MoCCA Fest 2011 report

My MoCCA Fest 2011 haul:


1) Secret Prison #4. Haven't read it yet, but at initial glance looks like an improvement over previous editions.

2) Symptom of the Universe webcomic promo card.

3) Ghost Throat webcomic promo card.

4) Heather Benjamin promo flyer. I wanted to buy something from her, but her promo card was my favorite thing on the table!

5) Rat Bastard promo card. I read this comic as a kid, but hadn't seen it around for years. They were selling shirts, but no comics. I never saw them at their booth, so I couldn't ask them what the deal was.

6) Benjamin Marra's The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd (A Work of Satire and Fiction). Marra's always a must-buy.

7) The infamous Comics Issue of the Village Voice. Sub controversy: I'm pretty sure that 85% of the "comics artists" featured in this issue are actually illustrators.

8) Maser by Jon Chad. Bought his comic The Ruby last year, loved it, bought this.

9) Quatro Monstro. $1 anthology featuring Jon Chad and three more. Bought based on cover alone.

10) The BAD-ventures of Bobo Backslack. Another Jon Chad.

11) They're Just Like Us! Making fun of the "Celebrities! They're Just Like Us!" sections of tabloids is something I probably would have gotten around to sooner or later, but Mindy Fisher does a fine job beating me to it.

12) Diamond 5. I haven't read this one yet, but the new issue has a killer lineup.

13) Miss Chris by Mickey Duzyj. Not a lot of exhibitors put more thought into their display than slapping a bunch of books down on a table and *maybe* sticking a funky tablecloth in between, so it was easy to fall instantly in love with Duzyj's eye catching and elegant perfume themed display for his book Miss Chris. Here are a couple of photos I took of it:
Here's a better photo that someone else took. Note the lipstick stained cigarette butts. Do you think Duzyj had to put lipstick on himself and smoke a pack to get them? One can only hope. And if so, the book itself was worth the effort; very Clowes-ian in content, but somehow simultaneously less and more overtly humorous. Goregous art and design, presenting an absurdist comedy insisting it's a deeply felt tale of being lost, and doing a great job of it. My book of the show.

14) Two Eyes of the Beautiful II by Ryan Cecil Smith. Bought because I heard Sean T Collins or Groovy Age of Horror or someone raving about it. Really loved it.

15) My week in Bologna by Katie Turner. Free and adorable.

16) The Comix Reader #1.

17) The MoCCA Fest program.

18 and 19) Meat Haus #6 and 7. Bought for $3 total! They were selling these insanely cheaply, sold out immediately and claimed they didn't know the demand would be so high. One of the most well regarded comics anthologies period for about 15% cover price? Duh.

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Random notes about the show:

*I paid $1 for a ticket through Megabus to get there and at no point, as I suspected might, did gas start coming in through the vents leading to me waking up chained to a rock in the desert while being yelled at to dig with all the other passengers.

*I only attended Saturday.


*This was my second MoCCA, and second alt-comics fest ever. Call it a sophomore slump, but I wasn't feeling it.

*Even before the show, I noticed a much lower amount of online buzz about this year than the year before, from the comics blogosphere and even from MoCCA itself. The guest list, programming and poster were announced with little to no fanfare. Afterparties were barely mentioned online, and no posters for them were visible at the show itself. Compared to last year's explosion of Dash Shaw and Paul Pope appearances and posters, this seemed rather subdued. As someone who worked for years at a prominent film festival, I'm fully aware that some years you're able to catch lightning in a bottle and others it can get away from you.

*My main objective at MoCCA Fest is to wander around the floor and discover new and exciting talent I've never heard of before by scooping up interesting looking minis. I struck gold three times last year with Michaela Zacchelli, Jon Chad and Mark Todd. This year I found one, maybe two. That said, I still got a bunch of good shit.

*There were a number of names absent from the floor that would leave a conspicuous hole at any alt-comics show, like Frank Santoro and Mike Bertino. Ben Marra was still out in force though. Why doesn't Jim Rugg exhibit at this show?

*Again, I'm willing to chalk all this grumbling up to my very personal experience of it being my second show.

*I brought a number of non-comics readers to the show, and they seemed to all find something to get really excited about. A friend who is a traveling educator caught a bit of the Brecht Evens/ Dash Shaw conversation, and was impressed enough with Evens to actively seek out his book The Wrong Place, the most coveted of all of our purchases. A friend who's an abstract painter bought Yuichi Yokoyama's Travel from the Picturebox booth, an area I made it a point to show him. Here he is mulling over his purchase:
His girlfriend bought Ken Dahl's Monsters, which they both immediately read and seemed completely absorbed by. They also bought a book of drawings of Portland (they're transplants) but I can't remember what it was called.

*After the show my friends and I headed over to the Limerick House, the annual meetup spot of the comics podcast Indie Spinner Rack. I had a great time catching up with host Mr. Phil and perennial Canadian tourists Bill and Brittany, who always have the best stories. Things seen at the Limerick: a stylish old man (striped shirt, blazer and coke-bottle horn-rimmed glasses, certainly in the mob) eating a huge serving of burger and fries all by himself and immediately slipping into a mild coma, a girl looking up at the sign out front and telling a friend she was at the "Imperial House", a bachelorette party, a girl eating a banana (my first sighting on fruit eating in a bar, no jokes please), and the weirdest, longest blank stare I've ever gotten when asking someone for a lighter.

*I'm again amazed that when looking at other people's pictures of the event, I recognize virtually nothing.

*For some possibly more fair views of the show, here's Tom Spurgeon's round-up of other people's blog about the event.

*For good measure, here's my MoCCA 2010 report.