MoCCA was really great! Really, really great!* For me, this was actually the most successful indie comics festival I've ever attended.
I love going to New York because I get to go to The Met and lots of great vegan restaurants around town. Hanging out with all my cartoonist pals is always wonderful. I saw a lot of great art, saw a couple of great bands (pictured above: Hinges), met some new people, and got a lot of good new comics. 
(I got this picture from this blog. Behind us, somewhat appropriately, was a mural of the Civil War.)
I was also a part of a panel called "Making Good Comics in a New Era." The panel went well and the audience was packed. It's hard to remember everything I said in that panel (I know I'm embarrassed by at least two stupid things I said). Unfortunately, I feel like I came off as more pessimistic than I intended. My mind has been swirling all week as I've been thinking a lot about what I wanted to say, but was unable to articulate properly. Meanwhile, I guess some people thought i should be congratulated. I'm thinking about writing a blog essay to clarify my ideas soon.
Huge thanks to my table-pals Willow Dawson and Jesse Reklaw. Thanks to everyone that stopped by our table. I'll post more soon.
Also: Flickr pics from the trip here.
* Okay... it wasn't ALL great. Everyone's complaining about the heat all over the internet. I wasn't as hot as I was allergic to the cave-like atmosphere of the Armory. But my main complaint is about MoCCA raising the table fee for next year's festival. Looking around the festival floor, I saw a lot of unused space. For example: I was on the back row of tables and there was about 30 ft of unused space behind me. My two cents to the MoCCA festival organizers: Instead of raising the price of a table, which excludes a lot of small publishers and individual artists who are the heart of these festivals, the price should be lowered and more tables should be added to fill out the space.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
MoCCA!
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6 comments:
Thanks for the link. I feel like a real idiot but I'm pretty sure that's not Alvin Buenaventura all the way on the left. Do you know who it was so I could give a proper credit?
All in all I didn't find anything too pessimistic about your comments. In fact as I stated in my recap of the panel everyone seemed a little too optimistic. The general consensus seemed to be that the economy isn't really effecting smaller press or independent creators, which I can't possibly see being true. But I agree with Kiel; I too thought your comments were worthy of acknowledgment.
Also, I was going through your Flickr photos and apparently you know my buddy Geoff Vasile. Small world. I don't know why I said that, I hate that expression.
Hey Paul,
Thanks for the comments. I'm glad to know I didn't come off too pessimistic to everyone.
Alvin's replacement was Randy Chang who is the man behind Bodega. They publish all kinds of good stuff like Brian Ralph and Kaz Strzepek.
Oh yeah- Geoff Vasile is Real! I met him through conventions years ago.
Sounds great man! Perhaps one day, in the not too distant future, you'll make it to a Con in the UK or Europe!
We have a great (growing) yearly comics con in Leeds called Thought Bubble.
Maybe I need to get my ass to US one time!
It was wonderful seeing you at MoCCA, and hopefully we will run into you at APE (that is if we are able to go...)
no worries paul, it happens all the time. ALL THE TIME
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