As we’ve mentioned here several times, there have been no more important graphic novels published in this century than PERSEPOLIS by Marjane Satrapi and FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel. Both found large audiences well beyond the traditional ones for comics, and both have become oft-imitated — but never duplicated — by book publishers trying to cash in on the “graphic novel” trend. (The number of graphic autobiographies exploring ethnic roots alone is staggering.)

2012 will see the debut of Bechdel’s followup — ARE YOU MY MOTHER. As FUN HOME dealt with Bechdel’s difficult relationship with her closeted father, ARE YOU MY MOTHER is about, well, her mom. Here’s the blurb:

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel’s childhood . . . and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter goodnight, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It’s a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers

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While this book has received scant attention in the online comics world, while we were working on another project we noticed that it has a 100,000 print run planned by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. That’s a pretty daring number for a sophomore literary writer, and one of the biggest ever for a GN. Dark Horse famously had a 100,000 print run for their Janet Evanovich project — a number that didn’t turn out so well and resulted in tons of returns. Dav Pilkey’s OOK ‘N’ GLUK had a print run of 1 million, however, and that did just fine. We’re sure that Torsten will be along in the comments presently to supply any examples we have forgotten.

Whatever happens, it’s an impressive number for a graphic novel and shows a lot of faith in Bechdel’s ability and readership. Of course, given her evocative writing style and clean, keenly-observed cartoons, it’s a faith that should be merited.

Time is rolling out its top 10 lists and two graphic books made the ‘Top 10 Fiction Books list: THE DEATH RAY by Daniel Clowes and HARK! A VAGRANT by Kate Beaton, both published by Drawn & Quarterly. (To see the individual listings you’ll need to go through the annoying, hit-making slideshow format.) Confirming the nerd-friendly tenor of the list, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS by George R. R. Martin topped the list, although more traditional literary tomes were at other spots.

Comics-mole Lev Grossman penned the entries for the books. It was only a few years ago that Alison Bechdel’s FUN HOME topped the Time list, and announced that graphic novels were just books with ideas and themes, too.

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Well, the Beatrix gushed over their Spring 2012 titles, so I guess I’d better review the Fall titles from Fantagraphics.

First, let me say this won’t feature everything.  I appreciate all the cool stuff they publish, but a lot of it just doesn’t interest me.  You probably have different tastes, so feel free to comment down below.  Here’s the FBI page for 2011 releases, so go take a look.  Fanta also has a bargain bin, so you’ll probably find something in your price range!  They also have special offers for new titles, so please take a look!  (If you’re going to ship your book bucks to Washington, it’s better to send them to Fantagraphics than Amazon!)  Click on the titles below to go to the official pages on the FBI website!

So, here’s what I find interesting.

For (what is hoped) the final time here on Coming Attractions:

Action! Mystery! Thrills!: Great Comic Book Covers 1936-45

by Greg Sadowski (Editor)

The Cabbie: Book One

by Marti , Art Spiegelman (Introduction)

500 Portraits

by Tony Millionaire

The Man Who Grew His Beard

by Olivier Schrauwen

Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010

by Michael Kupperman

The Armed Garden and Other Stories

by David B.

Mome Spring 2011 [sic]

by Eric Reynolds (Editor)

Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot

by Jacques Tardi (Illustrator) , Jean-Patrick Manchette

The Hidden

by Richard Sala

Even More Old Jewish Comedians

by Drew Friedman , Jeffrey Ross (Introduction)

The Crumb Compendium

by Carl Richter

Is That All There Is?

by Joost Swarte , Chris Ware (Introduction)

Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics

by Jack Kirby , Joe Simon , Michel Gagne (Editor)

Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann’s Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle

by Johnny Gruelle , Rick Marschall (Editor) , Tony Millionaire (Introduction)

The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD Inspired Satirical Comics

by John Benson , Jay Lynch (Introduction)

Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1946

by Ernie Bushmiller , Daniel Clowes (Introduction)

The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat

by R. Crumb

Glitz-2-Go

by Diane Noomin

Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives

by Blake Bell (Editor) , Bill Everett (Illustrator)

Bill Griffith: Lost and Found: Comics 1969-2003

by Bill Griffith

Flannery O’Connor: The Cartoons

by Flannery O’Connor , Kelly Gerald (Editor) , Barry Moser (Foreword by)

It’s kinda comics for the people involved. TRIP CITY is a new art salon/web site that features many Brooklyn-based creative peeps including cartoonists. PR below.

TRIP CITY is a Brooklyn-filtered literary arts salon launching November 1st, 2011 at WelcomeToTripCity.com. The multimedia website features free content curated by a host of creative heavyweights. “TRIP CITY reinvents the online arts collective with a virtual playground for a diverse set of accomplished and highly individualistic creators,” says Emmy Award winning cartoonist and TRIP CITY founder, Dean Haspiel, “spanning every borough of artistic endeavor from the visual arts to literature, music, video and beyond.”

