Although now known as part of the San Diego Comic-Con’s portfolio of events, APE, the alternative Press Expo, as the brainchild of SLG president Dan Vado, and was held in San Jose for its first few years. Although Vado’s involvement with APE ended a while ago, he’s back at it with the San Jose Comics Festival, a series of one day events that he hopes will become part of a wider cultural festival. The first one will be held January 17th, 2010 with guests Landry Walker, Rich Koslowski and Jamaica Dyer. Details below:
SLG Publishing announced the founding of a new series of comics festivals focused on indy and small press comics and zines. The San Jose Comics Festival will be a series of single day events held throughout the year, but SLG President Dan Vado hoped that the event would grow into a larger, city-wide festival that would take place in the various galleries and public buildings in downtown San Jose. The aim is to create a comics related event that is different from that standard convention with an aim to becoming one of the biggest free events of its kind in the United States.
“We did a trial run of a single event in our warehouse earlier this year and we hit our projections in regards to attendance” said Vado. “As we try and develop and grow the festival we will reach out to the other galleries and to places like San Jose State and to the public library to host comic related events and allow attending artists, creators and publishers to set up and display their work.” While Vado’s previous convention brainchild, the Alternative Press Expo, was started as an event meant to spotlight the independent and alternative comics creators and publishers, the San Jose Comics Festivals will not focus on a single type of comic or creator “the Comics Festivals will be about people who do the work, regardless of what kind of comics they choose to produce” added Vado.
The next San Jose Comics Festival will be held on January 16th at the SLG Publishing gallery/warehouse compound in downtown San Jose. Attending artists will be announced at the event website www.sjcomicfest.com. Attending artists at the inaugural event included Jamaica Dyer (Weird Fishes) Rich Koslowski (3 geeks) and Landry Walker (Tron, Little Gloomy). Admission will be free.
For more information about the San Jose Comics Fests contact Dan Vado via email at
[email protected]
“The San Jose Comics Festival will be a series of single day events held throughout the year, but SLG President Dan Vado hoped that the event would grow into a larger, city-wide festival that would take place in the various galleries and public buildings in downtown San Jose. The aim is to create a comics related event that is different from that standard convention with an aim to becoming one of the biggest free events of its kind in the United States.”
I approached Dan a little over a month ago about doing some comics events at the main library of the SJPL system in conjunction with the 2nd annual “Graphic Novel” contest the library will be holding in 2010. He has decided for the moment that it is better to hold such events at his headquarters, that that will better promote himself and his business. As he has said on his Facebook page, working with the library is still a possibility in the future, just not one he is willing to presently firm up.
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