MoCCA Memories, 1

Going to see Lynda Barry is like going to see the Dalai Lama. (Actually, I’ve never gone to see the Dalai Lama, but I plan on doing so the next time he’s in town to see if he could possible be more inspiring than the personality-packed “Funk Queen of the Universe”.) Lynda was in NYC this weekend to promote What It Is, which is likely the world’s first collage how-to-write book. She was interviewed by Hillary Chute Friday Night at the NYU Post Bang all-day comics symposium, and had the audience in stitches the entire time—but in a deep way!

I did, however, have the pleasure of sitting second row, center for the hour-long conversation between Spiegelman, Panter, and moderator Bill Kartalopolous. Over the course of the panel, they touched on topics ranging from fine art influences, to 9-11, to San Francisco acid trips. It was a loving reminder in this world of post-bang of a few of the minds who helped light the fuse.

The 1st Floor room housing the Dumbrella and Dayfree Press webcomic collectives, as well as Wondermark creator David Malki and xkcd’s Randall Munroe, was one of the more consistently packed areas of the show floor. This seemed especially interesting to me, given the number of times I walked by the booths of well-know print creators such as Brian Wood (DMZ, Northlanders) without finding much of a line (if any at all).

While the layout of the space surrounding the webcomic crew might have played a small role in the crowded atmosphere, I can vouch for the width of the aisles, as they provided ample room to avoid the rubberbands aimed my way by Goats.com creator Jon Rosenberg. As Questionable Content creator Jeph Jacques pointed out via Twitter, the arrival of Munroe after being delayed several hours sparked a mad rush around the xkcd creator’s table that remained throughout the day.

As great as APE and SPX are, year after year (I’ve sadly yet to attend Stumptown), those conventions somehow don’t feel as deep as MoCCA in terms of the sheer volume of amazing fair fanned out across the show’s tables. Anything beyond a cursory examination of the world of small press comics almost certainly requires a full weekend pass. Of course, between the wall of 100-degree humidity awaiting us outside and the general good nature of the show, which at times feels like the beaming offspring of a comic convention and a community art fair, redeeming the second half of my two-day pass was a bit of a no-brainer.

Instead of presenting Nell Brinkley with an award, Val announced that Friends of Lulu would be creating a web page with her history and samples of her work. Trina Robbins, who has written a book about Brinkley, will contribute text and images. Rachel Nabors was, in my opinion, the best dressed, wearing a stunning velvet cocktail dress with a green bodice and matching green eyeshadow. When she presented Martina with her award and crystal-crusted tiara, there were cheers all around. Abby Denson’s red sequined skirt was also awesome. The Friends of Lulu not only provide a valuable resource to the comics industry, but also really know how to run an awards presentation. The entire ceremony, including long and rousing cheering for every nominee, took no more than 20 minutes. Thus, there was plenty of time for schmoozing, drinking and admiring outfits.

But the most exciting thing in that corner was the awesome galley for Soft City (blurry samples here), a long-lost book the artist Pushwagner composed from 1969-75. And by ‘lost,’ I mean the original art was literally lost with the artist’s luggage for decades before turning up in Olso in 2002. It is strikingly contemporary stuff, sinking rows of delicate human forms and towering city structures deep into an unforgiving horizon – I was told the book will be out in Europe next week, but simply couldn’t be completed in time for the show, which I think it may well have stolen. Keep an eye out for talk of this one.

I only caught one panel, Frank Santoro’s, but it’s hard to imagine any other panel containing half of much. Santoro is a fascinating lecturer and it was a treat to listen to him spin off from tangent to tangent discussing, in no particular order, the Golden Mean, how to properly structure a comic book page, astronomy, manga and how Art Spiegelman really ticked him off the other night. My favorite quote: “I’ve got a compass and graph paper and I’m happy. That’s retarted.”

A lot of the DIY comics on display at MoCCA Art Fest should really be sold in gallery-type settings. We’re talking one-of-a-kind and/or low print run. These are, for lack of a better term, “boutique” comics. Now, some artists might balk at that description because they think of their work as far more universal than that; I understand that. But, it’s like saying oranges and bananas are both fruits. Yeah, they are. But they are not the same. Shifting gears from the mainstream event-of-the-week to a hand-stitched and -printed comic using an actual subway map as paper is quite a shift.