All Eyes Toward The American Coasts

* the Alternative Press Expo gets going tomorrow in San Francisco, California. There have been so many dramatic stories in terms of conventions and convention-going over the last 12 months that one forgets we're still very early in an experiment by APE's mothership company, which includes WonderCon and Comic-Con International, to bracket its San Francisco show on either side of its San Diego one. There are other ways to look at APE, too: in terms of whether or not with an increased nationwide convention schedule if San Francisco can support two shows, how this show relates to a show like SPX perhaps in terms of drawing more west coast talent, whether or not the vendors favor comics or is more generally predisposed towards handmade art. Robot 6 has a breakdown of who is doing what where.

* if I were going to APE, I would 1) buy a copy of John Pham's Sublife #2 -- I saw the pages last summer and they're super-pretty and Pham should be encouraged to make more comics in every way possible; 2) take a look at what Anders Nilsen might have for sale at the Drawn and Quarterly booth; 3) buy the new Rina Ayuyang comic from Sparkplug; 4) go see Jeff Smith's spotlight panel and his participation in a quick draw activity; 5) find out something about the publishing future of the great Phoebe Gloeckner; 5) visit as many of the local comics shops or at least their booth set-ups if I could, culminating in Isotope's big party with their mini-comics award winner. If I hadn't been invited to a wedding this weekend, I'd certainly be there.

* the Big Apple Comic-Con also gets underway this weekend. Paul Cornell won't be there. Bill Shatner apparently will be.

* early word from the show itself indicates that the con will be held next year from October 7-10, 2010. Watch for a spate of headlines noticing this from various blogs and news sites. Why? Well, for one reason, next year's New York Comic-Con is October 8-10. This is great news for those of us who like to sit back and watch gigantic comics entities beat on each other and try to out-compete each other, and particularly good news for those of us who thought Wizard would get only as close as a week away from the Reed Exhibitions show on either side. This puts the two shows in direct competition, with anything resembling a draw favoring the smaller Wizard show. Also, with an extra day, Wizard may be able to convince even NYCC attendees to also do their show. This will all be watched very, very closely.
 
posted 8:10 am PST | Permalink
 

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