October 21, 2010
The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: News On Cons, Shows & Major Events
By Tom Spurgeon
* to kick things off, there will be a Nationwide Live Art event on January 22 to benefit the Hero Initiative.
Details here.
* big convention weekend last weekend, with the Festival Of Comics Art at Ohio State and the Alternative Press Expo drawing powerful and enthusiastic crowds to their two very different events. Those links go to the collective memory pages of links; I'm still actively collecting them as well as links for the already-archived New York City Comic Con, so
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you got them.
* last weekend was also the debut of a Pittsburgh small press show, the Pittsburgh Indy Comics Expo. There is no better way to see a show like that than through the eyes of someone on the ground that writes about it in full a few days later.
This is the best single such report I've seen so far. The general concept of citizen journalism makes my skin crawl, but I love casual event reportage like this and always will because it gives equal weight to things like the friends met and meals devoured as it does the comics show.
* another fun kind of con report is the thorough, picture-filled attendee/press filing, like this
two-
parter on the 2010 British International Comics Show from the always-reliable Richard Bruton.
* Wizard Entertainment announced that
a New Orleans show will kick off its aggressive 2011 slate of regional, minor celebrity-driven, pop culture events. New Orleans is an interesting site for a comics show because almost everyone likes to visit New Orleans. On the other hand, New Orleans has never developed a noteworthy show of its own -- although I'm sure there are fans for all of their recent and historical events, none of those shows has ever made a national impression. Then again, we're talking about a Wizard show, not a show that needs the kind of enthusiastic, well-developed patronage pool upon which other shows might depend, nor the kind of enterprise that would inspire most folks to fly in.
* Heidi MacDonald
caught that Wizard's revised slate of shows for 2011 moves their New York and Boston shows a full month away from New York Comic Con and that this marks an end to Wizard's battle with Reed for convention dominance. I cover comics as part of my living, and Wizard's 2010 New York show was such a non-factor that I forgot it existed. This post may be the first time I've given any thought to their Boston show. So I can't imagine it really matters except as trivia when those shows are scheduled. If rumors are true that Wizard had a shoe-on-the-podium confidence about their ability to take out NYCC, I guess that'd be worth noting on some sort of cosmic sadness scale. But as actual comics events? Wizard's shows barely register on their own, let alone in relation to a legitimate event. I hope everyone that attends has a good time, and that everyone on the other side of the table is treated fairly, but that's about the extent of my interest in what they do. That said, I still think a network of smaller, more modest shows is a sustainable strategy for Wizard if executed with skill and discipline.
* finally, this weekend offers a heady mix of regional/local events of interest, both of "the book fair with a comics person attending" and "well-liked area show" variety. Check the forthcoming events calendar to see if something is near you.
posted 11:00 am PST |
Permalink
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
Full Archives