TRIP CITY is the exclusive home of united individuals exploring new media to achieve a modern salon. Brooklyners Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, Bored to Death), Seth Kushner (The Brooklynites, CulturePOP Photocomix), Chris Miskiewicz (Everywhere), and Jeffrey Burandt aka Jef UK (Americans UK), will release exclusive content at TRIP CITY, combining avenues of expression such as podcasts and profiles, including upcoming portraits and exclusive interviews with Jonathan Ames, Marc Maron, Ben Katchor, Michael Moore, Henry Rollins, Dan Goldman, and Moby. Additionally, a fellowship of regular contributors will provide their original voices to TRIP CITY, including, Joe Infurnari (MUSH! Sled Dogs with Issues, Marathon), Nick Bertozzi (The Salon, Lewis & Clark), Jennifer Hayden (Underwire), Nick Abadzis (Laika), Jen Ferguson (Art in Chaos), Ron Scalzo (Bald Freak Music), Amy Finkel (Furever), Kevin Colden [Fishtown], and The Perv Whisperer (The Perv Whisperer).

TRIP CITY is a digital experience with future plans to take some of the content and perform it live on the road. “Working with so many Brooklyn locals, we have this great sense of community right out of the gate,” says Jef UK. “Then, when we take the next step and turn TRIP CITY into a live event—which is in the works—our tribe is already gathered, so to speak.”

The TRIP CITY launch will feature Dean Haspiel’s “Bring Me The Heart Of Billy Dogma,” Seth Kushner’s CulturePOP Photocomix profile of Bored To Death’s Jonathan Ames, Chris Miskiewicz & Kate McElroy’s “Adrift,” Jef Uk’s “The Better Head,” Joe Infurnari’s “Memoirs of the Kid Immortal,” Nick Bertozzi’s “Lad Zeppelin,” Jennifer Hayden’s “S’Crapbook,” Nick Abadzis’ “Suburban Stories,” Jen Ferguson’s “Metrollpolis,” Kevin Colden’s “Baby With A Mohawk,” Ron Scalzo’s “A Dozen Movies That Scared The Shit Out Of Me, Revisited” featuring PSYCHO with an illustration by Rick Parker, and the inaugural TRIP CITY Podcast highlighting a round table interview with the TRIP CITY founders, Chris Miskiewicz’ New York Comicon 2011 report, Ron Scalzo’s “Ronnie’s Story,” graphic novelist, Dan Goldman’s exclusive interview with filmmaker, Michael Moore, and the Americans UK’s single “You Can’t Kill The Americans UK.”

Ayo:

There’s not much to grab onto with Clowes’ new work. Just upper middle class white male alienation. His tone is smug but he offers very precious few treats for the cartoon enthusiast who wanders into his worlds yet doesn’t share his worldview.

On the other hand, I disagree with everything Miller’s work is about. But there is so much on the page to work with! There is so much to taste and savor and bathe in, graphically.

Collins:

In your case, with the classism, it feels like something you’re bringing to the table rather than something Clowes is bringing to the table, and it’s clouding your view of the work. For example, you say the lead in Mr. Wonderful is “winning all day long,” but an under/unemployed lonely divorced man in his 40s whose sole relationship in recent years has been with a drug addict who robbed him can’t be said to be winning on any level other than the basics of not being homeless or in prison. A head up on many, to be sure! But that’s a hell of a misery bar you’re gonna require characters to clear if being upset about a life any less awful than that is unacceptable to you.

And some more on Twitter. Note: it’s not really a fight but a discussion.

Re: Clowes. I just re-read THE DEATH RAY and it’s an amazing as always. I enjoyed it — and ICE HAVEN — more than either MISTER WONDERFUL or WILSON, however, although I liked them both. I am not ready to gainsay the godliness of Clowes, but perhaps, as with many artists, when he turns to material which hits very close to home (he admits much of Wilson is based on his own reactions), i.e. middle-aged white man self-esteem issues, his work becomes a teeny bit less engaging.

That said, I would not want Dan Clowes to draw like Frank Miller. No, sir.

While we’re sitting overlooking the greenery of the last week of summer there’s already a tinge of fall in the air up here in Maine, and it will soon be time to stowaway the flip flops and dust off the leather jacket.

And not to boast, but if you live in New York City, call is going to be freaking awesome. Here’s an event list for their cartoonists courtesy of Drawn and Quarterly

Friday September 16th, 7 PM: Anders Nilsen for Big Questions & Marc Bell for Pure Pajamas Launch

Thursday September 22nd 7 PM: Adrian Tomine launches Optic Nerve #12

and we and Desert Island are then teaming up with Housing Works to host the following Manhattan events:

Tuesday September 27th, 7 PM: Kate Beaton launches Hark! A Vagrant

Tuesday, October 18th 7PM: Daniel Clowes (The Death-Ray) and Seth (GNBCC) in conversation!

