Art Comix

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest, top be held November 10, has announced its programming and also satellite events

Even as you read this, an amazing event is underway in Portland called THE PROJECTS -- it's billed as "a festival of experimental comics and narrative arts, happening at the IPRC in Portland on October 19-21, 2012" and is only the latest in a year filled with impressive comics symposiums and events that go far beyond the "What inspired you to create the Avengers, Mr Lee," paneling that has represented many comics events. With this, the G-17 meeting in Chicago, MIX in Columbus, NYC's ongoing scholarly events , comics are being looked at in creative and social context that significantly enhance and deepen both their media standing and our own understanding.

Much has been written and lauded about this year's SPX, and I'm late to the game but I have a few thoughts I wanted to put to pixel before the memories fade. It was a great time for just about everyone, I think. I had a blast at TCAF this year and came away from it completely optimistic about The State of Comics. That mood was only deepened by SPX, and I don't expect it to fade any time soon. A few little notes:

Photo via @eee Possibly the best SPX ever—and definitely the most financially successful one. That's what everyone was saying last night. By 4:30 Fantagraphics had...

This weekend The Small Press Expo takes place in North Bethesda, MD, offering what seems to be a once in a lifetime lineup of guests: Dan Clowes. Chris Ware. Both Hernandez Brothers. No one ever seems to remember seeing them all in one place before. They won't all be on the same panel, but there is one featuring Clowes, Los Bros and Adrian Tomine. Get there early.

Marvel have made a change to their solicitations, revealing that issue #17 of Wolverine & The X-Men is going to be a showcase issue for Doop.

Meanwhile, in Chicago it was the all-time greatest cartoonist confab, the Comics: Philosophy and Practice event, which was overshadowed a bit by the presence of a NATO summit in Chicago at the very same time—apparently traffic and security were taxing. Christopher Borelli's report is written contrasting the two summits, while noting the enormity of the attendees:

While any noteworthy comics events are taking place this weekend, the not notable—and perhaps the most notable in recent comics history—is taking place at the University of Chicago's new $114 million Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts: the Comics: Philosophy and Practice symposium organized by Hilary Chute. The lineup?

Are we the last possible person to link to Michael DeForge's poster for this Saturday's Doug Wright Awards? Possibly. It's also a reminder that we'll be at TCAF this weekend! First time and we couldn't be more excited! The webste has all the debuts, guests, party poop, programming and other info you could possibly need, so we'll just direct you there for everything except to note that we'll be moderating this panel on Saturday at The Pilot:

If you haven't checked out the Study Group webcomic site, you are missing some great stuff, which we hope to be spotlighting in more depth very soonish, but for now, here's The Blonde Woman – Part 1 – by Aidan Koch, an abstract, mysterious opus that many art comics readers have been buzzing about.

Not really, but here's a video of the great comics creator, artist and designer Gary Panter‘s recent illustrated Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) talk on his life and art.

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