Floating World’s Jason Leivain just cryptically tweeted:
This October, imagine a comics festival with no tables. Official announcements coming soon… http://theprojectspdx.tumblr.com/
That site is fairly well fleshed out already, and the gist is that in October, the IPRC (in conjunction with Floating World, Sparkplug, and a bunch of other folks) is going to host an experimental comics festival:
THE PROJECTS is a festival of experimental comics and narrative arts, happening in Portland on October 19-21, 2012.
3 days of workshops, exhibitions, panels, performances, projections and collaborative projects. Introducing experimental artists from comics, animation, and other narrative arts.
The festival is a free event, oriented toward creative process, idiosyncratic expression, and inspiration, leaving behind the flat model of comics as commerce.
Sounds like the festival will take place at the IPRC, with shows at galleries and shops around town. I’m intrigued; the comic book show floor model kinda sucks, really, unless you’re wired to enjoy wandering around a giant convention hall while desperate/awkward artists stare hopefully at you from their booths. A more accessible comic book show is a worthy experiment—that said, experimental comics art might be considered even less widely accessible than the stuff you typically see at Stumptown, so I’ll be curious to see how it balances out.
Jason has incited a cruel indictment of all conventions. This is what he really meant:
Imagine there’s no convention
It’s easy if you try
No puke-colored rugs below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the nerds
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no hunger games
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to buy or yearn for
And no region 0 dvds too
Imagine all the nerds
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no merch table
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or nerdrage
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the nerds
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
oh my god.
Conventions represent American capitalism at it’s most sweaty, desperate and small-time, and are to be avoided at all costs.
Not that I have a better idea, mind you, and I’ve been on both sides of the (pitiful) table.
I’m sorry Alison. It had to be done. Jason just couldn’t communicate his vision in 140 characters.
I personally like tables, meeting people involved in creating and publishing, and as chain bookstores shutter, it’s an example of different venues for getting books out there where people can look through them and talk about them. I guess I just haven’t done enough conventions to understand wanting to avoid them. I think the tables can and do coexist with other events and features, so it’s not just about wandering around looking for things to buy.
Wow, Fruit Cup. Wow.
Yeah! I’m excited for the new model of European Comics fests to be tried out in Portland. One of this events organizers, Dunja Jankovic, also runs Skyver Arts Festival in Croatia. I think a major goal is to get people to know one another and collaborate. Tables are cool but they keep artists separated.
I’ve heard that French anarchist comics artists LE DERNIER CRI are coming to The Projects and that’s a pretty big deal!