Panel Discussion: MoCCA 2009 Edition!

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival has come and gone, but the comics I bought there are forever. Or until they disintegrate. Please enjoy this selection of prime panels from the small-press work Team Geekanerd picked up at MoCCA '09.

Best Character Design - Things I've Seen At Shows, Allan Norico


Things I've Seen At Shows is rawker Allan Norico's collection of cartoon portraits based on the most memorable or archtypical people he's seen at rock shows over the last decade. Besides having an beautifully clean, sharp, and funny style, Norico's caricatures are so vividly on-point that reading the book brought back all sorts of memories from my own Berkeley punk experience that I hadn't thought about in years. There are a couple more preview pages on Norico's website, and the whole book is only $7 bucks; highly recommended for fans of awesome design or ROCKING THE F OUT.

Star Wars, talking potatoes, weird cuteness, and lots of DIY B&W goodness, after the jump!

Best Actor - Potatoes from Cooking With Food #1, by Evan Palmer
It is an eternal mystery of comics; how does an artist manage to pack an actor's seminar worth of expression into a drawing with only two eyes and a tiny, tiny mouth? Between the first and third panel, I swear you can see the potato gathering confidence in his shy line of questioning. And the fourth panel's angry-mug-to-the-audience is a great touch.

This comic is in fact a collection of illustrated recipes, at least one of which I plan on cooking tonight. Sadly, the book is not on Evan Palmer's website, so if you want a copy (and how can you not? LOOK AT THAT POTATO) head over to his site and email him!

Cute Overload - Lesbians by Jane Mai

When I bought this stapled mini-comic consisting of the 3-panel adventures in randomness of two gay girls as well as "other lesbians", my co-editor Degan was heard to remark "You don't have to buy something JUST because it has lesbians in it." Well it turned out to be awesome and hilarious (typically what I look for in mini-comics), and it ended with this drawing of lesbian otters in love. Just goes to show, when buying mini-comics, follow your heart! PS: Author Jane Mai is so indie she doesn't even seem to have a public website; talk about indie cred!


Ewok Alert and Cute Overload II - Harvest Is When I Need You The Most: A Star Wars Fanbook, edited by Shelli Paroline
This "Fanbook" may be my favorite thing I bought all weekend. An anthology of short Star Wars fancomics by independent artists, this three-part collection is a Star Wars version of DC's Bizzaro anthology. Except it's better, because it's Star Wars. The drawing that acompaniest the credits jumped out at me, because it speaks to my recently published theory that Ewoks are flesh eating monsters.

That drawing about is by editor Shelli Paroline. The book features a comic she did about what happens to Oola after she drops into the Rancor pit, which is a whimsical yet sad piece of imagined EU history, but what I really want to emphasize is this panel featuring my favorite character of the entire saga....


SALACIOUS CRUMB! I think this drawing captures his nihilistic misanthropy very well, as well as his crumb-likness.

There are lots more previews on the official site, I highly, highly recommend you check it out.


Achievement in Shading - Nerd Burglar (anthology), Elijah Brubaker

This is a scary freakin' ghost story inspired by an old sea shanty or something like that, and when things turn bad, artist Elijah Brubaker (no relation??) amps up the dramatic shading to grand guignol levels. I love it. Not sure if I've ever seen such a cute character look so frightening as in the first panel.

Too Real - Das Bear by Joseph Guillette
Speaking as a Hispanic person with no Hispanic friends, this hit a little too close to home. I was actually lucky to get this book for free, and it's full of other slice-of-life comics starring depressed and bitter animals, which is pretty much my thing. Author Joe Guillette has a free webcomic featuring hobos on his website, so you're going to want to check that out.


Best Dramatic Tension - Featuring Talking Guinea Pigs! by JoeGP
I picked this comic up from artist JoeGP's table because it had guinea pigs on the cover. I flipped to this page, and was immediately drawn into the story even without any other context. It was my only impulse purchase of the entire festival. I think it's the "hands-touching-through-the-glass" that really got me. Luckily for you, this entire space epic is available for free online. Not that I'm mad I bought a hard copy...grumble (jk jk lol).

That's it! For more festival highlights, be sure to check out our MoCCA set on Flickr.

MoCCA 2009 In One Image

I just don't have it in me to write a giant photo post like I did for the Saturday MoCCA experience. This is perhaps appropriate, because Sunday was pretty laid back. It was much less crowded than Saturday's packed house, so I had a much more chill experience of checking out the booths and chatting with artists. You can check out the photos I took throughout the weekend at Gnerd's Flickr.

