West Coast Road Report

The 2003 Convention year started on the West Coast on February 1 when APE opened in San Francisco. Eight days later in Seattle the Emerald City Comicon opened. The CBLDF was there talking to members and collecting donations to start paying for this year’s mission-centered work. The donations are up on eBay this week and the road report begins below.

Great APE

It will be hard to top APE as 2003’s most social comics convention. There were at least a dozen parties surrounding the two-day underground comics convention. Official numbers aren’t in, but most estimates place at least 3,000 people attending the con. There were more exhibitors than ever – over 200 cartoonists showed off a broad range of handmade, literary, art, and pop comics.

The Fund’s Kyle Cunningham and Charles Brownstein met hundreds of members from the reader and creative communities over the weekend, and collected several great APE artifacts which we’re offering to supporters on eBay this week.

On the table we had the new Little Gloomy shirt by Eric Jones, which you can find right now on CBLDF.com. We also had an APE-exclusive print of our upcoming shirt by Colleen Coover, along with a selection of rare posters, books, and the new issue of Busted!

Lots of creators were wandering the floor, including Scott McCloud who signed a few copies of his 1986 superhero classic “Destroy!” that the Fund found before the show. Most of the copies we had were picked up by West Coast supporters, but we saved one for CBLDFNews readers, and it’s up on eBay this week.

Robert Williams was caught at the Fantagraphics table signing copies of his definitive comix collection “Hysteria in Remission!” The book is a record of Williams 30 year creative journey, from hot rod art through Zap and into the bold imagist style his paintings are renowned for. Fantagraphics donated an signed artist proof of the limited hardcover edition for CBLDFNews supporters. This is among the only APs in circulation, so don’t miss out!

Oni Press is giving supporters who couldn’t make it to APE a chance at signed books by their creators who were at the show. Judd Winick signed and sketched in a pair of Frumpy the Clown collections and gave the same treatment to a copy of Barry Ween vol.1. Chynna Clugston-Major signed her collaborations It Girl & Jingle Belle. Ted Naifeh signed a copy of Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things and Oni editor Jamie Rich signed his novel Cut My Hair. They also passed along a copy of the limited hardcover edition of Queen & Country vol. 3. We’ve put all these books on eBay for you as well.

Craig Thompson created the beautiful APE commemorative poster and signed a copy for our members. Scott Morse donated a copy of his limited handmade sketchbook, as well as a signed copy of Magic Pickle. Chris Pitzer donated a one of a kind promotional poster for this year’s SPX book by Andi Watson. And at the Fund table cartoonists including Jesse Reklaw, Fly, Tom Hart, Jordan Crane, Tervor Alexopulus, Dylan Williams, Souther Salazar, and a dozen others created a comix jam based on Picasso’s Guernica.

After the show, parties were abundant. On Friday night we hopped from the Mission for Last Gasp’s warehouse reception to Union Square for CCI’s official exhibitor mixer; then we went across the bridge for Comic Relief’s Comics Salon and Kitchen Sink Magazine’s reception at Oakland’s new art café Mama Buzz.

Saturday night brought the Fund’s joint reception with the Cartoon Art Museum which was reported on last week. Across the street Last Gasp was hosting a party at 111 Minna featuring a Sci-Fi Western art show. Meanwhile on the other side of the city Isotope, the Comic Book Lounge, was hosting its epic APE aftermath party, which offered the mini-comics excellence award and was the official after-hours spot of APE revelers.

Once again, APE was the West’s largest alternative comics show. Our supporters in that crowd donated nearly $2,000 to the Fund over the weekend.

Talking Law in North Beach

Wednesday morning CBLDF counsel Burton Joseph and Last Gasp founder Ron Turner met in a North Beach café to swap notes about the current legal climate for comics. Canada Customs remains problematic. They recently stopped a copy of Rebel Visions at the border that was on its way to contributor George Metzger. In the States, troubles in comic stores are momentarily quiet, but in the general book industry, tension is mounting about implications of the Patriot Act’s provision to subpoena customer records. Presently the American Bookseller’s Foundation for Free Expression is fighting the Justice Department to release current subpoena information.

Burt and Ron also discussed some common sense measures for retailers when dealing with law enforcement that will be part of an article in the Spring issue of Busted! Meanwhile, Busted #13 is on its way to members and has hit comic stores. Ask your retailer for Busted!, or make the right step and get it sent to you when you join or renew your CBLDF membership.

Wagnerian Shellfish and Publisher Pub Crawl

After SF the Fund stopped in Portland. Diana Schutz picked us up at the airport and gave a tour of Dark Horse’s offices, which are filled by original art and artifacts from Dark Horse’s distinctive history. We couldn’t linger very long because we were due for dinner at Matt Wagner’s, an opportunity no one can afford to miss. Wagner’s gastronomical prowess is legendary. “If I didn’t discover comics first, I would have been a chef,” Matt said, putting the finishing touches on the seafood. No doubt Matt would have been a star in the restaurant world, but we’re fortunate he chose comics. After dinner Matt showed us the first two issues of his upcoming DC series “Trinity” which captures Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman at their most iconic. On our way out Matt gave us a set of Grendel PVC figures that he signed with a sketch to pass over to our supporters, which we’re offering this week on eBay.

After dinner we moved on to meet Top Shelf’s Brett Warnock, Craig Thompson, and Aaron Reiner at a pub downtown. Thompson had brought a copy of Blankets, his new graphic novel that will be sweeping the nominations by this time next year.

The next morning Warnock and Brownstein drove up to Seattle where we met up with the Fantagraphics crew. That night Fanta’s Eric Reynolds took us to see an exhibit of skateboard themed art at Roq La Rue where Jim Woodring had new paintings on display. On Saturday we set up for Emerald City, where we caught up with Image’s Eric Stephenson and Jay Faerber, who were anxiously discussing an upcoming crime book Jay’s writing for the ‘i’. Saturday night it was off to another pub in Seattle where Fanta’s office crew, and cartoonists Jennifer Daydreamer, David Lasky, Greg Stump, and Peter Bagge were having pitchers of great Northwest beer. The creators were abuzz about their new projects. Jennifer just published a beautiful comic with Top Shelf; Lasky and Stump have put out another issue of Urban Hipster with Alternative; and Bagge is about to premiere Sweatshop with DC, which his editor Joey Cavalieri calls “The Larry Sanders Show of Comics.”

The night went pretty late and the next morning it was time for the show.

Emerald City: A Back to Basics Hit

Emerald City Comicon is a back to basics comics show that attracted over 2,400 comics fans. It was held in Seattle’s Seahawks Stadium and drew crowds from Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. The floor was an even playing field focusing on comics and featuring exhibits from the Fund, Oni Press, Dark Horse, Top Shelf, Fantagraphics, Image, Michel Gagne, and several Northwest comics labels. There was a good mix of creators that included Erik Larsen, John Cassaday, Kurt Busiek, Scott Morse, Donna Barr, Roberta Gregory, and dozens of other cartoonists.

We were busy meeting supporters through the day, but did happen to bump into Jim Mahfood who donated a page of art from Tangled Web of Spider-Man that’s now on eBay. Matt Camp of the new Image title Shadows donated a Savage Dragon sketch that we’re passing along to you as well.

Emerald City started on the right foot, offering a nice no-frills show that connected a wide mix of Northwest comics fans with a show they could enjoy.

Thanks to everyone on the West Coast who hosted the Fund while we visited and for passing along this week’s eBay premiums to our supporters. Next week we’ll have details on current legal efforts and info about two auctions: one for our naughty friends and one for our nice ones!