The 2008 MoCCA Art Festival
Artwork, Comics and Interviews
Hellboy - by Cameron Stewart
June 18th, 2008 - The Comic Collective’s decision to attend this year’s MoCCA Art Festival came together pretty quickly just a few days leading up to it. I’d originally had the plan to go on my own, just meeting up with my friend, caricature artist extraordinaire Dan Springer. This would be only my second time attending MoCCA, the first time having been in 2006. At the last minute, though, I asked Brad, who runs this site, if he was intending to go. He replied to my e-mail “If you do the interviews, I’ll film.” At first I was just thinking of going as a fan, but once he mentioned it, I figured, sure, it should be fun going as part of the site. Still, it’s another con, and that means for me the money starts to flow freely. These shows are always pretty overwhelming to someone like me (and lots of other people, of course--you know who you are!) who can’t get enough art and comics, so it’s tough to reign in my wallet. Luckily, I didn’t go too overboard, especially since we went for only one day, but if I’d gone back for a second I easily could have doubled my expenditure. We were thinking about going back for Sunday, but by the end of a long Saturday we were both pretty tired both physically and financially.
So, aside from my usual searching out of artists for commissions and book and comic purchasing, the con came with that extra bit of excitement for me, as I’d be doing my first ever interviews for The Comic Collective. I was given the opportunity to do some at the NYCC Javits show in April, but backed down out of fear I’d come across as an idiot or not know what to ask. But I braved up this time and it all went rather smoothly and wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I’d feared. Brad and I went over the few main questions I’d ask the creators and then, based upon their answers, I’d try and think of some good follow-ups. Before we got to any interviews we walked around the show, giving a quick once over to the tables, knowing we’d have to go around a few more times to really see everything that was on display. What’s so cool about the MoCCA show is that, for the most part, it’s like a full con of “Artist’s Alley”--the area that most cons have sequestered in the back somewhere. There were some people who were representatives for the comics they were selling, but mainly it was the creators selling their own work. Most of them are sketching, or if not, they might add a small doodle to the books they sell--it’s nice to have a personalized comic. The MoCCA show is mainly focused on promoting independent artists and companies, so you’re not going to be seeing Marvel or DC there (though some of the artists attending have done work for those companies). Instead you’ll find Fantagraphics and Top Shelf and lots of other smaller publishers as well as individual creators hawking their own privately printed comics. Some of the comics deal with more true to life storylines than the more mainstream super-hero fare, but there’s still a healthy dose of fantasy and science-fiction themed comics and art.
MoCCA this year was still in the Puck building on Lafayette Street in Soho, as it’s been in years past, but besides the first floor of exhibitors they had so many artists and creators this time around that they had to add a second floor to get everyone in. I wasn’t around last year, but I believe it was the same then, too. The day was sweltering outside with near record temps for this time in early June and all I can say is I felt bad for the people confined to the 7th floor. It was a nice, large open room, but the AC wasn’t working or just wasn’t turned on and none of the windows could be opened, so all that was there to cool off the place were some overhead fans that didn’t seem to be doing much.
Preparing for the show, I’d looked over the MoCCA website, scanning all the names of artists and creators and checking out their Web sites to see who I might be interested in getting some art from. Unfortunately (or fortunately), that list was ridiculously long and I didn’t get a chance to even get half way through it before heading out for the show. I’d written down a list of a few artists that were new to me, as well as some I’d known about from the past. My first order of the day was to head over to Jacob Chabot’s table. Jacob is the creator of The Mighty Skullboy Army, which started as a mini-comic a few years ago and was picked up by Dark Horse Comics. All the early minis were collected back in 2006 in The Mighty Skullboy Army Vol. 1. I highly recommend you check it out as it’s really well drawn and very funny! Jacob also does work for Mad Kids and Nickolodeon magazines. Besides the cartoony approach that he takes with Skullboy, Jacob draws in a more traditional superhero style. He’s pretty good with all kinds of characters. I wasn’t sure who to ask for this time, but after figuring I’d already gotten a Skullboy pin-up with all the main characters a couple of years ago, I decided to go for a Hellboy sketch, my theme for the show this year. He was able to do a pretty darn excellent drawing, all from memory. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I probably should have asked for another drawing as well. Looks like I’ll have to e-mail him to set up another commission. Somebody stop me! Before leaving Jacob to draw my Hellboy and make my way around the show, I asked him if he’d be up to doing an interview for the site a bit later; happily, he said sure.
