Tuesday, June 10, 2008

HOT ASS SWELTERING MoCCA RECAP

I've just gotten back from MoCCA and thermometer-busting heat out in New York. My main agenda was to hang out with friends and meet cartoonists, pick up tons of new comics, and show off Tokyo Zombie to anyone who'd take a look. On all three accounts it was a rousing success.

Major thanks to my buddy Anne for putting me up in Brooklyn. I'm sorry I sweated on you guys' hideaway bed. And three cheers for internet friendships finally coming to real life fruition, as I finally got to hang out IRL with David (of SEIBEI) and Helene (of TOASTY) for comics, beer and karaoke fun.


Without further ado, a(nother) visual recap of MoCCA!

DAY ONE
I arrived at JFK on the swank Virgin America (thank you, purple overhead lights and live streaming Daily Show) in the afternoon, and went straight to Brooklyn. After dinner, ice cream and coffee, Anne and I checked out an in-store signing appearance by Jason at her local shop, the famous Rocketship.


Poster of Jason show in the window of Rocketship


Starting to get steamy already: the crowd in the store


One of my absolute favorite cartoonists, Jason looks somewhat like one of his tall, humane cat characters.


Making faces through the spinner rack, featuring his new collection of early comics Pocket Full of Rain.


Jason's original comic pages (in French) on the wall


Jason's everycat man drawing on the butcher paper wall


Jason singing Anne's book (with a gold paint marker, no less)

DAY TWO
We spent all day Saturday walking the floors of the con. It got to the upper-90s outside, and the fans and AC in the Puck Building struggled to keep it cool. On the 7th floor (home of small artists and unfortunate folks) there was no AC and it started to smell like beef jerky. The main floor spanned 3 large rooms and was well represented by all of Same Hat's favorite publishers.

We met up with David and Helene, saw friends like Julia (of FART PARTY) and got sweaty over a veritable cornucopia of genius cartoonists and exciting authors. (Let's see how many times I can mention the heat and sweat... can you tell I'm a wimpy Northern California whiner?)


Sweat town, USA.


Learned from Terry at NBM that a new volume of Dungeon: Monstres is in the works for later this summer. YES!


Adrian Tomine looks mildy heat-stroked (pic stolen from anne)


Part of the wide swatch of goodies at the PictureBox booth. I met the publisher Dan Nadel, who mentioned they have plans for a number of upcoming manga releases for the rest of 2008 and 2009. One of the mangaka on their list: Yoshikazu Ebisu!


Filmmaker Michel Gondry and his son Paul (in the back in the punk Gaultier outfit) are cartoonists. Both were signing their new books, released by PictureBox.


Gondry and cartoonist CF signing for fans. I think most folks may have not realized that Gondry was there, as his line was somewhat short every time we walked by the booth... Weird.


Gary Panter looks cranky but he was insanely nice and willing to chat with a dumb fan like me. I can't wait to save up and get the magnum opus retrospective on him that was just released.


Kaz is working on Mourning Star Volume 2 (YES!) and is a very nice dude. (again, pic stolen from anne)

Later we went to many many bars trying to fight off heatstroke with beer (hint: it doesn't work that well), sang karaoke and then had ice cream in Chinatown.


Evidence of intoxication: David rocking his own designs and breaking it down Scatman-style during Spin Doctor's Two Princes

DAY THREE
No respite from the heat on Sunday, we decided to hit MoCCA for a quick final bit of shopping, and also went to our one and only panel: Chip Kidd discussing the upcoming Bat-Manga! book from Pantheon he edited (and for which Anne translated these old comics). Back at the con after the talk, the basement of the Puck Building caught on fire and all of indie comic nerdom was forced out on the street by the NYFD. That was when we took off for a WBNA game at Madison Square Garden (you think I jest, but I am telling the truth).


