30 April 2012

Things I Bought at the MoCCA Festival

Brigid Alverson persuaded me to make the one-day trip to Manhattan to attend this year’s MoCCA Festival. So for real money and everything I bought…

My part of a brunch with Brigid (MangaBlog, Robot 6, School Library Journal), Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading, Manga Worth Reading), and Johanna’s mother, who was in the common role of family member dragged to an event of limited interest and being genial about it.

“Drought,” a one-sheet comic by Kenan Rubenstein, whose FoldyComics website I highlighted here but have yet to contribute to. (I have ideas for improving my final page.)

A copy of Guinea PI, vol. 1: Hamster and Cheese autographed by both writer Colleen AF Venable and artist Stephanie Yue. One of the great pleasures of this book is the richness of the supporting characters.

For my collection of comics based in eighteenth-century history, E. J. Barnes’s “Caroline’s Catalog,” about astronomer Caroline Herschel, and Joel Christian Gill’s Strange Fruit, #4, about Massachusetts-born magician Richard Potter.

The Girl Who Owned a City by O. T. Nelson, Dan Jolley, Joëlle Jones, and Jenn Manley Lee, just because it looked interesting. (I never read the prose original.)

Western, an anthology from Dave West and Colin Mathieson’s Accent UK, since I was impressed by its production values.

99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden, a book I’ve checked out of the library enough times that I decided I should own my own copy—which came with Madden’s inscription.

And a piece of original art I’ll write about at the start of next week.

2 comments:

Richard said...

I only wish I'd known you were going to be there; I'd have invited you to stop by the Kirby Museum table so that I might shake your hand and tell you in person how much I enjoy this blog! As it was, I bought two comics there specifically because of you -- Cold Wind, based on your description, and the Hellbound collection. I enjoyed both immensely.

(I also enjoyed a great chat with Dan and Jesse about how pleased Jack Kirby would have been by the advent of a truly independent alternative comics scene and the ongoing downfall of the big publishers.)

J. L. Bell said...

I was there only on Sunday afternoon. Dan Mazur told me you’d come by, and I was sorry to have missed you. I’m even more regretful if you were at the Kirby table (which I did stop at briefly) the whole time.

Your comics blog was one of the first I visited regularly, and I’m always pleased to see your comments here. So someday we must cross paths in reality!