MoCCA Minicomic Report

Cathy Leamy's (creator of Geraniums and Bacon, which I picked up last year) new mini is Green Blooded: An Introduction to Eco-Friendly Feminine Hygiene, which presented alternatives to disposable FemHy products with out being preachy, angry, or political. She's sure to mention the drawbacks of each as well, such as what happens if you forget about that soiled reusable pad.

I also really liked Monica Gallagher's When I Was a Mall Model, a comic about her brief career in the industry, which mainly consisted of mall modeling, hair shows, and local (Chicago) fashion shows. It was a very balanced comic, not a diatribe against the industry. Currently Monica does the web comic Bonnie N. Collide, about a roller derby girl. It really isn't too much of a surprise that Monica herself skates in the roller derby - follow her freshman year on skates at Lipstick Kisses.



In my years of renting, I've only had to live underneath someone once, and it was awful. They flooded the toilet regularly, which leaked into my unit. They also had really loud sex, and often seemed to be clog dancing. Since that incident, I've always lived on the top floors an apartment buildings and houses, and try to be verrry respectful of the people downstairs. So, I can fully understand Christopher Brown's frustration he expresses in My Goddamn Upstairs Neighbor, one of his minis.



It's always a good day when there's a new Invincible Summer/Clutch split. The newest is IS16/C21, and lots of fun. Nicole and Clutch, please keep doing these! I love peeking into your lives in Portland, especially when they are printed in green ink! They lead such creative lives it encourages me to Get Excited and Make Things!

Literary Haul

I don't have a "to-read pile".

I don't even have a "to-read shelf".

I've got an entire fracking "to-read BOOKCASE".

(You can skip the Henry Bemis "Time Enough at Last" jokes - I've already named my reading log zine after that episode.)

I find it comforting to be surrounded by books, read and unread, new and used, organized or not. It calms me down. You know that expression "go to your happy place"? Here's mine: Neil Gaiman's library. It has a comfy chair and cat already!

While I do have a book-buying compulsion (addiction?), it's done very, very cheaply. I purchase few new (not-used) books, and when I do buy new, have certain criteria: small press, self-published, or directly from the author; discounted (either by the store, or with a coupon); on the cutout shelves; or damnit, I just want a fresh, new copy of that title to crack the spine open on, and I want it now. (And yes, I do use libraries, but live in PA, which has some of the most underfunded, understocked libraries in the country.)

Most of the books I buy for the to-read bookcase are used, either purchased from half.com, thrift stores, or from the la petite mort for readers, the library book sale.

I'm not alone in my appreciation for cheap books at library book sales. Coming back from one, I lamented to my roommate that I'd never seen so many violent, pushy, grabby people besides on "Black Friday" at Staples. What's more annoying than readers who shove in front of you to pluck a title from the shelf are the "entrepreneurs" with handheld scanners attached to smartphones who scan every single book, and load up bags of titles to sell on half.com or in their own used bookstores. This is completely unfair, and some of the sales do throw these people out. It's supposed to be equal footing for all shoppers.

Most of the library sales are three days long. The first day is full price (usually $2 for hardbacks and trade paperbacks; $1 for mass market paperbacks), the second is half-price, and the third is "bag day", where you can fill up a paper grocery sack for five bucks. I've banned myself from bag days. Usually I just go the first two days, score some finds, and mentally let go of anything else I may be missing. I've learned that library book sales are supposed to be a crapshoot, and not to get insanely envious of someone who snagged a title I'd been looking years for before I could get to it. No, NOT envious. NOT AT ALL.

And while I would like to be like Neil Gaiman, who has kept every single book he has ever read, I'll never have the room to do that. So, I recycle/reroute books through Paperback Swap and Bookmooch, re-donating to library book sales, passing on to friends and family, Bookcrossing, and the occasional half.com sale. These are books that I've read and don't want to keep, or books I've finally admitted that I have no interest in reading, but picked up "because they looked interesting" (see the reason why I avoid bag sale day, above).

