SPX!
Did the Small Press Expo this Saturday!
Which is basically a single ballroom jam packed full of creators selling their work- and this time's selection was impressive. Like, 'my normal con bag was full so I had to get additional carrying capacity.' That almost never happens.
Like, "they had volume 2 of Lumberjanes (PS Get Lumberjanes it is fantastic), but I skipped it because I knew I'd be able to get it elsewhere eventually and there was so much good stuff and my budget was straining."
O Human Star was a great one. It's about a roboticist who dies and is revived as a robot, to the surprise of both himself and his former partner-slash-lover- who's own attempt at revival lead to a robot he's been raising as a child. I highly recommend- actually had the stapled-together pamplet collections of O Human Star from last SPX, but now they have a proper book.
One very interesting one was Transposes, the stories of seven transmen (female-to-male transsexual individuals). I talked with the creator a bit and mentioned how I couldn't recall seeing stories actually focused on transmen in the lead, which turned out to be part of his reason for doing so. I read the whole thing by the time he had a panel on Queer comics at the end of the day so I was able to tell him I loved it ^^ Some of the stories were warm and fuzzy, or silly, a few a bit darker, but they're all very well-portrayed.
Saw and talked to Hannah of Rawr! Dinosaur friends a fair amount. It's nice to be able to geek out about ancient macrofauna ^^ And not just dinosaurs, but others like therapsids, she's a fellow Gorgonopsid fan. To my surprise, she didn't know about Lystrosaurus! The great survivor of the Permian. Also talked about Crurotarsans, the crocodile relatives that were outdoing dinosaurs in the triassic. She said the talks might've given her some comic ideas, so if they show up, I'm partially to blame ^^ Also she drew me a sketch of a Crurotarsan, specifically a so-called 'catlike crocodile'!
Valor is an anthology of redone fairy tales with *fantastic* art. I'm halfway through and I'm loving most every story.
Hm, got a couple other SF stories... I found *two* entirely unrelated stories about romances with ghosts, including one that was mostly about the dating history of 'the girl who was mostly attracted to ghosts' (actual title! Haven't read the second yet). A cute 'babysitting for vampires' one (who also provided me with my second bag'). A gay-little mermaid retake that looks sweet. A female gaming one which I haven't yet started (though at the Queer Comics panel, it's creator was also there and mentioned how even though the prompt was simply about female gamers saying what gaming meant to them, it ended up being a fairly lgbt book as several had stories about how it helped them in self-discovery).
Less percentage of webcomics than last time- Didn't see Dresden Codak or Dumbing of Age. Still saw a lot, though, like Strong Female Protagonist, Three Panel Soul, the above O Human Star, etc., so it's not like Intervention which was really a webcomic bust for me. Also, I'm seeing more actual book-books as opposed to stapled-together pamplet comics. A sign of a change in self-publishing? Maybe, or maybe the convention's just drawing more to it.
Style-wise, there's a thing I called 'stylistically ugly or grotesque' that shows up a lot in indie comics, and it's just not my thing, and there seemed to be less floorspace on them this time, more other stuff, which works in my book.
And the LGBT content! I mean, the first SPX I went to had a table or two devoted to publishers specifically sharing LGBT work, and several other comics had some queer content, ditto the second, but this time it seemed to be more in focus. Aside from the above mentioned ones, I picked up a couple other gay comics (a sf comic about a synthetic human sent to kill a gay guy and who has to report on why he didn't, another anthology, etc.), plus saw a lot of others. More than even represented, there was a real variety.
Which brings me to panels- SPX only has two panel rooms, and there was only one panel that I really focused on- the Queer Comics panel, where all the panelists were introduced by name, creation, and pronoun of choice, which had the whole range. The panelists shared their experiences, advice on how to write lgbt characters and challenges in doing so (avoiding the 'infodump'... though also noting sometimes it makes sense), handling different types of queer characters (the asexual panelist had some interesting insights), evolution of lgbt language, what the first works with LGBT they encountered were (often Sailor Moon if they were old, a variety of stuff if they were younger, Dykes to Watch Out for by Alison Bechdel of the Bechdel test in the case of the writer of Transposes whom I mentioned above) and so on. A whole lot of interesting stuff.
It was probably the most openly-LGBT environment I've ever been in- to the point I introduced myself as Davia throughout the con, and talked to some of the panelists post-panel about being gender-question/bigender/whatever (I've kinda become less settled on what term to use as time has gone on).
So yea, good expo, whole *ton* of small press books, was impressed by the amount of content even compared to last year, and felt unusually and unexpectedly (and quite comfortably) immersed in the lgbt community.
I'll post more recommendations of books if particular gems leap out at me from the remaining pile- which is sizable!
