Second-Day Notes On The Demise Of BCGF

If you missed it, late yesterday the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival announced its demise. This caught of lot of folks' attention for a number of reasons. First, conventions and festivals are super-popular right now, at least in terms of people trying to throw one, so someone taking a step in the other direction is worth noting. Second, that particular convention had been successful -- at least according to surface measures -- and popular. Third, New York shows are always interesting in and of themselves because New York is a major media center and the longtime capital of Comics USA; there should be shows in New York, massive and popular shows, but the degree of difficulty in pulling this off is immense. So those are three: I'm sure there are other reasons.

Reaction on twitter to news was immediate and generally laudatory in terms of assessing the event's brief history. As I imagine these things go, a show upon which people came to count -- I know of a couple of books that had already targeted the show for their debuts -- moving from a going concern to an "era" in the past made everyone in the small press, arts and alt comics worlds feel slightly older.

There are a couple of things worth noting the day after.

One is that apparently Tim Hodler is going to file a report, which is good because he was in the loop fairly early on and knows all the major players -- primarily the co-founders Dan Nadel, Gabe Fowler and Bill Kartalopoulos. That allows me and people like me to play catch for a while, at least until Tim files. If it's a good, we can maybe let his article stand as the one of record.

A second is that a lot of people are asking who benefits, which I think a fairly intriguing topic. I would imagine that a bunch of people/events could.

a) if a similar show comes from one of the co-sponsors and fill roughly that same calendar space, I think memories of BCGF are positive in a way that exhibitors and attendees would give that one a whirl.

b) I know that a bunch of folks are committed this year to the festival of cartoon art in Columbus, Ohio being held in conjunction with the opening of the new Billy Ireland spaces. That's actually been one of the cooler shows of the last several years, what they've done there every other year without the facility event to hang this stuff on. It's been primarily strip-oriented, but that's going to change a bit with this one. You might not get exhibitor interest, or creators that operate as exhibitors, with that one in the same way -- there's no small press room for folks to set up and sell things, as far as I know -- but if you're a fan like me looking for a comics-related trip between SPX and Angouleme, that would seem to fit the bill. Plus I like Columbus. So I'll be there.

Plus maybe if enough people show up we can convince Jeff Smith to host a cookout.

c) there's another festival in the same general neighborhood as BCGF. It's small, but a lot of early comics shows stay small for quite some time before something happens to make them grow. An operating show means an option for people in the borough to exhibit locally that might now be more attractive, and an infrastructure that could maybe move into an open Fall slot.

d) SPX potentially becomes that much more important for people that might not be bothered to go if they could just stay closer to home and hit Brooklyn. While the rest of us slept, Warren Bernard likely wrote a position paper on New York fan outreach.

e) NYCC might get a slight boost from those of us that want to travel to New York in the Fall under the auspices of a working comics weekend, even if the thought of spending a bunch of time on the floor of the mainstream- and con-culture oriented Reed-run show makes us queasy.

f) APE is suddenly in a much better position to become a more significant capper for the year in small press, and a trip to San Francisco is probably one of those experiences out there closest to a trip to Brooklyn if you were going to BCGF just to go hang out in a cool city for a couple of days.

g) TCAF. I'm sure TCAF wins in this scenario somehow, because TCAF usually just wins stuff. I guess they could maybe rope in one of the co-organizers into a more active role up there...? I don't know. They'll do something with this if there's something to be done.

h) MoCCA -- if this show fits into the Society Of Illustrators plans moving forward -- and I suspect it does for the short term at the very least -- I imagine they might get a slight boost from simply being a New York show and thus attracting a few of the folks for whom BCGF was their sole local comics show to attend. I know it would become more important for me to hit MoCCA if I had fewer chances to just get to New York, even for a little while. I suppose with TCAF in the Spring MoCCA might also consider a Fall date if one were suddenly open this way, but that's pure conjecture on my part.

I'm sure there are others. The thing about shows is that they're not only relatively successful right now as a group but they traditionally provide opportunities for non-comics makers to be involved in a significant way in the world of comics -- something that a lot of folks want. I have to imagine that all of these interests will coalesce into something similar as the departed show, but even if they don't, there will be a real impact felt in that creative milieu.
 
posted 12:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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