In this new "Look at me, look at ME, LOOK AT ME" 2.0 society, there's a new trend of young women posting "haul videos" on YouTube, where they show off the clothes and shoes they just purchased. "Haul videos" don't disturb me like some of the commenters on that post - they are a logical extension of gadget pr0n "unboxing" videos, which I do watch if it's a gadget I'm considering buying. Maybe if I was more into clothes, fashion, and shoes, I'd watch "haul videos". But I'm not. I'd rather see what people bought at the bookstore, record store, or even thrift shopping.

I've posted before about books and comics I've purchased at MoCCA and SPX, and even library sales before. So, in the spirit of consumerism (or would it be anti-consumerism?) here's my haul from three recent library book sales. No videos, no slideshows, just a photo, annotated list in no particular order, and "haul total".

• The Naked Sun / Isaac Asimov
• The Currents of Space / Isaac Asimov
• The Stars Like Dust / Isaac Asimov
• Prelude to Foundation / Isaac Asimov
• Foundation and Earth / Isaac Asimov (2 copies; couldn't remember if I had bought a copy the previous week. However, they are two different editions - one is mass-market, one is oversized trade. Why so much Asimov? Earlier this year I read The Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Earth, Second Foundation) and was so astounded by it, I've decided to read the entire Foundation series. I've collected used copies all of the books so far except for Robots and Empire and Pebble in the Sky.)
• Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life / Edited by Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz
• Ender in Exile / Orson Scott Card (For a friend; I gave up on OSC after struggling through Shadow of the Hedgemon and giving up.)
• The View From the Stars / Walter M. Miller (Author of one of my favorite novels of all time, A Canticle for Leibowitz, a beautiful SF book.)
• Oh The Glory of It All / Sean Wilsey
• Vegas: Memoir of a Dark Season / John Gregory Dunne
• The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul / Douglas Adams
• The Stand / Stephen King (Not pictured; actually a duplicate, forgot I have an unread used copy waiting. This will be re-donated.)
• Watermind / M. M. Buckner
• Best American Science Writing 2007 / Edited by Gina Kolata and Jesse Cohen (These are good for short train rides.)
• A Long Way Down / Nick Hornby
• The Feminine Mystique / Betty Friedan (Nope, never read it. But I needed something that was 50-cents to round up my purchase.)
• Drinking, Smoking & Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times / Edited by by Sara Nickles and Bob Shacochis
• The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters / Elisabeth Robinso
• Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity / Kerry Cohen
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers / Mary Roach
• Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier / Katie Hafner
• How to be Good / Nick Hornby
• When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? / George Carlin
• Have you Seen Me? / Laura Denham
• Seven Sunny Days / Chris Manby (With so much heavy stuff on the TRB, I decided to toss in something fluffy.)
• X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking / Jeff Gordinier
• Fat Girl: A True Story / Judith Moore
• The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio / Terry Ryan (Bought this for mom; she liked the movie so much that she'd probably enjoy the source material.)
• Noogie's Time to Shine / Jim Knipfel
• Indexed / Jessica Hagy
• In the Beginning was the Command Line / Neal Stephenson (Yes, you can read this for free, but I wanted a copy. Actually, I may have a copy already packed away somewhere.)
• My Sister's Keeper / Jodi Picoult

Total Haul Cost: $36.00 for 33 books and 1 DVD, benefiting three different libraries.

Of Interest (Literary, again): 04.27.2010

+ The Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin recently acquired the papers of David Foster Wallace, including books from his library with self-annotations. Interesting! (And yes, I'm going to try to have an Infinite Summer this year.)

+ As someone who wasn't excited at all for the new version of Alice in Wonderland, I appreciated this list of literary works that should never be adapted for television or film again: Put the Book Back on the Shelf.

+ Break out the booze: LIFE photoset of famous Literary Drunks and Addicts, from Jim Carroll to John Cheever to Richard Brautigan and more.

