Anna Litofsky - 2021
Chad Kelson - 2021
Jeff McClelland's long-running blog about comics and stuff
I recently bought a very large book, along with some very small books, and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, they were both comic books. These have the distinction of being the biggest and smallest books I own, so let's take a look at these record-breakers.
A number of years ago, I met writer Jim Krueger at a comic book convention. Krueger wrote one of my favorite Marvel alternate reality series, Earth X and its sequels, and I made sure that I let him know that - and also how much I enjoyed how he wrote the Thing in the book.
This spawned a rather frenetic conversation between the two of us, where we both said a number of things which all amounted to, "we love the Thing!" And so this was a great moment, and one that I'll always remember. He told me that he had to stop himself from giving the Thing all of the best lines and moments in the book, which I felt was unnecessary, because there's no reason to not make every (EVERY) book about the Thing.
This past October at the New York Comic Con, I sought out some original art vendors to look for a page or two that I might buy. Now, there are different tiers of original art vendors at comic conventions. Many of them sell Golden Age Superman pages for $30,000 or Will Eisner originals for $15,000. These booths are interesting to walk past, because they contain comic book history that I will never be able to afford, but I guess it's still nice to be able to see original Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns and Jack Kirby Fantastic Four pages in person. I imagine that the goal of these vendors is to sell one single page of art for the entire show, and then buy a car or something.
The other original art vendors at comic conventions have enormous stacks of pages and color guides from the 1990s Darkhawk series, probably bought from the original artist in 1997 for $1 per page, now on sale for $200 each. These are the booths where I generally spend time at, rummaging through binders and piles to see if somehow, there's a page that I can afford that also has the Thing knocking someone's block off.
On the last day of the '23 NYCC, I spent the waning hours of the convention looking for such a page, and I found a pretty good one.
As 2023 winds down, let's look back at my best comic memory of the year:
The Illustrated Al: The Songs of "Weird Al" Yankovic was nominated for an Eisner award! By default, I demand that everyone recognize that I was also nominated for an Eisner! I will not be taking any questions. Also in 2023, The Illustrated Al won a 'Ringo! Award! I am a 2023 'Ringo! Award winner! I WILL NOT BE TAKING QUESTIONS.
Okay, The Illustrated Al is an anthology. A lot of talented creators worked on the book. But I was one of those creators, and I'm counting this is as a win in my book.
In July, I attended the Eisner Awards at the San Diego Comic-Con for the first time. This is what I took away from it:
It is very fancy.
People dressed up. People gave speeches. They sat at fancy tables and took home trophies.
I sat closer to the back. The ceremony lasted close to three hours. The presenters pronounced the book "The Illustrated A.I." I took home a program!
The program got bend all to hell on my trip home, but I'll still keep it forever. It's listed in the program! The Nib ended up winning the award, but I still had a fun time and was excited to attend and to have some of my work nominated.
Later on in the year, the anthology was nominated again, this time for best humor comic, and this time...it won!
Z2 Comics, the book's publisher, held a special signing for the book at their booth at the New York Comic Con, where I got to not only feel very privileged, signing books for fans, but I also got to see the award in person. This was a big deal for me! Here I am with Josh Bernstein, the book's editor.
Some of the creators of the book took a group shot and I decided to kneel down for it even though Bill Plympton is, like, 6'6".
This was my best comic experience in 2023. I will not be taking any questions.
Comic book conventions have gone through a few different iterations since I've been attending them since (gasp) the mid '90s. I've seen them morph from niche, comic-centric affairs in hotel basements to popular media-saturated extravaganzas held in some of the largest indoor and outdoor spaces in the world. Both can be great, and I find that I've enjoyed both in equal measure, because comic conventions give fans a chance to celebrate the things that they love and interact with others in what, at its best, is a welcoming environment.
I think that some conventions are still trying to find their way back from the pandemic, which affected, among other things, the ways in which we think about crowded spaces. The New York Comic Con is a good example of this, I think, as over the last decade it has been an incredibly well attended show both in terms of overall engagement as well as in the sense of let's see how many people we can possibly fit into this space at once time. I've said this before, but one of the big differences between NYCC and the San Diego Comic-Con is simply that there's a lot of room to spread out in San Diego, and in New York, you pretty much have the Javits Center to work with.
2023 was another big year for the show in New York, but there were some changes at the convention that I think were at least curious, and perhaps were a sign of different things to come in the future.
