Johanna has a succinct but panoramic show report here:
Iâm still figuring out my reaction to the show⦠the new location was a nifty building, wonderful to stay in and beautiful, but the area wasnât as convenient. There was no good food within walking distance, and going down the block to the corner meant seeing lots of chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire, never a welcome sight. When we went out Friday night for dinner, we finally wound up back in the old show location (where we found a great sushi place!). Locals kept saying âthereâs a metro station across the street, so anythingâs available to youâ?, but thatâs only helpful if you already know where you should be going.
She also has mini-comics mentions and some JIm Ottaviani news.
Some early photos here.
And some thoughts from a fan, here:
The large, more mainstream cons Iâve attended this year have a completely different feeling. We wait in lines for hours to shake hands with Johns, Cassidy, the Romitas, Lee and so on. We pack ourselves into rooms hoping that whatever panel we are watching might drop a hint or two. We root through boxes of back stock trying to find that first appearance of Multiple Man. The creators sit on their piles of comic cash, enjoying our adoration. They can be very pleasant and very nice but you can tell they revel in their celebrity. Hell, if I ever get there I will do the same thing.
The artist, writers and artist/writers at SPX did not act this way. No at the SPX the power seems to shift to the consumer. We envy them for actually publishing something. At the same time though we snub the stuff we donât think is up to snuff. We are the art critics and think to ourselves, âCrap is crap no matter how indie it is. Just look at You Are Here.â? I’m definitely sure that neither convention dynamic is fair but it still felt like the dynamic.
Pat Lewis at Lunchbreak Comics has a cute trip report.
xkcd
The expo was really cool. I hadnât been to a convention before, and it seems this one is a good one to start out at. It was very grown-up, very nice and artsy and people tended not to have costumes or anything. Just a lot of hipsters hanging around with tables covered in absolutely breathtaking art. I picked up a copy of Two-Fisted Science, which Iâd seen on BoingBoing, and blabbed at the author for a while.
Xaviar Xerexes has the view from the webcomics crown. Turns out Rich Stevens was there!
SPX is my hometown convention. And I like it because it’s relatively small and has a kind of indie vibe to it. There’s none of the trappings of a typical comic book convention. No costumes, no spandex, hell there’s not really even much manga when you get down to it. It’s still mostly “art comics” and mini-comics, but the webcomics crowd has made consistently bigger in-roads into it (I’ve been going since 2003).
Jog – The Blog had his FIRST comics convention.
My SPX, in other words, was full of shopping and stalking the aisles. Commerce! Show debuts! I met an awful lot of fine creators, but I hated taking up much of their table time; heaven knows by the afternoon thereâs a swarm of people waiting to trudge through the byways between tables, and one thousand distractions to attend to. Iâd never been to a comics show in my life, so Iâd not known any SPX other than what was presented to me there: a pretty swank hotel, a table to pay at in the hall outside, and big ballroom with everyone selling everything inside, and a bunch of other rooms to have educational and informative events in, though all of those were down the hall, around the bend, and down an escalator. There were no signs to direct you to the panels or whatnot, though it wasnât hard to find someone to ask direction of.
Cliff Face Comics:
Aside from that, the show was very enjoyable. We were in a strange, low-traffic aisle, but sales weren’t too bad and we made some great trades. The biggest problem the lack of passerbyes caused was all the eye contact we made with the guys from Twomorrows. So much eye contact that, in another culture, we might be considered married. Don’t get me wrong, they are funny, attractive men. But that was a LOT of staring we did.
oh_mania:
NEW:
A brief negative view:
ok so I just got back from SPX which I thought kind of really sucked, but the highlight being:
Thanks for the link. As with Jog, you were standing next to me at some point during the day, and I meant to say hi, but you were in the midst of a discussion with the Bodega folks and I didn’t want to intrude. Perhaps next time.
Thanks for the links, Heidi! I think you accidentally picked up the wrong link for the Jim O piece, though — it can be found here.