Hello all,
I wanted to tell you about my trip last Saturday to the 2008 Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon. From their website:
"The Stumptown Comics Fest was started almost on a whim in 2004 by a small group of Portland-area cartoonists lamenting the lack of local convention-style outlets. While there were certainly other comic book shows in town, there weren't any that gave much attention to the artists themselves. The dream was to design a festival with the creators as its focus, rather than dealers and work-for-hire publishers."
So, most of the people sitting behind the booths were the creators themselves, which I thought was really cool. There were a wide range of talents displayed, as well as many different levels of production. (I saw several people that had simply photocopied pages and stapled them together to make a comic book!).
Besides meandering through the convention hall, I attended three "spotlight" talks given by some of the special guests invited to the convention:
*Nicholas Gurewitch of The Perry Bible Fellowship showed off a fancy "robot" that created comic strips for him when he was in a creative slump. If only I had one of those. :)
*Comics theorist Scott McCloud, whose books I've learned much from, was also there with some interesting things to say.
*Mike Richardson, president and founder of Dark Horse Comics, gave a fascinating talk about the history of the company and their central goal: to create the best publishing environment for creative artists, and, most importantly, let them keep the rights to their work! How awesome is that?!? I've been a fan of the Hellboy series and thought I'd attend just to hear more about the company, but I never thought it would be the best "spotlight" talk of the three!
After giving their talks, all three guests graciously fielded questions from the audience (and Nicholas even answered one of mine!).
The whole experience was very fun and informative, and I came away with one realization: I know very little about comics. I'm encouraged by this fact, though, and am looking forward to learning much more about the world I caught a brief glimpse of over the weekend.
I'll definitely be attending next year...and maybe even exhibit this time? Who knows? :)
-Trevor
Oh, and also, my friend and I saw a bearded lady. He says he saw three altogether. Apparently I wasn't as attentive. :)
I wanted to tell you about my trip last Saturday to the 2008 Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon. From their website:
"The Stumptown Comics Fest was started almost on a whim in 2004 by a small group of Portland-area cartoonists lamenting the lack of local convention-style outlets. While there were certainly other comic book shows in town, there weren't any that gave much attention to the artists themselves. The dream was to design a festival with the creators as its focus, rather than dealers and work-for-hire publishers."
So, most of the people sitting behind the booths were the creators themselves, which I thought was really cool. There were a wide range of talents displayed, as well as many different levels of production. (I saw several people that had simply photocopied pages and stapled them together to make a comic book!).
Besides meandering through the convention hall, I attended three "spotlight" talks given by some of the special guests invited to the convention:
*Nicholas Gurewitch of The Perry Bible Fellowship showed off a fancy "robot" that created comic strips for him when he was in a creative slump. If only I had one of those. :)
*Comics theorist Scott McCloud, whose books I've learned much from, was also there with some interesting things to say.
*Mike Richardson, president and founder of Dark Horse Comics, gave a fascinating talk about the history of the company and their central goal: to create the best publishing environment for creative artists, and, most importantly, let them keep the rights to their work! How awesome is that?!? I've been a fan of the Hellboy series and thought I'd attend just to hear more about the company, but I never thought it would be the best "spotlight" talk of the three!
After giving their talks, all three guests graciously fielded questions from the audience (and Nicholas even answered one of mine!).
The whole experience was very fun and informative, and I came away with one realization: I know very little about comics. I'm encouraged by this fact, though, and am looking forward to learning much more about the world I caught a brief glimpse of over the weekend.
I'll definitely be attending next year...and maybe even exhibit this time? Who knows? :)
-Trevor
Oh, and also, my friend and I saw a bearded lady. He says he saw three altogether. Apparently I wasn't as attentive. :)
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