The collage you see above is made up of all the free postcards and buttons I got over the Festival weekend (also a few business cards with neat graphics). You can set it as your desktop, and it will be liking going to MoCCA every time you look at your computer! Good luck ever finding your folders again!

Check back tomorrow for a very special Panel Discussion: MoCCA Edition, wherein I'll post scans from all the awesome small press stuff I got. You'll see what $10 a day at MoCCA gets you (spoiler alert: awesomeness).

Photos: MoCCA 2009 Star-Studded Explosion!

The calm before the storm...the first day of MoCCA 2009 got off to a late start, so I got to snap a picture of the floor mostly free of attendees. Since MoCCA's usual space caught on fire last year, this year's Art Festival took place at the Regiment Armory in Murray Hill, a gigantic high ceiling auditorium space that made the show feel less like a small press fair, and more like a major convention.

That's not to say there weren't plenty of indie creators and publishers at the show, but I was particularly struck by how many big name creators were there as well. It seems MoCCA has continued to gain traction as a place where indie creators come to be discovered as well as a way for more major presses to promote their new, more artsy releases.

Comic stars, fresh talent, awesome sketches, and neat tablecloths, after the jump...


PART 1: Big Names

Adrian Tomine signing at the The Drawn & Quarterly booth. Growing up in Berkeley, I was a fan of local sensation Tomine since I was a teenager, and Shortcomings was my favorite book of 2007. He was taking meticulous care in his autograph dedications, it was awesome just to watch him do the lettering!


Seth, creator of Palookaville, was looking very dapper during his Drawn and Quarterly signing.

Writer Joe Kelly and artist Rodney Ramos were giving away and signing copies of Bang! Tango at the Vertigo booth. I mentioned that I loved the Free Comic Book Day edition of Four Eyes, another of Kelly's books, and he pulled out the second issue and gave me an autographed copy of that as well. Sweetness.

Brian Wood with DMZ aplenty at the Vertigo Booth.

David Mack had Kabuki titles and original art for sale, as well as his recent kids book, The Shy Creatures.

I am of course a huge fan of the Act-i-Vate gang, represented at their booth by Molly Crabapple and Dean Haspiel.

Becky Cloonan was selling advance copies of Pixu (review coming soon!) and promoting her webcomic KGB with co-author/artist Hwan Cho.

Evan Dorkin was promoting Beast of Burden, his upcoming book with Jill Thompson.

Tara McPherson was signing her illustration work as well as her awesome line of Kid Robot toys.

Action Philosphers artist Ryan Dunlavey was just about dwarfed by his booth's immense signage!

Part 2: Webcomics

The boys of Dumbrella.

Oh. Man. Randall Munroe of xkcd had the most consistently big crowd I saw all day. This dude must be like, a millionaire!

Ryan North! I had no idea he'd done these amazing instructions for time travel that have been making the internet rounds. He was selling poster versions that you can put you and post inside your time machine in case of emergencies.

Ben Rosen of White Cat, with his neon killer sign.

These buttons feature "Admiral Snackbar", a fastfood mascot featured in The Rack by Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie. I'm a big fan of puns, particularly Star Wars puns, and apparently so is Benjamin Birdie. Suffice to say, I bought one of these.


Part 3: Art and Stuff!

Cute overload....Mice doing martial arts by Stephanie Yue.

Some pretty brilliant t-shirt designs by Joanna Mulder (talk about an awesome geek name).

Okay; this is the best thing I saw all day. I'm sorry. I love creator-owned work, I love innovative, experimental comics that push boundaries, but I will always have Star Wars deeply implanted in my heart and soul, and these mini-anthologies of Star Wars comics are freakin' OUT OF CONTROL. I bought the first one, Harvest Is When I Need You Most. Just think about that title. That is beautiful. Each story is a wonderfully thoughtful and funny take on the Star Wars universe, and I may have to go buy the other two tomorrow. These are edited by Shelli Paroline, who autographed my copy along with a little picture of an Ewok.

This is a mural by Michael DiMotta, the colorist of my new favorite DC title, Ink. Turns out DiMotta is an extraordinarily talented penciller as well, and this double tryptic of animals was actually painted as mural for a school. Lucky kids!

More Michael DiMotta. Man, this is good stuff. Be sure to check out his homepage for high-res images of this print and much more.


