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.

Photos: Bergen Street's Free Comic Book Day and Act-i-Vate Party

Did everyone have a happy Free Comic Book Day? I did! Being Brooklynites, Degan and I picked up our freebies at Bergen Street Comics and Rocketship bright and early on Saturday. But come the evening, I headed back to Bergen Street for their Act-i-Vate party and presentation.

I'm a fan of the Act-i-Vate Comix Collective from back when I produced a segment on the site for a now defunct web series. For those not familiar with Act-i-Vate, the short version is they're a group of working artists who produce professional-grade serialized comics for free online. The presentation at Bergen Street showcased examples of the great work being done for the site, and I was surprised to see how much more sleek and functional the interface has gotten since I last checked in.

The presentation also included an announcement of the Act-i-Vate Primer, a hardback collection of new comics by Act-i-Vators, available exclusively in print (well, at least until two years go by, at which point they'll be put online. These guys just can't stop themselves from giving their work away!). Considering the Act-i-Vate stable includes such indie luminaries as Dean Haspiel, Roger Landridge and Dan Goldman, I imagine this collection will get a lot of attention when it hits the shelves this fall.

More pictures after the jump...


Bergen Street always has some great original art up on the walls. For the Act-i-Vate party, they hung up original inks, pencils and prints of the Act-i-Vators work.

Graphic novels by the Act-i-Vators were laid out on the center table. I ended up buying 08, illustrated by Dan Goldman, who is responsible for my favorite Act-i-Vate comic, the insane and extremely NSFW Kelly.



Everyone likes balloons.

A slide from the presentation of some of the pre-launch teaser material.

So if after all this, you're thinking about going to check out the site, here are few notes from the presentation about some of the comics on Act-i-Vate, if you need a place to start:

Panorama: "Nauseating, in a good way."
Ultra Boy: "Grusome, macabre, and fun."
Underwire: "It's for chicks!"
Fut Miso: The mini-comic at the bottom of this page was described as "The best thing on the site".
The End is Here: "I started with a daily strip about penguins way before all those movies came out." Described as the saddest comic ever. I just read it, and yeah, it goes from cute to soul-crushingly bleak in about one page. Hardcore anti-war sentiment.
Pecan Sandy: "It's Nick's reaction to Drawn & Quarterly."

Fun Fact:
Warren Ellis paid the $25 activation fee for the original Act-i-Vate domain name. "The Act-i-Vators could only come up with nineteen."

For yet more FCBD and Act-i-Vate party photos, check out our Flickr.

Comics So Good They Should Not Be Free: Steve Purcell's Toybox

Steve Purcell, best known as the creator of Sam & Max, is the man. I can't think of any comic writer with a more distinctive voice. His humor is dry and clean, yet anarchic. Like a pitchfork attached to a ceiling fan. As much as I love his work on Sam and Max, I never had the chance to read anything else by him; as far as I knew, there WAS nothing else by him (his Wiki page indeed has few other writing credits, except for a Batman Villains one shot).

But now! Thanks to Steve's art blog, which I should have been following MONTHS ago, fans can revel in the wit and wierdness of Toybox, a genuine 12-page comic starring two decidedly non Salmonax-characters. Well, the duo of Toybox is actually not so different from the Freelance Police; we've still got the combination of one detatched and deadpan character paired with a impulsive and slightly violent pal. The story was published in Fast Forward 3, a sci-fi/fantasy anthology to which Steve was asked to contribute "what you want". Given that prompt, this is one of the stranger things I could imagine a person coming up with.

The whole thing was posted around Halloween; eh, so sue me. Read it, it's upsetting and delightful.

Comics So Good They Should Not Be Free II: Freakangels

I repeatedly confuse Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis. I have this problem with alliterative names that have the same number of letters and it's caused a lot of problems...well I won't bore you.

The point is, my problem is finally solved, because Warren Ellis is currently writing something SO GOOD it would be a crime to forget whom to attribute it to. I'm talking about Freakangels, which has been released in free weekly online installments since last February.

