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



By Tom Spurgeon

* not sure what's out there right now. Let's see.

* most of my personal orientation is aimed at SPX, two weeks from now. Their tumblr is excellent reading for comics in general right now. They've been rolling out the Jaime Hernandez ticket images. It's my understanding that there are no reservations at the host hotel for Friday, and that area gets kind of weird for hotel rooms past that place. It's kind of a weird place, generally, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. One of the things that's interesting about SPX is that its Camp Comics atmosphere sort of rewards there being not a lot to do in the neighborhood.

* oh, it's Dragon*Con this weekend, in its traditional Labor Day slot. That is a strange show in terms of its orientation towards comics. For one thing, I didn't have it listed at all until this morning and not a single person wrote in to complain. That never happens with any show just about any person out there is attending, let alone ones where a reader is exhibiting. Dragon*Con seems to me like a mainstream comic-con with all the stuff that would interest most readers of CR boiled away -- it's more a general genre show where some comics people set up than a comics show in a significant way, although I'm sure some would disagree. My understanding is that it's very old-school in its party-in-the-hotel-rooms orientation, and very new school in terms of the way sex is put and front center, but I don't know that from personal experience. I would imagine it's a very important part of a lot of folks' lives, having been around in reliable fashion for as long as it has. I've enjoyed the heck out of Atlanta the few times I've been there, and there is a pretty solid group of cartoonists that live there or near there.

* maybe my favorite comics-culture blogger ever, Kathleen David, is a long-time attendee of Dragon*Con and talks about the show here.

* David Petersen has art up that's being used for the Baltimore Con's convention program.

* next weekend's Baltimore show is where all that comics stuff ends up, by the way; that's a mainstream-oriented comics show that's nothing but comics.

* the MorrisonCon programming is up. That looks like a solid list of things to do. I think the programming has to carry a lot of weight at an event like that. I know people that giggle about that show, but it makes perfect sense to me.

* speaking of MorrisonCon made me think I should check to see if I knew when PAX was, and holy crud it starts tomorrow! This is the gaming convention that's spiraled from the very smart efforts of the Penny Arcade guys, so it's not like I forgot to put a TCAF-style event on my calendar, but it's still a stupid omission on my part. While there is occasionally some comics content, and you have the tie-in of the founders, what you should really note with PAX is that it fathered things like the Stan Lee, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison efforts to extend their personal brands into a convention model that seems to work generally now.

* finally, that The Projects show is in the final-hours stage of its kickstarter; it's not so far away it might not make it, but it likely needs a push. I wouldn't be surprised if someone stepped in to put them over the top just so they can secure the funding already secured, but I wouldn't count on it.
 
posted 5:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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