Rambling Introduction Choked With Sentimentality
The morning I left SPX started the same way that the morning I got to SPX began, with a four year old boy thumbing through
The Art Of Miyazaki's Spirited Away, showing me all the various pictures and illustrations that went into the construction of the film. It's not exactly a kid's book—there isn't anything in it that's upsetting or vile, but it's a collection of animation specs, concept sketches, the complete script of the film. "He's not supposed to be inside." "That's the bathing place. How old is that?" "This belongs to Yubaba." "This is colored pencils." "This is what they drew so they could look at it."
He looked at me occasionally while he said these things, but not because he wanted a response. He just wanted to make sure I was paying attention, that I could see what he saw. It wouldn't be accurate to say that he stopped when I had to leave, he just continued in silence. Both times I walked out the door—once to SPX, once to return home—I glanced at him on my way, and even though he'd lost his witness, he kept looking at the pages, many of which were on their way to being dog-eared, despite his father's gentle reminder that we should be careful with our books.
The thing about getting older while reading comics is the eventual loss of that sort of universal attentiveness. It's not that comics lose their magic, it's that you can start to fake the excitement, the loss of self, the immersion for every single story you read. When you're a kid, sure, you can get lost in almost anything that's good, garish or shiny, in things that would and will repel you when you eventually survive long enough that a newspaper would call you an "adult male" if you died in a fire on a headline-needed kind of day. It's not because comics have gotten worse, only Alan Moore thinks that. Dross is dross, and it always has been. But being able to trap oneself in a theater of solipsism, being able to lose oneself in the great right alongside the mediocre—that's the province of the very young, and that's as it should be. We get older, not always smarter, and our taste is always the one we think is correct. We have to hunt, and we grew up gathering.
Biographical Information
SPX was held in a conference center in a Marriott hotel in Bethesda Maryland this past weekend. I went, although not at the behest of comiXology's corporate overlords. I went as an attendant, a fan, and, in a strange way, a subparticipant. I spent money on comics that I was excited about, comics that were recommended by friends, comics that looked interesting. I moderated a panel on Humor In Comics, with Matt Furie, Lisa Hanawalt, Emily Flake & Sam Gaskin—I liked doing that—and I sat at the table for one about comics criticism—I liked that a little less.
Comics I Acquired Complete With Mildly Useless Surface Reactions
Ganges # 3, by Kevin Huizenga
Ganges #2 was, and remains, my favorite comic of 2008, and Huizenga remains someone who I'll purchase anything by. I've only gotten a chance to ingest a bit of 3, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with it. Like everything the guy does, it's gorgeous to look at.
Men Called Him Hairyola, by Batten & Godfrey
Everybody likes a good-natured ribbing, especially when it's directed at Craig Thompson and Blankets.
Boy's Club 3, I Want You, Injury # 3, The Aviatrix # 1
These are four of Buenaventura's "we'll publish stuff whether Diamond will carry it or not" new alt comics, and they've all got some winning qualities to them. My favorite is Matt Furie's
Boy's Club, which my wife allowed me to read out loud to her the night I returned. She laughed, and then I handed her Lisa Hanawalt's
I Want You, and she laughed even harder. We both appreciated our craven embrace of sexism.
King-Cat 70, by John Porcellino
I've got more affection for
King-Cat than a lot of things I read, but I realized a while back that I don't find them very engaging as comics. I just enjoy the experience of having a window into John's life, watching and experiencing how he turns faux diary entries into dream-y bits of art. This year's issue marks the 20th anniversary of the series, making King-Cat older than the convention itself.
So Buttons # 2, Only Skin # 4, Snake Oil # 4, Cold Heat 7/8 & Cold Heat Special # 7
I like all of these creators, and it's become a bit of a ritual of mine to pick up the latest issue of whatever they have available. I was informed by two of them that they wanted eventual feedback, which I found a bit daunting. So daunting that I haven't read them yet, but if history is any indication, I'll like at least one of them. Probably two. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up satisfied by the whole lot.
