(god this journal entry is f-ing long. sry guyse. DX )
HELLO I have returned from the dead, however temporarily. MoCCA was pretty sweet, pretty rad, and I am going to attempt to recap this quickly since my work is never over (hello, ever-lengthening commission list and Studio Bumblebee submission due in the next week, you have crept up on me quicker than ever).
So this year at MoCCA, I handed out / sold what I could. I think business was a little down (maybe?) from last year but that is most likely because last year I was in the best spot ever with giant eye-catching paintings behind me to call people over. This year MoCCA was held at that terrifying armory gymnasium on 25th and Lex, which had its pros and cons.... On the bright side, everyone was democratically in one room and the panels were held in the same building...but the atmosphere was pretty frantic, chaotic and disorienting imo. I think cramming all that stuff into one room was a little bit of a sensory overload. (But then again, it sort of always is.) The only other major drawback was that the place was not air-conditioned (or the air-conditioning wasn't working? or was off? idk) so around 4:00 on both days it reached the point of being mood-crushingly hot and stuffy. STILL, that aside, I had an awesome time so I really can't complain much. :]
Here is a corny picture of me.......ha ha ha.
Saturday was all right; before I even got inside I became acquainted with Daniel Bradford of Blacklist Studios. Daniel draws Robot-13 with writer Thomas Hall and has an awesome daughter who I met later on and sketched a vampire for, lololol. I talked to them throughout the convention (tables closeby) and that was really cool. *thumbsup* I also bought a set of Daniel's monster posters to remedy the abominably blank walls in my room here in CT.
Later in the day I spotted Mike McGhee who I traded with at the end of last year's MoCCA (I had an awesome poster of his on my wall when I was living in Gramercy, I should hang that shit back up) and swapped more comics. He pointed me in the direction of Kenan Rubenstein (his table-mate last year, who I also traded with) of Boy Blue Productions. Kenan gave me a copy of Tick, his calendar-styled comic, last year at MoCCA and I didn't get to read it until I got home, when I realized (too late to tell him) that it was possibly my favorite thing ever. So I had to go gush to him about how much I loved it and swap more comics. Right now he's working on a really cool series of comics printed on a single sheet of paper which you unfold to reveal the story. It's called Oubliette (or The Oubliette? sorry idk) and aside from the cleverness of the format, the storytelling and art is really beautiful. He later got called up as a guest speaker for the "Comics Come in All Shapes and Sizes" panel for those comics (more on the panel shortly).
I found fellow-former-gURL.com comix artist Martina Fugazzotto's table and she was nice enough to give me a VIP collection of her "I <3 SEX" series of comics. Martina, you are the bomb. 8D I also met some fans (SUCH AS: MetalCherryTree who had an awesome bag 8D, and onlyxxxsunshine who gave me a nice copy of her Charlemagne fanart ) and did a few sketches for people, so if you met me and I have left you out, just let me know and I'll stick you in here, yeah?
I had my friend Jackie helping me at the table, as per tradition. I ran into Mike Luckas, classmate and considerably better artist than me lolololol. Nina, who is in ECTOPLASM, stopped by with some cute friends. Nina was good enough to help me out at the last minute by papercutting some hundred+ pages of ECTOPLASM when it got down to the wire and I freaked. :,D Thanks Nina~~~ On Sunday pretty much everyone I know converged on my table at once. Sunday was crazy and hectic and wonderful. I spent the majority of the time running around in circles so I wasn't at the table very much that day (sorry if you missed me). Several minutes after the doors opened I had the pleasure of meeting Lady-Elsewhere from here on DA for the second year in the row. I saw a lot of friends from school -- Henry Fernau, Jeremy Stein (who did the ECTOPLASM centerfold), and some other wandering gangs of my classmates including Alison Strejlau and Nick Micciola. Friends from my hometown also came by, Sam (who modeled for Danse Macabre at Brooklyn Heights when I was just starting the series) and Sophia who did the fabulously gory picture of Christopher Walken that opens up ECTOPLASM. Dominique Martin (artist of the "Dreams" series in ECTOPLASM) came to help me with the table and I ALMOST missed seeing Becca who has been wonderful and supportive of me since my very first con and has now moved up to promoting her own art (her work closes ECTOPLASM).
I got to see my two favorite teachers (professors?) from SVA, Gary Panter (always one to share a good vibe lolololol) and Jason Little. I dragged Dominique to the "Comics Come in all Shapes and Sizes" panel that Jason was on, which was not particularly packed with attendees (probably because the name of the panel made it sound pretty lame...) but it was actually entertaining, and as I mentioned earlier, Kenan got recognized for his work and invited to the Q&A section of the panel.
After the panel I attempted to chain myself to my table for a while since I spent most of the morning away from it, and I had a few nice people stop by who knew me from previous years, or the internet, or were discovering the ~*magic*~ of Twelfthgecko Press (lolololol) for the first time. I think my best encounter was these two awesome black dudes who raved about my art for about fifteen minutes dropping words like "dope!" and "syck!" and finally produced what is now my favorite quote ever about my work: "Dis art is dope! Dis art is syyyck, man! Shit's like swine flu, man! SIIIIICK!" They were the best lolololol.
All in all, it was a good time, worth the madness of stapling books at 3 AM in my bathroom, and I HAVE locked down my table for next year SO I WILL SEE YOU THEN. Right now on the to-do list is: Commissions, a short zombie comic for Studio Bumblebee (another comic anthology group run by some of my classmates), and mailing the international stickers.
OKAY SWEET I am willing to bet 90% of you did not bother reading through this entry but that is A-OKAY by me. xoxokiki