The panels above and below demonstrate how amazingly intricate and gorgeous Paul Duffield's artwork is, but what I can't capture in a panel is how great the characters are. The first story arc was recently completed (due in trade paperback this November) and is a great example of a "bringing the team together" opener. Personalities and relationships are revealed one by one, until you find yourself immersed in a patchwork of indelible characters (my favorite is Sirkka, a bisexual hedonist with a stately attitude). Then of course then it's time for a crisis and you see how your new pals deal under the gun.

I haven't read the whole thing again in one sitting yet, but in my comic experience what's good over several months is even better with instant gratification. Enjoy!

Comics So Good They Should Not Be Free: Panda Panda

Do you find it difficult to relate on an emotional level to global tragedy? Another question; do you find pandas adorable?

Cartoonist Coco Wang has been posting short comics that illustrate accounts of the May 12th China earthquakes. Her drawings are instantly appealing, and I'd like to point you towards one story in particular: Panda Panda, in which some brave panda researchers (!) risk life and limb to save baby pandas. Repeat: baby pandas.

The other comics on the site are less Panda-centric, but excellent nonetheless. Wang focuses on stories of heroism and bravery but doesn't skim over the horror of the disaster, and many of the comics are seriously heart-wrenching. They each give a pointed, intimate look into the lives of individuals caught in the quake, and it's a wonderful example of illustrated journalism that reminded me of one of my favorite webcomics of all time, After the Deluge.

The Abominable Charles Christopher

Geekanerd really likes comics with woodland creatures. Or maybe it's just me. Either way, The Abominable Charles Christopher, by New Favorite Artist Karl Kerschl, is full of animules drawn with the care and detail of a rangers guidebook, but who still manage to pull cartoony wild takes as seen below. Also there's a Bigfoot. Who doesn't like a good Bigfoot?Related:
Geekanerd Salivates Over Karl's Teen Titans Cover
Geekanerd Waxes Poetic About His Panels From All-Flash #1

A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge Getting Some Much Deserved Attention

With the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina upon us, artist Josh Neufeld's insightful illustrated account of the disaster is getting some well-deserved attention from the mainstream press. The L.A Times has an excellent article on A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge, which is currently being published for free as an online serial at Smith Magazine. New readers will want to start from the beginning - once you wrap your head around the high-intensity prologue, you'll find it next to impossible not to keep reading till you run out of chapters. Lucky for us, Chapter Six just went up.

I really do believe A.D is destined to be one of the great nonfiction comics, and should grab anyone who saw the greatest natural disaster of our time unfold two years ago. For all of us who were stunned by the images on TV during those long days, A.D. offers a chance to understand the larger-than-life events on an individual level. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about it in the next several months.

Related: Geekanerd's Coverage of the Chapter Five release.

Via Newsarama and Smith Magazine.

Reel Geek: Webcomics In Hollywood

Every Tuesday, Geekanerd Correspondent Bishop rocks it movie geek style...As geeks and/or nerds, I can pretty safely assume that you enjoy four things: comics, the internet, movies, and animation (if you dislike any of these things then you probably misspelled a word on Google and somehow ended up here). Well, today we’re going to talk about all four of those things coming together in a writhing orgy of tangled limbs and sweaty buttocks.

Oh my! Upcoming WebComic to Animation info and video, after the jump!


As many of you may know, Scott Kurtz, author of Player vs Player, the popular gaming comic, has launched an online animation series based on PVP. The series is set for 12 episodes, pumped out once a month, for a fee of $24.95 for the year. So far the reaction has been a mixed bag, but the internet is full of critics who would nitpick the way a popular website was giving away free money, so I’d rather not sit around debating how a character’s voice didn’t sound like what a 13 year old in Iowa felt it should.

PVP: The Series is being brought to us by Blind Ferret Entertainment, which is the studio that produced Tim Buckley’s “Ctrl+Alt+Del” series last year (see the trailer here). Blind Ferret is the creation of “Least I Could Do” writer Ryan Sohmer et al. Now I know I’m supposed to be discussing movies here, but bear with me.