If you are not familiar with Housing Works, they are a NYC charity that benefits homeless people with HIV, and they operate a fantastic bookstore cafe at 126 Crosby St which will be the site of the events for Kate Beaton, Daniel Clowes and Seth!

And that’s not it, we have other NYC events!

Thursday September 15th 192 Books Anders Nilsen launches Big Questions

Sunday, September 18th Brooklyn Book Festival D+Q with Adrian Tomine, Kate Beaton, Anders Nilsen & Marc Bell

Thursday, Sept 30th – Sunday October 2nd D+Q at the NY Art Book Fair at PS 1. Artist list to come.

Saturday, December 3rd Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival. Artist list to come.

The nominees for the 2011 Ignatz awards have just been announced. The nominees represent the best of indie comics and were selected by a five-person panel consisting of Rina Ayuyang, Mike Dawson, Kris Dresen, Theo Ellsworth, and John Porcellino. Winners will be selected by attendees of the Small Press Expo and presented at the gala Ignatz Awards ceremony held on Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 9:00 PM with host Dustin Harbin.

Multiple nominees include Edie Fake, Michael DeForge, Sammy Harkham and Carol Tyler.

Outstanding Artist
Michael DeForge, Lose #3 (Koyama Press)
Edie Fake, Gaylord Phoenix (Secret Acres)
Renee French, H-Day (Picturebox)
Joseph Lambert, I Will Bite You (Secret Acres)
Carol Tyler, You’ll Never Know, Vol 2: Collateral Damage (Fantagraphics)

Outstanding Anthology or Collection
Black Eye, edited by Ryan Standfest (Rotland Press)
Gay Genius, edited by Annie Murphy (Sparkplug)
I Will Bite You, Joseph Lambert (Secret Acres)
Make Me a Woman, Vanessa Davis (Drawn & Quarterly)
Three #1, edited by Robert Kirby (Rob Kirby Comics)

Outstanding Graphic Novel
Gaylord Phoenix, Edie Fake (Secret Acres)
The Heavy Hand, Chris Cilla (Sparkplug)
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, Barry Deutsch (Amulet Books)
Special Exits, Joyce Farmer (Fantagraphics)
You’ll Never Know, Vol 2: Collateral Damage, Carol Tyler (Fantagraphics)

Outstanding Story
“Blood of the Virgin,” Crickets #3, Sammy Harkham (self-published)
“Browntown,” Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 3, Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
“LINT,” Acme Novelty Library #20, Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly)
“The most gripping mind-exploding triumphantly electric of our time,” Papercutter #15, Jonas Madden-Conner (Tugboat Press)
“Weekends Abroad,” Three #1, Eric Orner (Rob Kirby Comics)

Promising New Talent
Darryl Ayo Brathwaite, House of Twelve Monthly #3 (Comixology)
Tony Breed, Finn and Charlie are Hitched (www.hitchedcomic.com)
Jesse Jacobs, Even the Giants (AdHouse)
Jon McNaught, Birchfield Close (Nobrow)
Jesse Moynihan, Forming (Nobrow)

Outstanding Series
Crickets, Sammy Harkham
Dungeon Quest, Joe Daly (Fantagraphics)
Everything Dies, Box Brown (self-published)
Lose, Michael DeForge (Koyama Books)
Reich, Elijah Brubaker (Sparkplug Comic Books)

Outstanding Comic
Crickets #3, Sammy Harkham (self-published)
Danger Country #1, Levon Jihanian (self-published)
Habitat #2, Dunja Jankovic (Sparkplug Comic Books)
Lose #3, Michael DeForge (Koyama Press)
The Magic Hedge, Marian Runk (self-published)

Outstanding Mini-Comic
Ben Died of a Train, Box Brown (self-published)
Danger Country #1, Levon Jihanian (self-published)
Gaylord Phoenix #5, Edie Fake (self-published)
Morning Song, Laura Terry (self-published)
Trans-Utopia, Tom Kaczynski (Uncivilized Books)

Outstanding Online Comic
Alphabet Horror, Nate Marsh: www.alphabethorror.com
A Cartoonist’s Diary, Pascal Girard: www.tcj.com/author/pascal-girard/
Finn and Charlie are Hitched,Tony Breed: www.hitchedcomic.com
Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton: www.harkavagrant.com
Lucky, Gabrielle Bell: www.gabriellebell.com

The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, is pleased to announce nominees for the fifteenth annual presentation of the Ignatz Awards, a celebration of outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning.