I attended the show on both Friday and Sunday, so I didn't see everything that happened over the four-day event. When I was there, it didn't seem like there were quite as many vendors as in some previous years (certainly pre-covid), but it was the placement of these vendors that really stood out to me, and in particular, how this affected the show's artist alley.
Artist alley at NYCC has always been a weird experience, at least for me. In years past, the show has experimented with the area's location. Before the convention center's recent renovation, you'd have to walk through the main hall and down a corridor before entering the artist alley location, and because of this, it always seemed to me that this was a separate part of the show. During and since the renovation, artist alley has been on the bottom floor of the main hall, which has produced good, bad and weird experiences.
One of the things that stood out to me about the main exhibit floor at NYCC was the lack of major comic publishers. Marvel had its regular spot, but I didn't find booths for publishers like Dark Horse, Image/Skybound or DC (which, to be fair, would sometimes show up in previous years and sometimes not). Smaller publishers like MadCave Studios and Z2 did have spots on the show floor, but not seeing many of the larger comic book publishers was a little strange. Was the cost of a premium booth that prohibitive for a big publisher? Did it finally get to the point of diminishing returns?
When I went downstairs to the artist alley section, I found IDW parked at the entrance of the floor, with a smaller and relatively pared-down version of what their booth has been in the past. ComiXology, if I remember correctly, was in this spot or a similar one in 2022.
I walked through the aisles and something else stood out to me. Calling pretty much any comic book creator famous is pretty relative, of course, but there were more than a few well-known current and former creators in spaces that used to be occupied by independent and up-and-coming creators. Chris Claremont, the popular X-Men writer, for example, had a booth in artist alley this year. Seemingly whole rows were bought up by studios or agents, so every artist in a given space had the same representation and the same backdrop.
I think that this was a result of fewer publishers on the main floor. Where in the past, A-list creators would spend their time on the show floor, signing books and doing interviews at publisher booths, their best opportunity to sell some of their books and art this year was to set up in artist alley. This, I think, had the unintended consequence of squeezing out some of the lesser-known and more independent creators. This might not seem like a big deal, but I know that a lot of lesser-known creators use shows like NYCC to become...better-known creators, and I can't help but feel that the whole industry benefits when someone with talent and drive but not a lot of hype is able to show off his or her stuff at a big industry show like the one in New York.
Another consequence, and one that I'll gloss over fairly quickly, is that prices in artist alley this year were pretty steep. I don't begrudge any creator for getting paid as much as he or she can. But I saw some folks selling headshot sketches for $400 (and more) at tables and man, there was some sticker shock on my part. Again, if an artist can get that, I certainly don't begrudge him or her for it. But "well, I guess I won't be getting anything here" was a common refrain for me over the weekend.
I hope that there's a better balance in the future, where artist alley can really be a place where professionals and hopefuls can meet and collaborate. I think it's best for the industry. There's a place for a company like IDW at any show, I think, but I don't think it's taking up space in artist alley. And if companies like Dark Horse and Image choose to skip a big show like NYCC, then I think it's fair to question whether or not the show is really representing the industry as best it can.
Hey, let's look at a few pictures I took at the show!
The signing was on the upper floor of the comic shop, so everyone had to move through the small space pretty quickly, but I still enjoyed getting to do this little event away from the convention center, and everyone in line got a new ashcan comic just for being there. It was a great experience.
Let me tell you all a little about Kennywood Amusement Park. Wedged somewhat uncomfortably into the Homestead area of the greater Pittsburgh region, Kennywood is nevertheless a premiere amusement park for Western Pennsylvania. With more than 120 years of history, Kennywood has roller coasters both old and new, from wooden rides like the Jackrabbit and the Thunderbolt to steel coasters like the Phantom's Revenge and the Sky Rocket. And, like any self-respecting Pittsburgh-area institution, there's also a healthy Steelers presence in the new-ish Steel Curtain ride. It's a destination attraction for the area, and a great mid-level amusement park all around.
Interestingly enough, right after I snapped the picture of the ad, I sat down to read a copy of Marvel's Sleepwalker #1, a new and possibly masochistic purchase. Where does Rick and his best girl go on date night? To Coney Island, of course. Let me know if the Wonder Wheel is worth it, Rick.
Read the story for free here! I've been involved with FUBAR for about five years now, and there are a lot of stories that I'm...