Which is basically a single ballroom jam packed full of creators selling their work- and this time's selection was impressive. Like, 'my normal con bag was full so I had to get additional carrying capacity.' That almost never happens.
Like, "they had volume 2 of Lumberjanes (PS Get Lumberjanes it is fantastic), but I skipped it because I knew I'd be able to get it elsewhere eventually and there was so much good stuff and my budget was straining."
O Human Star was a great one. It's about a roboticist who dies and is revived as a robot, to the surprise of both himself and his former partner-slash-lover- who's own attempt at revival lead to a robot he's been raising as a child. I highly recommend- actually had the stapled-together pamplet collections of O Human Star from last SPX, but now they have a proper book.
One very interesting one was Transposes, the stories of seven transmen (female-to-male transsexual individuals). I talked with the creator a bit and mentioned how I couldn't recall seeing stories actually focused on transmen in the lead, which turned out to be part of his reason for doing so. I read the whole thing by the time he had a panel on Queer comics at the end of the day so I was able to tell him I loved it ^^ Some of the stories were warm and fuzzy, or silly, a few a bit darker, but they're all very well-portrayed.
Saw and talked to Hannah of Rawr! Dinosaur friends a fair amount. It's nice to be able to geek out about ancient macrofauna ^^ And not just dinosaurs, but others like therapsids, she's a fellow Gorgonopsid fan. To my surprise, she didn't know about Lystrosaurus! The great survivor of the Permian. Also talked about Crurotarsans, the crocodile relatives that were outdoing dinosaurs in the triassic. She said the talks might've given her some comic ideas, so if they show up, I'm partially to blame ^^ Also she drew me a sketch of a Crurotarsan, specifically a so-called 'catlike crocodile'!
Valor is an anthology of redone fairy tales with *fantastic* art. I'm halfway through and I'm loving most every story.
Hm, got a couple other SF stories... I found *two* entirely unrelated stories about romances with ghosts, including one that was mostly about the dating history of 'the girl who was mostly attracted to ghosts' (actual title! Haven't read the second yet). A cute 'babysitting for vampires' one (who also provided me with my second bag'). A gay-little mermaid retake that looks sweet. A female gaming one which I haven't yet started (though at the Queer Comics panel, it's creator was also there and mentioned how even though the prompt was simply about female gamers saying what gaming meant to them, it ended up being a fairly lgbt book as several had stories about how it helped them in self-discovery).
Less percentage of webcomics than last time- Didn't see Dresden Codak or Dumbing of Age. Still saw a lot, though, like Strong Female Protagonist, Three Panel Soul, the above O Human Star, etc., so it's not like Intervention which was really a webcomic bust for me. Also, I'm seeing more actual book-books as opposed to stapled-together pamplet comics. A sign of a change in self-publishing? Maybe, or maybe the convention's just drawing more to it.
Style-wise, there's a thing I called 'stylistically ugly or grotesque' that shows up a lot in indie comics, and it's just not my thing, and there seemed to be less floorspace on them this time, more other stuff, which works in my book.
And the LGBT content! I mean, the first SPX I went to had a table or two devoted to publishers specifically sharing LGBT work, and several other comics had some queer content, ditto the second, but this time it seemed to be more in focus. Aside from the above mentioned ones, I picked up a couple other gay comics (a sf comic about a synthetic human sent to kill a gay guy and who has to report on why he didn't, another anthology, etc.), plus saw a lot of others. More than even represented, there was a real variety.
Which brings me to panels- SPX only has two panel rooms, and there was only one panel that I really focused on- the Queer Comics panel, where all the panelists were introduced by name, creation, and pronoun of choice, which had the whole range. The panelists shared their experiences, advice on how to write lgbt characters and challenges in doing so (avoiding the 'infodump'... though also noting sometimes it makes sense), handling different types of queer characters (the asexual panelist had some interesting insights), evolution of lgbt language, what the first works with LGBT they encountered were (often Sailor Moon if they were old, a variety of stuff if they were younger, Dykes to Watch Out for by Alison Bechdel of the Bechdel test in the case of the writer of Transposes whom I mentioned above) and so on. A whole lot of interesting stuff.
It was probably the most openly-LGBT environment I've ever been in- to the point I introduced myself as Davia throughout the con, and talked to some of the panelists post-panel about being gender-question/bigender/whatever (I've kinda become less settled on what term to use as time has gone on).
So yea, good expo, whole *ton* of small press books, was impressed by the amount of content even compared to last year, and felt unusually and unexpectedly (and quite comfortably) immersed in the lgbt community.
I'll post more recommendations of books if particular gems leap out at me from the remaining pile- which is sizable!