Conventions

Jody Culkin is an artist, photographer, and teacher. Thanks to being married to PW comics maven Calvin Reid, she's also a veteran of many comics and book shows. Camera in hand, she has chronicled the activities and faces of the past seven or eight years of comic cons -- her work can often be found in PW Comics Week.

But she also has a hobby.

The Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention was held this weekend in Singapore (where it's now Tuesday), and the excitement for comics seems to have taken hold in this emerging comics nation. The show is notable in that is was purchased by ReedPOP, owner of such domestic fests as New York Comic-Con and C2E2. The guest list was a merry band of international scoundrels, including Phil Yeh, Phil Ortiz, C.B. Cebulski, Matt Fraction, Gail Simone, and Ivan Brandon from the US, Salvador Larroca from Spain, David Lloyd from the UK, Guiseppe Camuncoli from Italy, and, as the wise-cracking gentle giant , Croatia's Esad Ribic. If you were going to cast a comic book convention movie where people have to fight aliens or fend off a killer or fly off to an asteroid to something, you could not have a better bunch. We can just picture the scenes where Fraction must dismantle the alien's guidance system, or Yeh offers to let them read an issue of The Winger Tiger in our mind's eye.

It was only yesterday that we wrote, "the curated show is here to stay," and sure enough, word has come that the Stumptown Comics Fest is also going curated. . Show director Indigo Kelleigh writes that due to the demand for tables, they already have a waiting list 100 exhibitors long despite moving to a larger venue.

Although my "official" news story about last weekend's Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival was published in PW Comics Week, I still had some pictures I wanted to put up. Over all it was an awesome day. Not much more to say. I thought last year, set in a dramatic blizzard, would be hard to top for that special something, but the cheerful, can-do spirit of this show equalled that. Everyone seemed to be finding like-minded souls to share their work. As I said several times, "Who knew so many people liked good comics?"

Photos and text by Jen Vaughn The New England Webcomics Weekend was like no other convention I have attended in all my (two) years of...

The judges for the 2011 Eisner Awards have been announced. They are Comic-Con board of Directors member Ned Cato, Jr., librarian/curator Karen Green, writer/editor Andrew Helfer, publishing executive (and BEAT contributor) Rich Johnson and retailer Chris Powell. The five will convene in late March to deliberate on the nominations, and the awards will be presented at next year's San Diego Comic-Con.

A final look at some of the wonderful books on sale tomorrow at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. As always even if you...

Just to wrap things up, Drawn and Quarterly has a blog post on their BCGF activities. Sadly Peggy BUrns will not be able to...

Pigeon Press, the new company from Alvin Buenaventura has recent books by Lisa Hanawalt amd Matt Furie available at BCBF, and the debut of...

More news and notes from publishers and cartoonists at this Saturday's Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. If you are not local, just check out the links for some new and different comics. We had such a fantastic outpouring of info we have ONE MORE post coming later today. It had been a blast going through all these links and finding so many new artists to follow.

Not only does Koyama Press have a spanking new website, they will also have some new books this weekend: Koyama Press will be bringing Michael...

Secret Acres presents a very amazing new book at this weekend's show: