If the inaugural year of Ma-Con—a new comics con/expo in Macon, Georgia—is any indication, this is an event to keep an eye on. It was truly a comics event unlike any other I’ve attended. First off: the venue. Occasionally you hear folk say they’re skipping the big San Diego Comic-Con because it’s “become a real zoo.” It’s got nothing on Ma-Con in that department, however; Ma-Con is actually held in a zoo. Well, OK, it’s not really in a zoo, but it is in the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences, which does in fact house a “mini-zoo,” among other things… so, just around the corner from the “artists alley” you could enter a miniature rain forest, inhabited by tamarin monkeys, tarantulas, snakes, lizards and exotic birds. These paparazzi-fearing creatures forbid flash photography, so this isn’t an actual tamarin monkey from the museum, but if you took a wrong turn from the comics event, this is pretty much what you’d see:
Also notable is the general format of the event. Today’s convention happening was technically the museum’s “comics family weekend” which ties in with a three-month long exhibit in featuring the art of local comics professionals Craig Hamilton, Tony Harris and Ray Snyder. The event’s planners were clearly museum folk, and some of the extra touches they threw in were things I wish I’d see at more comics events. For example, given the kid-focused nature of the day, they’d set up a drawing room, featuring a “how to” video looping on a monitor (the few seconds I saw looked like John Buscema drawing Sue Storm?) in a room with big drafting tables and art supplies. I’d have been all about this kinda setup as a young whippersnapper:
The exhibit itself was really nicely done, and featured an emphasis on the comics-making process, with framed inked pages often mounted next to the photo-reference the poses therein were derived from. The museum and other folks involved had done a great job promoting the event and Macon was plastered with posters and playbills featuring a drawing of Craig, Tony and Ray… and, as per its focus on process, the exhibit showed how the poster’s image was made—from photo, to pencils, blue line, inks, all the way to the final image.
The bulk of the exhibit consisted of inked pages and various photo-reference items and props:
The artists were seated right at the entrance of the museum, and that positioning was pretty much reflective of the great treatment we all received from the organizers, even down to arranging a city trolley (known as “Miss Molly”) which transported us from our hotel to the event. After a slow-ish start, I wound up selling a surprising amount of books given the (relative to other big cons) smallish number of folks there. More important, though, everyone I spoke to was really nice and seemed to be genuinely interested in comics even if they knew little about the art form. The event was pretty much entirely art and creator-focused, with panel discussions running throughout the day and drawing good attendance. I participated in a panel on “The Southern Comics Creator” with Craig Hamilton that was attended by I’d guess fifty people –a pretty respectable crowd, but reportedly one of the least attended panels of the day.
Clearly, though, the single most bizarre and very, very unusual event of the day was when it was announced that the city of Macon, Georgia had officially declared February 23th to be “Comic Creators Day” in the city from now on, and all the artists received a photocopy of the declaration from city hall, in which the city encouraged “all citizens, young and old, individually and as families, to enjoy the stories found in comic books the world over through the efforts of those talented creators who make them possible.”
I hear ya, Macon! Looking forward to next year…
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