
A 27-year-old comic con virgin describes his second day of pleasure!
The News Blog of Comics Culture

This past weekend (April 20-21) I took part in the first-ever Middle East Film and Comic-Con (MEFCC), held in Dubai. I attended mainly to promote my IDW Publishing series Kill Shakespeare (along with my co-creator Conor McCreery) but I also went in a quest to answer a question I’ve been wondering: how big is the comic book culture in the Middle East?
The answer is: quite big. And it’s growing.

In awesome news, the Sparkplug Books Indiegogo campaign has reached its goal. But you can still give them more money to publish creator-owned, independent books that validate the spirit of the best that comics can be.

The date was December 9th, 2011 when cartoonist and Center for Cartoon Studies professor Alec Longstreth shaved off his beard and shaggy do. A promise to himself in 2008, he decided to chart his progress through pictures of his hair and beard growth that would undoubtedly remind him daily of his commitment. Living in a small town with a beard as his shadow, Longstreth went from industrious Fellow of the school to an instructor of both summer workshops and graduate classes to the Acting Director (while James Sturm takes a much-needed sabbatical) . Even after all the excitement, he is still growing and evolving, deciding to learn watercolor on the side. Venture on to read more about the amazing cartoonist Alec Longstreth.

This was my first trip to the city of Boston and their fantastic comic con and I have to say, I was impressed. Boston Comic Con had the staples: vendors offering collectibles, comics and original art. They had comedic performances and an art auction. Offering a very well balanced mix of artists from legends of the industry, to current big names, to a wealth of new & indy talent, this convention had something to suit every taste in artist’s alley and its panel selection.

Second Joe Sacco item of the day! The Oregon Book Awards honored graphic novels for the first time this year, and Joe Sacco has won for FOOTNOTES IN GAZA,
his most recent journalistic comic investigating a possible massacre in Palestine in 1956.

Read it and weep! Go have yourself a good cry (probably at a Disney movie). In the tradition of occasionally free newsprint tabloid comics like the one-shot Caboose and quarterly Smoke Signal, a collaborative comic will be available this weekend at MoCCA! Official press release below:

You have to be a certain age and have grown up in NYC to really get this, but Drew Friedman and brother Josh Alan Friedman have created an online magazine all about the single comic strip “The Joe Franklin Story.” The strip appears in the new edition of ANY SIMILARITY TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD, Friedman’s seminal collection of strips about the eerie twilight world of syndicated TV before cable, a world of goniffs and mensches and dames, where Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine were married and Rondo Hattan roamed the woods outside.

Legendary Filipino creator Tony DeZuniga recently had a severe stroke, and he is currently in critical condition. And his family does not have health insurance—yeah, this stuff happens in the Philippines, too. HIs wife Tina wrote of the details in the link below.
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