+ A project of the Utne Reader: The Dead Magazine Club, a blog dedicated to preserving fallen periodicals. Thinking about rooting through my collection and submitting a few.

+ Shiny captain! Collection of Firefly/Serenity short stories forthcoming, including a contribution from Jane Espenson. (Also check out BenBella Books' Finding Serenity and Serenity Found, both edited by Espenson.

Seq Art: Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson

Hey Princess, a Swedish import via Top Shelf Productions, is a dense, thick-as-a-brick, loquacious, autobiographical collection spanning 1993 to 1999 in creator Mats Jonsson's life. It was the golden era of Britpop, indie pop, muddy festivals, clubs, and excess. The book's title comes from a song of the same name by the Swedish indie pop band Popsicle, and it fits the stories perfectly.

Jonsson suffers much in the pursuit of both coolness and love, and encounters many roadblocks, mostly in the form of seriously insane (but hot) girlfriends, shitty apartments, cockblockers, and less-than-good jobs. His tale "The Darkness of Love" about his certifiably batshit crazy girlfriend Åse really shook me because I've had more than a few male friends trapped - and I do mean trapped - the similar situations, just too genuinely scared to break up, even though it would save their sanity and themselves.

Hey Princess is also interesting in that it provides a history of Swedish youth culture during the 90s. Sure, grunge and Generation X in the U.S. got plenty of press, as did Britpop culture in the U.K., but I never really knew much about the young adult culture in the rest of Europe during that decade. I'm not sure if it's just Jonsson's storytelling abilities, but the Swedish scene looks much cooler than the U.S. ever was at that time. Hey Princess reminded me a lot of the best writing of Jamie S. Rich (The Everlasting, Love the Way You Love) and Kieron Gillen (Phonogram), especially his thoughts on girls and music. I've included one of my favorite passages below (click to embiggen). The art is a little rough, but you can definitely see Jonsson's style develop throughout the book. Some comic readers instantly reject rough, black and white art, but done well, I actually prefer it over full color work.


Recommended if you spend way too much time listening to music, feeling unfulfilled by life, and (as a side benefit) see a representation of a country better known for IKEA and Bergman films than comics. (Although thanks to Top Shelf, that's changing as well).

Here's Popsicle's "Hey Princess". (Note: the song is only about 4 minutes long, not 7+ as indicated.)



And, I also learned a new word in Swedish from Hey Princess:

Buksvågrar: Two men who have had sex with the same person. Literally translates as "abdominal brothers-in-law".

Crafty MoCCA 2010

Although primarily a showcase for comics, there were a few crafty items available at MoCCA Fest 2010. Most of the handmade items showcased the work of an illustrator or cartoonist, or tied in with the content of a comic (e.g., knit amigurumi toys, like little anatomically correct hearts).

I have never been very concerned with coordinated bed linens. The sheets usually match each other, since they come in sets, but the blankets, quilts, and comforters are a mismatched melange collected through the years. I prefer it that way - easier to nest into, and less stress to make the bed perfectly when not in it. The random mix of bedclothes also provides a reminder of all the places I've lived. (As in, "I bought this purple blanket in Illinois, because I used to sleep with the heat set at 60F".) Similarly, fussy beds made up with ten pillows of varying sizes, materials and shapes are just silly. It's a bed, not a sculpture.

However, I couldn't resist buying a set of screen printed pillowcases featuring a little singing bird and cat on the hunt from Celia B Designs, aka Celia Bullwinkel, an animator, director, and part of the Meathaus Collective. They're very well made, and I really like the almost tea-stained color of the cases. Unfortunately, I'm currently slumming in a twin bed, so I can't display them properly, with the bird on the left and cat on the right. I've had to stack them instead, but they still look cute this way! These are currently available in Celia B's Etsy Store, along with a bedbug-themed set.



