Aug 25, 2008
Comix & Stories @ VAG!
So William S. and I made a trip to the Vancouver Art Gallery on Sunday to see the KRAZY comic book / manga exhibit before it leaves. Afterwards we popped into this great comic book convention that was going on in the VAG at the same time! It was the eighth annual Comix & Stories, a indy / small publisher comic book convention, which this year spanned 3 rooms in the Vancouver Art Gallery! I will go over the various books we got later tonight but some hi-lights were WHAT #1 by Adriel Forsyth, a hand stapled comic book that has better pacing, art and story than half that crap that is on the shelves these days, Good As Lily by Derek Kim & Jesse Hamm, a MINX book that was done locally by these two great talents, and Way Off Main by Josue Menjivar & Scott Malin — best book(s) that I picked up. We also had a chance to talk to Steve Rolston (who just did some work in last weeks House of Mystery for Vertigo) which was awesome. Again, I will go into the con in further details later tonight with the other books I picked up and people we met. I can’t speak for William but I had a blast! Then I came home to find out that Z2H had launched the Comic Creation Nation books. Awesome!
A small article from the Georgia Straight I found online about Comix & Stories:
http://www.straight.com/article-106659/comix-amp-stories
Here is the official website for Comix & Stories / Vancouver ComicCon:
http://mypages.uniserve.com/~lswong/Comicon.html
It was a good day out. I didn’t agree with all the choices made for the exhibit, but could understand that they were going for the ‘first’ instances of some styles, procedures, and structures within comics. I would have preferred there was more information on the actual mechanics that went into creating the selections and bios of the creators, but I’m the type who thinks art galleries should be informative. Yea I know I’m strange that way.
The indi comic con beside the exhibit was great. Just a first rate showing of what’s out there an it was fun meeting the creators. I just wish it could somehow become the nucleus for something ‘bigger’. I’d love to see a real comic book convention here along the line of emerald. We live in the land of sci-fi. Why is it we don’t have a good proper convention here?
Anyways, good fun.