange sad story of a couple losing a baby, is this concept of selling things like memories and abilities, for money. This is a powerful and effective small volume. The art is good and the writing is great.

Hey Pais, the best thing in the WORLD - Sara Bauer - heypais.com - Hey Pais is a journal comic by a cat. It is simple and cute and funny and endearing. It is really just a nice comic. It is also a webcomic, so follow that link and enjoy! The mini comic I picked up is especially precious. In March, Paisley decided that she was going to make a March Madness inspired bracketed competition to determine the Best thing in the world. It was divided into four divisions of People, Food, Activities, and Events. There is a tiny little envelope inside the front cover with a very small copy of the brackets, which include among other things: Ice Cream, Dropping Beats, Morrissey and Unattended Bread. There is one comic for an item in each division in each round. It is very cute, and very funny. Inside the back cover is another tiny envelope that contains the brackets with the results all written in. I LOVED this. It makes me smile to take out the little brackets. It's sweet and nice and funny.

Outreach - Raina Telgemeier - www.goraina.com - It was really nice getting to meet Raina. She is just nice and friendly and accessible. Her art is fantastic, and she is a perfect choice for the graphic novel adaptations of the babysitters club books. I picked up two small volumes from her that have panels drawn from real life classes she has done for kids. I LOVED the fact that she had minis for sale. She has quite a few books under her belt, but she also had minis available, which is a genius thing to do in the context of a show like SPX especially. If she lived closer to Virginia I would be trying to figure out how to have her attend an event for our Girl Scout service unit. The cover for Outreach #2 is cute and smart. It has a boy and a girl reading comics on it, and the boy is reading a comic labeled comics for girls and the girl is reading the one for boys. PLUS her booth was giving away a cookie with each purchase!! it was delicious. <--- disclosure per the new FTC rules...

Ok, I am getting tired now. I know it doesn't look like much, but this is 9 comics covered. I have a bunch more that I have already read, but they will come in another day or so. Be sure to check out the sites for these folks!

Post SPX... post

I volunteered at SPX this year, and attended both days. It's a great experience. I didn't meet a single person among the volunteers who wasn't just great, and the volunteer coordinator is pretty awesome, and made me feel welcomed and useful, even when I was standing around with nothing to do. They keep a good number of people on hand just in case anything comes up, and I stayed and worked when there was something I could do, so I didn't feel like a freeloader. I carried a ballot box around for the Ignatz ballots so that exhibitors could get theirs turned in without having to leave their booths, and later I went around to a couple rows of exhibitors to show them where to go when they left for the day. It was fun, and it was a good way to get around and make eye contact with a lot of exhibitors. For instance, I really wanted to meet Kate Beaton and say hi, and tell her the usual 'your stuff is really cool, etc' but there was always a crowd around her... So instead, I got to tell her where to exit when she left... it was almost like talking.

Some high points for me from Saturday were getting to meet Eden (from the comicsgirl blog) and Dan Govar (Saulone on Zuda, creator of the comic Azure) in person. I walked around the exhibit hall with Dan, and it was a lot of fun. I have been watching him draw on livestream and chatting with him a good bit lately there. Eden is responsible for my even knowing that I could volunteer, through her enthusiastic advocacy of volunteering at spx, etc. It really was a great experience. I also got to say hi to a good number of people I had met the previous year, and meet a variety of new and awesome people. I really enjoyed meeting Miss Lasko-Gross, and the other folks in the House of Twelve booth. She was funny and nice, and I had a lot of fun yammering at her. I hope to buy 'a Mess of Everything' at some point in the future, but it wasn't in my budget for SPX.

I attended one panel on Saturday, and it was the critics roundtable. it was absolutely worth sitting in on, and I will make a point to get to that sort of thing any time I can. It was absolutely packed with a pretty broad range of people who write or post about comics. It helped me understand some things about myself, and appreciate some of the panelists a little better.

I was absolutely dead and my feet were screaming in pain when I got home last night, but I took a hot bath after my Wife and daughters wouldn't stop laughing at my wincing everytime I moved my legs. The bath and sleep certainly helped.

