MoCCA 2007, Saturday

Since Freddie & Me won't be published until next year, I went to the annual MoCCA Festival this year as an attendee rather than an exhibitor. I had an idea in my head about taking a lot of pics and trying my hand at one of those convention reports, but I didn't do a great job of taking that many photos whilst walking around the floor and chatting to people.

I'll post all of the pics that I did end up taking though, since I did walk away with a handful.



This is Charlito and Mr Phil from the Indie Spinner Rack podcast. I've met both of these guys a bunch of times, and made an odd appearance on their show here and there, and I enjoy talking to them very much. I really like the ISR podcast, though feel that they should spend more of their time panning comics that they think are no good, as well as gossiping about cartoonists they think are jerks. Then instead of saying to someone "oh, I heard about a really interesting comic book from listening to Indie Spinner Rack" I could say "oh s#!t, did you hear what Indie Spinner Rack said about Cheese Hasselberger??! Man, that's so wrong. I can't believe those guys, they don't care what they say, they just Tell It How It Is!!"





Justin Fox and Marcos Perez from Cliff Face Comics. Marcos was vibrating his molecules too fast for his image to be captured properly. Either that or I am still learning to use my new camera.

I went to Art School with Justin and Marcos. They are both really nice guys who are creating good comics. They (along with fellow Cliff Face Comics member Kenny Belasco) are pretty much the only people I knew in college who I am still friendly with in any sort of ongoing capacity. They didn't seem to be involved in the small press comics "scene" until about two or three years ago. We all started running into each other at shows since then, so it's nice to catch up every few months and see how everyone's doing.



Chris Pitzer (left, mostly cut-off) and Jaime Tanner. Jaime appears to be straightening a pile of his new book The Aviary, recently published by Chris. I am a crappy photographer.



Jaime and Joel Priddy. I am not sure what's happening in this photo, but it kind of looks like Jaime and Joel have just at this moment come to some sort of an agreement about something they had previously disagreed about.



Kevin C. Pyle looking like he's about to sign a copy of his recently published graphic novel Blindspot. (Edit: upon closer inspection, this doesn't look like he's holding his own book. I'm now thinking that he might be looking at someone's comic that they're working on that they just handed to him)

Interesting Fact: Both Kevin and I worked for the same company up until recently, but never knew each other at all the entire time we were there together. I read Blindspot on the train ride to work on my last day at the company, and e-mailed Kevin that day, pretty much saying "up until today we were co-workers, but I am quitting today, so there's no going-to-lunch options, but even still, I enjoyed your book".



MOME contributer Jonathan Bennett (left) and Jordan Rae at the Buenaventura Press table. Jon is pretending to be surprised that someone is taking his photo, but this is totally faked, you can tell. He's totally used to it by now, I am sure.



Jenny Gonzalez, Miss Lasko Gross, Dave McKenna, and Cheese Hasselberger (in the salmon colored shirt, mostly under the table) from the House of 12, or "HO12" as I normally write it.



Joe Flood (right) of Hellcity and Hillary Florido. Joe Flood and I worked together for a few years as caricature artists at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey around 1999-2001.



The Indie Spinner Rack guys interview Alex Robinson about his books Tricked!, Box Office Poison, and the upcoming "Alex Robinson's Lower Regions". I think I also heard them talking shit about some other cartoonists. I can't wait until the interview airs so I can hear all the raw and "In Your Face" things they said!

Following the big Con, I went over to the Top Shelf Tenth Anniversary party. This was a totally high-class affair, with a wonderful selection of foods, and a very generous 3 hour open bar. I had an awesome, awesome time, and didn't take many photos (because I was too busy partying to think about my dumb "Con Report"). These are the few I took:



Brett Warnock eating something and (I believe) watching Chris Staros giving a short speech welcoming everyone.



Tom Kaczynski, another contributor to MOME, saying hello for the camera.



In this picture I have clearly just told Alex Robinson something hilarious. I can't remember what it was; I say hilarious things all the time.



In this picture Alex is attempting to tell Andy "Owly" Runton the hilarious thing that I'd said to him before, but is clearly not telling it as good, judging by the looks on the faces that say more "patient bemusement" than "uproarious laughter".

Anyway, that's it. I didn't go to the convention today, so I haven't got any more photos. I may do another post about some of the comics that I picked up and enjoyed.