Artist Jerry Ma was sketching at the booth for Secret Identities, the first ever Asian Superhero Anthology (which I recently covered for Midtown comics). This was just his "warm-up" sketch, so I think we can safely assume his sketches throughout the day were pretty badass.

This print by Lucy Knisley caught my eye, for obvious reasons. I asked when she did it, wondering if she drew it before or after the zombie explosion of the last few years, and it turns out she did it specifically for the convention, and turned it out just two days before the show! I should probably go back and buy this.

Nathan Stapley and Scott C at the Doublefine booth. I have to say I had no idea Doublefine, a studio I know best for creating the brilliant Psychonauts videogame and the upcoming Brutal Legend, did comics as well. But they do! Like I didn't have enough stuff to check out...JEEZ. Also they gave out free stickers.

Here's JoeGP, creator of the Talking Guinea Pigs webcomic. I'd never read it before, but I liked the art and writing so much on my initial flip-through, I had to buy one of the hard copies. He also drew me a sketch which I will post tomorrow at a more reasonable hour.

These two creators win best tablecloths of the day...

Martina Fugazzotto, recipient of last year's Friends of Lulu Kim Yale award, was displaying her awesome sex-positive sex-ed comics on an equally awesome psychadelic tablecloth.

Box Brown, author of Love Is A Peculiar Type of Thing which came out last week and looks great, had this exquisite 1970s Disco Peanuts tablecloth. Every Charlie Brown is happy when he's dancing to disco music! I asked Brown if he had a particular affinity for Peanuts, and he responded with an enthusiastic yes, adding that any comic featuring a character with a perfectly round head is a big draw.

That's just Day 1, folks! And there's even more on Geekanerd's Flickr.

Geekanerd And The Mystery of The Mocca Murder

It's been days since I came upon the biggest mystery of my career as a geek-interest blogger/freelance investigator, and I'm still trying to fully understand the events that transpired. I arrived at the Mocca Art Festival Sunday afternoon, ready for a day of fun and comics, what I got instead, was murder... What follows is a summary of what took place that fateful day, be warned, it's not pretty.

I showed up at the Puck building on Lafayette on that sweltering June day to a surprise. Firetrucks! The building had been evacuated due to a fire alarm and the Firemen were sweeping the area, leaving countless comic collectors and creators cast out into the heat. I took a look around as the firemen were packing up and a distinct odor hit me square in the face - charred flesh. I knew at once that this was no false alarm, someone had been murdered, and the body had probably been burned to get rid of the evidence. The firemen I questioned acted as if they didn't know what I was talking about, likely the body had been removed before they arrived. They began letting us into the building, and I decided that I wouldn't rest until I had solved this mystery.

Everyone is a suspect...

I walked in and headed to my left, into a wing full of tables and comic creators hocking their goods. People shoved past in anticipation of new books. I stopped off at the Top Shelf booth figuring the comic powerhouse would know what was up. Liz Prince, author of Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed? paused for a moment to talk and sell me her book, but claimed ignorance about the murder. She said no one at Top Shelf knew anything, and they were in the business of comics, not murder. I moved on in my search, if there were answers to be found, they wouldn't be at Top Shelf.

Liz Prince: Probably not a murder

I stopped off at Liz Baille's table to grab a couple issues of "My Brain Hurts." The lady looks like someone I wouldn't want to challenge to a knife fight, but torching a corpse didn't seem her style. I moved on to famous artist and creator Evan Dorkin, creator of such comics as Milk and Cheese and Dork. He was swamped with fans and had little time to talk, but I managed to ask if he believed his characters Milk and Cheese could have been involved in the murder. He responded "Milk and Cheese aren't real and couldn't possibly kill someone, what the hell are you even talking about?" He was miffed and I didn't want to rub him the wrong way, so I took off, noting that I should keep an eye on him.

Dorkin irked at my line of questioning

I stumbled over to the Picturebox table, where Director Michel Gondry and his son were signing their books. I was hesitant to bother the man, but someone had definitely been offed, and justice had to be served. I paused to buy his book along with his son's, and while he was signing, asked if he had heard anything about a murder or a burning body. He looked up at me and just stared, as if he hadn't understood a word I had said. Knowing Mr. Gondry, anything he would tell me would be laced with indecipherable metaphor and dream-like allusion, so I thanked him for his book and made myself scarce. I didn't think Gondry would be involved anyway, after all, he directed Eternal Sunshine and a short involving David Cross dressed up as a turd. That guy wouldn't hurt a fly.

