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| Click to Read American Dark Age |
Bonjour, Hej, Iiti em Hotep, As salam ulaikum, Layho, Guten Tag, Shalom, Aloha, Hola, Privet, Chao Ban, Ciao, Sawubona, Dag and Hello to all of our Megafans around the globe.
Yesterday, two and a half of the lobes and I attended our first comic book convention in a promotional capacity as opposed to merely flouncing about the floor in search of new art and stories for our collections as per the usual.
Yes, we had product in hand, namely the American Dark Age issue one ashcan and were placing it in to the grips of eager young readers who are now in the thrall of The Megabrain.
Mwoo-hahahahaha....ahem. Err, yes. Anyway.
It was a fine day at the MoCCA Fest (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival) and in all honesty it was the best convention I’ve attended in years. Much less spectacle, pompe & circumstance and far more opportunity to speak with artists, writers and fans about what they do and what they enjoy.
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| Click to visit Kaisa and Chris' Blogs |
Upon arriving, we began our cursory circuit around the room and right away were intrigued by a Finnish couple named, Kaisa & Christoffer Leka who produced one of the most beautiful comic books I’ve ever seen, “The Death of Tuomas Mäkinen”.
It’s about a man who decides to move to a Buddhist Monastery in Northern California. The story is told in three different volumes with a very endearing art style which harkens to Matt Groening’s early “Life in Hell” work.
Each volume addresses the story from the perspective of one; the girl he left behind, two; the family he left behind and three; from his own perspective. The real kicker is that it’s a true account of a close friend of theirs.
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| Click to visit Allan's site |
Eventually I happened upon a table that had a standing cutout of a screaming punk chick with a tattoo on her belly that read, “Hell Below/ Stars Above” and in my experience, anyone who’s got that much appreciation for the Toadies music, is a person well worth meeting and such was the case with Allan Norico, artist and author of “Things I’ve Seen At Shows”. A book after my own heart which illustrates those moments and people at a venue we can’t seem to avoid such as, Personal Space Guy; “How is it some people have a completely unreasonable sense of personal space at a show?”
or The Bro Along; “A hundred strangers who all know the chorus by heart. Epic.”
I ended up speaking to Allan for quite some time, about shows and venues we’d been to and he was all in all a very cool dude, even after I told him about my very first concert experience. Van Hagar.
Hope to run in to him again one day, especially since I got wrapped up in our conversation so much that I never ended buying his book which I would be reading right now instead of recounting yesterdays events to you lovely anim- err, people.
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| Click to visit Tory's site |
Yet another kindred creator whom our EIC here at Megabrain, Mike and Mandy the creative director of our children’s division, Brain Noodles, approached was Tory Woollcott author of "Mirror Mind", a comic book about growing up dyslexic. Tory was an amazing person to speak with not only due to her immense talent and phenomenal story, but because almost like a convention sherpa or a Canadian guardian angel, she took it upon herself to learn us some advice on how to promote ourselves at conventions and pointed us in the direction of TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival) which we are even now devising an insidious plan of attendance.
Oh, Canada, you have no idea what is coming your way.
Before moving on to another table, Tory bequeathed unto me a great little autobiographical comic that she and her friend, Kean Soo created called, “Toronto to Tuscany: An Italian Adventure”, in which the two of them realize traveling with Kean is pretty much a bad idea.
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| Chatting with Wonder Pumphrey |
There were so many more amazing artists and writers that we all met that day, such as Paigey Pumphrey, the pin-up artist, Chris Beaumont, the inventor of “Cubecraft”, Sarah McIntyre, who’s book “Morris the Mankiest Monster” is going to make my son giggle with sinister delight or Adam Wilson, writer of a musical political romp called, “GCD” and of course the ever talented toy maker and comic book creator, Megan Baehr.
Unfortunately I would be writing this for a week if I wanted to tell you about everything. You really should have been there, but we’ll just assume that you had something better to do, like saving a basket of mimes and kittens from a burning taco stand. We don’t take it personally, but I would like to know what those kittens were doing eating tacos on a Saturday afternoon.
The MoCCA festival renewed the excitement I get from not only creating and reading comics, but from the comic book community as a whole being a welcoming, diverse, eccentric and all around fantastic group to be a part of and I can't wait to see where it takes us.
If you happened to be there at all this weekend, we'd love to hear about your adventures at MoCCA as well, so drop us a line here on The MEGABLAH! or on Twitter or Facebook.
This is The Benj saying, Keep your noses in the pages, and keep that grey matter flexin!
