Aaron CockleSeptember 12, 2016NewsAaron here today with some SPX programming highlights; Shaw; Ruliffson; Mendes; Smoke Signal Open Call; Dueling book festivals in NYC this weekend
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Comics Workbook has an incredibly robust selection of workshops scheduled for this weekend at the Small Press Exposition (‘SPX’) in Bethesda, MD. Each one of these workshops has the potential to completely change your life (the Carol Tyler one alone will probably do that), so please do try and attend one/all of them.
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Oh, yeah, in case you weren’t aware, SPX is this weekend, don’t forget
The SPX Programming Schedule is posted here, and the exhibitor list is here. Take a look and see if your favorite cartoonist is on the list! As always, this show is an intriguing assemblage of independent and mainstream small press comics from N.America and beyond, meeting in quiet desperation in the freakishly carpeted Marriott North Bethesda Hotel & Conference Center.
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Dash Shaw, Twittering Machine
In support of his newly released animated film, My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, Dash Shaw has posted a lot of reviews and screening info on Twitter.
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Jess Ruliffson interviews former US Army Captain Drew Pham at the Nib
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Melissa Mendes interviewed by Alex Dueben
Why did you decide to make “The Weight” a webcomic and serialize it that way?
I decided, after “Lou,” that I wanted this project to be something I did just for me. I wanted to draw and write exactly how I envisioned, but I knew that I also needed deadlines to keep me focused. Making myself post two pages a week keeps me working, even when I feel like crap, and knowing that people are following it and reading it fuels the fire under my ass. So that’s why I put it online — to give myself some structure.
Has your process changed because you’re posting this online, one page at a time?
It has a little. It’s kind of letting me be looser with the story. I’ve been allowing the characters to sort of take the story where they want to, and not planning out anything too rigidly. I do feel the pressure of posting two pages a week, especially right now, when there’s been some upheaval on the home front and I’ve been busy. I feel very guilty when I fall behind.
Do you have a sense of how big and how long this story is?
I really love family sagas, like “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck and “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough, for example, where the story spans generations. That’s sort of my plan with “The Weight.” I want it to at least encompass Edie’s (the main character’s) entire life, and maybe it’ll even go beyond that. I have a rough idea of the main turning points in the story, but nothing is set in stone at this point. But yeah, it’s a huge project.
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Gabe Fowler has posted an open call for the upcoming (26th!) issue of Smoke Signal: b+w spreads ONLY, size 21.5″ x 15.5″, 300 dpi, due Oct 1 to smokesignalcomics@gmail.com
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In Brooklyn and Queens this weekend, two of this nation’s finest book festivals:
NY Art Book Fair
Free and open to the public, the NY Art Book Fair is the world’s premier event for artists’ books, catalogs, monographs, periodicals, and zines.
Last year, the fair featured over 370 booksellers, antiquarians, artists, institutions and independent publishers from twenty-eight countries. The 2015 NY Art Book Fair was attended by more than 35,000 people.
This year’s NY Art Book Fair will once again include an ever-growing variety of exhibitors – from the zinesters in (XE)ROX & PAPER + SCISSORS and the Small Press Dome representing publishing at its most innovative and affordable, to rare and antiquarian dealers offering out-of-print books and ephemera from art and artist book history, plus the NYABF-classic Friendly Fire, focused on the intersections of art and activism.
Brooklyn Book Festival
The Brooklyn Book Festival is the largest free literary event in New York City, presenting an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors. One of America’s premier book festivals, this hip, smart diverse gathering attracts thousands of book lovers of all ages to enjoy authors and the festival’s lively literary marketplace.
AUTHORS INCLUDE Margaret Atwood, Margo Jefferson, Faith Erin Hicks, Russell Banks, Phoebe Gloeckner, Chester Brown, Salman Rushdie, Libba Bray, Stephanie Danler, Gayle Forman, Pete Hamill, Jacqueline Woodson, Angela Flournoy, Helen Garner, Karin Slaughter, Bruce Schneier, Rebecca Traister, Marjorie Liu, Sayed Kashua, Esmeralda Santiago, Thomas Frank, Ralph Nader, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Yusef Komunyakaa, Joyce Carol Oates, A.O. Scott, Hua Hsu, Rob Sheffield, Yoss, Jessica Valenti, Cecily von Ziegesar, Ocean Vuong, Ed Yong and hundreds more.
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