How to use this Page

I would take a haul photo of my CAB 2015 comics but there is not a floor space big enough at Stately Beat Manor to spread them all out. Yes I got that many comics. And yet the one I most desired to read, I paid for but forgot to pick up a copy in […]

This year’s Comic Arts Brooklyn Festival will be held November 7-8, in the same configuration as last year — exhibits on the Saturday and panels on the Sunday. AND NO EXHIBITS ON SUNDAY — there was some confusion about that last year but I’m sure everyone will get the drill this time. The poster, by […]

After a few very successful years with Paul Karasik steering the programming, Comics Arts Brooklyn has announced a new Programming Director for 2015, Columbia University’s Karen Green, whose many titles include Ancient & Medieval History Librarian, the Graphic Novels Librarian, and the Curator for Comics and Cartoons.  Green’s honors include serving on the board of directors at the Society of Illustrators, the Eisner Awards judge panel in 2011 and recently as a member of the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Cartooning in 2015.

Green has been putting on many historical and contemporary comics programs at Columbia in recent years, including an amazing exhibit of the university’s own cartoon holdings,and I’m sure she’ll do an amazing job for CAB.

The note that announced this move, also annoucned that exhibitor applications for CAB 2015 are now open, closing June 1st.

Portrait of Karen Green by Miss Lasko-Gross
CAB postcard by Jesse Jacobs. 

Festival poster by Tim Lane

Whitney Taylor continues to be my favorite investigative comics journalist—well, maybe investigative is too strong a word, but if “talking to a lot of people and painting a picture” is the criterion, Whit is it, as her report on Comic Arts Brooklyn shows. This was a strong show but one that experienced an unexpected glitch: a lot of people thought it was a two day show and didn’t come to the exhibits on Saturday. This resulted in a smaller crowd and, for some, lower sales. On the day there was a lot of anxiety—it’s like basing your business plan on Christmas sales and then there’s a big blizzard the day of the big sale—but everyone seems to have survived intact.

And yet, is a financial model this precarious one that is “sustainable”? I predict sustainable will be THE word of 2015, as a the last few days of posts here have been exploring. Taylor talks about the model with many publishers and creators and key behind the scenes people like publishing rep Tony Shenton, and while everyone is optimistic, there is no real consensus on whether things are working, improving or just providing a false illusion of hope:

Sustainability is a word that I hear floating around the small-press comics world. This is an industry people choose to get into primarily because they love the medium of comics, not because of the money, but that doesn’t mean that financial concerns aren’t real, albeit complicated and often frustrating. “Art and commerce is always a troubled combination,” says Fowler. “It’s a contradiction. I’m an idealist, and I like to see artists making work apart from considerations of the marketplace, but I’m involved in a commercial enterprise related to the sale of artwork. These issues are larger than comics, but they’re predicated by living under the dominant economic model of capitalism. Artists shouldn’t think about commerce when they’re making work, but in America people vote with their pocketbooks, and it feels good when a stranger gives you money for your art. It’s important.”

The piece is full of great pull quotes, like Kevin Czapiewski:

Czapiewski also emphasized the dynamic nature of the industry. “I get the sense that the landscape is the middle of a transition, like our ideas about comics shows are evolving, largely in response to this question of whether or not they can be sustainable. I’m optimistic,” he says. “That said, I have to recognize that even my role models need to supplement their publishing operations with one or more other sources of income. We may not be able to completely sustain ourselves on selling comics, but maybe there are ways to make money from the infrastructure of comics, like printing and distribution (those webcomics guys were trying to make a business as Kickstarter campaign consultants… did that go anywhere?). Also, it may sound counter-intuitive, but I feel like the continuing diversification of the playing field, with more and more different people making and selling comics, is a good thing overall.”