Blind Ferret recently announced plans to create a full-length feature animated film starring the cast of “Looking for Group,” another comic that Sohmer writes. Sohmer posted a short that he and the BF team had put together for everyone to see, so take a quick peek at the video below.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the very fact that webcomic creators are pushing into the frontier of animation and film is pretty exciting to me. What we’re seeing is another expansion by webcomics into a venue traditionally only seen in syndicated comics. Garfield, Heathcliff, Peanuts and others were all syndicated newspaper strips that branched out into merchandising, which included animated features and television series. Webcomics have really only proven themselves to be financially profitable in the past few years, with powerhouses like PVP and Penny Arcade and collectives like Dumbrella and Dayfree Press. Now it looks like webcomics are taking up the challenge to produce animated series and movies without the backing of a large syndicate, and personally I’m glad to see them doing it. Sure things are going to be a little rough at first and there are going to be a lot of false starts and misfires, but that’s just part of the game.

Blind Ferret said that CAD: The Series was indeed financially profitable, and PVP still seems to be attracting subscribers, so we may start seeing more and more webcomics pushing into the animation field. Better still, we’re going to be seeing them get there on their own terms (or at least much closer than they would working under a syndicate and a network). Now I know some people out there are going to scoff and roll their eyes because webcomics are “trying too hard” or “going commercial.” Well those people have herpes. All we’re seeing is artists branching into another field of expression, one that allows them to create new material and give a new voice to their work. It may also push web-based animation ala Homestar Runner more into the spotlight and encourage more young artists into animation. This means not only more series like Homestar, but more series like “Venture Brothers” hitting the channels as networks see that these web-based series can garner an audience and make more compromises with creators about content and themes that carry over to air. Sohmers’ “Least I Could Do” has already been optioned and is in development for a TV series.

I’m looking forward to seeing web-based animated series grow and garner larger audiences. The scripts will probably be a little unsteady early on (writing for the screen has a different pacing than with a 4-6 panel comic strip), and the animation will be a little uneven, but go watch an early episode of the Simpsons and tell me you KNEW that it was going to be the success that it was.

Operation: Bad Comics... A Failure

Anthony Clark of Nedroid has recently completed a challenge to produce 200 bad comic strips... And he has failed miserably. Unfortunately for him, a lot of the comics are pure gold. The art and joke structure are often reminiscent of Teen Girl Squad, with the added preoccupations of nut kicking, wife cheating, and taco eating. Well worth the few minutes it will take you to breeze through them, so go check out the 200 best bad comics you'll ever read. More samples after the jump.


Thanks for the tip, Hunter!

After the Deluge: Chapter 5 of the Katrina Webcomic Is Now Online

If you haven't been reading A.D: After the Deluge, you're missing out on an amazing work of art.

A.D. is true story of five New Orleans residents and their experiences during Hurricane Katrina. It gives readers an intimate view of why some of these people stayed, why some left, and how they all got through one of the worst natural disasters in U.S history. When this eventually gets published as a graphic novel, it's gonna be a huge deal; read the comic and you'll see why.

A.D is currently available for free as a serialized webcomic, hosted by Smith Magazine. Author Josh Neufeld just released the fifth chapter, and things are getting rough. The last four chapters have been about getting to know the characters, foreshadowing the storm, and seeing what course of action everyone would choose as the hurricane approached. But now in the fifth chapter, the magnitude of the disaster is clear, and as a reader, you know things are only going to get worse.

• Read the Comic From the Beginning
• Jump to Chapter Five

Original Sketchster: Jeph Jaques

While at MoCCA, Special Ops Geekanerd Correspondent Brice got Jeph Jaques of webcomic Questionable Content to draw us this adorabo sketch of Marten. Oh yeah, dig those tight indie rock jeans! I love seeing smooth and shiny webcomic characaters drawn all sketchy-like...thanks Jeph!

MoCCA 2007 - A Geekanerd Special Report!

