Stumptown 2011 scores

As much as I loved seeing all the great art and going to the panels, I am in love with all the stuff we got. Let's take a peek.

• Both volumes of The Anthology Project. So far I am super impressed. Just flipping through it, the art is consistently magnificent. I love the wide variety of styles. Both are hard cover with a strange striped texture that I really like and the title is in gold print (probably not real gold, haha). I hope the stories are as good as the art because these will be amazing books. Plus, all three editors were there and they all signed it! Yay us!
• Koko be good by Jen Wang. We also got a beautiful blue toned poster by her that has a guy and gal with deers on their heads and some mushrooms. (I'd link to it, but I can't find it on the web.) We bought it just loose, but I am going to put it in something nicer when I go to my mom's. Again, I haven't read this yet, but the art is super. I also saw it at the library today. :) Plus she signed it for Abe and drew a little picture. She seemed nice, but maybe a bit shy. Or tired.
• Elephantmen, Vol. 2. Starkings was there to sign it. For some reason, this is the second time we have gone to a comic convention and the first thing we got was Elephantmen and one of the artists drew in it and signed it (Moritat the first time and Starkings the second). Because we bought the trade, we got a free single issue of the current story arc, too. I think somehow we ended up with 4 free single issues. I can't wait to reread the first volume and then this volume.
• The Goon, Vol. 6, by Eric Powell. I can't wait to read this. The Goon was recommended to me by a guy at The Comic Stop (where you can get my mini-comic Hardly Kind) when they didn't have volume 2 of Atomic Robo. Abe read it and the glint in his eye when he told me how good it was has me extra excited. But we forgot to stop by the Dark Horse booth later and get Eric to sign it. D'oh.
• DAR, Vol. 1 and 2 by Erika Moen. Wow. I definitely enjoyed the first volume more, but both were good. The second one is about half old comics. They aren't as funny but I think she still has some good comics. However, the first one literally made me laugh so hard I almost threw up. There is a lot of nudity and sex jokes. We were eating lunch in the back yard while I was reading it. I wonder what the neighbors thought. I was laughing really hard. My eyelashes were full of tears. I actually had to stop reading because I was so sick from laughing so hard. We also got a post card and preview of Bucko, which is a web comic that I have already been enjoying. Though I fear I will not be able to read it at work for too long. We'll see.
• DC Conspiracy's Magic Bullet. We found this free newspaper full of comics at the table where we ate lunch (I had a hot dog). I haven't read it yet, but I am intrigued.
• Free preview of Meen Comics by Trixie Biltmore. There are only two comics in it, but both made me laugh so I am definitely going to have to stop by. It is not working for me right now. But I got to read the last two comics, which were pretty funny.
• Post card of Dear Creature by Jonathan Case, which I accidentally reported as David's in my last post. This looks like a really cool comic. He had preview copies and we flipped through it real quick. He even drew on the card for us. It is awesome. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for this comic in October this year.
• Bookmark from Family Man by Dylan Meconis. I have been meaning to check out this web comic for a while. I might need to break down and by the book because it is so much easier to read. I love reading comics with breakfast and tea on my weekend mornings.
• 2 bird cards by Ashley Burke. Wow. The are is striking. The cards are textured. Abe and I couldn't decide which one to get so we each picked one. Abe picked a blue hawk or owl, I can't tell, and I picked a green owl. Etsy fans, she's there!
• Ed the emo elephant and Short Notice by Susan Tardif. The first is a cute little mini comic about an emo elephant and his pug. Very short and silly. Short Notice is about a girl getting ready for a date at the last minute. It is also quite cute. 
• 420 DRE? This was something free we got at some table at some point. There are a number of comics in it. I don't think I get it.
• Two Short Comics by Matt Sheean. I enjoyed this. Very short. Intersting construction - it is just a stip folded in fourths plus a tab. There is a comic printed on each side of the strip. Great idea. I might have to use that idea.
• Lisa Eisneberg - The monsters make a stew; Painful Vices; I cut my hair, Vols 1,2 and 3. The monsters make a stew and Painful Vices are so cute. I really enjoyed them. I cut my hair is an diary comic. Enjoyable but really just a chronicle of day to day stuff. I am enjoying it so far. 
• The Ask Dr. Eldritch Get Our of Trouble Free Card! This is a web comic - looks like photoshop or photos. I am not sure. The guy who handed us the cards seemed super nice. The card made us both laugh. :)
• The Great pretenders and other stories by Julia Wertz. How could I not buy this?! I love her work. While we were there, I got to tell her that I was the dork that sent her the Julia Beartz drawing and she explained that Domitille (who is another comic artist at Pizza Island with her) loved it so much she let her put it up at her desk ; it wasn't that she didn't like it herself. 
• Saving the best for last, Balloon by Liz Conley. It is the only mini-comic we got that is not staple bound. I might take this and run with it so we might do our comics sewn bound as well. It looks awesome. She also had really creative uses of folded pages. I am so freakin' impressed. She also had a hand colored letter press short story in a large bound book. Amazing. I can't even describe how impressed I was. She also sold uncolored letter press versions. I definitely plan to get one of those. The story starts and ends with a section of text and in the middle is an accordian graphic story, also letter press. It looks great. I think The Traveler and the Bird Maiden was the one I saw at the fest, but I also think Mirror Mirror looks really great. And she's also on Etsy.

