chicago zine fest

oh boy.

I wish I liked swearing, because if I did I would be throwing some cusses from my mouth bay.  I'll manage, here we go:

SOMETHING SOMETHING! I am so SOMETHING SOMETHING excited for the Chicago Zine Fest and it's still (at the time of writing this exactly) 3 months, 21 days, 22 hours, 36 minutes and 18 seconds away!  Working on it right now is SOMETHING SOMETHING amazing, because it's like one SOMETHING SOMETHING tidal wave after another of really SOMETHING SOMETHING exciting developments that knock me on my SOMETHING SOMETHING!  SOMETHING SOMETHING!  I can't wait until I can tell you all about the fest. Your jaw will drop and you'll be all like SOMETHING SOMETHING!  And I'll be all like SOMETHING YEAH!

  Ah, It's nice to get that out of my system.

  No, but seriously, the Chicago Zine Fest is going to be a truly amazing weekend (not to over hype it or anything), we're lining up some great special guests, and then we're going to do a blast of strongly encouraging exhibiting to the zinesters we really want to be there.  The programming is going to be tons of fun, featuring both a Kids and an Adults reading on Friday night, followed by Karaoke at Quimby's.  On Saturday we'll have TONS of people showing off their zines at tables, and then a full slate of workshops and panels and a DIY short-film festival, curated by Eric Ayotte.  We'll have a fun after-fest event that night, and then some fun get-togther stuff on Sunday, probably Kickball.  If you're reading these words, I strongly encourage you to be in Chicago the weekend of March 25, and too then attend (or exhibit or volunteer at) the Chicago Zine Fest.  Registration for exhibitors opens December 15th!

  DIY CHI is hosting a benefit show for the Zine Fest at the Juicer the money from the door goes to the zine fest.  The money from the bake sale goes to DIY CHI, everyone wins.  Except for the baked goods that have been cursed with self awareness.

Oh, hey, one last thing.  If you haven't yet you should consider giving to my Mustaches For Kids campaign (I grow a mustache you help fund underfunded public school programs), give what you can.  Also consider signing up for my Minicomic of the Month Club.  You can sign up whenever, but it would be really great to start to get an idea of how many folks I'm making minicomics for.  If you do either of these things, you'll cheer me up.  My Tegan and Sara tape broke in my back pack today, that thing got me through a couple rough break-ups, I'm kinda bummed.

2011

Well, look who crawled out of his hole to post a blog.  I've had some fun since APE, including attending the Milwaukee Zine Fest, and meeting my nephew, Ed.  I've been meeting weekly with two different groups to organize the Chicago Zine Fest, which will take place on March 25 & 26th, and the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (aka CAKE) which will hopefully be in August or October of 2011.  I've been cleaning & weatherizing my apartment, and practicing & writing new songs with my best friend, Josh.  Any way you cut it, 2011 is going to be a big year for me creatively, and I wanted to share some info with you as the countdown to the end of 2010 begins (only 34 days)!

COMICS!
I wont be putting out a whole lot of new sellable comics, not like Spitting Pennies or Write Now!, this year.  Instead I'm going to focus my efforts on two projects:

1. Sock-Monster! As we speak, I have a genius of a web designer redesigning my website, making Sock-Monster the focus of my web presence.  So I'll be updating Sock-Monster on a regular schedule (no seriously) as soon as I can.

2. Minicomic of the Month Club! I'm taking the year to experiment with form by biting off Liz Baillie's idea from 2009, a subscription-based service of a monthly minicomic delivered to your mailbox.  I'll be focusing on expanding my knowledge of book binding, art media, and story telling.  If you want to sign up for the service you can click right here on these exact words.  I'm hoping this will be a challenging and fun exercise for me, and I hope you'll enjoy watching me stretch my muscles a bit.

That seems like not a whole lot for an entire year, but it's along with the other projects listed below, it's going to suck up all my free time (sorry, ladies).   Because of my low imput of sellable comics, I'll be attending fewer shows, this year, only exhibiting at 4 comics shows, and maybe as many zine fests, and I probably wont have anything new on my table comics-wise.

ZINES!
  I really want to start making zines. I consider minicomics a type of zine, but I've never made a text-heavy zine.  My sister Kate made her first zine a little while ago (and it's amazing), and it got me really wanting to try to express myself in a non-sequential format.  I don't have a name for the zine yet, so if anyone has any good ideas (D.Billy, I'm looking at you), gimme.  The first issue will hopefully be about and published by the Chicago Mayoral elections, the second by Chicago Zine Fest (???!!!), that's a pretty tight schedule.

FEST PLANNING!
  As I mentioned before I'm helping organize both the Chicago Zine Fest and CAKE.  Both events will be flat out, straight up amazing, and if you're interested in either zines or alternative/independent comics, they will be not-to-be-missed events.  CZF is coming up fast (3 Months and 28 Days), and planning is furious and fast.  I'm lucky to be organizing CZF with a handful of great folks, Matt, Leslie, Ramsey (who were the other organizers last year), Johnny, Carrie and Jen (who have joined us for year two and are amazing).  CAKE's organizational structure is looser than the zine fest, so to list all the organizers would be a bit silly (not everyone makes every meeting, but they've contributed a great deal, I'm sure I'd forget to include someone).

