Art Comix

The MoCCA Festival at the Lexington Armory a few days ago was a fun weekend -- the numerous photo shows filled with smiling faces of dedicated artists and publishers show that. Look at Peggy Burns' engaging set or Dan Nadel's. Fun is fine, of course, but that's not entirely why people go to indie shows like MoCCA, SPX, and TCAF. I'd argue that the social aspect of hanging out with fellow cartoonists is a major motivation for attending, but that's not why D&Q or PictureBox or Fantagraphics attends. These are important shows for promoting authors and selling books.

Better late than never, new stuff by Austin English, Chuck Forsman, Rina Piccolo, and dozens more!!!!

The events surrounding Cartoon Polymaths end with a bang with an outing for the comics slideshow series, Carousel. Someone go and report!

Dave McKean and Italian comics artist Lorenzo Mattotti will be in London this weekend and will be hold a discussion concerning Celluloid (McKean's upcoming graphic novel), Stigmata (Mattotti's recent graphic novel from Fantagraphics), and who knows what else.

I haven't written adequately about the "Cartoon Polymaths" show currently up at Parsons, the NYC art school that teaches design and illustration. It is a concise but museum-level show about cartooning and cartoonists that really sets a new standard for how these subjects can be covered. Aside from showing movies and puppets and small Marischal-designed houses, it also has its own NEON SIGN. Wow. Curator Bill Kartalopoulos really outdid himself and got Parsons' taleted design crew on board with a fantastic installation. Anyway, if you haven't gone yet, tonight is the night to see a talk with pioneering artist Richard McGuire, who was multi-media before it was in fashion. Deets below.

I work at the home office of Barnes & Noble, and we get a multitude of review copies every day. Being a bibliovore, I like to browse the shelves occasionally, to see what's new and...

Although my "official" news story about last weekend's Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival was published in PW Comics Week, I still had some pictures I wanted to put up. Over all it was an awesome day. Not much more to say. I thought last year, set in a dramatic blizzard, would be hard to top for that special something, but the cheerful, can-do spirit of this show equalled that. Everyone seemed to be finding like-minded souls to share their work. As I said several times, "Who knew so many people liked good comics?"

A final look at some of the wonderful books on sale tomorrow at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. As always even if you can't go, click through on some of the links...new, fresh...

Just to wrap things up, Drawn and Quarterly has a blog post on their BCGF activities. Sadly Peggy BUrns will not be able to attend due to a lost passport (! The Terrorists have...

Pigeon Press, the new company from Alvin Buenaventura has recent books by Lisa Hanawalt amd Matt Furie available at BCBF, and the debut of a new JOhnny Ryan book: "New Character Parade" by Johnny Ryan This...

More news and notes from publishers and cartoonists at this Saturday's Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. If you are not local, just check out the links for some new and different comics. We had such a fantastic outpouring of info we have ONE MORE post coming later today. It had been a blast going through all these links and finding so many new artists to follow.

Not only does Koyama Press have a spanking new website, they will also have some new books this weekend: Koyama Press will be bringing Michael DeForge, the Wowee Zonk collective and Steven Charles Manale from...