Phoenix-Cactus Comic Convention
The 2007 Phoenix-Cactus Comicon was held on the last weekend in January at the Mesa Convention Center. January is the best time to be in Arizona, as it's the only time we're not living with scorching heat. Seventy degrees is considered cold around here. According to the convention director, the weather was a key lure in getting creators to the convention. When the Phoenix Comicon launched in 2002, it was a six-hour show that drew 432 people. This January, convention director Matt Solberg and his team put together a two-and-a-half-day show that drew about 3,000 visitors. The 2006 Phoenix Comicon had just happened last September, but Solberg and his team wanted to reposition the convention on the calendar and faced a tough choice: they could wait over a full calendar year and hold the next convention in January 2008, or they could pull together and crank out another one in four months. It sounds like a recipe for a nervous breakdown, but they pulled off the 2007 convention in that four months. The guest list was impressive for a small convention: Mike Mignola, George Perez and Len Wein were in attendance from out of state. Local comic professionals Brett Blevins, Brian Pulido, Shannon Denton and Steve Rude were there as well. Representing manga were M. Alice LeGrow, Jen Lee Quick and Amy Reeder Hadley. Rob Osborne, Raven Gregory, and Tone Rodriguez (among others) were set up in Artists' Alley. The schedule of events was extremely varied. There was the requisite masquerade/cosplay ball. A film festival was going on all weekend, as well as a gaming tournament. The panels were largely educational rather than being standard 'question-and-answer' sessions. Amy Reeder Hadley hosted a panel on digital toning. Brian Pulido, Mike Mignola and Len Wein participated in a panel on scripting for comics and film. Unfortunately, the audience for that panel had two questions, which were rephrased over and over again for an hour: how do I get my property optioned, and how can I write for Marvel or DC? The answer to both of those questions were the same: consistently produce good quality work on an independent basis. One of the more popular events was the Gothic Lolita Tea Party, hosted by M. Alice LeGrow and cosplay queen Sarcasm-Hime. There's a large population of Goth kids in Arizona, which doesn't make sense to me because it's so hot here most of the time. We start hitting a hundred degrees daily in March. The black nylons and boots have to get uncomfortable at some point. Being a smaller convention, there were a lot of opportunities to have longer, more in-depth discussions with the guests on past and current projects. It's also less likely for smaller publishers and creators to get lost in the lineup. I had the chance to meet some amazing people and groups that may be overlooked at a larger convention, but are doing great things that deserve notice. I want to highlight some of them here. Sweet 7000's Baaadassss Comics (7000 BC) is a collective of self-publishers based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 7000 BC has created two anthologies of members' work: Hospital Stories, and a collection of erotic stories; the group is currently looking for a printer for those anthologies. In addition to pooling resources for publishing and promotion, 7000 BC is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting comics as an art form through seminars and workshops. The group has run programs in elementary schools and art schools in Santa Fe and in Albuquerque. Blacklist Studios is made up of writer Thomas Hall and artist Daniel Bradford. They are currently working on their graphic novel, Enlightenment, which is due out later this year. Their completed project, a comic called King!, was published in January. King! chronicles the adventures of a zombie-killing Elvis impersonator with a hunger for peanut butter-and-banana burritos. Bradford's artwork is heavily influenced by the work of Mike Mignola. Hall says his writing strategy on King! was to make the story as crazy as possible. It all works very well together. Scrap Pictures is an enterprise of Stephanie Lesniak and Lena Kain, who co-created their flagship publication, Blazin' Brandy. Brandy, the title character, escapes from her fiance via pirate ship. When the ship wrecks on its way to America, Brandy is washed ashore on an island full of monsters. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk to Lesniak and Kain for as long as I'd hoped, but I did pick up the first two issues of their comic and enjoyed it immensely. Rob Osborne is the man responsible for Go Forth and Conquer, Sunset City: For Active Senior Living, and 1000 Steps to World Domination, which won the Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics and the Broken Frontier Paper Screen Gem Award for Humor. He is currently collaborating with artist Tony Parker on a book about alien abductions. James A. Owen is the writer and artist for the comic series Starchild, which originally ran in the 1990s. Owen now has the opportunity to bring Starchild to Image Comics, and finish up the storyline in a series of ninety-six-page quarterlies. At his table, Owen also had copies of his illustrated novel, Here, There Be Dragons. The novel tells the story of John, Jack and Charles, three young men who, in 1917, become the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of imaginary places. Here, There Be Dragons is the first in what will be a series of seven novels. Look for a movie in the near future; the book has been optioned by Warner Bros. to be produced by David Goyer. Travis Hanson is currently self-publishing his series of illustrated novels, Tales of The Broken Moon, through his imprint Bean Leaf Press. Tales of The Broken Moon, co-written with Amy Duncan, is in the same vein as The Hobbit or the Harry Potter novels: they're written for young adults, but adults can find enjoyment in them as well. The interesting thing about Tales of the Broken Moon is that the two creators have never met. The novels began life as a series of comic books written and drawn by Hanson, of which Duncan was a fan. The best thing about the Phoenix Comicon right now is its size. There is enough going on that you can fill the entire day, but it's small enough that you don't have to wait in line for two hours to chat with George Perez or Mike Mignola. In fact, while we were waiting for the doors to open that morning, George Perez was walking around outside, giving autographs for the fans waiting in line and answering our gushing fan questions. Does that sort of thing happen in San Diego?
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