APE Decompression, Day Two
Ah, good - I'm not the only one writing about this year's stellar Alternative Press Expo:
Josh Richardson provides an insider's view (and a hearty recap of the festivities on Saturday night, both at Isotope and at Josh's "Aftermath Afterparty" [God forgive me]) from In The Trenches, including a spotlight on his swag (a comic based on "November Rain"? ...sounds good) and a shot of me goofing around with good buddy Joe Keatinge:
And Jeremy Nisen posts an excellent wrap-up over at SFist, including photos of some of the cool booths he checked in on.
Am I the only fool who doesn't take pictures of everything?
The real trip is, as we've been discussing on this MillarWorld thread, that everybody finds different stuff. Everybody has a different experience. It's a remarkably dense convention floor - you've got the usual recognizables like Top Shelf, Fantagraphics, AiT/Planet Lar and the mini-shop set up by Comic Relief, but once you spread out into the side lanes, it's impossible to guess what you'll see.
You can't even tell from a distance. Molly and I figured we'd end up a bit dry on what we dubbed "The Ghetto Side" (based largely, we realized in retrospect, on the presence of Aaron Farmer and the B-Minus guys), but I think my favorite "new" creator from the con was one I found over there.
*****
Which brings me to another point. I've got WAY more shit here than I'm possibly going to be able to review this week, so I'm organizing. For the rest of the week, I'm going to [try to] do two reviews each day.
One review will be something totally new. Somebody I never met before the con, whose work I'd never seen. A big part of the fun of APE is exploring new territory and seeing where strangers want to take your imagination.
The second review will be of new work by folks I'm already familiar with. I had a very different experience this year than the first time I went, after all - a number of these guys are mainstays, people I rely on seeing at APE so I can catch up on all the cool shit they've been up to since the last time I saw 'em. That's another rad thing about APE, y'see - it's like a big giant wicked cool comic book store that you only get to go to once a year. It's like going to your Local Comics Shop and looking for the new X-Men book, only I'm there to find the new Jeremy Tinder, Miriam Libicki, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Rob Osborne or Jeff Davidson and Stephen Buell comics. Dig?
*****
The world keeps turning, though. Blair brings the pain this week over at All The Rage, with some really bitchin' new Ghost Rider pages (wow, did Texeria always look that good?), news of a really cool-sounding new Image anthology, and the GODDAMN FUCKING BUMMER news that the second issue of the Small Gods mini is cancelled.
*****
And James is back in full swing over at The Comic Pimp, with his trademark ten-page column this time interviewing Dave Ritchie and Dave Pifer, who run the Secret Headquarters comics shop in L.A., damn them both.
God, the way I go on you'd swear L.A. had done something terrible to me. Is there a repressed memory in there somewhere? Did I get slipped a roofie or some GHB and lose the memory? Did you date-rape me, Los Angeles?
Josh Richardson provides an insider's view (and a hearty recap of the festivities on Saturday night, both at Isotope and at Josh's "Aftermath Afterparty" [God forgive me]) from In The Trenches, including a spotlight on his swag (a comic based on "November Rain"? ...sounds good) and a shot of me goofing around with good buddy Joe Keatinge:
And Jeremy Nisen posts an excellent wrap-up over at SFist, including photos of some of the cool booths he checked in on.
Am I the only fool who doesn't take pictures of everything?
The real trip is, as we've been discussing on this MillarWorld thread, that everybody finds different stuff. Everybody has a different experience. It's a remarkably dense convention floor - you've got the usual recognizables like Top Shelf, Fantagraphics, AiT/Planet Lar and the mini-shop set up by Comic Relief, but once you spread out into the side lanes, it's impossible to guess what you'll see.
You can't even tell from a distance. Molly and I figured we'd end up a bit dry on what we dubbed "The Ghetto Side" (based largely, we realized in retrospect, on the presence of Aaron Farmer and the B-Minus guys), but I think my favorite "new" creator from the con was one I found over there.
*****
Which brings me to another point. I've got WAY more shit here than I'm possibly going to be able to review this week, so I'm organizing. For the rest of the week, I'm going to [try to] do two reviews each day.
One review will be something totally new. Somebody I never met before the con, whose work I'd never seen. A big part of the fun of APE is exploring new territory and seeing where strangers want to take your imagination.
The second review will be of new work by folks I'm already familiar with. I had a very different experience this year than the first time I went, after all - a number of these guys are mainstays, people I rely on seeing at APE so I can catch up on all the cool shit they've been up to since the last time I saw 'em. That's another rad thing about APE, y'see - it's like a big giant wicked cool comic book store that you only get to go to once a year. It's like going to your Local Comics Shop and looking for the new X-Men book, only I'm there to find the new Jeremy Tinder, Miriam Libicki, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Rob Osborne or Jeff Davidson and Stephen Buell comics. Dig?
*****
The world keeps turning, though. Blair brings the pain this week over at All The Rage, with some really bitchin' new Ghost Rider pages (wow, did Texeria always look that good?), news of a really cool-sounding new Image anthology, and the GODDAMN FUCKING BUMMER news that the second issue of the Small Gods mini is cancelled.
*****
And James is back in full swing over at The Comic Pimp, with his trademark ten-page column this time interviewing Dave Ritchie and Dave Pifer, who run the Secret Headquarters comics shop in L.A., damn them both.
God, the way I go on you'd swear L.A. had done something terrible to me. Is there a repressed memory in there somewhere? Did I get slipped a roofie or some GHB and lose the memory? Did you date-rape me, Los Angeles?
posted by Sean Maher @ 2:49 PM
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