Sunday morning I got up and went back. I picked up most of the things i had made mental notes about. I stopped and saw Joe Flood again and picked up a comic I had wanted to get from him. I attended two panels, One was the Carol Tyler conversation, and the other was about comics and community. The Carol Tyler one will be the subject of its own post at some point. She was wonderful and insightful. I broke a rule of my own and risked castration by walking right out of the panel when it was done and buying her book so that I could have her sign it, but most importantly because I have to read it now that I have heard her talk about it... It's become important to me. Seriously, It was a funny and touching and insightful talk. Things like that really make a good con even better. The comics and community one annoyed me a little, but was not without some good stuff, and was still worth attending. My thoughts on it will probably pop up again somewhere.

I will make a point to volunteer next year. There was no downside to being there... If I had to pick one, it would definitely be:

Rob makes an ass out of himself in front of people he respects... SPX edition.
I was running around telling the exhibitors how to leave the showroom when I walked up on Joe McCullough and Tucker Stone talking to people at one of the exhibitor's tables. I am a big fan of both Joe and Tucker. Joe writes insight filled smart wordy posts with a comics scholar's knowledge of the material and the greater 'world of comics' that it exists within, etc. I did an ok job telling him how much I respected his work. Tucker was talking to someone, so (assuming they are friends, as they drove down together I think, and they seem to have some camaraderie at least), I then rambled like an idiot to Joe about how much I appreciated Tyler's work as well. Sometimes I can't make myself stop talking. I related that when I first read Tucker's work I was appalled by it and wanted to act as sort of the anti-him, but then I read more and more and realized that regardless of how he was conveying it, his words generally echoed my sentiment, just with the word 'fuck' appearing more in his work, and with his showing a bit more passion and a sharper sense of humor. I think at the core of his criticism is some of the most honest comics writing you will get. It doesn't wear a pretentious overcoat like a lot of people with his kind of exposure seem to, and I appreciate it.

So instead of saying anything coherent directly to him I think I made Joe worry that I might have had a knife on me or something, or wonder how I had changed out of my hospital gown on my way to the expo...

It was still a good time.

Coming soon I will start reading and posting on the great volume of mini and not so mini comics I picked up at the show.

Mini Comic Reviews, A Fistfull Of SPX - Part 6

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Nothin to it but to do it... Here is the sixth and final instalment in my seemingly 85 part series of reviews for the things I got at SPX earlier this month. Thanks for bearing with me folks. Hopefully you have at least clicked on some of the links and maybe gotten some ideas for some creators to look for in the future. This was my first time at SPX, as I have mentioned previously, and I found it to be a pretty rewarding experience. 

Addicted to Bumpers & The Divide - Falynn Koch - Both of these are a bit smaller format than the previous work of hers I wrote about.Both of these have nice covers and beautiful art inside. 'Addicted' covers the very serious topic of cereal addiction and 'Divide', which i just adore, is about people being separated by fate and then overcoming the odds in a sweet and fanciful way, in order to see each other again. Beautiful stuff. I will say again that I was very impressed by her work, and meeting the artist was a pleasure as well.

Karma Shmarma - Mark Griffin - This is a pretty sobering story about the artist's fight with cancer that he had previously seemed to have beaten. Sobering because of how unexpectedly it came back, but this is not a book about death or doom in any way. This is a story about a guy and the stuff that happens to him and the people around him. It's about a guy with a pretty amazing wife, and pretty awesome friends who loved him and cared about him. The art in this is really fantastic black and white cartooning. It doesn't attempt to be anything more than it is. There is a lot of humor in it, as well as a good bit of dazed expressions.  This is a very real story, and it strikes me as how things would be for me, or my wife, or any of our loved ones. Life wouldn't stop at learning about the recurrence, humor wouldn't stop. It's heavy stuff to think about.

A really nice thing about going to SPX, was getting to see the author's friends carrying on his memory and selling his books. Mark Griffin passed away in June of this year. I really think the best thing we can hope for, and the thing we should strive for is to surround ourselves with people we care about and who care about us... Preferably ones with a sense of humor.