Big Deal OGNS, I Believe That's The Terminology, Eddie Campbell May Soon Slap A Publicist
Prison Pit, by Johnny Ryan
I'd actually read a digital copy of Prison Pit already, but I hadn't gotten a chance to grab a physical copy of it. Now that I have, I feel pretty comfortable with how excited I was when I first saw a guy say "What're you waiting for? Want me to send you an evite?" prior to slaughtering another guy with axe, fists, and a whole lot of gore. While McNiven's Old Man Logan has ended 2009's race for "most graphic" early,
Prison Pit is no slouch at spot #2. It's also much, much better than Logan, in part because it's actually good, but also because it's not really, really, really, stupid.
Driven By Lemons, by Josh Cotter
I'd never had anyone "approach me on a subway" regarding a comic I was reading, although that seems to be a regular occurrence in many-a-reader's life. That finally changed when I started flipping the pages on Cotter's
Driven by Lemons on the R line. It's a striking book, one that uses abstraction and monomaniacal drawings, pain, confusion and the
Transformers theme song (also used in
Boogie Nights), and it's made me feel dumb as a sack of hammers. I love it, I'm intimidated by it, and I'll probably still be reading it and questioning what it's saying for another six months.
[Ed's note: There is a
free preview of Driven By Lemons on our
iPhone Comics app, right now!]
Distant Neighborhood, by Jiro Taniguchi
Although I was given a mild tsk-ing by a fellow con-goer for this one, I'll admit it: I like the way Jiro Taniguchi draws. His work may not have the best dialog, it may not be the most compelling story, but man oh man: these are pretty, pretty pictures. Everybody has a huckleberry, and he'll do in a pinch.
Miscellaneous
There were quite a few other comics--two more stacks--I picked up as well. I left a lot behind, although that's mostly due to the fact that I'm now able to rely on local stores to provide me with the mini-comics and small press stuff available. Even when I did seek out the king of mustaches or the creator of
Otto Zeppelin, I found myself looking at a table of comics I already owned copies of. I bought a Russ Manning
Magnus from Frank Santoro, I called the spending quits. It's quite a haul, the best one I've had in years.
Stilted Conclusion Suitable For Bathing, Including Reference To As Of Yet Bewildering Introduction
I didn't like Mocca this year, but that's water under the bridge. I can give up my dislike of Mocca the same way I forget a crappy comic: because something good arrives to stomp it into the ground. And this SPX—my first—was a great experience. (Which is better than good.) The place was packed tight, every aisle full of people buying comics, reading comics, talking comics. 20-year men like Porcellino hand-sold
King Cat while 20-year-old cartoonists handed out free one-sheets, old
Raw contributors signed much-deserved hardcovers, award-winning cartoonists leaned up against walls and called out names.
My transport was an education in itself—talking with
Joe McCulloch and
Chris Mautner about the comics we liked, and the weirdness of sitting in front of an audience made up almost completely of other bloggers so that we could talk to them about blogging while Gary Groth and Bill Kartalopoulos attempted to steer the ship to loftier waters. (Next time, the criticism panel might best take place in its obvious new home: a local high school's computer lab, where all and sundry can type furious missives at each other on an SPX message board, peering over their shoulder to say "black hats for all of them, Fie on their Lantern'ed Jaws!")
But at the end of it, I fell asleep on a pull out bed next to a pile of comics I was—and still remain—hungry to read. I spent a three-hour train ride with a bunch of Eagles fans, all the while lost in the same type of obsession that the little boy has for
Spirited Away—what about this one, and what will they do next, and oh my, this, this right here: it's good. It's better still.
I'd say thank you, if I knew where to start.
Tucker Stone's writing may be found in print in Comic Foundry and online at The Factual Opinion, where he frequently reviews new releases.
This Ship Is Totally Sinking is © Tucker Stone, 2008
