Conventions

Webcomic-friendly conventions

SPX and Intervention 2010 Report

Xaviar Xerexes Leave a Comment

SPX 2010Intervention 2010Wow! SPX and Intervention in one long weekend of comics; it took me awhile to recover and get back to writing up lessons learned.  I felt a little stretched trying to cover ground at both conventions —  but it looks like no one will have to do that again as Intervention will almost certainly be on a different weekend in the Fall next year. Ideally, Intervention would be in the summer or spring to really separate it from SPX, but co-creator Oni Hartstein explained that a Spring date for the show would be cost prohibitive.

SPX was more of the same as it has been since the move to the Bethesda Convention Center — one big room filled with rows and rows of comic creators talking about their comics with books and swag to sell.  The presence of webcomics at the show grows every year — this year Kate Beaton was the rock star of the show, with lines longer than anyone else had.  Jeph Jacques' table and a whole group of webcomics at one corner of the room were all pretty constantly crowded from what I could tell.  It's kind of a no-brainer when you say it out loud, but if you have a webcomic with a decent to more than decent sized audience, SPX is potentially a really good show.  People are there for the comics and outside of New York, this is one of the best places on the East Coast to see a whole lot of the entire spectrum of comics.

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Interviews with Five Creators at SPX 2010

Xaviar Xerexes

Here's a longer clip of five interviews I did in a row at SPX this past weekend.  These creators' work largely has more of an indy feel and while they all have web presences I think all are a bit more focused on print.  I have reviewed work from J.T. Yost and Sophia Wiedeman before but it was my first time looking at comics from the other three.  Yost had a Xeric Award winner in his book Old Man Winter (reviewed here) and Wiedeman had a Xeric Award winner in her book The Deformitory (reviewed here).

In order I talked to Steve Secks about his comic Life Is Good, Sara Lindo about her comic Carl In Love, Marguerite Dabaie about her comic The Hookah Girl And Other True Stories, Sohia Wiedeman about her comic Lettuce Girl, and J.T. Yost about his two new series — one about dreams and the other about found objects.

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Interviews with Sara Turner and Jerzy Drozd

Xaviar Xerexes Leave a Comment

I got a chance to do short interviews with Sara Turner and Jerzy Drowd at SPX this past weekend.  

Sara was there to promote her new comic The Ghosts of Pineville.  They also had a print collection of The Replacements, a webcomic that originally ran on GraphicSmash.com that Sara worked on with Jerzy.  Jerzy and Sara put out a lot of their work under their Make Like A Tree banner where you can also find out more about what they're working on.

Jerzy was there to promote a new minicomic, Tiny Hamiltons, that he did with his wife Anne.  He also let slip that he's already written another volume of his webcomic The Front although it sounds like it won't be until next year at the earliest that we'll see it on the web.

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Guest Blogging Introduction: Harknell

harknell Leave a Comment

Hi Everyone, I want to thank Xerexes for giving me the opportunity to blog here at ComixTalk this week.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what I do, I am the web developer for the webcomics Stupid and Insane Defenders Against Chaos and Erfworld, as well as the developer of WordPress plugins for artists available at AWSOM.org. My current biggest project is being co-chair and a founder of the new convention Intervention, happening September 10-12 in Rockville Maryland, which is dedicated to educating about and celebrating the Internet as a primary distribution method of artistic output. We have a ton of webcomic guests, writers, podcasters, independent films, gaming, dance and burlesque events. Anyone who reads ComixTalk will surely find something fun at the con, as well as get things signed by Fred Gallagher of Megatokyo, Ben Bova, or Molly Crabapple of Dr Sketchy's.

I'll be writing a few things this week about conventions (since it's primarily on my mind right now)–both from the development side and the attending side. Since I've been both a guest and a coordinator for cons, I hope to be able to bridge the gap and provide some good advice for both sides. 

 

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A Webcomic Presentation for SXSW

CreateAComic Leave a Comment

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive is one of the major conventions for innovative techniques in pop culture. For 2011, I've submitted a proposal of my own related to the Create a Comic Project: "Interactive Comics: Techniques to Enhance Math Education." This year, from what I can tell, it's the only submission dealing with webcomics and one of the few touching on comics in general.

In order to be selected, proposals have to earn a positive response from the public in addition to the judges. I'm hoping you'll take the time to register with SXSW's Panel Picker and vote for it so webcomics can be represented alongside of SXSW's other major technological innovations.

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