The other crafty purchase of the day were two letterpress cards From Fickle Hill Letterpress featuring illustrations by Peter Hoey, and printed on a vintage Vandercook SP-15 by his wife, Sylvia Chevrier. I've framed them with CLIPs from IKEA, and they look nice in the cubicle.



Peter and Maria Hoey are the brother-sister team of Co-Op Studio, awesome and accomplished illustrators. It's likely you've seen their work already. At the show, they were selling the new issue of Co-Op Comics. I picked up a few samples of their work, including stylishly cool oversized "trading cards" featuring icons such as Ida Lupino, Mark Rothko, and Steve McQueen (pictured). Check out their portfolio.

Gotta protect the childruuunnn....

As if all of them haven't sneaked in to see it already.

(PS: The movie is AWESOME!)

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

More so than stories about airplane crashes and natural disasters like earthquakes, I always feel a little sick to my stomach when I hear about coal mining disasters, such as the recent incident at the Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia that left 29 miners dead. I feel attached because my father’s side of the family had worked in the coal mines when they first came to the United States in the 1930s, specifically my “Zeddo” (my father’s father), who died before I was born.

Although he didn’t want to work in the coal mines, and would have done anything else – construction, slaughterhouses, anything else but mining – Zeddo’s brother explained that working in the coal mines was what the “hunkies” (immigrants from Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and other eastern European countries) did. And so he did for many, many years. My father grew up in a coal company-owned house, picked slate from coal, and even stole coal with his brother when necessary. Eventually, after many years, Zeddo was able to leave the mines and build his own barroom (catering to miners). He wife collected his black lung benefits after he died.

My father still has many of his father’s mining helmets and tools from his years in the mines, as well as his lunchbox and other artifacts. Growing up, it wasn’t unusual for kids to dress up as a coal miner for Halloween. I’m pretty sure I did that once or twice. The town I grew up in (Hazleton PA), is surrounded by abandoned mines, active strip mines, and enormous coal banks. It wasn’t until about fifteen years ago that my parents converted their house to natural gas heat from coal.

My father gets the same nauseous feeling about coal mining disasters, too. In 2002, he stayed up all night watching the Quecreek mine rescue operations out near Pittsburgh, PA. All nine trapped miners survived that disaster.

Because of my connection to coal mining, I was rankled upon learning that the pustulent anal warts of the ωεstbθrθ βαpΤ1sΤ "church" would be protesting at the Big Branch miners’ funerals, pushing their platform of hate hate hate, and somehow linking the miners’ deaths to the existence of homosexuality in the United States. It doesn’t appear as if the “protest” was successful, and plenty of miners and their families showed up at the funerals to repel these pustulent anal warts from the ω&beta "church”. (Hopefully a group of big ass bikers also showed up to rev their Harley engines over the “church” protestors.)

More people have been gathering to counter-protest ω&beta "church” demonstrations across the country, in various ways. While the best form of counter-protest at funerals and memorial services (miners, soldiers, etc.) is probably quiet solidarity and respectful signs, the more bizarre protests call for Dadaist action.

A few months ago, the ω&beta "church” went on a whirlwind protest tour of San Francisco, including a protest stop at the Twitter offices. (Why Twitter? I have no idea. Apparently they’re gay or something.) Counter-protestors showed up with some seriously absurdist signs, including a series of Rickrolls, “God hates retweets”, and “I’m tired”. My favorite was the guy who alternated between a sign reading “I have a sign” and one reading “ME”.

While certainly not appropriate for all counter-protests of the ω&beta "church”, it’s always fun to fight hatred with phlegmatic humor. Kudos to these SF counter-protestors!

MoCCA Haul 2010

After last year's rough experience (heat, delays, confusion, one trash can), this past weekend's MoCCA Fest ran much smoother, helped along by the absolutely stunning real spring NYC weather. Exhibitors were also able to set up their tables the night before, which allowed for an on-time opening. And, there were plenty of trash cans... although they probably shouldn't have been plopped right in the middle of the aisles. High table prices prevented the entire show from being sold out, and several prominent small press names (e.g., Adhouse), didn't exhibit.