Michel Gondry: not a suspect

I made my way to the elevators, maybe someone on the upper floors would know what had happened. There was plenty to take in, but I stopped off at this crazy looking joint
to ask a few questions of Skeightfast Dyephun! creator Vic Giannini. This guy was no friend to authority, but I thought he might be able to give me some dirt. Before I could even get word one out he was in my face. "Get lost flatfoot, I don't talk to no private dicks." I tried to reason with him, but he was having none of it. I could tell I was in dangerous territory so I backed away slowly. Giannini might be the type of guy to tear a man to pieces, but he certainly wouldn't get rid of the body, more likely he'd keep it as a trophy.

Victor Giannini, about to lose his cool.

It was around this time that I ran into three guys from Indie Spinner Rack running some game on the Templar, AZ booth. I asked them what all the commotion was about and they asked me if I was a gambling man. before I knew it I was sucked into their little game of dice and comic creation. Traveling around the floor they had a ready-to-play board game where the players were comic creators who had to pick up an artist, publisher, writer and supplies and make it to distribution first. I got well into the game when suddenly I realized, this was just a distraction, someone was trying to keep me from finding the killer! I shoved past the spinner rack boys and hauled tail away from the intoxicating sound of clattering dice.

You almost had me Indie Spinner Rack, but I've got a killer to catch!

As I tried to collect myself I heard a voice. "Hey Mister!" It was Insult To Injury creator Ben Rosen. "I hear you're looking for information." "That's right," I said, "I'm investigating a murder and the burning of a body." Rosen glanced around. "Lissen, I don't no nothin about no murder, but it sounds like you're lookin' for some sorta deviant, so you're in the wrong area." He had my attention. "So where am I supposed to be looking then?" "You want to go see those webcomic boys down on the bottom floor, if anyone's involved in something like that, it's them." He had hit the nail on the head, and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner! I bought his most recent book to thank him for the info, and took off toward the stairs

A book for a tip, a fair trade

I hurried into the webcomics wing and walked straight to the big man, Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics. North may have donated a bunch of his own hair to locks of love, but that doesn't mean he couldn't murder someone and torch their body. I asked him a couple questions, and his overwhelming niceness eventually convinced me that he hadn't killed anyone, so I moved on down to the next table to talk to Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content. This giant of a man was adamant that he had never had anything to do with any murder anywhere and proceeded to give me the patented "Jacques Stare." I continued on, determined to find the murderer.

Ryan North: Too Damn Nice

The Jacques Stare

I was running out of leads, if I wanted to close this case I needed to do it fast. I headed over to the Dumbrella table to see if they knew anything. Diesel Sweeties creator R. Stevens took a hard line that no one in his collective could possibly have killed and burned someone, and that I should "seek professional help."

R. Stevens was uncooperative in the investigation

I was just about ready to give up, when I noticed that someone from the collective was missing. Indeed, Jeffrey Rowland, creator of Overcompensating and Wigu was nowhere to be seen, in fact, he had been missing from the Dumbrella table since the alarm. Rowland's "autobiographical" comic Overcompensating paints him as exactly the time of man who would both murder and incinerate someone. Unfortunately, he was gone, and while various Dumbrella members and passerby noted that he was probably "getting food" or "would be back later" I knew he was gone probably already on a plane to a sunny little spot in South America till the whole thing blew over. Stevens was obviously covering for him, and he would no doubt stick to his story. Lacking physical evidence, I'd have to wait until I could sit Rowland down and pull a confession from him. It was only a matter of time before he returns to the scene of the crime...

Jeffrey Rowland took flight, probably because he was guilty of murder

That's all I've got for now, tune in next time when I try to solve The Case of the Missing D&D Miniatures.

Happy Birthday To Us! Geekanerd Is One!

The Gnerd Crew: Albo, Johnny, Bishop, Fred, Sarah B and AHR.*

"But Albo," you say, "Just one year? I feel like Geekanerd has been around forever! I can't imagine a time without such a great source for comic book, movie, and video game news and opinions!" Yeah, we get that all the time. But it's true! One year ago this week, AHR posted our very first article--a "Panel Discussion" of Avengers: The Initiative #2. Panel Discussion became a weekly feature, and this wild n' crazy journey down the rabbit hole of Geekanerdism began. But enough about the first article, what were the BEST articles? And so, in celebration of our first birthday:

GEEKANERD'S TOP TEN MOST POPULAR ARTICLES ALL TIME

(Based on total visitors)

After the jump!