CIPRC & REVENGE OF PRINT
   The store I work for, Quimby's has joined forces with Atomic Books, Zine World and Xerography Debt to declare 2011 as the Revenge of Print, because like a lot of my friends and I, they are sick and tired of the question "Is Print Dead?"  We're encouraging everyone and their mother to self-publish something, it'll be great.

   That declaration inspired me to act on an idea friends of mine and I have been kicking around for years, the creation of an independent publishing resource center in Chicago.  Portland has a great model for supporting independent publishers that I hope we can learn from.  Chicago has a healthy publishing and printing community, and a lot of spaces that encourage and teach methods of print making and writing, but nothing for the basic zine.  Copy shops in this town are either staffed by unfriendly or intimidating people, or are expensive or both.  The most basic vision for the center would be an office with a copier and supplies for cheap use.  From there we can build up tools and skill sharing to encourage anyone who has something to say to say it.

  What else, any other resolutions for 2011?  All that wasn't enough?! Keep my room clean, maybe?  I'll probably fail at that.

OH!  One last thing, I'm growing a mustache to raise money for public school classroom projects.  I know, it makes absolutely no sense, don't ask too many questions, it'll just make your head hurt.  Instead, visit my grower's page on donor's choose (one of Oprah's favorite things) and donate money to some of these awesome projects.  You can also check out my mustache's progress on flickr.  I have to admit, I've been a little slow getting my money ask out.  The campaign is called Mustaches for Kids or M4K, and it's pretty cool.

ape

The Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco was TONS OF FUN!

As usual, the highlights were the friendships, new and old that I got to enjoy.  I got to hang out with my cousins Edward and Anne on Friday night.  They're really great folks, so it was fantastic to get to hang out with them.  As usual, I shared a table with Kenan Rubenstein, who is a great guy, and a lot of fun to be around.  Next to our table were our buddies Josh Shalek and Reid Psaltis.  The number of good friends inhabiting the show are too numerous to list here, but they are all awesome folks, and they should know how exciting it is to see them whenever I get to.  I also got to meet some new folks, some I was excited to meet, like Anne Koyama, and Michael Deforge.  Others were pleasant surprises like Lea Zalinkis, and Sarah Palmer.

I had some fun food experiences, from a failed trip to buy vegan doughnuts on Sunday Morning, to the most manic and bizarre chinese restaurant I've ever been to, to delicious vegan organic mexican cuisine!

Sorry, it's not much of a recap, but my head is still spinning.  Photos help tell the story too.  Also, check out my photos from the Madison Zine Fest.  I'm trying really hard to get better at taking pictures.

ok bye.

Sock-Monster #612

My friend Jeff is helping me learn how to scan!  After five years of having a webcomic, you'd think I'd know how to do it...but I didn't.  Here's a new Sock-Monster we've been testing on.

indie comics connection to science

I don't know if you're aware of it, but the Museum of Science and Industry here in Chicago is looking for a roommate.  If you'd like to be considered for the position, build a time machine, go back to when they were accepting applications, and apply.  You might win, you will have had just built a time machine, that's kinda sciencey.

  Something I've found interesting (and further proof that I need to have a life outside of comics) is that two notable applicants have ties to the indie comics world:

1. The contestant whose applicant video won the museum's "Best Sets and Choreography Thereof Award," Davin Coburn had help from Johnny Hiro creator, Fred Chao for his video (he slaps up the clouds and is dressed up like a robot, and I'm sure helped build the sets & props, he's a good dude).

2.  One of the five finalists, Kate McGroaty is the current roommate of Corinne Mucha (author of My Alaskan Summer, My Every Single Thought, and Is It The Future Yet).

  Corinne assures me Kate is the person for the job, and apparently you can vote once a day for the duration of voting.  Check out the finalists and vote for the Kate you think should win (sorry other finalists, maybe if your current roommate was a friend whose comics I admire, and they told me to vote for you, I'd vote for you).  Corinne vaguely promised some sort of "a museum stole my roommate" comic out of Kate's winning, if that's not motivation enough, you've never read Corinne's comics.

small press expo recap

Here's the Rubenstein/Brideau table spread for this past weekend's SPX.  I had a grand old time.  Let us pretend to remember, shall we?

I took a 17-hour Amtrak ride down to DC, and met Kenan at the Bethesda Marriott Hotel, where SPX took place, and checked into our hotel room.  We immediately jumped back on the DC Metro, down to Union Station and caught the MARC train up to Baltimore, which was a smooth and fun ride. The MARC train looks like a space ship in the inside, unlike the Metro trains, which look like space ships from the outside.  My best friend from college, Doghed, who now lives in Baltimore met us at Penn Station, and we drove over to the neighborhood that houses Atomic Books, for a comics reading.  We stopped into Golden West Cafe to have dinner with another friend from college, Joe Mulhollen.  It was all quite exciting.

