The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Cons, Shows, Events



By Tom Spurgeon

* here's a lengthy recent-cons report by Robin McConnell. He's likely going to do a heroic TCAF report if he hasn't started one already, but this is the stuff from earlier in the year.

* nine weeks from today people will be trudging to the San Diego Convention Center for the first day of Comic-Con International. Whoa, the year's fly by when you're older.

* from my perspective this part of the year seems to have a big chunk of people orienting themselves towards HeroesCon (mostly mainstream/classic genre-driven indy folk) or CAKE (alt- and arts-comics talent). I think CAKE has a chance of being a special show this year: great neighborhood in a great city with a lot of fine cartoonists working an expression of comics that's never had a show like that, all at a great time of the year to visit. The surge for Heroes over the last five to ten years may be one of the best stories in comics.

* it's one of those unsettled weekends for shows, with no monster show around which the rest might rotate although Detroit's Motor City Con certainly has that kind of pedigree and there's a show in San Jose that looks ambitious. Maine has captured a lot of folks' attention in terms of indy/alt people, and Jeff Smith showing up there has got to be seen as a coup. There are events in St. Paul and Philadelphia; the latter is an important show both for its specific focus and that it's a specific-focus show.

* big illustration show in Kansas City this weekend.

* finally, what a bunch of people keep telling me is the best comics shop in the states right now has a launch event this weekend. Someone please take photos. I'm not used to hearing about a whole lot of events there; then again, Pittsburgh isn't a city that is going to attract homegrown efforts. I do expect if things continue that it could be a really key stop for people between the East Coast and the Midwest on signing tours.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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