Anyways, I haven't read most of them because I don't want to run out! I know that is silly. I have a huge pile of unread comics because of this little problem, but I am working on it. I am really looking forward to attending or showing next year. Yay Stumptown!

Stumptown Comic Fest 2011

Woot. Stumptown Comics Fest is by far my favorite comic convention. The exhibit floor has great stuff. From $1 mini comics to stores and publishers bringing tons of graphic novels and trades. We planned out our money well this time and got to spend a fair chunk of change on a lot of awesome stuff. I will go over what we got in more detail later, but my favorites were Liz Conley who does book binding and letter press, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg, and of course Julia Wertz.

We also got to go to a number of panels, which are all included in the no-kidding $7 admissions. First we went to Making Comics with four of the 22 artists that work at Periscope studios. They each told us about how they go about making the drawings for their comics. One idea that interested me was how Erika Moen (of DAR fame) had a font made of her handwriting, and since she does her pencils digitally using Photoshop, she also puts in teh letter. Then she prints it all in blue, including the lettering and gets the look of hand lettering but with the accuracy of a font. There we also learned of an intersting comic coming out in October of this year, Dear Creature by David of Periscope Studio and it sounds awesome. We stopped by his booth later and grabbed up a postcard and he kindly drew on it for us. Then they took questions and we got to learn a lot about Periscope Studios. I read their blog, but I had no idea. Sounds like a crazy house! 3 Pages of notes from this panel.

The next panel for me was Color in Storytelling. It was ok. I am not sure what I was hoping for, so I am not sure what disappointed me. The best part was when she went over some of the things that different colors evoke (in American culture). I took a lot of notes (6 pages), so it couldn't have been that bad. Haha. Abe wanted to go to Writing for Graphic Novels. He was a little disappointed too. He said he got lots of good information but that the speaker didn't cover the information he said he planned to talk about. Ah well.

I think How to Publicize Your Comic was the best panel we went to. The speaker is currently a publicist for Fantagraphics, which she came to from Dark Horse, which she came to from Top Shelf. She almost missed telling us that marketing is what takes over after publicizing ends. Which I thought was good to know. Publicizing means sending out your comics for reviews and getting interviewed, all even before the book comes out so people will want to run to the stores the day it is available to grab their copies. She was very explicit about the steps to get reviewed and how to track all the information. Great panel. 7 1/2 pages of notes. Not bad.

The final panel was Illustration Portfolio Mastery. I think my mom might have gotten more out of this than me, but I did take 5 pages of notes, so I can tell her all about it when I go up on Thursday.

Anyways, while we were there, I thought of some short comics to do. One of which involves this sasquatch and little girl.

We also got tons of ideas about what to get ready and do when we show at a convention, hopefully this fall. In anticipation, I bought some book binding equipment and sumi-e brushes.

Anyways, after the show, we headed straight home because we were exhausted and worried about the dogs (though my cousin kindly checked in on them and fed the dinner and let them out. Thanks!!). We were excited to stop at a Carl's Jr so I marked the exit down this time since last time we didn't see any signs on the northbound side, only the southbound side. But alas, there was still no Carl's Jr. to be had so we ended up at Applebee's because we were so freakin' hungry. I took the opportunity to do some sketches because I was inspired by Julia Wertz.

David Bowie

Ooh. Gone for a while, huh? Well, I was pretty sick. I have been drawing like mad the past week and a half, but it was all trying to catch up from being so sick I could barely watch TV for a week - coloring the lemmings story and carving the crows story. I am pretty excited for those. The crow pages are all carved and ready for printing.

So last night I got back into sketching with David Bowie - who I apparently suck at drawing.
Edit: I totally meant to include why David Bowie. I think he is the bees knees. Since watching the Labyrinth in grade school, of course. He had such sad eyes in that movie. I can't help but pity him (Jareth). He really just didn't know any better way. That scene in the end just gets me (not the dumb one at the very end that is so sesame street). And his voice - his singing voice is beautiful (to me). It draws pictures for me. Anyways, the Jareth sketches kept looking more Vulcan than like David Bowie. Stupid David Bowie and his face.

 I also did this funny little bunny picture while waiting for things to load on my computer at work. This might someday evolve into an actual drawing. :)