News flash from MoCCA for today, Sunday’s show; MoCCA volunteers hope to have FANS for the 7th floor.

With temperatures in New York City soaring to nearly 100 degrees, everyone was glowing at the first day of the MoCCA Art Festival. The crowd was large and enthusiastic, standing in line for Lynda Barry, Adrian Tomine, Jason, Hope Larson, Bryan Lee O’Malley and other indie comics favorites. While the AC held out on the first floor, up on the 7th floor exhibitors including Meahaus, Vertigo and the Finnish comics delegation sweltered in brutal, oppressive heat.

How hot was it? Even normally cool and collected Tim Leong of Comic Foundry magazine looked sweaty.

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As mentioned, for today’s show, fans are being brought in to help air circulation on the 7th floor.

We’ll have more coverage later. For right now, we’re frankly knackered from the sudden temperature change and the non-stop yapping and chatting. We will say that buzz books include Goddess of War, Skyscrapers of the Midwest, Too Cool to be Forgotten, director Michel Gondry’s mini, and the Star Wars mini Harvest is When I Need You The Most. With only 50 copies printed, this was a quick sell-out.

A few piccies in the jump:

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At Friday’s Post-Bang symposium, Jeet Heer, David Hajdu, Hilary Chute and Douglas Wolk talk about the literary tradition and comics.
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Misako Rocks! at the Disney (!) booth.

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Traditional misty, backlit shot of the crowd.

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Lynda Barry and Adrian Tomine sign at the D&Q table.

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This mini comes flat but assembles into a box!

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Jim Ottaviani and Bob Mecoy

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Cut to: The Friends of Lulu Awards as Rachel Nabors passes the Kim Yale Award tiara to Winner Martina Fugazzatto.
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Vertigo’s Angela Ruffino accepts for Shelly Bond.

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Marion Vitus presents the Volunteer Award.

1 COMMENT

  1. Maybe the heat drained my enthusiasm… not really excited about anything, maybe because it’s normal to have so much good stuff now.
    A LOT of kids books on display, especially a charming title from Houghton Mifflin about a girl who assembles a shopping list for zoo animals.
    Recommend the text book from First Second by Able and Madden. Hope they create a second book on writing/storytelling.
    Zander Cannon will be drawing a genetics book for FSG, and the Jim Ottavani is writing a NASA book for Simon & Schuster.
    Met lots of cool people, which is why I attend, and got some stuff for the archives.

  2. Props to the Disney people-as soon as my wife off-handedly mentioned that she uses the Mo Willems books in her class, they asked if she wanted pencils and stickers for her students–she said, “oh, I couldn’t. I’ve got too many, almost 90 altogether.” The people at the booth said that wasn’t a problem, went diving into boxes and gave us a huge box of pencils and a 8-inch stack of stickers. That’s the kind of people Mocca has in spades.

  3. Can you tell us a little more about the minicomic that folds into a (Pandora’s?) box? I saw one out of the corner of my eye yesterday, but didn’t get a chance to look at it up close. Who’s the artist?

    I love that about MoCCA–the creativity and innovation and wild wonderful unique shiny things. SPX has the same sort of vibe to it, but MoCCA is here in my hometown….

  4. Hi! “Pandora’s Box” was my contribution to the Make Sale fundraising table (meaning that all proceeds from this weekend’s print run went directly to the museum).

    As for more info… let me begin by explaining that I’d designed “Pandora’s Box” to be sold in box form which readers would then have to open — at the appropriate point in the story, of course — to see what was inside. I only agreed to sell some flat at the MoCCA Art Fest because people were worried about transporting them home.

    The idea for “Pandora’s Box” grew out of a discussion I had at the opening reception for MoCCA’s “Infinite Canvas” webcomics exhibition last year; its intended to show something you can still only do with paper comics.

    I had a great time at the MoCCA Art Fest talking to people who not only “got” that part, but also appreciated so many of the other little things I tried to put into the piece.

  5. That’s a great idea, Ken. I love when comics transcend the flat linear model into something multi-dimensional. I wish I’d seen this; I would have picked it up in a heartbeat. Will any local stores like Hanley’s carry it?

    Non sequitur: I am in a photo in here! Can you find me? I am like Waldo!

    Non sequitur again: I really hope there’s going to be another, larger print run of “Harvest Is When I Need You Most.” Had I known the run was so small I would have snatched it up as soon as I saw it.

  6. Thanks, Ken. It looks spectacular. I’ve been playing with various ideas of putting comics IN boxes (tiny tiny boxes, as I’m sort of a fiend for miniatures), but the idea that the comic IS the box and you have to open it at the appropriate point is utterly perfect.

    I hope those of us who missed it at MoCCA have a chance to get our mitts on a copy :)

  7. The other buzzbook for me was FREDDIE & ME by Mike Dawson. I read it Monday morning while waiting at the airport, and I know I laughed out loud at least a half dozen times. Mike did a fantastic job.