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SPACEy, mark I.
Apr. 17th, 2005 12:05 pmBack from SPACE...
I have a bunch of writing to do today, and I'm not sure how much of it I'm likely to finish. Most is just writing about the last few days, which have been eventful (in a good way). At the same time I don't really feel like being glued to a computer today. It may be my last free day for a while.
Friday night, Tom and I went to a pre-con pizza party. Among people we don't see much, we spent a lot of time talking to Jeff and Erik from Flummery. Jeff does some really beautiful covers and bindings, especially, and his stuff is worth checking out. I've never read an issue, but I will now. I also spent just a few minutes chatting with Suzanne Baumann, who makes excellent mini-comics and magnets. Other than that it was the usual... Matt & Ione, Dara, Stang, Tony, Sean McKeever, the whole gang. This pizza party seemed to me a little lower-key than last year's, although I could also be confusing it with the Great Ogre Gathering that's held before Mid-Ohio Con. (Similar-but-larger crowd, same location, different food.)
This year's SPACE seemed a bit different from last year's. First of all, Dave Sim didn't announce the Gene Day Prize winner until the award was given. (Tom won this two years ago; every year, there are five or six nominees. It's a self-publishing award that Sim named after his late friend.) Andy Runton (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
owlyfriend) won for Owly, which is Teh Awesome - he really deserved it. It's a comic that manages to be charming, adorable, etc, without being insipid... that's hard to do.
(I think I talked Andy into getting an LJ, oh dear! I think that may even be the name I suggested. But that's a topic for another time.)
The other main difference was that it seemed like the makeup of exhibitors was a little different from last year. Last year I noticed a percentage - not a huge one, but enough - of "off-brand superhero" comics. That's my term for self-published indie stuff that is, well, mainstream in content; stuff that might stand a chance of being discovered at the kind of con where people wear Batman costumes. SPACE is not that kind of con. This year, things leaned much more heavily even than last year into the indie/arty side of things. You could say it was more zine-friendly. You could say it was more emo. I don't know. It's definitely the flip-side of Mid-Ohio Con, where the dealer's room is king. Anyway, I'll write more and more specifically about the day later. I think Tom did OK financially. We spent some at dinner, which means that he probably doesn't do as well now that I'm around as he did before we met.
I got up early this morning in preparation for having to get up and get to work tomorrow. I've been watching movies, but I should really go feed my dog and eat breakfast myself. I finished watching Before Sunset, which bookends Before Sunrise nicely. I had started it the other night with Tom, who hates Ethan Hawke but was willing to watch it. Truthfully, I watched the first movie for the first time in years right around the time I moved up here, and I found myself really wanting to smack Ethan's character, too. Now I am watching The Canterville Ghost with John Gielgud and Alyssa Milano, which I remember loving when I was around 11 or 12. Not a good movie for Wilde purists, or people who have a grip on historical fashion, and not a great movie if you're not a kid, but Gielgud had the magic touch.
I have a bunch of writing to do today, and I'm not sure how much of it I'm likely to finish. Most is just writing about the last few days, which have been eventful (in a good way). At the same time I don't really feel like being glued to a computer today. It may be my last free day for a while.
Friday night, Tom and I went to a pre-con pizza party. Among people we don't see much, we spent a lot of time talking to Jeff and Erik from Flummery. Jeff does some really beautiful covers and bindings, especially, and his stuff is worth checking out. I've never read an issue, but I will now. I also spent just a few minutes chatting with Suzanne Baumann, who makes excellent mini-comics and magnets. Other than that it was the usual... Matt & Ione, Dara, Stang, Tony, Sean McKeever, the whole gang. This pizza party seemed to me a little lower-key than last year's, although I could also be confusing it with the Great Ogre Gathering that's held before Mid-Ohio Con. (Similar-but-larger crowd, same location, different food.)
This year's SPACE seemed a bit different from last year's. First of all, Dave Sim didn't announce the Gene Day Prize winner until the award was given. (Tom won this two years ago; every year, there are five or six nominees. It's a self-publishing award that Sim named after his late friend.) Andy Runton (
owlyfriend) won for Owly, which is Teh Awesome - he really deserved it. It's a comic that manages to be charming, adorable, etc, without being insipid... that's hard to do.(I think I talked Andy into getting an LJ, oh dear! I think that may even be the name I suggested. But that's a topic for another time.)
The other main difference was that it seemed like the makeup of exhibitors was a little different from last year. Last year I noticed a percentage - not a huge one, but enough - of "off-brand superhero" comics. That's my term for self-published indie stuff that is, well, mainstream in content; stuff that might stand a chance of being discovered at the kind of con where people wear Batman costumes. SPACE is not that kind of con. This year, things leaned much more heavily even than last year into the indie/arty side of things. You could say it was more zine-friendly. You could say it was more emo. I don't know. It's definitely the flip-side of Mid-Ohio Con, where the dealer's room is king. Anyway, I'll write more and more specifically about the day later. I think Tom did OK financially. We spent some at dinner, which means that he probably doesn't do as well now that I'm around as he did before we met.
I got up early this morning in preparation for having to get up and get to work tomorrow. I've been watching movies, but I should really go feed my dog and eat breakfast myself. I finished watching Before Sunset, which bookends Before Sunrise nicely. I had started it the other night with Tom, who hates Ethan Hawke but was willing to watch it. Truthfully, I watched the first movie for the first time in years right around the time I moved up here, and I found myself really wanting to smack Ethan's character, too. Now I am watching The Canterville Ghost with John Gielgud and Alyssa Milano, which I remember loving when I was around 11 or 12. Not a good movie for Wilde purists, or people who have a grip on historical fashion, and not a great movie if you're not a kid, but Gielgud had the magic touch.