The Life & Times of 'Baby' Otto Zeplin v1 - BT Livermore - This book starts with the birth of Otto Zeplin, or rather the birth of Frank Zeplin, as he didn't change his name to Otto until two days later, and ends with Otto making and eating the best sandwich ever. In between... Hilarity ensues. This is an absolutely perfect little book. The art is lovely and clean and professional, and the cover is snazzy with shiny gold lettering on red paper with a black spine. There is even a watermarked front page of a lighter stock like in old-timey books. I won't spoil the jokes in this thing. Buy it and see the funny for yourself.

Hyper Toast (1 & 2) - Justin DeCarlo - You won't believe just how much I wish I could put a link here to some place you could find lots of great info on Justin DeCarlo...  If anyone reads this and knows of a site for Hyper Toast, or for Mr. DeCarlo, please post it here, I would love to be able to share it with others. Volume one has the story 'Judas Hands', Volume 2 has 'Quentin Chase, On The Town' Both stories show a great deal of style and talent artistically, but they also show a ton of humor with an extremely smart and quirky bent (not self-consciously quirky, but slightly twisted in a good way quirky). If there is a unifying theme between the two volumes, it may be that a jar of olives appears prominently in both. Judas hands starts with a man telling his cat that he has a tumor the size of a tangelo, and ends with him suspecting that his various body parts are out to make a play for supremacy within the kingdom of his body. In Quentin Chase, our dapper and well to do main character becomes smitten with a street performer, a teller of tales who directs her actors (bugs that live in her hair) as they perform the stories she tells. I would love to see more of his work.

And there we are at the end of my SPX haul. I can't wait until next year. Hopefully I will have more money to spend and end up with an even greater amount of stuff to cover. 

Mini Comic Reviews, A Fistfull Of SPX - Part 5

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

My Brain Hurts v1 - Liz Baillie - I should have bought all of these, but I was kind of running out of money by the time I got back around to Liz's table. If you have been following my SPX posts, you will know that this is the third work of hers I am reading, and it is also the longest. The volume I purchased collects the first five issues of the comic by the same name and weighs in at 128 pages for the bargain price of 6 bucks. Not all mini comics are this much of a bargain. I think hers were all priced very reasonably for what you are getting.

This is the story of young punks in high-school(ish) but most of the action takes place in clubs and on the street and in a hospital, homes, etc. I identify with this to some degree, but it is just outside of my experience. I never lived in a city with the sort of accessible music scene one might find in what I assume is New York, but may not be. I also, for the life of me had no knowledge of any sort of gay... anything in my area. I had one friend who was, but I won't say I knew it at the time. I never really made assumptions about people's sexuality. I have never been a particularly masculine guy, and I don't use that (often false) indicator as a way of judging sexuality, etc. I just know that I got called a 'fag' a lot by rednecks and jocks. I always took the use of that word to mean 'hi, I'm narrow minded, and you are different from me, and therefore I am threatened by your existence'

In this story, set in a city, and presumably at least 10 years after I graduated, homosexuality is something people actually think of acknowledging. Our main character Kate realizes after a spin the bottle girl on girl kiss, that she really does have feelings for girls. Her best friend Joey, who is an unbelievable 13 year old(well, I come from the past... at 13, I was not really into anything sexual). This is a pretty real look at what some people have to put up with just to be themselves. It doesn't absolve anyone of their own bad behavior, but it shows sexual preference as just another thing that people will use as an excuse to persecute, dehumanize and attack you for. Don't get me wrong, I don't really see this as a one note sort of work. It has greater depth than that. There is also a sincerity to it.

The art is raw, but it's good. It's consistent, it conveys what it needs to convey, it's detailed, and it really grew on me. The writing is good as well. It seemed authentic. I really like her work, and definitely plan to get more volumes in this series.

Local Honey (1 & 2)- No Lemon Press - That link is to a blog, but there isn't much there, and they list their website as being under construction. Here is what their sort of mission statement is (taken from the website(also printed in the volumes)

No Lemon Press, the Southeast's premiere indie GLBT comics imprint based in historic Savannah, Georgia. Founded by a Southern boy and two West Coast transplants, No Lemon Press aims to self-publish literate, queer-centered comics through a uniquely Southern lens.

