Sunday lived up to its name, as yesterday’s rain was gone and my drive from just south of San Jose to San Francisco was much more pleasant today. I made it to the city in record time, and to the San Francisco Concourse just a few minutes before the doors opened for the Alternative Press Expo, which wrapped up today.
So yesterday I declared Kramer’s Ergot 7 the book of the show, but after today I may have to rethink that (or, at the very least, call it a tie). The Totoro Forest Project Book, which benefits the Oscar-winning filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s Totoro Forest Foundation, was a big seller at the show.
It features a collection of artwork from a whole bunch of artists, and even at $45 a pop they moved more than 100 copies at the show. In fact, if I recall correctly, they sold 100 copies on Saturday and were moving briskly through the 40 remaining copies on Sunday when I visited the table. They auctioned off all the original artwork a few weeks ago, with great success. You can see some of the artwork from it on their blog; the artwork above was a thank you created by Miyazaki himself.
Soon after I arrived, Larry Young introduced me to legendary letterer Richard Starkings, who was hanging out at the Image booth all weekend … here’s Richard and Larry:
And here’s Matt Silady and Dan Cooney, both of whom teach comics courses at the California College of the Arts and Academy of Art University, respectively:
I spoke with both of them about the courses they teach and all of their students who were exhibiting at APE … I should have something up on the whole educational aspect of the show soon.
I attended two more panels today, one featuring Chris Ware being interviewed by McSweeney’s publisher Eli Horowitz, and one featuring Paige Braddock being interviewed by her Martian Confederacy colleague Jason McNamara.
My picture of Chris wasn’t the greatest:
The Chris Ware panel was already packed by the time I arrived, so I was sitting in the back. But the Paige/Jason one came out a little better, as I was able to move a little closer in between the two panels:
I’m gonna try to do write-ups on both panels, as they were both well done.
Some other highlights of the day …
–Met Ed Mathews, who writes for the site PopImage. Ed and his longtime partner Matt were recently married after moving from New Jersey to California, so congrats to them both. Ed should have an APE report up on the site soon. Also met Ted Abenheim and Charles Christensen of Prism Comics, and chatted a little bit about the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant, which just wrapped up another round of submissions in October.
–Chatted with James Sime about his various activities this past weekend, and of course his pro wrestling debut with Fog City Wrestling. It sounds like it’s going to become a regular gig for him … I really can’t imagine a better Chairman of the Board than James.
–Kirsten Baldock, who wrote the ultracool Smoke and Guns, has her second script ready; now she’s just looking for an artist to draw it. It’s called Satisfaction Guaranteed, and she described it as a cross between a Jimmy Stewart movie and Blade Runner. She said she’s also thinking about a possible sequel to Smoke and Guns.
–Talked to Oni Press managing editor Randy Jarrell about the Scott Pilgrim and Whiteout movies, as well as the pricing and printing of comics.
–Talked to Rob Osborne about his self-published book, The Nearly Infamous Zango, as well as about Austin, Texas (where he lives) football and BBQ.
Overall it was a fun, yet busy day. I should have those panel reports from the show in the next few days.
November 4th, 2008 at 6:17 am
How can you beat a day that is full of meeting interesting, talented people? Looks like a great event!