Intrepid Geekanerd Special Ops Correspondent BRICE was at MoCCA last weekend, and he's provided us with exclusive pix and a special report of what went down - dig it!

Greetings to all you readers out there in the tubes! I stopped by the MoCCA Art Festival this weekend to spend too much of my money and feed your undying hunger for all things comic. The MoCCA fest has been going on annually since 2002, and if you haven’t made a point to hit it, you’re missing out. Unlike many comic conventions, the focus is set towards smaller and more independent print and webcomics, and if you’re looking for something new or just need a break from a constant barrage of ret-conning in your monthly issues of major labels, MoCCA is the place to find stuff you’ve haven’t seen in your local shop.

This year there were the usual three main rooms covering the first floor, and an additional floor upstairs. While artists mentioned that table prices have gone up for them, they said that the large attendance this year made up for it.


Like I said, one of the great parts about the MoCCA fest is the focus on independent artists and writers. “Bigger” name publishers like Top Shelf were of course on hand, but there are tons of guys and girls writing a wide array of comics for you to sample. I was excited to find a comic about Souxsie Sioux’s (of Souxsie and the Banshees fame) childhood by Dalton Webb, who also contributes to the anthology You Ain’t No Dancer which like the popular anthology Flight is a great way to get a sampling of a bunch of different artists and writers, always a good purchase.

I picked up the newest graphic novel from artist Christine Norrie (Hopeless Savages, Cheat) called Breaking Up, as well as the latest issue of author/artist Liz Baillie’s Queer Punk drama My Brain Hurts. Both books explore high school through the eyes of two completely different female protagonists. Tom Motley’s Aline the Alien included a splash page with honeycombed panels, written and designed in such a way that provided you moved to an adjoining panel, you could go in any direction and continue with a cohesive narrative.

I made my way into the webcomic area, where, if you stand in one spot for 30 seconds, you will hear no fewer than 7 different euphemisms for the word “internet.” I stopped by the “Playground Ghosts” table, featuring such wonderful comics as “Wondermark,” “Reprographics,” and the always lovely “Fluff In Brooklyn.” Chris Yates of Reprographics was happy to chat as I purchased one of his handmade puzzles and then pose for a picture with a completely appropriate sign (it’s a well known fact that 94% of webcomic creators are obsessed with fecal matter).

I stopped off to snag a shirt and a shot from “Dinosaur Comics’” Ryan North, who was one of perhaps two people attending the con who were taller than I (the other being Jeph Jacques of “Questionable Content,” who as everyone knows is approximately 11’ tall and was barred from the NBA out of fear that he might one day trip and crush Muggsy Bogues). Speaking of Jeph, he was nice enough to provide a lovely photo and equally lovely sketch for GAN, which will go up as soon as I can find a scanner.

I made my way over to the table of internet comic collective giant “Dumbrella” and picked up the newest installment of Jeffrey Rowland’s Wigu: The Case of Atlantis. Dumbrella is a powerhouse collective with comics “Overcompensating,” “Goats,” “Diesel Sweeties,” et al., churning out stylish T-Shirts and knocking over other webcomic artists’ lunch trays out of sheer spite. I had a short conversation with R. Stevens of “Diesel Sweeties” fame in which, after learning my profession (working in TV and Film) he promptly told me that he hated movies, as well as most television programming, insulted my job, and may also have made a comment about my mother as I walked away. “Absolute power…” and all that. However I can’t fault a man who shares my love of all things Jon Cusack.

But seriously, one of the great things about MoCCA is having the time and the leisure to swap a few words with the writers and artists selling there. All of them were great and more than happy to chat. And it’s a excellent opportunity to find some good books/sites that you hadn’t seen before. If you couldn’t make it, do yourself a favor and head over to http://www.moccany.org and check out some of the exhibitors that were there. Most everyone has a website and you’re sure to find something that piques your interest. Tell them Geekanerd sent you.

Thanks Brice! Check out more of Brice's hot pix, check out the first part of our MoCCA coverage, which includes links to all the webcartoons mentioned.