Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival 2010: What I bought

A little over a month ago was the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, a totally insane comics and art show that, per capita, was probably the highest quality of its kind that I've ever attended. Just nuts guests and publishers and new books all burbling up in a space that was (thank, God) much larger than the space used last year and on a day where the weather was much more manageable. Here's a picture snapped from the stage up front, as the show took place in a church basketball gym.



We skipped SPX this year, so I thought there was a lot of stuff I was hungry to buy, but it turned out I spent most of my cash on stuff that made its debut at BCGF. Here's what I bought at the show...

(above, clockwise from left)

• PROGRAM GUIDE - Features a chilling illustration by Anders Nilsen.
• BIGFOOT - A beautiful hardcover from Drawn & Quarterly by Pascal Girard, this was the first thing I bought at the show. The art has this fragile quality with its simple color palette and layout and I can't wait to read it! I should've by now, but I've been busy, so leave me alone.
• SCENES FROM AN IMPENDING MARRIAGE - Adrian Tomine's collection of short comics surrounding his upcoming wedding! Getting new Tomine comics is like getting new Coen Brothers films for me. Always waiting for the next gem.
• LA DIARY (yellow cover) and Diary (pink cover) - Did you know Tom Kaczynski has a small publishing company called Uncivilized Books and Gabrielle Bell puts out new autobio minis through it? I didn't, either, until a couple days before BCGF. Gabrielle was at the show selling these dense beauties.
• TRANS UTOPIA - Speaking of Kaczynski! The fourth issue of his Trans series debuted at the show! I've waited years for this! Yaaay! And it even had a surprise ending...

(above, clockwise from left)

• SMOKE SIGNAL #7 - Cover by Jordan Crane! Submissions by Marc Bell, Charles Burns, Michael DeForge, Domitille Collardey, Sammy Harkham, Jim Rugg and many many more.
• SNAKE OIL #6: THE GROUND IS SOFT - A new volume of Chuck Forsman's handmade comic series! The specific pace Forsman's stories move with is probably my favorite part of the books.
• ONLY SKIN #6 - This series from Sean Ford is so FANTASTIC and this volume reveals a lot about the mysteries that've been stirring since the start.
  
• THE INCREDIBLY FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF MAUREEN DOWD #1 - Bullets, car explosions, knives, mustaches, eye-patches, dudes crashing through windows with guns in their hands - this book from Benjamin Marra has everything you need.
• TWO EYES OF THE BEAUTIFUL PART II - Ryan Cecil Smith based this series of hand-printed mini-comics on Umezu Kazuo's Blood Baptism horror manga and, yes, this book is as fun as that sounds.

(above, clockwise from left)

• SPOTTING DEER - Michael DeForge has become the kind of creator whose work stops me in my tracks when I come across it. If I see a link online to a new strip or sample, I stop what I'm doing and check it out right away. He's exciting and this 12-page, full-color story is unlike ANYTHING I've seen before. People like Annie Koyama - the publisher behind Koyama Press, who put this title out - are absolutely my heroes. Just working to help put good comics out in the world. That's some noble shit.
• SM - I was telling my friend David that I hoped to find a really great horror comic at the show. BAM: DeForge was selling this 12-page comic that I think debuted there. So so so disturbing.
• UPTIGHT #4 - New issue of Jordan Crane's periodical series! There's a segment in the "Dark Day" story where he shows movement in a dark space using some technique I've never even seen before. HOW DOES HE DO IT?
• Crickets #3 - Like with Uptight #4, I had no idea Sammy Harkham was going to debut Crickets #3, the newest issue of his one-man anthology. Larger in format and page count than previous issues, this new issue is PACKED with comics that're new to me. Ugh, I love comics.

So that's it. Beyond the main floor, there were panels on a below level. I usually skip those in favor of buying comics for as long as I can, but missed one featuring Sammy Harkham that I'd wanted to make. Otherwise, there was a selection of original art downstairs that just floored me. I've never seen one before, but they had this Jack Kirby page from an issue of OMAC:


I didn't buy it.

The show was amazing, it was great to run into friends, and it's terrific to have so many shows showcasing this type of art and comics in an area so close to us. Comics!