Local Honey is compilation of work by Macarthur, Jon Wolfe, and Dan Valeza . Volume one is just Macarthur and Jon, Volume two adds Dan's work as well. I chatted with these guys briefly, and they were nice and funny. I enjoyed my brief stop at their table a lot. All three are top notch artists. They also all seem to have a really good handle on visual narrative. This is expressed in a variety of ways in these two volumes. They are small volumes, but each artist has at least one piece, and they are well worth picking up if you have the opportunity. I look forward to seeing more works by all three of them.

Woodland #1 - Phil Miarmi - This comic is the funny animal version of the 2000 presidential election. In addition to the story of how Walt Nutt won the election but still lost the presidency to Admiral Acorn, you get a number of educational aids included in-line such as The History of Sap, and The Voting Tree & You. It's funny, it obviously is written from a particular slant, but it works for me. I consider it a bargain at $1.

Ok, I didn't cover as much stuff here as I wanted to. I am down to just a few more things that I want to give some lipservice to, so I figure one post after this one will take care of it.

A disclaimer for the sake of fake-journalist-ic integrity... I am not going to post a review of everything I picked up at SPX. Something I decided not to do here, that I didn't have much of an issue with when reviewing the Popgun 2 anthology, is that I will not be posting negative reviews. If I bought something from a tiny press or from the creator themselves, and I thought it was awful, I am not going to mention names. My goal is not to crap on anyone who is trying to get their work out there. Hopefully they will get better with time, etc. I will say, that of the things I purchased, there were only a very few items I am leaving out.

Mini Comic Reviews, A Fistfull Of SPX - Part 4

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

I know SPX was a while ago, but I still have things in my bag that I haven't read/commented on yet. I like to mix it up a little and not have all of these right on top of each other, so this may have a few more instalments trickling out over the next month or so.

*Correction* - I do have an update to something I posted previously.

Renee Lott's Festering Romance is scheduled for later next year than I had indicated. According to a comment she made to my previous post:

"the book is set to come out mid-2009, with the tentative debut being at San Diego Comic Con 2009 and a retail release following. I plan to be at SPX next year with the original art for the book"

Even cooler! So everyone knows their mission, right? Buy the book and then go meet the artist and buy some cool original art! Go put it on your calendars now... I'll wait for you.

Skyscrapers of the Midwest #1 - Josh Cotter - I paid more than the 5 dollar cover price for this book. I guess it has been unavailable for a while, but they found a copy of it and were offering it for 10 dollars. I imagine they had a pile of them under the counter and when I walked a way I like to pretend that they pulled another one out and set it on the table. I don't actually believe it, but it would be funny if it were true.

This is put out by adhouse Books. The production is really good. You get cover to cover content (nearly 60 pages) of really good stuff wrapped in a lovely full color cover. It contains a bit of everything. Long stories broken into instalments throughout the book, extremely funny ad and letter column parodies, some shorter pieces as well. I like that format a lot, as it makes for a sort of one person anthology.

The art is fantastic, and the writing is great. The book is filled with robots, anthropomorphic cat-like creatures, toys, bunnies, skull headed creatures. The art is very detailed, and a bit creepy at times, but very expressive as well. There is a sort of sadness that runs through the entire book without it being a sad book. Fantasy and imagination are huge parts of this, and that really comes through. You get a very real sense of childhood in this. There is imagination and shame and loss, but they all come through as filtered with a sort of child's eye view of the world. I am very interested in reading more from this author.

March Hare 8 - Josh Cotter - This is a sketchbook mini-comic. It has an eye catching illustrated and colored cover. This is the first sketchbook I have purchased, I think. I would buy more if it could be guaranteed that they would all be this good. It is what it says it is. The sketches are great, some of the pieces are comics, some are ideas, some are just sketches. It's a really neat small volume.

Four Stories and Stevie might be a bear maybe - John Campbell - I am listing these two together, since my review is the same for both, and the whole point of my posting this will be so that you can go to his blog and his site and read everything and love his work and pay him money for all the joy he has brought to your life. These two comics, as well as X-Ninja are linked to right on his site. You can read them for free and then buy a shirt or something from him. His work is absolutely some of the most consistently funny stuff out there. His exceptionally spare art is as effective as any comic strip art could possibly be. I like his stuff so much that I paid him money for paper copies of things I had read on the Internet, just so i could give him some money as a thank you.

