And what a weekend it was…
On the friday before, MK and myself, as well as Robin, went to pick up our badges at MoCCA offices. In the lobby we ran into Andy Runton waiting for the elevator, and upstairs I got the chance to chat with Toby Craig and Dalton Webb. For me, its not the comics that gets me most excited about MoCCA, its the people, the chance to see folks whom you haven’t seen in, often case, a whole year. It’s like a reunion, with “that’s been going on?” answered in the form of a brand new comic book.
MoCCA keeps getting bigger every year, with more and more events relating to it popping up everywhere. I knew that I had to hit the Meathaus party that night to hopefully see some old friends, as well as the grand opening of Live Fast to see Joe‘s work on the walls. But before all that was June‘s birthday dinner which saw not only her and bunch of others from that circle (including the mysteriously absent as of late Brian Green) but the Brothers Brett, together in public, for the first time in ages. I literally hadn’t seen Rod in years, the person most responsible for me being so knowledgeable of the import gaming scene in the past six or seven or so years.
And it was during dinner where a plan was hatched concerning my father, who is a bit of a curiosity amongst all my friends. The thing is, my friends take great pleasure in hearing about my crazy stories, especially those involving my dad (and my impression of him is also a big hit). The fact that I have not been able to provide any pictures of the guy, despite requests from all my friends for years now, has only enhanced the enigma. So my gift to June? A detailed layout of my hometown, including all the places my dad frequents so when Joe and June go to Washington state later this summer, they can observe (well, more like stalk) the man and the myth. Though if the schedule had worked out, I think it would be awesome if Joe (or hell, maybe even June) were to show up to my high school graduation as me.
After dinner, the three of us then went to the Cake Shop, site of the Meathaus party. But I guess we were a bit too early (even though we were well past the official start) since no one was there aside from Andy Bodor, the proprietor of the establishment (who also runs Alt.Coffe and is the brother of my old boss at SVA) and Roger Human Being, who was busy setting up for his set later in the night. But it was nice and air conditioned so MK insisted on sticking around, plus the place sold records and books so there was plenty to look around. I ended up getting two packs of old Tron trading cards and a used children’s book adaption of The Black Hole (funny how the whole ending of the film is mysteriously absent), plus a pack of movie cards from it as well.
We then headed to Live Fast (meeting Richie from the Beer Drinking Fools along the way). The place was totally packed, with Joe buried inside, surrounded by many peers and admirers, among them Dr. Chud, whom folks might know as the drummer from the Misfits (Joe currently does all the artwork for Chud’s current project). There were plenty of other faces all crammed inside, including various Japanese kids from Kenny’s circles, plus a girl who I used to flirt with online.
Long story short: back when I was single and unemployed, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time at makeoutclub.com hitting on nerdy and indie girls (this also where I learned about the term “emo” before it became some big, and very annoying thing). Anyway, of the many dozens and dozens of girls I used to talk with (and that’s a very conservative generalization) was this one girl who was into just then burgeoning alternative porn scene. Needless to say, I found her fascinating, (course anyone who willing passed along pics of their boobs was on my a list in no time… hey what can I say? I was lonely and bored at the time). At one point, I was going to attend some sex party that she had invited me to, but I chickened out at the last minute, and it was a good thing since afterwards she noted the high concentrate of assholish guys who would just grab anyone girls ass, even though they were clearly too busy to defend themselves, at least those in the middle of giving a blowjob (which I guess is a rude thing to do in such an occasion). Things fizzled out quickly thereafter due to some argument we got regarding an Onion parody pie chart in which she claimed that it was her that was being referenced, though I still say here generic name (at least for a dominatrix) meant it could have serioulsy been anybody.
Back to Friday night: once the store became too hot and too crowded inside, the three of us decided to head back to the Cake Shop. Though along the way we stopped into a cukcake shop since we spotted June and the rest of her party enjoying desert, so after talking for a while, and cooling down, it was finally back to the Meathaus party which by then was in full motion. Got to see Farel again, which is always a treat; the guy will always be one of my very best friends and is just plain awesome. There plenty of others from the Meathaus crew on hand of course, including Mu Wen Pan, Chris McDonald, and Rob Donnelly, plus Abby, Jenny, and even my roommate Stehpy. Also chatted with the guy who runs the Comic Legal Defense fund, though I forget his name (nice guy though). Found out that Roger has a new job, working at Moby’s restaurant, and discovered that as a boss, the guy’s sort of a pussy (gee, big surprise there, huh?). We didn’t stick around long since, you know, the con was the next day…
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As for the show, it was entirely as expected: an avalanche of awesome books, minis, and zines. In terms of the quality of the work that was available, it technically wasn’t the best year ever (though much of it was still strong nonetheless) but on a personal side, it was easily the most fun. Among the highlights (as well as some of the stuff I got)….
