Small Press Expo 2009: A journal review

Who on his or her sane mind would be willing to choose an independent comics show little known outside of the East Coast as their first comics convention to attend ever, let alone cross three countries and God knows how many thousand plane miles to get there – and back?

I would. And I just did in fact. Because I am just like that. Months in advance, I saw I had a good chance to attend the recent Small Press Expo (SPX) held in Bethseda, MD and to revisit Washington DC for good measure – in a single trip. The SPX is a comic convention, or Con as in the usual trade talk. Getting from downtown DC to the Marriott hotel where the event is held was easy: A half-hour Metro ride will leave you in front of the hotel.

There are several of these events across the US and elsewhere every year. Probably the best known of these is the humongous San Diego Comic-Con which covers the mainstream superhero market and attracts tens of thousands of visitors.  If you’ve never been to a con before, you may not know what to expect. Try to picture dozens upon dozens of artists, representatives and publishers distributed across several table aisles, trying to catch your eye with their wares. In the case of small cons such as SPX (about 3,000 visitors in 2 days), chances are the ratio of devout comics fans to casual visitors will be much higher, and therefore more likely to invest on an artist’s product. In most cases, the artists themselves will be there to be asked questions and have some chat. This kind of intimate one-on-one atmosphere (as opposed to the faceless corporate structure of mainstream media) is what attracted me from the show. It is always been hard to make a living in comics, and even more so in this broken economy of our times, so they need all the support and feedback they can get.

I also had plans to get to know some artists personally whose work I’ve been following for a long time, such as Andy Runton, Frank Cammuso and Jimmy Gownley. Prior to getting there I made three special colored drawings to give them away as fan gifts. They liked them so much I got free dedicated books and sketches in exchange.

With Andy Runton (right), creator of the Owly book series. I decided to take Owly to the beach. :)

With Frank Cammuso (left), New York political cartoonist and author of several children’s books as well. He even posted this drawing on his blog!

But the other great thing about SPX is that you get to know new fellow cartoonists who make great stuff and from who you hadn’t even heard of before. For instance, fellows like John Bintz, who is making a comic using solely words suggested by the readers, and Kevin Bolk from Baltimore, MD. His style of work has so much things in common with mine that we just had to exchange stuff and connect. I even did an impromptu sketch in situ and he did the same for me. Here below are the two of us posing with our respective doodles for posterity. I have yet to build a Links page on this site but, for now, hope this will do enough :)

For those looking to buy stuff, prices of goods were anything from free giveaways to 50-cent stickers to up to $200 and such for original art pages (Rest assured that if you bought one of those you would likely enter into the author’s perennial circle of friends).

I have posted several other pictures of the SPX on Flickr, for those curious enough. Rest assured that, for me, choosing SPX as the first comics-based con I’ve ever attended (seriously!) was a wise choice. For me, seeing so many creative people brimming with talent is always a blast, and leaves you charged to go and make new stuff (specially since I’ve been so dormant.. eh, busy with other things). Hope this is not the last time I get to see them around.