APE 2013

I spent this Saturday & Sunday afternoon checking out the Alternative Press Expo, an expo of independent press, self-publishing, comics & art. It seemed particularly dense with art illustrations this year. Monsters were popular subjects. Most of the exhibitors were ready with their pitches, & I heard many stories of successful Kickstarter campaigns. Attendees included a lot of art students & families with small children.

I was glad to get from Nick Mullins the final installment of his Carnivale, a dream-like, wordless 8-volume comic. I was impressed by the ambition of Inferno Los Angles, a dizzying comic book version of Dante's Inferno. I enjoyed talking with cartoonist Shannon Wheeler and learning how much perseverance it takes to get one's cartoons into the New Yorker. At the No Starch Press table, it was interesting to see manga textbooks translated from Japanese that teach subjects such as database programming. They also had a Python programming book aimed at children.

I was strangely intrigued by the table of Le Lierre Empoisonnant which nonchalantly displayed enclosures containing cultivated specimens of poison oak & poison ivy.

I also attended the Queer Cartoonists Panel. Justin Hall has been moderating it for 10 years now, which he said made him feel like "a grizzled old comics daddy." I was amused when panelist Sean Z referred to heterosexual attendees of BentCon as "ungay."

§ APE 2013
Alternative Press Expo
October 12-13
Concourts Exhibition Center