The Ignatz, named after George Herriman’s brick-wielding mouse from his long running comic strip Krazy Kat, recognizes exceptional work that challenges popular notions of what comics can achieve, both as an art form and as a means of personal expression. The Ignatz Awards are a festival prize, the first of such in the United States comic book industry.

The nominees for the ballot were determined by a panel of five of the best of today’s comic artists, Rina Ayuyang, Mike Dawson, Kris Dresen, Theo Ellsworth, and John Porcellino, with the votes cast for the awards by the attendees during SPX. The Ignatz Awards will be presented at the gala Ignatz Awards ceremony held on Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 9:00 PM.

Additional information on the nominees and previews (as available) can be found at http://www.spxpo.com/ignatz-awards.

SPX will be held Saturday, September 10 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, September 11, noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center  in Bethesda, Maryland. Admission is $10 for a single day and $15 for both days.

Every day in July the great Gabrielle Bell a href=”http://gabriellebell.com/2011/08/01/31/”> posted a comic. . Out own July was a bit too chaotic for regular reading but it’s all up now — but only until August 15th. We caught up with our own reading, and it’s a fascinating trip into a world of nosy supers, computer cables, post office frustration, lost keys, self doubt and survival.

IF we could draw and do a diary comic it would just be endless panels of a woman sitting at a computer. Gabrielle’s is much better — check it out while you can.

I wouldn't cross her, would you?

At San Diego Comic-Con it was announced that Anne Rice’s classic vampire novel, Interview With a Vampire, is being adapted into graphic novel format by webcomic creator Ashley Marie Witter for Yen Press, due out in 2012. Also announced was the manga adaptation of Scott Westerfield’s popular young adult science fiction series Uglies, by Tokyo-based artist Shawn Cumming, for an undisclosed publisher. The series is about a society that tries to force conformity and beauty upon its subjects.

Meanwhile, Ms. Tree, a literary character who began as a comic book character, returns to print. Author and comics creator Max Allan Collins announced at the First Comics revival panel that the entire run of the hardboiled graphic novel series will be collected and returned to print. Although Collins has published several short stories and a novel about the character in the years since, the Ms. Tree comics have been out of print since 1993.

Kate Fitzsimons is the producer of PW Comics World’s new podcast More To Come, starring The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald. You can subscribe to it on iTunes here. She will be covering San Diego Comic-Con all week for The Beat – if you have a tip, twitter her at geekiferouskate.

It’s been a year since Harvey Pekar passed away at the age of 70, but thanks to the amount of work he had in the pipeline, not only has his legacy lived on, but it’s still growing. And friends are remembering. At Smith Magazine, there’s a comprehensive roundup of remembrances with the motion comic/reading below, read by Jeff Newelt, drawn by Sean Pryor, and shot/edited by Shahriar Shadab.

At Juxtapoz, there’s an interview from July 2010 with vintage Harvey:

Yeah! They’re all good. Some of them are more than good. I have been able to write stories. I was, and still am, publishing graphic novels. And when you do a graphic novel there needs to be four per year to get by. I can’t live on my pension and social security, can’t make it that way, so I have to work.

I would hear from people that this stuff was really good. I would hear indirectly that they got some real good emails or something like that. Maybe people were lying to me, but it seemed like it was overwhelmingly a good response. The thing is, when I put out these four books, my best work I always think is autobiographical. But there is only so much autobiographical stuff I can do. I can’t always write four autobiographical graphic novels a year. I guess that would flood the market; but I still want to do them, so this project is an outlet.

Seth Kushner’s Culture-Pop photo-comic at ACT-I-VATE is also a tribute to Pekar;

The 25-page piece, the 25th CulturePOP profile, features photos of the autobio comix pioneer, taken by Kushner just a few months prior to his untimely death, fused with quotes by an interview conducted by Christopher Irving the day of the shoot, to make a “fumetti” / photocomix equivalent to an American Splendor comic.   

In addition to the words of Pekar himself, the piece includes photos of, quotes from, and illustrations by some of Pekar’s collaborators; Josh Neufeld (artist, American Splendor), Dean Haspiel, (artist, The Quitter + American Splendor), Jeff Newelt (editor, Pekar Project & upcoming Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland), Ted Hope (American Splendor film producer), Joseph Remnant (artist, Harvey Pekar’s CLEVELAND) Shari Springer-Berman & Robert Pulcini (directors, American Splendor film) and Michael Taylor (script supervisor). Plus, Joyce Brabner, Harvey’s widow and collaborator talks about her plan to have a monument erected to Harvey in Cleveland. 