After perusing the aisles a bit more, Brad and I walked into the main room in the back. Well, main room, second room, not sure what to call it. Whenever I was trying to coordinate with Brad or Dan on the cellphone, we couldn’t figure out where we’d meet, as the first room you entered off the street might be called the main room, but the room in the back was bigger and felt more like the “main room.” No matter, we figured it all out. One of the first tables I came upon was Joe Quinones’s, a truly excellent and gifted figure drawer. I wasn’t aware of him beforehand (and as his last name starts with a Q, I hadn’t gotten to him on that creators’ list on the site). First thing I saw was his postcard with a drawing on it of a very Geoff Darrowesque stegosaurus on a see-saw. I also noticed he had drawn an issue of Teen Titans Go! in a more animated style. I was very impressed by the stegosaurus pic and saw he had a sketch price list. Not being entirely sure of his style, I went with the cheaper “pencils only” price option, and again went with a Hellboy, which he was also able to do from memory. Once home and able to check out his blog, I realized instantly that I should have had him ink it, one of the reasons being his own blog entry saying that he really, really wanted to ink it! It was a very nice drawing and I’m sure will look doubly (maybe triply) cool inked. I’m setting something up with him, hopefully soon, to mail it back and get a couple of more commissions for good measure. I recommend anyone going to any upcoming shows to seek him out for some very reasonably priced, ultra-well-drawn sketches. Just look at that sweet Dr. Strange on his site!
Sitting next to Joe was Evenfall artist and writer Pete Stathis, who, it turned out, became our first interviewee. Pete was easy to talk to and gave very clear, detailed responses to my questions. Seated next to Pete was writer Damon Hurd, likely best known for his comic My Uncle Jeff. We spoke to him about all his past projects as well as his latest, Pictures of You. Being a writer, he gave some fairly well rounded and thoughtful responses to my inquiries. Looking back, I realized I could have asked a few more important follow-up questions, but as it was only my second interview, I was just getting the hang of it. It’s also important to maintain eye contact with your subject, and I was able to do that, but was a little distracted as there were lots of people moving around to the side and behind him. It seemed easier when I was interviewing someone that just had a wall behind them. Damon is also fairly tall and I’m not, so you can see he’s looking down at me in the interview. Somebody get me a step stool! I’ll need to wear some lifts or stand on a stool for the tall dudes next time. I think if I ever do an interview with Jim Shooter or Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, they can sit and I’ll stand and then we might be at eye level. Maybe.
The very warm and humid 7th floor also had the MoCCA sketching tables set up, where different artists would be drawing at scheduled times. All the money for these sketches would be donated to the MoCCA fund, so most artists’ usual sketching prices were a bit below their normal asking price. There were some excellent artists on the list, but the one that most interested me was Green Arrow illustrator, Cliff Chiang. Cliff was scheduled to sketch from 3-5 p.m. and, as I had gotten to the show at its 11 a.m. opening time, he wouldn’t be around for awhile. Still, I wanted to make sure I was able to get a drawing, and not ever having done the MoCCA donation sketch thing, I headed up to the 7th floor early in the day. As he wasn’t there yet, the friendly MoCCA folks working the donation table weren’t sure of what he would be charging, but they made sure to write my name down on a ticket and include #1 on it, as I’d be first in line. Cool. I was surprised to not find more people lining up for sketches in general, especially considering the relatively low prices and list of talent. It would have been nice to get a drawing from Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell, but I was so involved with other pursuits that I didn’t even think about that. Next in line behind me was the very nice and easy to talk to Jill Pantozzi, or as you might better know her--The Nerdy Bird. Later in the day, when I made my way back up to see if Cliff had gotten in, we chatted a bit while he worked on a Hellboy drawing for me. She got a very nice drawing of herself as DC’s resident magician/sorcerer, Zatanna, which you can see over at her blog. I thought her ice breaking line to me while we waited was pretty funny--“do you always walk around with a microphone in your pocket?” As I’d been doing some interviews, I took to carrying the rather large mic in my pocket, with my increasingly heavy messenger bag slung across my shoulder. As I mentioned in my column on the NYCC in April, one of these days I’ll be smart enough to bring along a standard backpack. My left shoulder will thank me. Still, not as bad as Brad having to lug around the video camera, bag, and tripod all day. I got lucky with my sketch, as Cliff had only mentioned he’d be doing headshots, but with my Hellboy I got a 3/4 figure. I didn’t think to bring reference with me this time around, but, thankfully, I’d already gotten those great Hellboy drawings from Jacob Chabot and Joe Quinones, which Cliff used as reference for his drawing. We chatted a bit and I was thinking I might be able to have Cliff do one other drawing, a headshot of Kamen Rider Amazon (I did have reference of him!), seeing as I’d noticed Cliff had some Japanese superhero-inspired takes on classic DC characters on his website--drawings he’d done around ten years ago. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time and I got involved with other things, so I never did manage to get that done. There’s always next time! I did begin a new sketchbook, something I’ve never done before, starting with the Chiang sketch. I figure it’d be neat to have a sketchbook filled with art, in addition to all the single page pieces I’ve gotten. Zander Cannon, famous for working on some Top Ten stories , its offshoot Smax, and The Replacement God, did a nice Smax headshot freebie in it toward the end of the day.
