Go, Read: Dylan Williams On TCAF, Conventions Generally

Dylan Williams has written a lengthy post concerning the convention about which everyone right at this exact moment is probably a bit sick of reading lengthy posts -- TCAF from 10 days ago -- but it's a potentially important piece in a greater sense because Williams staked out some territory in a previous essay about the future of the conventions vis-a-vis his publishing efforts at Sparkplug and this serves as a bookend to that essay. You should both if you have the time. I rarely do justice to how Williams thinks, but it seems to me that he's suggesting that conventions and festivals can be an extremely important tool in securing a future for a certain kind of comics with its greater, potential audience, and that many conventions simply don't fail to do this. In fact, some things about some conventions may work against the optimal future as he sees it.

I'm not coming from the very specific place Williams comes from having a publishing house and being an artist, but I do think different shows have different functions and at this point the benefits of different kinds of shows may be calcifying. I need to write about this at greater length some point soon, but I think that conventions that don't at least consider adding a festival element -- a unique space, a tamping down on a certain kind of commerce, free access to a wider public -- run the danger of not only failing to do what shows like TCAF do, but also may risk failing to do what they've traditionally done well because there's no longer the broad industry follow-up necessary in keeping and serving certain kinds of fans. In other words, an average person that goes to Toronto or Brooklyn may be perfectly served by planning to go to next year's show or by paying peripheral attention to a certain kind of comics or even a certain set of creators; the potentially more intense, commerce-oriented, immersive fan that may go to a regional or national or mainstream-focused comics convention I might suggest isn't being all the way served by simply hitting that next show or keeping comics in mind. But coverage issues, pricing issues, and the general disjointed way that comics can treat the person that wants to buy in more completely may keep them from doing anything other than mark the calendar one year down the line. Comics in general may actually be doing a better job serving the needs of more casual fans than making and keeping intense ones, which I realize is probably the opposite of what most people believe.

At any rate, you should read Williams' well-articulated point of view. I'm glad there's a subset of shows that work for a publisher like Sparkplug, and I don't think there's anything wrong with making distinctions and hard choices as to what works and what doesn't in such a tricky overall venture like making comics. He's not criticizing; he's surviving.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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