For decades, comics enthusiasts and practitioners have been complaining, Rodney Dangerfield-style that the art form doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Among the many standard grouse formats is the “museum grouse,” which goes a little like this: “Museums will put some Roy Lichtenstein riff on a Kirby panel on the wall and everyone goes apeshit for it, but why won’t they put the actual Kirby stuff on display?!”

Well, guess what–“they” finally did, most notably in the recent high-profile Masters of American Comics exhibit. And what was the reaction of the comics community?

Bitching and complaining.

I was just checking out the contents of the new, and very cool, comics magazine, Comics Comics, and noted that in it, “Dan [Nadel] has some bones to pick with the Masters of American Comics show.” I’m guessing this won’t be a glowing review.

Last week, I received the most recent issue of The International Journal of Comic Art, which contained what was apparently intended to be a point/counterpoint sort of thing, but since both reviewers didn’t like the exhibit it was really just “counterpoint/counterpoint.”

The Comics Journal‘s R.C. Harvey hasn’t quite weighed in fully as of issue 282’s introductory essay, but we’ll see what the second half brings when #283 arrives. (I get my issues along with my monthly comics, so I’m guessing everyone probably has gotten this issue but me.)

Folks more on the P.C. tip complained about the lack of women in the exhibit.

Even cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who helped put the exhibit together, and was himself included in it, eventually found fault with it and withdrew his work from it.

I remember discussing this exhibit with a prominent comics scholar at last year’s SPX who was, needless to say, kvetching about it, and asking him what he would have included to make for a better show. His advice for the Masters of American Comics exhibit, only half-jokingly: all European cartoonists. Quoth Charlie Brown: Good grief!

So, what’s the point of my grousing about all this grousing? I’m not exactly sure–certainly not that a major exhibit of comics art should be above reproach simply because it’s… well, a major exhibit of comics art. But I do wonder, though, if we of the comics community might heed a bit of old Southern wisdom regarding the longterm and sustained progress of our art form into the realm of “respectable” art: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Although, as the character Woody once remarked on Cheers, you can catch the most flies with a dead squirrel.)

Sunday, the final day of Heroes Con in Charlotte, is known for its languid pace, both as far as visitors and sales go, and today was no exception. Most of the Indie Island folks, myself included, had been up way too late the previous evening, thinking foolishly that the comparatively late opening time of 11 am was justification enough for rabble-rousing until the wee hours. Sunday this year fell on Fathers day as well, which is a nice facet of Heroes since it dovetails with Heroes’ “family friendly” rep and gives fathers a good excuse to bring their kids to the convention. But, as you can imagine, these father/son pairs aren’t really the most likely folks to make mass purchases of silk screened, hand-assembled, etc. minicomics–or really, non-superhero and/or non-kid stuff in general.

That was OK with me, though, since it gave me a chance to hit the floor for a bit and buy stuff. Since last night’s bar tab had effectively eliminated any chance at all of my breaking even money-wise at this show, the gate for stuff-buying was officially considered open. The first thing I bought was this badass drawing by Adhouse cartoonist Jamie Tanner:

You’re probably thinking, “Wow you just went out and slapped down some serious bucks for original art right off the bat?” Price tag for this piece: $5.00. Jamie was at the Adhouse booth drawing most of the day, and whatever he came up with was yours for $5.00.

I made the mistake a while back of mentioning to my friend Adam Casey that I thought those stupid US1 Marvel comics from the 80s were really funny and now he makes a point to find issues of US1 in the 50 cent bins and give them to me. This year I received #1, which gives me the first three issue run now. FYI: This is a comic book about a truck driver with a metal skull implant that allows him to hear CB radio conversations in his head. I read this issue, text material included, cover to cover behind my booth today. Thanks, Adam.

My friend, and comics professor at App State up the road in Boone, Craig Fischer did a bit of legwork for me and tracked down the first six issues of Steve Ditko’s Shade the Changing Man for a buck a piece. Art-wise, this stuff is a mid-era Ditko tour de force. Story-wise, it’s a tour de foolishness, however. I looked at Ditko’s awesome artwork over and over again, did a sketch of the character “Sude” in my sketchbook, read the first few pages of the first issue and then became too bamboozled to continue.

One curious attribute of mainstream cons is that you occasionally stumble on some good indie finds at dealers booths that apparently have no idea what the heck the stuff is and just throw it in the “get rid of it cheap” bin. Last year I bought two issues of Lloyd Llewellyn #1 in a quarter bin. This year there was a dealer with a bunch of graphic novels in long boxes for $3.00 each. Inside were odd items like a bunch of Sam Henderson books, and tons of Joann Sfarr, and lots of SLG trades. I bought Renee French’s Micrographica and Lilli Carre’s Tales of Woodsman Pete for three bucks each.

Speaking of “graphic novels,” this year there seemed to be a marked increae in the number of dealers with tons and tons of trades for sale. The trade paperback seems now to be here officially as a staple item (ironically, I suppose since they’re not stapled?). Lots of booths had trades, mainly just collections of stuff from Marvel and DC, for sale at anywhere from 30% to 50% off cover. These I guess are the new dollar bins of the post-trade/graphic novel environment.