- The very first thing I got was Bryan Lee O’Malley’s very much long awaited Scott Pilgrim Vol. 2, which isn’t even in stores till tomorrow. O’Malley was super nice and even did a small sketch for my copy (everyone, including MK was gushing over theirs… and I did too). And the “I’m a Scottaholic” button was pretty keen was well. I got the sense that he really digs talking with folks familiar with Canada; I’m not from the Great White North, but I went there often while living in Washington, plus I still enjoy its television.
- I also snagged volume 2 of Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles and finally got to meet Neil Swaab who both MK and Robin know from the Syracus comics connection (which is also from where Nicholas Gurewitch hails from). Neil was super, super nice and I actually snagged a special MoCCA edition of the book that’s limited to only 30 copies! I’m lucky #20.
- Abby was there with her collected Dolltopia, as well as her boyfriend Matt Loux with his new book F-Stop which I finally picked up. He even drew me a cute pic of Link fighting the level 1 dragon boss from the very first Legend of Zelda (and in the very same style as he appears in its instruction manual).
- I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am Tim Kelly‘s biggest fan. I just absolutely love his comics, which IMHO some of the funniest stuff out there, plus I really enjoy his style. This year’s show he had something a bit different, something more serious; a comic all about his daughter who has autism, which was both humorous and even touching.
- Naturally, Dave, Raina, John, and Marion had their table crammed with tons ‘o stuff, including the latest Quicken Forbidden and the newest Take Out. And Toby and Dalton had their own table; I got the collected Punish the Dead, which was highlighted in a now famous LiveJournal thread, and the one book I was worried that would be sold out by the time I got around to getting a copy of my own.
- Another super friendly guy, even by comic book people standards? Jim Rugg, the guy behind Street Angel. And once I revealed that I was MK’s boyfriend (the guy is like a super fan of Catfight), he outright refused to take my money for issue 1.
- Yet another ultra nice guy? Jim Mahfood, who simply gave me his latest comic, Felt, once he found out that I we shared a connection with Farel (hey, everyone just loves Farel). Plus, I think he was just happy to know that someone really dug that Spider Man at the beach story that he did a few years ago.
- Speaking of Farel, he had another awesome shirt for sale, but MK managed to grab the last one. But the guy promises to send me another one once he makes more later this summer. And I really can’t complain since he gave me a beautiful silkscreen print that I have to get framed (along with another nice big one he gave me for my birthday a few years back).
- Jordan Cooper was at the con, and was kind enough to pass along a CD of his instrumental music. He also had for sale a mocumentary about a fake cartoonist that I picked up.
- Jamie Tanner is another friend of MK and Robin’s, and had a new book on hand. Besides being an all around super nice guy (yeah, I know I’ve said that too much already, but I can’t help it if its true), the dude already has 1,000 cool points for doing a comic about a penguin that’s a crime scene photographer with a sexual fetish.
- There’s always a mountain of comics at MoCCA to sift through and it’s impossible to get everything that looks interesting, so one has to be selective. For me, if its supposed to be funny, and if it can make me laugh out loud in a heartbeat, then I have to get it. The one book that got the best reaction out of me was easily Robert Ullman‘s Squirrel Boy. I have the guy’s previous minis, which is basically just pin up pics of cute bikini babes (and good ones at that), but this one is his first all ages book and is one of those comics that has a punch-line so funny that I can’t help but crack up each time I see it.
- Someone who’s work that I’m rapidly becoming a big fan of is Alec Longstreth. Not only are his comics awesome, but… wait for it…. he’s simply such a rad guy (plus someone whom I would love to hang out with as well). He had a few new things available, including a zine that’s all about the Dvorak keyboard.
I also got some issues of Soft Smooth Brain, a series of jam minis, and Pencil Fight, a zine that’s along the vien of Giant Robot and Super 7, from Alec’s buddy Bwana Spoons.
- Perhaps the only really big low point for me was the weather. To put it lightly, I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT STAND THIS MOTHERFUCKING WEATHER. If there’s one thing that I’ve always done my very best to avoid is complaining about the weather, since in my mind its rather pointless given that its totally out of anyone’s hands, yet here I am, doing what I always said would be the first true sign of “being old”. I just can’t help it; I’ve been so frustrated by the uncooperative that I just want to scream sometimes (or maybe punch something).
So MK & I had a small get together, a BBQ planned at my place after the show on Saturday. The idea was to invite just a small group of friends to give them a chance to eat up and rest; I never made a formal announcement since I wanted a light gathering and not a full borne party, though when I mentioned it to a few folks, word did spread and eventually it was more than a just few people who knew about it. Even John mentioned that by Saturday afternoon it was taking shape as the happening party.
And of course, by the end of the day, it started to rain. At first, I thought about outright canceling it, but MK insisted that we still give it a try. Once the rain tapered off, I began to get cautiously optimistic and mentioned it was on again, but only to a select few close friends. I then headed home early to make last minute preparations, and while at the grocery store to get some essentials, it began to poor again. By the time I got home, tired and frustrated, plus soaking wet after hauling tons of of bread, soda, and ice across ten blocks, I called it off once more. At the very least, things did taper off later in the evening and we both got to watch the fireworks display over downtown Brooklyn (they were setting things up for the 4th of July I would have to assume).
