Make Mine MoCCA: A guide to the festival this weekend
MoCCA 2012
Dust off your shoes and pull your tote bag out of the closet kids, it's MoCCA time once again. The annual indie/small press comics show hosted by the Museum will take place at the Armory on Lexington Avenue in New York City this weekend. It promises to be a grand affair, with tons of publishers, minicomics, books and panels to choose from. Underneath the link we've put together a quick rundown of some of the more notable and interesting (well interesting to us any way) goings-on at the show this weekend.
Publishers
Fallen Words
Fantagraphics will be unveiling an incredible array of top-notch books, including Angelman by Nicholas Maher, Dungeon Quest 3 by Joe Daly, The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons, God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez, Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture by Jack Davis, Jewish Images in the Comics by Fredrik Strömberg, New York Mon Amour by Jacques Tardi, Benjamin Legrand & Dominique Grange, Out of the Shadows by Mort Meskin; edited and designed by Steven Brower and Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 by Michael Kupperman. Signing at the Fanta booth will be Kim Deitch, Olivier Schrauwen (!), Drew Friedman, Mahler, Kupperman, the one and only Jason (!), Strömberg, Hans Rickheit and Peter Kielland.
Over at the Drawn & Quarterly booth, they've got an equally impressive number of new books to showcase, including Anna & Froga by Anouk Ricard, Nonnonba by Shigeru Mizuki and Fallen Words by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Cartoonists signing at the booth include Matt Forsythe, Tom Gauld and R. Sikoryak,
I'm not sure what books will be debuting over at Top Shelf's booth, but they'll have Pat Grant (Blue), Joseph Remnant (Harvey Pekar's Cleveland), Brendan Leach (The Pterodactyl Hunters), Kagan McLeod (Infinite Kung Fu), Jess Fink (Chester , Alex Robinson (Box Office Poison), Eric Skillman (Liar's Kiss), and Jennifer Hayden (Underwire) in attendance.
NBM will be hosting the show's guest of honor P. Craig Russell (who designed the spiffy poster you see above) at their booth and will have limited copies (including the extra-limited signed and numbered edition) of his latest book, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, the Happy Prince. Also at the show will be Brooke Allen and Neil Kleid.
Manga publisher Vertical will also be at the show, with new copies of their latest series, the school romance Flowers of Evil.
Signing at the First Second booth will be Jorge Aguirre (Giants Beware!) Joe Infurnari (Mush!), Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference), Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy), George O'Connor (Hades: Lord of the Dead) and MK Reed (Americus).
Boom! (yes Boom!) Studios will be bringing legendary artist and musician Daniel Johnston to MoCCA to sign copies of his book Space Ducks: An Infinite Comic Book of Musical Greatness. Also on hand will be Too Much Coffee Man creator Shannon Wheeler, Pete and Miriam author Rich Tomasso and Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb of Adventure Time fame.
Finally, I don't know what, if any, new books Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Last Gasp, Pantheon, Abrams or SelfMade Hero will have at the show but I'd strongly recommend stopping by their booths anyway.
Small press and minicomics
Difficult Loves
There are way to many exhibitors for me to sufficiently list, so I'll just have to stick to a few highlights, starting with Domino Books, which will be at the show with copies of their latest comic, Difficult Loves by Molly Colleen O'Connell.
The Center for Cartoon Studies table will have copies of Cartoon Crier, an anthology that promises to highlight the saddest moments from comics by folks like Ivan Brunetti, Lynn Johnston, Hank Ketcham, Mell Lazarus and more. I'm sold.
Box Brown's Retrofit Comics will have copies of Tom Hart's latest comic Daddy Lightning. A new Tom Hart comic is always cause for celebration.
Here's some exciting news: Katie Skelly will be at the show with copies of her newest book, Nurse Nurse, newly released from the still-going-strong Sparkplug Books.
Secret Acres, meanwhile, will have debut copies of Sean Ford's Only Skin and the fifth Sundays anthology, which looks pretty awesome. The first few visitors will get a pet ghost.
The webcomics enclave/comics salon Trip City will be at the show with copies of the Trip City Visitors' Guide, an anthology. Trip City member and photographer Seth Kushner will also be over at the PowerHouse table with Christopher Irving to sell copies of their book, Leaping Tall Buildings.
So Buttons creator Jonathan Baylis will have copies of his latest comic, So Buttons #4, which will feature a special edition cover just for the show.
Two final things I'm interested in checking out: 1) Secret Prison #666, a free anthology/team-up project from the folks that brought you Rub the Blood; and b) the Caravan of Comics, a group of Australian cartoonists that are doing a sweeping tour of the U.S. and Canada, starting with MoCCA Fest.
Panels
I wasn't too hot on last year's panel selections, but this year they've put together a pretty impressive line-up. You can't see it all, but if I had the time I'd definitely check out the Klein Award Ceremony for Gary Panter and the talk with Nicolas Mahler and Tom Gauld on Saturday, and the interview with former Air Pirate Gary Hallgren and the panel on EuroComics on Sunday. You can see a full listing of the panel offerings here.
Parties
Desert Island in Brooklyn will host a pre-MoCCA party with Jason, Tom Gauld, Matt Forsythe, Olivier Schrauwen and Nicolas Mahler on Friday night.
Daniel Johnston will perform at the MoCCA Fest 10th Anniversary After Party at the Village Pourhouse on Sunday.
Finally, the Beat, a.k.a. Heidi MacDonald, will be sponsoring an after party as well, at the Mad Hatter Saloon on Sunday, near the Armory.
- April 27, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Mautner
- Tagged: comic conventions, Domino Books, Drawn & Quarterly, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Fantagraphics, First Second, MoCCA, MoCCA Festival, NBM Publishing, Retrofit Comics, Secret Acres, Sparkplug Comics, top shelf, Vertical Inc.
One Comment
Fanfare/Ponent Mon is debuting Summit of the Gods vol. 3. The first two volumes were soooooo good.
0 comments:
Post a Comment