* So yeah, Gareb Shamus has resigned from Wizard. By their works ye shall know them.
* Tom Spurgeon’s BCGF con report is the most thorough you’re likely to find. His assessment of the show itself centers on the caveat that (like all shows) it’s not a show for everyone. I’m really curious as to how deeply that analysis takes root, because most everyone I spoke to at the show was almost deliriously happy with it (myself included — yes, I talk to myself), but it’s easy to see how the narcissism of small differences among comics people could lead someone whose conception of “good comics” doesn’t quite overlap with BCGF’s, or has almost nothing in common with it at all, could really hate that show from afar or even up close. But I think this is the extent of my desire to discuss the show through this lens, because I don’t think I really discuss anything by saying “some people who aren’t me might not like this that much.” And BCGF is an amazing fucking show. Just ask ADDXSTC fave Geoff Grogan, who I can’t remember ever penning this effusive a con report before — doubly surprising given that in the past he’s been at loggerheads with the Kramers Ergot aesthetic that is the show’s backbone.
* Among the many, many, many, many, many books Closed Caption Comics debuted at the show were Conor Stechschulte’s The Amateurs and the Noel Freibert-edited anthology Weird.
* Emily Carroll got herself a big NYC publisher book deal. Well deserved.
* Geof Darrow’s lost Superman cover will show up in print after all. Hooray!
* Isaac Moylan presents “The Mirror.”
* I feel like I’ve written these exact words before, but Jesus Christ, Renee French.
* Uno Moralez continues to tap directly into my underbrain.
* Apparently I never properly subscribed to the RSS feed on Geoff Grogan’s new site, because otherwise I’d be linking to pages from his terrific book Look Out!! Monsters all the time.
* Kate Beaton’s Wonder Woman comics are terrific.
* Finally, now that I’m embarking on Breaking Bad, I want to go back to a couple other shows I wrote about this fall and highlight a pair of reader comments I got a lot out of: Alan on Mad Men Season Four and Hob on Boardwalk Empire Season Two. Spoilers ahoy, obviously, but Alan’s thoughts on a certain MM-late-S4 character contrast that hit home with him on a personal level opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing the show’s central family dynamic, and what Hob said about the link between nihilism and sentimentality smacked me right between the eyes. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you to everyone who comments on my TV posts — pretty much no matter what show I’ve written about, you’ve been a consistent, collective delight and reward.
Tags: Carnival of souls, comics, horror, real life, TV
I need to see your BCGF haul pics!
It’s so big that I’m actually embarrassed by it and don’t think I’m going to post it. Maybe just the anthologies?
I like the concept of the BCGF and I love Desert Island (I found a rare copy of the Walls of Samaris there, which was the buy of the weekend). My wife encouraged the pilgrimage because she loves New York and I am, at best, ambivalent about the city. We spent about two hours at the show – looked at all of the tables, bought the books I had on my shopping list and a few extras – and we went on to do some other things in the city.
The big takeaway for us was that BCGF is very similar to SPX, which is my local hometown show. We had seen a lot of the same creators only a few months earlier and this felt like a filtered version of that show. As you can see from this picture of all the comics I bought over the past week and a half (some from Gosh! comics in London, some at BCGF, some at Jim Hanley’s Universe and some at the Taschen store), I have diverse tastes, but I’m far more of a Fantagraphics person than a Drawn and Quarterly person.
To be sure, I buy and enjoy some of what’s available at the BCGF, but I am not really interested in doing more than dipping my toe in those waters – the world of translated French comics holds far more of an appeal for me these days. There’s no hatred there, just a recognition of where my personal tastes lie. Unfortunately, it did not lead to an entirely satisfying convention trip – although it was better than any visit to HeroesCon or the Baltimore ComicCon I’ve ever made.
I would say that the heart of my take on that show isn’t that every show can’t be for every person but that BCGF seems to me to have the chemistry between exhibitor and customer to make a go of it as a vital piece of the convention puzzle. That this chemistry doesn’t extend to every exhibitor and every customer is the caveat to the main point. Just sayin’. I think RM Rhodes has a point that its relative calendar proximity to SPX could be more detriment than positive.