This was an SPX unlike any previous SPX, as the tumult of the outside world has reached even Camp Comics. But the welcoming spirit of unity and creativity was still there, and strang as ever.
CXC is going on right now and on through the weekend and you should go
I hvae done a really awful job of reporting on the goings on at CXC in Columbus. The Comics Crossroads festival is now in its second year, and the whole roll out as an arts festival around Columbus and a two day comics festival is in place for the first time with guests like Garry TRudeau (what […]
Are you ready for a 600 page oral history of Fantagraphics?
That was rhetorical — of COURSE you are. At long last, after over a decade in the works, We Told You So: Comics As Art the oral history of Fantagraphics begun by Tom Spurgeon and finished by Michael Dean will be coming out this summer, just in time to celebrate the (gasp!) 40th anniversary of […]
The Money Thing Part 2: New writer on Red Wolf is perfect storm of all of today’s comics issues
When is a story not a story? When is the story about a story actually the story? Well strap yourselves in because you’re about to find out!
Tom Spurgeon launches a Patreon campaign and a digital magazine
After making some noises about it for a while, Tom Spurgeon has joined the crowdfunding world for his award-winning Comics Reporter site with a Patreon that is up to over $500 in less than 24 hours. I think I might have been in the first 10 supporters, and I urge all Beat readers to go […]
Good luck to Tom Spurgeon on his halfway cross country move
Tom Spurgeon is relocating from New Mexico to Columbus, OH this week. I can only imagine how stressful that is—some tweets posts about a cancelled last minute comics sale show just one aspect of it. I think he said he had something like 75 boxes of comics…just having a lot of stuff makes moving traumatic, […]
New CAF: CXC in Columbus from Smith and Spurgeon
And here’s the official word on that new comic arts festival that people were alluding to at ICAF: Cartoon Crossroads Columbus or CXC, which will be a lot more than a CAF, really. The event will debut in 2015 as a two-day event (held October 2-3) and then grow into a four day festival in 2016. The show has a four person executive committee consisting of Cartoon Books’ Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer, Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon and Billy Ireland Library founder Lucy Caswell. Smith is the Artistic Director, while Spurgeon will be the Festival Director. Can you say heavy hitters?
On the Scene— Jeff Smith at CCAD/MIX: Avoiding Garfield
by Christian Hoffer As part of the Columbus College of Arts and Design’s MIX Comic Symposium, Tom Spurgeon (of Comics Reporter fame) interviewed Jeff Smith at the college’s Canzani Center Friday evening. Smith was the keynote guest of the two day academic symposium, which featured a variety of panels, workshops and presentations about the art […]
On the Scene: The 2012 Ignatz Awards at SPX
By Hannah Means-Shannon The Ignatz Awards are known for their quick-fire pace and sense of humor but that doesn’t mean they downplay the often very personal extremes indie comics creators face in pursuit of publication. Jerzy Drozd acted as MC of the 2012 awards and crammed a lengthy shopping list of emotional highs and lows […]