As mentioned before, Pekar left several projects behind: Huntington, West Virginia “On The Fly,” illustrated by Summer McClinton came out earlier this year. Coming up are YIDDISHKEIT edited by Pekar and Paul Buhle; Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me, illustrated by virtuoso vunderkind JT Waldman; Harvey Pekar’s CLEVELAND, illustrated by Joseph Remnant, and on the Pekar Project, the last two parts of Pekar & Rushkoff: How Life Got Incorporated, illustrated by Sean Pryor. Finally, Pekar’s widow, Joyce Brabner, is working on several graphic novel projects of her own.

We hadn’t seen this formally announced anywhere but we might have missed it: ICAF, the annual meet-up for international comics scholars, will be hosted at CCS this year. The conference will be held September 29-October 1, and spotlight the American Bande Dessineé Society.

ICAF publishes papers on comics scholarship, promotes international comics study, and presents the annual John Lent Scholarship. It was formerlly held in conjunction with SPX, but has moved around a bit since then. CCS seems like a perfect match.

Swedish SPX 11 Poster (Art by Ulli Lust)

In spite of the dramatic international intrigue Sparkplug Comic Books and its affiliates faced at the Canadian border on the way to TCAF last weekend, we managed to simultaneously invade a whole other continent at Stockholm Sweden’s 11^th Annual SPX Festival. Sparkplug was honored to be invited to the festival for the 3^rd year in a row along with many other hella distinguished international guests.

Swedish SPX is free to the public and held in the center of Stockholm in the same building as a – wait for it – comics library with a well rounded, up to date collection called the Kulterhuset. The Kulterhuset is exactly what it translates to from Swedish to English: a “Culture House” that is open to the public seven days a week. In addition to its comics library, it also houses five floors of screening rooms, restaurants and theaters .The festival took place on Saturday, May 7 through Sunday, May 8, with several satellite and on location events held on the Wednesday and Thursday before the show. You know, just how we do in America, except classier and with a buttload of government funding.

The Kulterhuset - Stockholm, Sweden (Photo: MK Reed)

Myself and Sparkplug published and distributed artists, MK Reed, Trevor Alixopulos and Austin English were at a table next to Swedish publisher and festival co-organizer, Galago. Close by were fellow US publishers Top Shelf and Fantagraphics and other North American festival guests, cartoonists Hope Larson, Dash Shaw, Vanessa Davis, Gabrielle Bell and Bryan Lee O’Malley. So what follows is a somewhat subjective report as I was either behind the Sparkplug table or on a panel for most of the show and didn’t get a chance to see everything I would’ve liked to.

Johannes Klennell and Mats Jonnson behind the Galago table (Photo: MK Reed)

Fantagraphics, Sparkplug Comic Books, and Domino Books tables (Photo: MK Reed)

Gabrielle Bell sizes up convention goers to sketch (Photo: MK Reed)

Kolbeinn Karlson, Vanessa Davis and Me (Photo: MK Reed)

But a lot of what I saw and did was good and worthy of sharing. Like, the first international edition of Drink and Draw Like a Lady attended by one of the DDLL co-founders herself, Hope Larson.

Hope Larson at the 1st International Drink and Draw Like a Lady (Photo: MK Reed)

The Drink and Draw was really relaxed and pleasant, with a lot of Stockholm ladies saying they didn’t know anyone there when they first arrived but left with the phone numbers of other girl cartoonists in the spirit of networking the event intends. Swedish organizer, Berit Verkland said they’ll definitely do it again.

I also enjoyed meeting Ulli Lust, an international guest of the festival from Berlin, Germany, and her husband, cartoonist Kai Pfieffer. Everyone at the show was buzzing about her book, Today is the last day of the rest of your life. Lust describes the 400+ page graphic novel as a “travel into the heart of darkness.” The site electrocomics.com (where you can download a full pdf English translation of the book) says it’s the story of how

Ulli, an aspiring punk girl with a catholic middle-class upbringing, meets Edi, a nymphomanic runaway her age. They dream of spending winter in Italy and try to make some money in a brothel (with only little success).

One look through the nicely packaged German edition and I was sold. As were several other festival guests, like Cuno Affolter, curator of Europe’s second largest comics collection in Switzerland, who couldn’t stop talking about how I need to let the rubes of the US of A know about this book over dinner on Saturday. Apparently, no less than Mr. Scott McCloud, is in agreement with the esteemed Mr. Affolter so take note and get on it US publishers.

Vanessa Davis, Trevor Alixopulos, and Ulli Lust at SPX (Photo: MK Reed)

I also liked Emelie Ostrergen’s new minicomic, The Story of a Girl from Swedish publisher, Optimal Press and Scandanavian US Expatriate (and Sparkplug artist) Juliacks’ new self-published venture, Invisible Forces, which features a visually pleasing and inventive use of Finish subtitles with English text (or vice versa, depending on which language you can or would prefer to read).

Emelie Ostregen's The Story of a Girl

One of the things I did get out to see was the table promoting Swedish Cartoonists Simon Gardenfors and Jonas Pike Dahlstrom’s animation project, Paco the Judo Popcorn.

Paco the Judo Popcorn and one of his creators, Simon G. (Photo: MK Reed)

The two have about a week  left on a Kickstarter campaign to fund the making of Paco, so go help out a couple of nice Swedish country boys if you’re able to (or at least watch the Paco trailer, which is pretty cute).

Another thing I didn’t get a chance to read was Austin English’s The Disgusting Room which debuted and sold out at the show but I’m looking forward to getting one (and hopefully I will, unless everything Sparkplug’s transporting via mail, ground shipping or air is on some Canadian child pornographer terrorist watchlist now). Some things I would’ve loved to have read but couldn’t because they weren’t translated into English included Swedish artist Sara Hansson’s new book by Galago (which sold out) and Finish artist Mari Ahokoivu’s new minicomics. I did however have the pleasure of being on a panel with both Hannson and Ahokoivu, as well as my fellow American guest, cartoonist Hope Larson, German editor and publicist Jutta Harms, and Carmela Chergui of the legendary French publisher L’Association on Thursday afternoon. The panel was moderated by Swedish cartoonist and radio journalist, Sofia Olsson and it concerned the current global state of women’s representation in comics publishing. Hope and I seemed to be in agreement that the US comics business environment sucks so much right now that cartoonists seem far more preoccupied with trying to get anything published, hopefully for actual money, than they are with making sure that both genders are represented equally by comics publishers. But we also both seemed to agree that US publishers would be business savvy to produce more work that’ll be capable of luring in female readers, thereby expanding the overall base of comics readers.

The Global State of Women in Comics Panel (Photo: MK Reed)

The other ladies on the panel had something to say as well, with Harms, whose been in the European comics business for over 20 years, asserting that women’s readership and interest in female creators has been steadily growing during her tenure. Hannson stated that she thinks female comics artists should be proud to be female authors whose work is of interest to female readers while Chergui said that L’Association prefers to promote authors with the emphasis on their art and stories without putting too much focus on either their gender or age.

Other panels included a reportedly well attended one featuring Austin English in conversation with Dash Shaw and a panel moderated by Galago’s Berit Viklund that purportedly asked the panelists how they field questions from the media and readers trying to understand their work in the context of their feminity. That panel featured Swedish artist, Sara Graner, of the Dotterbollaget Feminist Comics Collective, Gabrielle Bell and Vanessa Davis. Eric Reynolds of Fantragraphics also joined Johannes Klennell of Galago and others for a discussion moderated by Finish journalist and editor Ville Hanninen entitled “Is Humor Borderless?” to discuss which foreign titles do well in which foreign markets, which titles get lost in translation and why. Hanninen, himself, is the editor of another collection I would’ve liked to have seen more of, The Finish Comics Annual – although what I saw of it looked quite good – and it’s en anglaise at that.

Frederick Stromberg (of The Swedish Comics Association) holds up a copy of the 2011 Finish Comics Annual

I was on a Spotlight on Brian Lee O’Malley panel on Sunday that featured a free screening of Scott Pilgrim, along with a discussion moderated by prominent Swedish film critic Roger Wilson. Galago’s Mats Jonnson, Top Shelf’s Chris Staros, O’Malley, and myself talked about what makes a good comics film adaptation and whether the current “comics movie bubble” is stopping anytime soon (although it’s currently showing few signs of doing so).

But while that was fun, it wasn’t half as much fun as seeing all the teenage (or very close to teenage) Scott Pilgrim fans who were absolutely gaga to get the chance to talk to a very nice and patient O’Malley about how meaningful the series has been to them. It was kind of heartwarming to see that there’s something universal that kids can relate to in the Scott Pilgrim story that transcends international borders.

Another fun, international border transcending occurrence that I’m sure everyone in attendance will agree was the utmost highlight of the con, was the Justin Bieber Flash Mob that took place right outside the Kulterhuset on Saturday afternoon!

Bieber fever (Check out that naughty sign...) Photo: MK Reed

More Beiber Fever (Photo: MK Reed)

Now that's a flash mob (Photo: MK Reed)

Imagine yourself inside a small, pleasant indie comics convention, lazily browsing tables of books as hundreds of tween girls chant outside, “JUSTIN BIEBER! JUSTIN BIEBER! JUSTIN BIEBER!” nonstop for, I dunno, at least two hours. You can’t, can you? I only can because I lived it. Apparently, Bieber wasn’t able to make it to Sweden on his last world tour and the tween ladies of Sweden felt they had to take to the center square of Stockholm to protest the injustice of it all. In the immortal words of South Park creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone, I blame Canada. What is wrong with them? They won’t let the Biebs (a Canadian grown tweenybopper cyborg) out of the country to grace Sweden with his presence and they won’t let potentially, although ultimately indeterminately obscene comics into their own country.  Why must they get in the way of art and commerce so?

