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



By Tom Spurgeon

* as noted yesterday, the CCAD Mix event in Columbus is ongoing. There are events this weekend in Houston and Saint Paul.

* I sort of fell in love with every scrap I read about Morrisoncon when it was ongoing. Sounds like an odd, oddly casual, nothing-like-it happening.

* here's a report on the Asbury Park Comic Con.

* I would like more shows with off-kilter set-ups like MorrisonCon and APCC. I really would. Shows revolving around elite access and around specific personalities make total sense to me, as do shows that are based on a single day in a unique location. I just sort of want more good shows, period, no matter how they're set up. I think the convention calendar is really rounding into something special right now; for whatever reasons, the physical show set-up in general has some strength to it. I'd like to see more good shows, by which I also mean I'd like to see more of the shoddily-run ones fade quickly from view. I don't even cover a lot of the three-day events masquerading as comics shows, but it seems like in the long term all those shows are going to do is damage that market for a better-run effort.

* a real area of potential growth seems to me one-day shows with a creator-driven model. Those seem like they can be more modestly achieved, when they work they're really nice, and if you want to expand you can -- and you don't even have to expand your floor days, you can just do some special programming night/before or day after.

* I'm super-curious about how Reed's New York show develops now that it seems to have garnered a pretty firm foothold in that market and in the Fall convention calendar more generally. The two times I went -- and the organizers were nice to me -- the whole thing kind of gave me the hives. It was like going to a comics show with nearly everything I enjoy about comics boiled off. Except for a few scattered announcements and debuts here and there, I can't remember a whole lot about NYCC as a publishing event, either. That just seems weird with a show in the heart of North American publishing that has that sort of proximity to the Christmas shopping season. I love going to New York, and I love Milton Griepp's conferences beforehand, but the show itself kind of beats the desire out of me to go. I have enough friends that aren't involved with comics living in New York that simply enjoying the city with my comics pals is kind of off the table, too. I know that a lot of folks love that show, but I don't get it.

* anyway, I imagine most people are APE and NYCC focused right now. I would be.
 
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