SPX 2010: Quick First-Day Report

The first day of SPX felt like a long day to me, but in a good way: I had several good conversations, mainly with cartoonist pals of yore like Jon Lewis, Ben Towle, and Tom Kaczynski; I also got to meet a few younger cartoonists whose work looks really interesting to me, and to touch base with a few friendly folks I've only seen a few times.

First, to answer the question that's surely on everyone's lips: here's an update on Alec Longstreth's Basewood beard:



Here's a shot of Jesse Reklaw entertaining Julia Wertz and Sarah Glidden with a puppet show at their table, toward the end of the day:



And here's a shot of Frank Santoro leaping into a serious-looking conversation between my co-editor Ken Parille and my friend Tom Kaczynski.



As you can see, the atmosphere toward the end of the day was celebratory to the point of being a little silly.

The panel discussion Ken and I had with Bill Kartalopoulos went well, though the room wasn't exactly packed with audience members. I think we managed to put forward some coherent generalizations about Wilson and about the direction of Clowes's work since David Boring. I imagine those ideas will filter into the writing Ken and I will be doing (separately) over the next few years.

(Frank Santoro has, by the way, an extended baseball-related metaphor for the way Wilson unfolds. But you'd have to ask him about it; by no means can I reproduce it here.)

I have bought (and traded for) a ton of new minicomics, which I will read and dutifully blog about in the weeks to come. There'll be more in this stack before the end of the day tomorrow.



As I write this, the Ignatz Awards ceremony is only just about to start, so I can't report on who won anything. I'm just tossing a few pictures online and checking in before I switch over to paper-grading for the night.