As an attendee, I had a lovely day, buying more comics than planned. What amazes me about shows like MoCAA Fest (and SPX), is that my friend and I purchased almost entirely different stacks of comics. There's so much variety! Reading show reports on blogs today, it seems that there was a lot that I missed, too! And I got to tell Lucy Knisley how much I loved her book FRENCH MILK, in person!

Here's this year's haul, which I'll be reviewing in the upcoming weeks (months?).

Books:

• Craig Yoe's Weird but True Toon Factoids
• Make Yourself Happy / Lucy Knisley
• Smile / Raina Telgemeier
• The Troll King / Kolbeinn Karlsson
• Hey Princess / Mats Jonsson
• The 120 Days of Simon / Simon Gardenfors
• Love is the Reason / Tim Fish
• Drawing on Yourself / Ursula Murray Husted
• To Teach: The Journey, In Comics / William Ayers and Ryan Alexander-Tanner
• Radiator Days / Lucy Knisley
• Snake Pit 2009 / Ben Snakepit
• I'm Crazy / Adam Bourret
• Apollo's Song / Osamu Tezuka
• Sword of My Mouth (1/6) / Jim Munroe and Shannon Gerard
• Adventures of Nikki Harris #3 / Carter Allen
• Star Wars Fanbook comps: Harvest is When I Need You Most, And Don't Forget the Droids, Only What You Take With You
• Invincible Summer #16 / Clutch #21
• Green Blooded / Cathy Leamy
• Losers Weepers #1 and #2 / JT Yost
• Snake Pit #16 / Ben Snakepit
• Troop 142 #1, 2, and 3 / Mike Dawson
• Kick Ass Jews / Allan Dorson
• My Goddamn Upstairs Neighbor / Chris Brown
• Zoo Force / Thomas & Smith
• Tales of Good ol' Snoop Doggy Dog / JT Yost
• Old Man Winter / JT Yost
• When I Was a Mall Model / Monica Gallagher

Crafty:

• Pretty notecards from Pickle Hill Letterpress at the Coin-Op Studio Table
• Set of cat and bird screened pillow cases from Celia B Designs (Celia Bullwinkel of the Meathaus collective)

Spring has sprung!

There's been lots of new sticker and poster art appearing on the newspaper honor boxes in Philadelphia lately. I'll try to get more shots, but for now, enjoy these flowers found along 4th Street.

Zine Value Packs!

Spring cleaning at the Syndicate Product Covert HQ Zine Store!

Three value packs for your consideration! Order up!

MEGA VALUE PACK / 14 zines for $22.00!

Includes the following zines: Low Hug 5/6: The Radio Issue, Low Hug 8, Low Hug 9: Castoff Culture, Low Hug 10: Technology, Syndicate Product 11: Jettisoned, Syndicate Product 12: Year of the Packrat, Syndicate Product 13: Television, Syndicate Product 14: Syndicate Consumption 2008, Syndicate Product 15: Coming Clean, Time Enough at Last Reading Log 2004 (not pictured), Time Enough at Last Reading Log 2007, Laundry Basket: Tales of Washday Woe, Potluck: A Cooking Compilation, and Practice Apartment

A limited time offer and an awesome deal. The "list price" of these titles is $40!

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LOW HUG Back Issue SUPER VALUE PACK / $4.00

Includes the following zines: Low Hug 5/6: The Radio Issue, Low Hug 8, Low Hug 9: Castoff Culture, and Low Hug 10: Technology

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SYNDICATE PRODUCT Back Issue SUPER VALUE PACK / $8.00

Includes the following zines: Syndicate Product 11: Jettisoned, Syndicate Product 12: Year of the Packrat, Syndicate Product 13: Television, Syndicate Product 14: Syndicate Consumption 2008, and Syndicate Product 15: Coming Clean