Also fun was the Galago Release Party on Saturday night, which featured a band singing historic Swedish Union songs and pinatas adorned with the faces of some of the country’s current very right leaning leaders to protest recent government decisions, like eliminating the Swedish government’s Artist Retirement Fund.  Yes. Artists had a retirement fund there. HAD. Let’s hope that no more of the arts funding that’s responsible for festivals like Swedish SPX and much of the recent prolific output from Scandanavian cartoonists is eliminated.

Eric Reynolds and Dash Shaw, totally ready to rock Stockholm (Photo: MK Reed)

Sweden's George Bush about to get bashed by an angry artist

The last fun thing I can speak of was our foray into the touristy Olde Town area of Stockholm on Sunday night to go to a medieval bar. The picture below says it all.

Medieval Times (Left to Right): Me, Simon G., Trevor Alixopulos, Gabrielle Bell, Vanessa Davis, Dash Shaw and MK Reed (Photo: Eric Reynolds)

If you want to see more about Swedish SPX, Gabrielle Bell hinted she might do a comic about her adventures in Sweden for her Lucky blog. She may not, so don’t hold me to it, but you should check back because, come on now, everything she does is good. And tak (that’s thanks in Swedish) for reading.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival: Pencil it In from Toronto Comic Arts Festival on Vimeo.

It’s pretty obvious that next week’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival is going to be he most awesome show of the year. And just to back that up. here’s an awesome preview video featuring Chester Brown, Michael Comeau, Steve Charles Manale, Vicki Nerino, Michael Cho, Michael DeForge, Seth, Fiona Smyth + Britt Wilson.

We’d watch the video ourselves but we’re crying too hard over the fact that we can’t go. =( We will however feature all the previews, reviews, and news that we can.

The MoCCA Festival at the Lexington Armory a few days ago was a fun weekend — the numerous photo galleries filled with smiling faces of dedicated artists and publishers show that. Look at Peggy Burns’ engaging set or Dan Nadel’s. Fun is fine, of course, but that’s not entirely why people go to indie shows like MoCCA, SPX, and TCAF. I’d argue that the social aspect of hanging out with fellow cartoonists is a major motivation for attending, but that’s not why D&Q or PictureBox or Fantagraphics sets up. The “indie” circuit — these shows and APE, Stumptown, Fluke and so on — has developed into a vital engine for for promoting authors and selling books.

But that’s not the goal of MoCCA Fest. As pointed out several times, its primary purpose is as a fundraiser for the MoCCA museum as an institution. And while these two goals aren’t mutually exclusive, they aren’t a dovetail joint, either.

One of the areas where this is most true is the cost of setting up and attending. It cost $12 for one day $20 for the weekend to get into MoCCA — a not insignificant sum. Table prices went for anywhere between $300 — the early bird, student discount — and $500 for a latecomer — making this a very expensive show — a full table in Artist Alley at NYCC at the Javits Center is $500, a half $300. I’ve posted the economics of tabling many times before — M.K. Reed breaks it down here–but just run the numbers. While crowd numbers for MoCCA 2011 haven’t been announced — attendance was 4000 in 2009– just doing the math for that means that making money selling 500 copies of a $1 mini comic is pretty unlikely. So people had to band together to afford a table. And get a student discount. The result was many SVA, SCAD or CCS students tabling together. And that’s a hard environment to stand out in.

This year’s MoCCA was dominated by what I refer to as “little pieces of paper.” You had two or three emerging cartoonists sitting together at one table, all with various stacks of mini comics and flyers on it. A lot of clutter — some of it good clutter but not really eye-catching or impressive.

I quizzed my intern Maggie Siegel-Berele on her MoCCA experience, and she said she had actually made back her table costs selling her $5 mini NOVICE — that was after going with the student discount/three people sharing model. She noted that her tablemates hadn’t done as well, but she attributed this to the fact that she had stayed at her table almost the whole show, and really worked on selling. “If you’re at a panel on the New Yorker cartoons, you aren’t selling you book,” she told me.

Which is a little rough, because at a show like MoCCCA, seeing a great panel is part of the appeal. But bidness is bidness.