Ninja's in the Breakroom - Leah Riley - The art in this is workable, and the story is funny. I am an IT guy, and this four page take on an unusual IT solution just makes me happy. I recommend their site, the strips are funny and quirky. Also, like so many people I met at SPX, Leah couldn't have been nicer. I look forward to seeing them at SPX next year if they are there.

The Coffee Story and DJWB 1.5: The Bet - Mark McMurray - Both of these comics have a very real vibe about them. They are funny, seemingly 'drawn from life' stories. Both of them have analogues in my life. The art is especially good on 'The Bet'. DJWB apparently stands for Dumb Jersey White Boy, although I didn't figure that out until i was looking at his site in order to link to it for this review. You can read at least a small portion of this story at the link above. These are more the sort of 'make you smile' variety of stories than they are the laugh out loud variety, but they are well done and were a great value for the small amount of change they cost to buy.

Bamn #1 - Troy Jefferey Allen and Jay Payne - This is a wrestling comic. This was probably the shocker of the show for me. This is not my favorite comic of the show. I bought it because I was buying a variety of things, and also because there were almost no black creators represented at SPX and I was determined to support diversity in comics. I had a preconceived notion about the content based on the cover(I was afraid it might be like 'old Image', and maybe on the design of the title character. The interior art is really good, though, and the writing is pretty great.

The very real appreciation and understanding of wrestling that the author has makes this book come across as sincere, and not as a genre book faked by people who have only a topical feel for their subject matter. The story has a jaded professional wrestler named Bamn, ending up aligned with a group of what I would call wrestling geeks. These kids are huge wrestling fans and have their own backyard productions, but aren't exactly the cool popular kids in their school. They are picked on by jocks and Bamn decides to help them. It isn't an earth shattering set up, but it is done right, and with the wrestling setting it works. I would like to read more of this.

This booth had a LOT of people at it, and in addition they had a 'booth babe' I normally hate stuff like that, but it seemed perfectly apropriate for a pro-wrestling themed venture, given the theatrical nature of that world and it's heavy use of 'hotties' to keep it's fans happy. It seemed out of place at SPX, but wouldn't have made anyone blink at any other'mainstream' comic con I have been to.

Mini Comic Reviews, A Fistfull Of SPX - Part 3

Here are the links for Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

Leon's Retreat - Falynn Koch : Another very cool small comic sold to me by a creator who was just lovely and a delight to buy from. Even better than that is the fact that in addition to having a cool cover with a sort of extra outer piece that was for decoration but added to the feel and the theme of the book, it's an extremely cute and fun story (so far). The cover and outer cover art is fantastic, but the art inside the book is even better. It is quality kid's book caliber illustration, and the premise is excellent and fun. It is about a man that inherited his father's campgrounds, which was frequented by hunters in the fall, but now is closed to humans in the fall so that the bears have a retreat to go to. It's brilliant. In Fact, don't take my word for it, here it is in her LJ

Festering Romance (Preview) - Renee Lott: This is a 14 or so page preview of a title that is being released in early 2009 through ONI Press. Renee Lott was giving these out at her table and was successful in distributing all she had, despite not being thrilled with the location they had. It is very much 'manga-styled' and is well done even in the rough pencil preview form that it is. It is about a woman who has a ghost for a roommate, although that seems to be just an incidental thing, and not what the focus is. Chapter 1 certainly reads well enough and is illustrated well enough to make me want to buy the book (plus I love to support people who make a good impression on me in person, and I adored meeting Renee... So... Good marketing idea! Again, you show people good stuff for free and they may want to pay you money for more.

The Fierce Operations #1 - Tyran Eades: This is a sort of old school image style team comic.  It is created, written and drawn by one person, and is one of the few 'Super Hero style' comics that I saw at SPX.  The art is really inconsistent, and the writing needs more editing for just small errors. This reads like an ad for the series. It is all intro, done with lots and lots of narrative. I am not crazy about this title, but that wouldn't stop me from picking up something in the future to see if it gets any better after the intros are out of the way.

A2 alien - (ett and tva) - aavrooman: These are really mini minicomics. They have blue cardstock covers and 4 single panels, one per page. If you follow the link you can see them. They are cute and kind of sweet. Not much happens in them, but they are cute, and mini and endearing.  The creator and the two other people at her table were the first people I talked to once i got past the Top Shelf table. They were all very nice.