As for my aggressive tendencies, I was able to kick the shit out of some random loafs of bread that were just lying in the middle of the street the very next morning. And yes, it made me feel like a man.
- On day one of the con, I showed up in my Dark Side of the Garden t-shirt from Threadless. As mentioned earlier, I’ve known about Threadless for some time now, but finally bought a few due to the big sale they just had, and wouldn’t you know, the company is also the hottest thing as of late thanks to recent mentions in Wired and other media outlets. So to avoid looking like a goof with a shirt that every one else is wearing, I brought a “back-up”shirt just in case. Pretty ridiculous huh? Well it was totally unnecessary since I was the only one who had the shirt, which was quite a hit with folks. It even helped to sell a copy of Catfight because one guy wanted to know what the shirt was about.
The next day I wore my Consumable shirt, not worrying the same thing could happen, yet it did; Steve alerted me “Dude, there’s some fat guy wearing the same exact shirt!” and a few minutes later, our paths crossed. The expected “Dude, we’re wearing the same exact shirt!” comments were said, but the guy felt it necessary to drag the conversation well beyond 17 seconds that it was only due for a few more completely unnecessary and rather uncomfortable minutes. When Steve later said “Sorta ruins it, huh?” I had to agree.
- And yes, there were some video game people at the show.
I ran into Raina (Lee) on Sunday who informed me that I-Up #4 will finally be available at SPX (thank God, I figured I’d never see my story in print!). Plus Nick Fortugno and Ranjit Bhatnagar from gameLab was also checking things out; they were there primarily to support Amy Kim Ganter who works at gameLab as an illustrator and animator.
- Perhaps the biggest surprise was getting some minis from Chris Duffy, the senior comics editor at Nick Mag. He also brought up the topic of my old children’s story Johnny & Julia vs. the Sun and wondered what the fuck has happened to it. More than anyone else, Chris seems to be the only guy who remembers and still cares to see it come to completion. And at this point, I almost only want to see it finished just for Chris. Though I’m sure Dave would be thrilled if I was done with it as well.
- Okay, actually the biggest surprise was seeing an old friend. As I said, what makes MoCCA is awesome because you almost always get to see a long lost friend for the first time in ages, and this year it was Gerard Way. Yeah, the singer of My Chemical Romance.
I actually went to school with Gerard; he attended SVA for cartooning. I was never super close to Gerard, but always thought he was a swell, and really funny, guy, in addition to being extremely talented; Gerard was easily one of the best from the class and many expected him to be easily successes in comics. He had a band back then, and stuck with music once school was over, but I had lost contact with him, like everyone else, shortly afterwards.
Not too long ago, Joe had mentioned a band that was starting to make major waves, and that it was being fronted by an old college buddy of ours,. And not much later Dave mentioned “Dude, remember Gerard? He was on MTV last night!” So I was naturally curious to see how he’s been doing, and more to the point, if he remembered who the hell I was, and when I saw him at MoCCA he clearly did. It was definitely nice to see that he was as warm and friendly was he was back them, as well as to hear that I was included along with Dave, Joe, and Farel as the only guys from back in the day that he “gives a damn about”.
- Aside from Gerard, the only other big celeb at the show was Michel Gondry, who was there with his son who’s really into comics. And given that Gondry is French, I would have to assume that he was more than a passing interest in them as well. As awesome as it would have been to say hi to him, I just didn’t have anything good to say, other than maybe “It’s so awesome that you love Back to The Future as much as you do.” so I didn’t feel like bothering the guy.
Oh, and I didn’t see David Cross this time around.
- So the “Matt Hawkins Anthology” continues to build momentum. When I asked Katie Skelly (who aside from making uber cute comics, is one of the main reasons why MK & I are seeing each other, in a six degree sort of way) if she would be interested in contributing, she gave the most enthusiastic yes of everyone I had asked. I also promised her the chance to stop by my place in Brooklyn sometime this summer and tell her all my crazy stories. And I feel that I must also mention that I just love Robin’s impression of Katie saying, in regards to me, “He’s so angry!!!”
- Aside for the shitty weather and the subsequent cancellation of the BBQ, the only true downer was the lack of Todd Webb. As mentioned before, Todd had a nasty car accident which kept him stuck at home, and everyone knows that the guy just loves going to shows and sharing his comics. Thankfully Dave came up with the idea of passing along a sketchbook for folks to draw get well wishes, so that should further prove how much he was missed. Hopefully he’ll be in tip-top shape for this year’s SPX. I still love the drawing he did of me at last year’s MoCCA (which oddly enough was done three years from now).
And hopefully at this year’s SPX I’ll finally have a comic of my own. I know, I know, promises, promises…. but if I want to get this anthology to happen, I have to make something happen…
