On Deck: 2007 New York Comic-Con

Although I've bemoaned excesses of its coverage, I don't really hate the New York Comic-Con, whose second show starts this Friday at the Jacob Javits Center. I think conventions are swell, and traditionally so in comics because they have long provided correctives to deficiencies in the overall comics infrastructure. When I was a young man some 20 years ago we enjoyed making the long car trip to the big Chicago event and getting to buy all the comics they weren't carrying in our local funnybook shop, maybe seeing some cartoonists we knew and generally having a good time surrounded by the works we loved and the industry we liked to read about. I imagine the impulse now for many people is roughly the same, even with the Internet providing the primary market corrective for a lot of people. Cons are helpful in a lot of other ways, too: networking, trying to raise on-the-ground word of mouth, consummating on-line friendships, letting off steam, getting feedback, making deals, garnering impressions, earning some money -- the whole ball of creation/consumption wax.

I also think a big New York comics show is a great thing. New York is the heart of American comics publishing, and the home to more cartoonists and comics folk than any other place. It's home to the great comics syndicates and the storied comics magazines and the publishing houses with new comics divisions. Al Hirschfeld drew John Barrymore in New York. Peter Arno strolled to editorial meetings in New York. Kids visited the EC bullpen in New York. Gil Kane held forth over drinks in New York. Jack Kirby walked into Martin Goodman's office in New York. Harvey Kurtzman employed Terry Gilliam and Robert Crumb in New York. The East Village Other made blimps gothic in New York. Marvel staffers with beards wandered around high in New York. People in the RAW studios altered anthology covers in New York. Tony Millionaire wore loud suits and did everything last-minute in New York. A thousand flushed-with-excitement newspaper cartoonists were taken to lunch after meeting their syndicate's salesmen in New York. It's a wonderful place for cartooning.

Finally, I'm glad Reed Exhibitions is doing the show in New York; I prefer them to Wizard for the New York show because while both are essentially mainstream conventions the Reed folks are still more likely to have a considerable programming track and to make artists like Miriam Katin and Megan Kelso a part of things, even if it's secondary in more ways than I'd like to folks like Hayden Panettiere. The Reed people are smart, and I bet they work really hard, and even though I still feel it was completely asinine for anyone to spin last year's screw-ups as anything other than a hugely unfortunate systemic breakdown that socked a lot of people in the gut no matter who worked their way around it, I understand these kinds of things happen, and that such problems are correctable. I'm certain they'll have a great year. More than that, I hope that some readers out there have an encounter with the art form that's sustaining and meaningful, and that at least a few of them experience the high of something special having just happened that takes them all the way home and into the next week. That's what a good convention means.
 
posted 2:06 am PST | Permalink
 

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