1980 - 1985 - Robert Harvey: This is less of a standard comic, and more of an illustrated travelogue or memoir of a significant event in the authors life. It talks about his introduction to cricket in detail. It's interesting and well written. The art isn't great, but it is pretty good and has personality and works. He was at the table I mentioned in the previous review.

Layover - Liz Baillie: I think I may have already referred to something this way, but I am going to call this the perfect mini comic.  It was one dollar. It is seven very full small pages of art and story with a single page introduction that gives us a little background before we start. It is an account of the author's trip to attend her brother's wedding as part of the wedding party. This comic was drawn during layovers to and from the wedding. It is personal and funny and real and touching and indentifiable by any who have spent time in airports just waiting. It starts with a bit of an apology for the art, but I think that is misplaced self consciousness. Seriously, the art is perfect for the format and content.

I Will Feast On Your Whore Heart and Myrtle Willoughby - MK Reed : These two collections are like writing exercises, only they are brilliantly done single panel comics. I Will Feast On Your Whore Heart is a collection of one hundred cartoons based on one hundred different themes. Myrtle Willooughby is the first fifty cartoons of an even more ambitious two hundred theme project. There is a feeling of cohesiveness, without a sense that you need to see any other panel in order to enjoy any given panel. I enjoyed these a lot, and would love to see more of her work. The good news for you is that you can go to her site that I linked to and read them for yourselves, and then buy them when you see her in person. It's really good stuff.

A fistfull of SPX part 2 Mini Comic reviews

Part one of this series is here .

These aren't really all mini comics, but they are all small press offerings, and the majority of what I picked up would be considered minis.

Warrior Twenty-Seven - On The Fly Publications: This is an anthology/zine. I purchased the 05/06 and 08 issues. Each issue contains comics (mostly short pieces of just a few pages), an interview, some short fiction, etc. It is a nice mix. I am personally not crazy about it, but it shows effort and vision. Some of the stories are better than others. The art ranges from fairly poor to really good. There is no single functioning web site for this or I would post it. The 05 issue has a really beautiful cover and they gave me a nice poster of it. These are comic sized books and reasonably priced for what they are. The earliest issue was done throughComiXpress, and the others through Ka-Blam.

Toupydoops - Kevin McShane - Lobrau Productions: I saw this at the show and was a bit skeptical. I'm not sure why, but let me tell you, Being given a free issue helps take the skepticism away. I did not actually purchase anything from them at the show, but I did bring the comic home and I read it, and I was happily surprised by how good it was. The art is clean and professional, the writing is extremely funny. I am now seriously interested in buying the 15 dollar trade that collects the first five issues of the comic, so I think it was a successful marketing tactic. The website up there has a sizable free preview as well, so I recommend you go and see if it's to your liking. I think this is an example of how to do things right. If you let people see your product and give them enough to get invested in it, I think it goes a long way toward getting their business. I hope the tactic works for them.

Herman Shepherd In Gitmo Goofs - High Treason Comix: This is a small pink six page comic stapled with a sort of two page manifesto at the end of it about Bill Hicks and counter-culture and sounding like what people who have never held a job think revolutionaries sound like. Maybe it's an Andy Kaufman style high concept gag. Maybe it isn't. I put the link to the referenced web site up there, but there isn't really any content. The comic itself isn't bad. It isn't my thing, it's a bit heavy handed, but not bad as far as satire goes.

Microbes! A Life Cycle - Leah Riley and Will Woods: This is a cute as heck 8 page mini with a blue card stock cover that features microbes on it that look sort of like pac-man with teeth. It's fun and cute and deals with what microbes' role in nature is... sort of. If I recall, this was another table with folks who couldn't have been nicer. Also from the same folks, I got(see next review)

10 Things To Do With A Fake Mustache - Leah Riley and Will Woods . : This is exactly what it claims to be, and has the gimmick of actually having a fake mustache on the cover. It's very cute, and there were several styles available at the time.