Jason Shiga couldn't get a booth in time, so he set up a stand outside on the street (in the 97 degree heat). When the building was evacuated, guess who got a bunch of sales at his booth? THE FIRE = ACCIDENT? or ARSON?


Full house over at the MoCCA gallery where Chip Kidd's Bat-Manga! talk was held. He went over the history of Jiro Kuwata's Batman manga from the late '60s and showed off a number of pages. This is gonna be a radical book.


Chip Kidd (rocking some here unseen plaid bermuda shorts) signing the Bat-Manga sampler after his talk.


An image from Chip's blog with details on the book.


I got to meet Michael Kupperman! Since my GF introduced me to his stuff a few years ago, I've stalked down his comics religiously. He was nice enough to take the time to sign my autograph book. He also mentioned that Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 is coming out in August and that he'd worked on a TV pilot based on Snack & Bacon for Adult Swim. YES, YES, and YES!


Aforementioned fire meant it was time to go. Luckily a meteor did not fall to the Manhattan sidewalk and wipe out the entire indie comics industry.

Next up is SF Zinefest and then the big show-- San Diego Comic-Con! Hope to see a ton of you guys there!

OBLIGATORY MoCCA 2008 COMICS HAUL PHOTOS

The Mourning Star temporary tattoos
Gekiga sampler (Red-Colored Elegy, Good-Bye)
National Waste Postal Cards by Leif Goldberg
The Mourning Star, Side Story #3 by Kazimir Strzepek
Slime Freak #7 by Carlos Gonzalez
Hey, 4-Eyes! zine edited by Robyn Chapman
Crickets #1 and #2 by Sammy Harkham
Too Cool To Be Forgotten candy cigarettes
Pocket Full of Rain by Jason
The Archer by Nate Doyle
Nerd Burglar (Sampler from Tugboat Press, Dinosaur Teenage, Sparkplug Books)
Micro-Comics from Paul Curtis


We Lost The War But Not The Battle; a revengeful story by Michel Gondry
The Goddess of War by Lauren R. Weinstein
Red-Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi (Anne & I got the last two copies of their advanced previews of this amazing book. I'll post a preview later this week!)
The Crystal Depletion (and How We Tried to Stop It) by Caitlin Williams, Eric Womack, and Sarah Milinski
Folk Wars by Erin Womack
The Princes of Time by Jon Vermilyea
SNOOPee by Ken Kagami

not pictured:
Too Cool To Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson (signed for my GF)
Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
Super Spy by Matt Kindt (signed for my GF)
Bat-Manga preview by Chip Kidd

PS: They had fucking DOOM on the Virgin in-flight entertainment console. WTF? I played for like 2 straight hours.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

NICE haul.
That's aaawwweeesome about Yoshikazu Ebisu.
My most second favourite in Comics Underground Japan (bar Maruo)

ADAM (I am registed but constantly forget my user-name)

Alex! said...

Good meeting you- had a blast hanging out!

The book looks great- can't wait to get it!

Ryan S said...

@adam: I have a lot of reading to do this week- which is always a nice feeling. Like the Tatsumi biography news I posted a long while before it was confirmed, I feel like most people won't notice the Ebisu news but... YEAH! They are looking at some other authors too, but Ebisu in english was the thing that most stood out to me :)

@alex!: Thanks dude! I had a ton of fun at MoCCAraoke, and it was a pleasure to finally visit your famous store. The Jason event was fantastic :) I'll send you more details when Tokyo Zombie preview copies come back. It is in the June Previews if you feel like Rocketship needs a few copies!
http://samehat.blogspot.com/2008/05/tokyo-zombie-in-june-previews.html

Cadwell said...

Great recap! I am the guy in your photo of Chip Kidd signing a book!!! I hope you don't mind if I swipe the photo for my own review (credited of course).

Ryan S said...

@Caldwell: Oh cool! Feel free to use it. Actually, I have a few more pics of you & chip then, and can give you larger versions... just send me an email (samehatATgmailDOTcom)

Ryan!