Five Things To Do At Stumptown



These are a few of the things I would do, were I lucky enough to be attending the Stumptown Comics Festival in Portland, Oregon.

1. Buy That Popeye Book I would buy a copy of Popeye Volume One: I Yam What I Yam, Fantagraphics' lovely new reprinting of one of the top five all-time comic strips. Re-doing Thimble Theatre from roughly Popeye's first appearance has a great advantage in that you get to follow up a solid-to-sterling first book with a second that features the greatest comic strip character of all time, J. Wellington Wimpy. These should be awesome-looking.

2. Go See a Panel The panels don't appeal to me as much as SPX's, but I'd still go to see Jesse Reklaw on distribution and Keith Knight's slideshow, and wouldn't mind seeing any of them.

3. Visit Jim Blanchard's Table His original art pieces can be astonishing, particularly the pen and ink work; everyone should own one.

4. Hit The Social Events Primarily this one, but also any others. In terms of momentum, this is an important year for the show. In addition to a strong exhibitor list, I know at least three people that are going to scout it out for future years. This year's parties may be the ones to attend so that you'll have the street cred with which to complain when the show gets real big. "In 2006, we had one Saturday party, and everybody was there..."

5. Have A Long Dinner And Relax With Some Pals You know the reason why so many comics professionals live in Portland? Because Portland is a lovely place to live. Sure, you can go to Powell's (if only to complain how much Powell's sucks now), or do any number of quality, touristry things. But the city's real strengths are its living comforts, not its visitor's highlights. Pretend you're local.
 
posted 3:24 am PST | Permalink
 

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