Knee Deep Showcase Volume 1 - David Brennan & Joe Flood: I met Joe Flood and chatted with him briefly. I had to ask him where I saw the story in this comic before. When he said Popgun Volume 2 it made sense to me. This mini contains an extended version of the story Bird On A Wire that was in Popgun. I think he said that originally it was going to be in multiple pieces in the anthology, but ended up not being. What a great guy. He was just the nicest, and his art is amazing. I love this volume, and if you go to his site and find the picture of frankenstein's monster and the girl with a guitar, you will see the cover of this comic. It is an amazing picture on it's own. The story and the characters are just great, and the art is spectacular, the color is just brilliant as well. I hope to buy more of his work sometime.

A fistfull of SPX part 1 Mini Comic reviews

I have a bag of cool stuff that I bought at SPX. I am having a difficult time getting to it in order to do a post about all of the cool stuff I got at SPX and relate little bits of other thoughts and such about the experience there. I have decided to just blindly reach into the bag and remove a bit of the loot and read it and then write about it.

X-Ninja - John Campbell - I bought a few things from John Campbell. It was neat getting to meet him as I enjoy his work online. I figured I should buy things from him since he hasn't made any money from me laughing at his stuff on the internet.  His work is extremely funny, and the art is absolutely perfect for what he does. It is just a step or so up from stick figures but it is clean, consistant and conveys what it needs to to make everything work. The humor is dry, funny with a twist.  It can make you laugh and sigh at the same time, but mostly laugh. His webcomic is here.

Mobile Fridge - Renee Lot. I really enjoyed meeting her. She was very nice, and gave me a free button. Her web site is here. Mobile Fridge is really an awesome collection. It's like a single person variety show. It has strips and gag panels as well as slightly longer stories. The art is varied and excellent. You wouldn't guess that all of the contents were drawn by the same person. I will say that my favorite piece in the book is 'The Snack That Talks Like A Man' It is more or less about a fridge full of happy smiling food just asking (literally) to be eaten. This may be my favorite find of the show.

Sing Along Forever - A love letter to The Bouncing Souls - Liz Baillie.  This is an autobiographical comic about finding that one song, that one band that speaks to you and reaches you in a way that nothing prior to it ever has before, and then making a quest later in life to document that fact and meet the band and memorialize just what it meant to you as a way of saying thank you to them. It's really well done. The art works perfectly for the book. Is it the greatest art ever? No. Is it fitting that it has a raw and personal feel to it? You betcha. The art doesn't get in the way, and is better than average in my opinion.  I asked Liz to do a little sketch in my copy when she signed it, and she seemed a bit self conscious about having to do it on the spot like that, but it was great and I love it. I am anxious to read her other book 'My Brain Hurts' which is in my bag of loot, but didn't make it out in thes handfull. 

Spectral-Biology - Macarthur.  This is a small volume from MACARTHUR from No Lemon Press. There were three guys at the No Lemon Press table and I bought something from each I believe. This is a small volume with a cool cover that features lots of skulls. The art is trippy but good. I am not sure I fully understand this, but I liked the art and the cover a lot, and have picked it up and read back through it several times. The folks at No Lemon Press were fun to chat with and seemed nice. Yes, I like to support people who seem fun and nice.

Track Rabbit #3 - Geoff Vasile. One of the funniest exchanges of my whole time at SPX was with Geoff Vassile. It started out with him quoting Star Trek, and Me and the guy next to him pointing out that it was a Peter Pan reference, and ended with him doing a sketch of himself as a vulcan on the copy of Track Rabbit that I bought from him. He was definitely fun to meet.  Track Rabbit #3 is really good. He's no Jaime Hernandez, but his work made me think of him. It is very good black and white, in a style that is reminiscent of Love & Rockets to me. The story itself was well written. I hope to get more of his work at some point.

Girl Ninja: Book 1 - Rebecca Simms.  - I am not completely in love with the art on this, but I will say that it is consistent, and that there is a good bit of skill shown in the layout and the visual storytelling, etc. It is also very funny. I don't fully love what comes across as sort of broken english, but I don't think it is there as anything but a reference to the style of thing this is a sort of spoof of. Spoof is probably the wrong word, but this is a genuinely funny book that could be enjoyed by a pretty wide age range. It might appeal even more to the young female manga crowd, as it speaks in that language.  This is fun. I expect that my daughters will enjoy this as much as I did.