I’ve been doing a bit of fretting and wondering of late over just what is going to happen to all the cartoonists graduating from all the cartooning schools. So many new faces from SCAD and MCAD and RISDe and CCS and SVA and other places without letters for names. It’s a boom time at cartoon schools when the greater reality is that even established cartoonists are trying to figure out how to stay busy and make a living. Tim Kreider and Julia Wertz — neither an underachiever in the talent category — have both written about the daunting horizon from an ESTABLISHED creator’s viewpoint. Kreider’s was called simply “What is to be done?” Wertz wrote:

I should preface this comic by noting that last January I was dropped by my publisher. Here’s how/why: A lot of cartoonists, myself included, were picked up by big publishing houses a few years ago when they were told comics were the hot new thing. Then when the books started coming out, they didn’t sell to their standards, the sales numbers of which are much higher than traditional comics publishers. Bottom line, people just don’t buy comics in the same amount they buy regular books, which makes complete sense since many olds still think all comics are Archie and Garfield and all the youngs do everything on the internet. I’m currently in negotiation with comics publishers, but my days of fancy New York publishing are most likely gone. I’m grateful I had the opportunity but am also really excited to return to my more appropriate, low-brow roots.

For young cartoonists just out of school, establishing a career in a giant sea of webcomics, Facebook and tweets is hard, especially when the general level of talent is as high as it is now. I surveyed a few of the newer cartoonists on what their goals for heir careers were and it was simply “To make money making comics” — you can’t get much more vague or unfocused than that.

I would say, from walking around and looking at things, that the general method now is putting out your mini-comic and putting it on a table. Which is kind of a brutal level of competition.

And there was a lot of it. I spoke to a few people who said that they thought the general level of craft has gone down a little — not as many hand silk-screened slipcased volumes and so on. It’s not only, as Wertz wrote, that the brief period where major book publishers were walking around signing up kids to book deals are GONE GONE GONE — it’s that the kids also flamed out. I’ve heard several horror stories about new cartoonists who got a deal and then just…weren’t ready for the level of focus and discipline it takes to sit in a room for a year and draw a goddam book. Ouch.

One way that new cartoonists traditionally get to the next level is to appear in anthologies — a curated place gives context and implied approval. And indeed, it seems that every generation of comics has had its signature anthology to forge a new movement– from RAW to WEIRDO to NON to KRAMERS ERGOT to MOME. The news that MOME is ending with issue 22 came at exactly the same time to mark a little end note for a certain period of comics.

Not that any of these were generally open to kids right out of school, but they were certainly where reputations were made. However modest Eric Reynolds was in talking about the end of MOME, it was a place where creators like Tim Hensley, Gabrielle Bell and Dash Shaw flexed their pen nibs with confidence and security.

Where will the next MOME be? I have a feeling that it isn’t going to be print at all…there are several iPad comics magazines that are starting up now, and while I can’t vouch for any of them, the format itself seems ripe for creating something different and possibly amazing.

Before we leave MoCCA 2011 in the rearview mirror, I wanted to note that it was nice getting to meet Matthias Wivel at the Comics Journal party. Matthias is one of the most exacting comics critics out there, and I’m happy to see he’s joined the NY comics scene for a bit. In his MoCCA post he shared the sense of no real breakouts:

All good times, but it really overshadowed what seemed to me a somewhat unremarkable festival. The programming was largely unremarkable, lacking in both marquee names or particularly worthwhile themes, so it came down to the offerings in the main hall. I like the democratic aspect of MoCCA, with tables being sufficiently cheap that a lot of DIY and underground stuff is on display, but at the same time I saw very little remarkable work outside the rosters of the show’s few “big” publishers. The impression it left of the American grass roots scene was one of slight stagnation after many years of redoubtable creative growth.

Darryl Ayo refutes this a bit in the comments, and maybe we are a bit jaded — jeez, I came to MoCCA and all I got was these new books by Jim Woodring, Chester Brown, Brecht Evens, Jason, and Joe Lambert? As I and others fret about the Next Thing, I don’t want to lose sight of the Thing Right Here being pretty darned cool.

I’ll leave the last word to Secret Acres because they are always good at it:

Organizationally, there was nothing wrong with the show, either, that we heard, anyway. MoCCA is very good at being MoCCA, but it’s not the MoCCA it was. Maybe it’s the location, or the rising costs of admission and table fees, but this is a show for fans. Sean Ford, who sat next to us selling Only Skin 7, had the thought that MoCCA has competition these days. It is no longer the one and only New York show and that may be changing things as well. In any case, it’s the best MoCCA it can be and it’s time for folks to evaluate the show in its current shape. MoCCA is dead. Long live MoCCA.

Okay, now on to the Stumptown analysis!

For those of you who couldn’t get over to last week’s Strandicon and Comics Journal panel with Gary Groth, Dan Nadel, Tim Hodler, and Kim Deitch, the Strand has YouTubed the whole thing!:

And BONUS Strandicon interviews with Ben Katchor, Nadja Spiegelman, Trade Loeffler, Dash Shaw, Brecht Evens, Joe Ollmann, R. Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, and Pascal Girard.