Minicomics-wise, I got a ton of stuff in trade or that folks just gave me–too much to mention here–but, the two items I sought out in particular and am looking forward to reading were Rashy Rabbit by Josh Latta and Wysteria #5 by Brad McGinty.

Adhouse books’ Chris Pitzer had a bunch of personal stuff for sale from his collection and I scored an big “phonebook” editon of Viz’s Sexy Voice and Robo from him. I’ve been on the lookout for this for a while, thinking that it was available as digest sized versions, and am really glad that I finally got a hold of it, especially all in one book and on the cheap.

J Chris Campbell started a jam comic involving funny animals and potato salad. It was last seen in the hands of Top Shelf’s Andy “Owly”Runton, and will likely be completed at this year’s SPX.

All in all, I get the general vibe that this year’s show was a bit slower than last, not just because of those weasels at Wizard scheduling their Philly show the same weekend, but also maybe because last year’s show was such insanity that this year things were maybe in a bit of a “hangover” mode. Heroes con, though is known for its relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and us small press folks are there as much to hang out and put down a few beers after the show as to sell stuff. I had a great time and am definitely looking forward to next year’s show. Many thanks to Shelton, Dustin, Andy, and the rest of the Heroes crew for a great, fun show.  Philly schmilly…

UPDATE:

If you head over to The Pulse, there’s some coverage of several Heroes events, including the mini-comics panel from Saturday. It’s currently near the top and has an “Owly” thumbnail next to it, but here’s a direct link as well.

Also, I had a number of people who attended that panel come up to me later at my booth and ask for the URL for the mini-comics Co-op site that I mentioned in the interview, so here it is:

http://home.earthlink.net/~dougmcnamara/

First, two observations:

1) Everything in Charlotte, NC is new, shiny and either silver or white. It’s kind of like being on the set of that bizarre “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” TV show from the 1970s.

2) Speaking of centuries, we’re currently well into the 21st. A hotel’s charging for internet access is cheap and tacky. It’s a necessity, like hot water or climate control–not an indulgence like a minbar, or ordering a plate of waffles at 3 am. (And yes, I will whine about this again at SPX.)

As for the convention itself, folks in the small press “Indie Island” area seemed to agree that there was a marked improvement in activity, interest and sales Saturday afternoon. I’ve been keeping a list of stuff I’ve sold and if I have time, once things have wrapped up, I’ll maybe post a comparison with last year’s show and/or last year’s SPX–assuming I’ve got that info still around. More important than sales, though, was the general vibe that Saturday afternoon brought some people interested in the small press/indie stuff that was available. This year didn’t feature as many “power hitter” indie people like last year’s Los Bros Hernandez, Pete Bagge, etc. lineup, so the level of attendee interest in this area was a bit of an unknown. While I don’t get the vibe that people were moving tons of books, I was encouraged by the presence of a number of people I met who had come specifically to seek out some Indie Island folks and to hit the Top Shelf and Adhouse booths.

As is the case with most conventions where I’m a guest, I really didn’t get to do any panel-attending other than the one that I was participating in, the minicomics panel at 4:00. A friend who had gone to the Paul Hornschmeir panel told me that there were only a handful of people there, so I feared the worst going into our panel (along with Andy Runton, J. Chris Campbell, Jim Mahfood, Rob Ullman and moderator Dustin Harbin), but I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout and the level of interest. I brought some “how to” handouts I nabbed from www.teachingcomics.org, Rob made a little 4 page sketch mini to give out, and Chris likewise had a freebie mini for folks who showed up. Additionally I brought the bulk of my minicomics collection so folks could get their mitts on the real deal as we took questions. Stuff like King Cat, Iron Clad, and the various works of Drew Weing, Eleanor Davis, Alex Longstreth, etc. made the rounds. The good folks from The Dollar Bin podcast recorded the whole thing, and I’ll link to that when it’s available. I ran into a guy after the presentation who had actually been to the Wizard show in Philly on Friday and who was ecstatic that there was a minicomics panel going on at Heroes. He mentioned that there was pretty much no small press/indie focus at that show–which isn’t surprising, but it was nice to think that, even given the general mainstream focus of Heroes, that it’s getting a bit of street cred for being indie-friendly relative to stuff like Wizard.

I missed the art auction in order to hang out with some friends of mine from Charlotte, but we all came back to the bar at 11pm or so to find the place totally packed with liquored-up con-goers spilling out into the lobby of the hotel. The place was still pretty hoppin’ getting on toward 1 am when we left.

My favorite memory of the day: as I walked back to the hotel in the afternoon, out of the windows of a passing SUV I heard “NERDS! NERDS! There’s nerds EVERYWHERE!”

My second favorite memory of the day: I saw a couple leaving the show; one was dressed as an imperial officer from “Star Wars,” the other as a Klingon from”Star Trek.” Truly these were “star-cross’d lovers.” Love will find a way, folks…