BROOKLYN COMICS AND GRAPHICS FESTIVAL 2009

There was a new comic show in New York this weekend, so Sam and I headed down to Brooklyn to check it out!

Set up by Desert Island comic shop and PictureBox, the first Brooklyn Comics and Graphic Festival was held in the basement of a church in Williamsburg on Saturday only. I've always heard about comic shows back in the day being held in church basements, so I was glad I finally got to experience one. Generally, between my group of friends, we've all been looking forward to a new alternative comics show located in NYC to give MoCCA a run for its money. Don't get me wrong, MoCCA's been a highlight each year for me, but two shows are better than one, and any natural competition scared up by the presence of a second show should only provide increased entertainment for the show-goers. Besides, it's fucking New York City - there's room.

The weather wasn't the best this weekend. When it wasn't raining, it was slushing or snowing. But that didn't keep the crowd away from the FREEEEE admission and the small room - which the church quaintly decorated with orange and gold foil streamers and dangling accouterments which reminded us all we were still in a church basement - was constantly packed to, "Whoops, excuse me" capacity. Check out the pictures Sam snapped around 3 in the afternoon:

(The above is the view from the front facing the special signing stage set up in the back. To the left of the stage was an Asian hotdog stand)

(The view of the always-crowded far left aisle. We all love the PictureBox short-boxes and Frank Santoro's contagious excitement - you shoulda seen him pitch two kids on Shang Chi issues!)

We knocked the show out in about an hour because we'd seen a lot of the exhibitors at previous shows this year like SPX and MoCCA, but there was still PLENTY of stuff to find and buy that we'd never seen before. And the smallness of the show wasn't a problem at all. It kept table prices low so a lot of great people could afford to come out and it made the whole experience feel a lot more intimate than your average show. Here's what I picked up:

FIRST PICTURE:

• NEW MINI DASH SHAW MADE - Packed with drawings of people partying to the max, this new mini was free from Shaw, who I said hello to for the first time since I spoke to him back when I worked at Wizard.
• ESCHEW #1 - Secret Acres was selling this razor sharp mini from Robert Sergel for cheap! And it was the story inside titled "Thirteen Bad Experiences Involving Water that clinched the sale.
• SNAKE OIL #5: wOLF - Chuck McBuck's fifth issue was at the show! Great cover and I can't wait to read the insides.
• TALES FROM GREENFUZZ #2 - I got issue #3 at SPX this year and I'm still dizzy from the hilariously creative designs and colors inside. Want to see a 2-page spread where French Fry people and a hotdog seize a town of food people? Of course you do. Buy this book.
• FREE SHIT #16 - Charles Burns tossed me this little mini of random portraits.
• LOSE #1 - It's got a glossy cover and pages, it looks like it'll be ongoing, it's by a guy I don't think I've ever heard of and it's filled with cute little designs that remind me of vinyl toys. Check out creator Michael DeForge here RIGHT AWAY.

SECOND PICTURE:

• SMOKE SIGNAL #3 - A free comics paper Desert Island puts together. Garbielle Bell! Anders Nilsen! Chester Brown! And loads of others at the low price of nada.
• EPOXY #1 - I love John Pham (the cover to Sublife #1 is my desktop at work and it should be yours, too) and had no idea this book existed until I read Jog write about having picked it up at a PictureBox table at some show in the past year. Luckily for me, PictureBox had another copy at their table during THIS show, and I finally got it. Now I need to get issue #2...
• PROGRAM GUIDE - Sporting a big image from Charles Burns that I'm certain I saw somewhere else before, the program guide was just a single newspaper print with elements on the front and back. The back had the map of the floor and a list of exhibitors. I passed on purchasing the gigantic poster featuring the Burns art, which you can see here.
• WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS... - I'd never heard of Domitille Collardey, but her ink and brush style has this fierce sort of delicateness I couldn't pass up. The 4-page color section is the real winner here as her watercolor skills are on full, warming display. She also puts the book in an envelope when you buy it, which was fun.

And that's all I picked up other than my new sketches, which I'll post in the next day. All in all, the show was a lot of fun and I was glad to get to see Dave, Sean, Rachel and John while we were out. Hopefully enough people bought new stuff to keep the show going every year - or to at least promote other new shows to give it a go.