*Not pictured: Degan. He's in LA or something. Nerd.

10. The Dark American Psycho Knight
Our mashup of the newest Dark Knight trailer with scenes from American Psycho probably got some people in trouble at work, but that didn't stop word of mouth from making it a minor internet hit.

9. MoCCA 2007: Hot Webcartoonist Action!
Apparently people are really curious what all those reclusive cartoonists look like in the flesh. I must admit I was mildly surprised to discover what a good looking group they are! Or maybe Special Ops Correspondent Bishop just has eyes for the pretty ones. I suspect we'll be getting a sequel to this one soon, considering MoCCA went down over the weekend... Bishop?

8. An Insane Fan's Guide to the Sweeney Todd Trailer
As soon as the Sweeney Todd trailer reached our internets AHR withdrew into her patented Foaming Geek Analysis Mode to dissect the images and draw an opinion on the adaptation of what she has long considered "the greatest material ever written." She picked it apart as only a true fan could, which is really what Geekanerd is all about.

7. Superhero Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum
Special Ops Correspondent Bishop strikes again, with this awesome sneak preview of the Superhero Fashion exhibit that's still going on at the Met.

6. The Kwik-E-Mart Comes to Times Square
Mere steps from her apartment door, AHR stumbled upon NYC's very own Kwik-E-Mart on the morning it opened, giving Geekanerd readers the first look at this Simpsons Movie publicity stunt. Having the only Kwik-E-Mart photos on the internet for a couple of days got us tons and tons of traffic. Truly our first blockbuster article.

5. Watchmen Movie Photos to Comic Panels Comparison
Many places on the internet referencing such a comparison link Maxim's similar article, but ours was chock full of the kind of intense scrutiny and analysis that only a true fan can deliver. "Geekanerd: When Maxim Just Isn't Geeky Enough."

4. Dark Knight Bootleg: The 7-Minute Scene
This video still gets a lot of visitors clamoring for anything Dark Knight related. It's a recording of a full scene from DK that ran before I Am Lengend on IMAX screens. The video gets taken down every once in a while by Warner Bros., but we've managed to keep getting it back up. I actually haven't even watched it, as I want to be as fresh as possible when I go in this summer. (It's great! - AHR)

3. Venture Bros. Season Three Preview
This is a relatively young article that's climbed to the top three in record time. Another case of being the first on the scene with something that a certain niche is itching for, AHR shot this at a New York Comic Con panel and for some reason was the only person to do so and post it. There was only one place for Venture Bros fans to come for their fix, and we welcomed them with open arms. The recording was so ubiquitous that most sites reporting the official release of the preview weeks later made remarks like "Now you can stop watching that bootleg version."

2. Portal Authority: Everything Good on the Internet About Portal
AHR here for this one. This post is very close to my heart. Writing it allowed me to take the mind-consuming obsession and adoration I experienced after playing Portal and expel it onto the internet, where I could share the crazy with similarly afflicted fans. Analysis born of all-encompassing geek-love is something I always wanted to be at the heart of this site. It's been more than half a year since this post, yet it seems like GLaDOS and I met only yesterday.

1. Early Zelda Drawings Reveal Hyrule That Could Have Been
It might be misleading to call this our most "popular" article ever. It certainly has the most visitors, but my fanboy rant drew a lot of fire from Zelda-ites all over the internet. I thought I loved the franchise, but I've got nothing on the people that came out to say all sorts of bad things about me: "the author's a whiny little bitch," "this guys is an idiot," "a bucket of pure distilled nonsense," "he's talkin rubbish," "this guy is a whiny dick," "what a prick this guy is." I had some well spoken supporters in the massive (for G'nerd) comment section, though, which softened the blows. I suppose I've learned my lesson about inflammatory language.

And to you, dear readers...thanks to the early birds who've been with us for the whole year, and who stuck with us during our colored text phase and the endless reconfigurations of Snap Judg(e)ments. Thanks to the new folks who have joined the party in the last few months, and have pushed our stats into the magical land of Maybe We Should Be Making Money Now. Thanks even to the horny guys and gay girls who just came here once for the Nerdcore Calendar link. We wish we could offer each and every one of you a piece of this unbelievably delicious Food Emporium cake. Stick around for an exciting year two, which Force-willing will include some podcast action and maybe even our own little t-shirt collection.