Posts Tagged ‘NYCC’

On The Other Hand


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Tuesday, March 6, 2007


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After posting yesterday and then emailing a bit with Tom Spurgeon, I got an email from Peggy Burns (see, this is why it takes forever to publish stuff–we’re all just talking to each other all the time) and two things occurred to me: one, if we want the NYCC to be different, we should set up there and participate. As Heidi/Beat pointed out, the only way to make a change is to participate. So, what if PictureBox and Fantagraphics and D&Q, etc etc set up as a block and invited interesting guests? Change? Maybe. On the other hand, I’m not sure that anyone other than the mainstream comics fanatics will pay $20-$40 to get into a comic-con–not with the far easier and cheaper MoCCA just a few months away. But then, as I mentioned in the comments section, the fact is, the comics read by many of the artists I publish are NYCC-fare–Chippendale’s Berserk and Daredevil, etc….maybe it would be an interesting meshing of sensibilities. But then, the environment of the NYCC is just pretty hostile to anything not insanely loud and fannish. So, to be continued, I suppose, in more distracting conversations.

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Culture


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Monday, March 5, 2007


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I spent a few hours at the Comic-Con last weekend. It’s a pretty easy target, but I guess I was struck by the huge divide between my culture and theirs. With the parades of costumes heroes and oddballs, down-at-the-heels superhero artists, and just plain oddities, like Neal Adams, I wondered what all of this had to do with the medium of comics rather than the business and nostalgia of comics. The answer, of course, is that, historically, they’re one in the same. Comics, even in these pseudo-sophisticated days, are as trashy as ever. I can’t decide if I cynically like that or detest it. But as I sat at the Abrams booth signing my book, I kinda thought, “wow, I have nothing in common with these people.” Which makes me wonder, of course, who our (tiny) audience really is for Comics Comics and other PictureBox publication. Who knows. It’s a funny thing, selling these kind of books in that sort of venue, but it’s one among many, and when you’re marginal to start with, you have to try for as many little corners as possible. Eventually it adds up. But man, what a place. What a thing.

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