Back down on the first floor, I made my way over to the very crowded area in one of the rooms off to the right of the first room when you come in from the street. Here I noticed Cameron Stewart’s table. Again, since I hadn’t yet gotten to “S” on the creators’ list, I didn’t realize he’d be at the show. Cameron is one of those artists whose work I’ve picked up over the last few years but didn’t realize I liked as much as I did. Since his style changes a bit with each project he works on, I suppose I hadn’t locked down that this was the guy that did such and such a comic and therefore wasn’t actively seeking out his next book. I’ve got most of the series he’s done so far, starting with Seaguy and The Other Side, as well as Grant Morrison’s Seven Solders spin-off, “Manhattan Guardian.” He had the original art for his latest book, the digest- sized The Apocalipstix (published by Oni Press) on display (and for sale). The comic, written by Ray Fawkes, is about a girl rock trio on its “End of the World Tour” after the world has suffered a nuclear catastrophe. It’s obviously tongue firmly in cheek. The art, as I looked through the pages on display, was amazing, and showed off a more anime-inspired style. The book won’t be released for another couple of weeks, but I’ll certainly be looking forward to picking it up when it is. Cameron also had some gorgeous pages from The Other Side for sale, as well as a small book of original pin-ups and sketches. There were all kinds of great drawings in it, but the one I should have bought and foolishly didn’t was a page with two drawings that wound up as the cover to The Other Side #1. I didn’t remember the images from the cover when I saw the art at the show, but later, looking through my copies of The Other Side, I immediately realized I should have purchased that piece. The printed cover was enhanced with some other elements but those drawings formed the crux of it. I was surprised that for cover art they were drawn on what seemed like bond paper, unless the drawings I saw were the preliminaries, but I don’t think so. Instead, I did commission Cameron for a Hellboy bust drawing; then, after walking around the floor, I wisely decided to bump that up to a full figure sketch, which came out fantastic.. He was also selling his latest sketchbook, Warm Ups, drawings and sketches of girls in their varied forms . . . well, in all their varied cute forms. There’s just page after page of superb drawings, some originals of which he had for sale. One page in particular is just head shots, which Cameron drew entirely out of his, uh, head, and it’s amazing the variety of looks and expressions he was able to achieve--not to mention hair styles! For a little extra money, Cameron uses a blank box printed on the first page of the sketchbook to draw a quick head sketch. It was a lot of fun to watch him draw the one he did for me (not to mention the one I saw him do for someone else) in such a short amount of time, with no rough pencils--just straight markers. Brad filmed him as he did this and hopefully it’ll make it to the site soon. We asked Cameron if he’d like to do an interview as well. Right now, the first two parts are up, where he talks about Seaguy, the upcoming Seaguy 2, and The Apocalipstix. We also chatted about his work on The Other Side and Catwoman He was a very easy interview (you could see he’d done this before); the other parts of his interview will be going up over the next month.
As is usually the case, there were more artists and writers that we’d like to have interviewed, but we ran out of time (not to mention battery power). Artists like Adrian Tomine, Tara McPherson (who did a little 20 sec balloon head doodle in the Art of Tara McPherson book I bought from her), and “Freddie And Me” creator Mike Dawson would have been great to get, not to mention the unexpected appearance of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, best known for directing Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and this years Jack Black comedy Be Kind, Rewind. Michael was at MoCCA selling copies of his very own comic We Lost the Battle but Not the War. My friend Dan mentioned to him “I didn’t know you drew comics,” and he responded with “Neither did I.” Funny. We did do a couple of more interviews with Essex County writer and artist (and recent Joe Schuster Award winner) Jeff Lemire (who did a nice drawing in Brad’s sketchbook) and Owly creator Andy Runton. Jeff’s interview is already up on the site and Andy’s should be up soon. Brad did get to chat with The Pirates of Coney Island writer Rick Spears, who has interviews videos for Repo and Pirates of Coney Island that can be seen on TheCC. Seated next to Rick was artist Joe Flood, artist on Hellcity (published through Rick’s Gigantic Graphic Novels imprint)and he had some very cool originals for sale. He was also doing free sketches and after Brad picked up a copy of Hellcity, Joe did a sketch for him of his characters Cricket and Frankie from his comic Knee Deep.
As the day came to a close, I bid goodbye to Dan (who would be back for Sunday-- you can see some pics from the show he took at his blog), and Brad and I tallied up all the cool stuff we’d acquired. Brad had picked up what looked like 40 lbs worth of graphic novels as well as some original art (including a panel piece from Matt Kindt’s Super Spy). Hopping in a cab, we drove uptown into the Village and there we parted ways, as I made my way home to the wilds of New Jersey.
At these shows, I seem to survive on adrenaline, as I don’t eat much during the day other than a few granola bars and a bottle of water. The pure excitement and energy of the day keeps me going. This time was no different, so, once home, dinner at an Italian restaurant with my wife was a nice way to end a rather long but event-filled day. I gained a new level of enthusiasm for doing interviews for our next time out, which will likely not be until later in the year at the Baltimore Comic-Con. So, until then, I’ve got time to start saving for all the art and comics for which I’m likely to be plunking my cash down. And, of course, I’ll likely still be thumbing through and reading some of the stuff I picked up at this year’s MoCCA show.
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