  Atomic Books held -for the third year in a row- SPXplosion, an unofficial pre-show party which featured readings by folks like Sarah Glidden, Corinne Mucha (who I thought stole the show), Julia Wertz, and R. Sikoryak, as well as an awkward presentation of the Nerdlinger Awards (not hosted by founders, Liz, MK or Robin).

  After the event, Doghed, Kenan and I headed back to Bethesda and stayed up until 3:30 am binding comics.  I can't really blame procrastination, because I'd been working hard on preparing for SPX for the past three weeks.

  The Small Press Expo takes place in a large hotel ballroom, with a couple hundred tables filled to the edge with comics, prints, t-shirts and hand-made toys.  The show attracts comics artists both established and unknowns to set up shop, and sell, trade or give away their comics.  This was the third year attending the show, the last two years I volunteered for the show, and brought comics to trade with folks.  This year I ended up behind a table with my good friend, Kenan Rubenstein.

  Saturday was a very busy day!  The sea of humanity that flooded the aisles never let up, and instead of waiting for a lull, I just ended up running away from my table near the end of the day to say hello to some acquaintances, who happened to have comics I new I wanted to grab.

  Sunday was less busy, but not slow by any means.  I did step away from my table more, though I was nervous the entire time I was away.  I met some really cool folks, and picked up some really exciting comics, that in future posts I hope to mention.  All in all, I sold out of three titles (including both of my debuting titles), and sold, traded and gave away a lot of all of my comics.  I was really happy with the reception my comics got by folks.

  On Sunday, my friend Becky stopped by and delivered 10 sticky buns from Sticky Fingers, a vegan bakery in DC, which I shared with my table mates, and a few friends who were sitting in other parts of the show.  Later in the day, a third college friend, Patience surprised me by showing up at my table.  I hadn't seen she visited me in Providence, the summer of 2003, right before I moved to Chicago.  Besides giving me the amazing gift of her presence, she gave me an amazing hand-drawn flip book she had made called "Herculean Snail," which brought a smile to everyone I showed it to.  Seeing Patience amplified the awesomeness of the weekend exponentially.

  Saturday night, Kenan, Sam Sharpe, and Reid Psaltis went out to dinner to Yuan Fu, a vegan/vegetarian restaurant a couple miles away from the hotel, and got back to the hotel in time for the Ignatz awards.  No one I voted for won, but I still thought everyone who did was well deserving of their bricks.

  I had a lot of fun hanging out with Kenan and Sam (who shared our room Saturday night).   After SPX was over on Sunday, the three of us packed up our tables, and trekked into DC, and met up with Becky, and had dinner at Busboys and Poets on 14th.  We then unloaded our hauls and read comics in our pajamas until late into the night.

  The next morning Becky went to work, Kenan jumped on a megabus, Sam headed out to Dulles airport and I made my way to Union Station to get back onto the Amtrak.

  My first year exhibiting at SPX was a great experience, and I owe it to good friends, and the great interactions I had from behind my table and in front of others'.

  Now I need to regroup, and get myself in order for the Madison Zine Fest (10/2), Alternative Press Expo (10/16-17) in San Francisco, and the Milwaukee Zine Fest (11/12-13)!  See you there?

happy bethesday!

Here's a quick update for this upcoming weekend, which if you don't know by now is the 16th annual

SMALL PRESS EXPO in Bethesda, Maryland (which is a block away from the White Flint stop on the Washington DC Metro's red line).

I've been working pretty hard to get everything ready for the show.  I'll have old stand-by's like the Trugglemat, Spitting Pennies, What is This?, and both Alpha City Comics.  I will also have these exciting new titles:

  oh boy, Comics! #1, which debuted at MIX three weeks ago, is a 106-page collection of previously printed comics that have appeared as free comics, online comics and anthology pieces that have not been readily available.

  write now!, debuting at SPX is my newest contribution to the paper-surprise-in-the-mail service, Uncle Envelope.  It's a love letter/tutorial on self publishing for kids, and comes with a zine written by the main character of the comic.

  Also debuting at SPX will be a comic I'll only have available at shows, Secret Formula.  It's an adventure comic printed as a scroll and packaged in a glass tube.  The secret formula is revealed at the end of the strip, and is one you can use.

  I'm excited to be sharing a table with Kenan Rubenstein, a good friend and a great comics artist.  Sharing our room will also be Sam Sharpe.  He'll have a new gag comic and t-shirts?! We'll also labeling our hotel room the "nerd room," a space folks can visit on Saturday night.  While other rooms will have raucous parties and have management called on them, our goal is to be a space for those not interested in getting drunk (though it wont be a dry room, neccessarily) or being loud, but those who'd like to read comics, draw, trade comics, a pretty much nerd out on comics.  It's kinda like the quiet car on the commuter train.

  Speaking of commuter trains, Kenan and I will be taking a mass transit adventure, traveling by commuter train to Baltimore on Friday evening for Atomic Book's SPX-Plosion!  It should be tons of fun.  Especially because one of my best friends from college, Mischlepity (aka Schlep, aka Doghed) now lives in Baltimore will be hanging out with us!

If you're in the general area of North Bethesda, get thee to SPX this weekend!