Stumptown Comics Fest 2008

The fifth Stumptown Comics Fest put on by Indigo Kelleigh, Kip Manley, Zeo Cohen, and John Worsley was the biggest one yet, with over 1200 attendees.

Although I spent considerable time at Stumptown this year, I still only met a small portion of the dozens of artists and writers selling their small press comics and zines in the Exhibit Hall. (Full list here.) Below is a small army of talented folks who graciously allowed me to snap their pictures.

Navigation Scroll through the photos and reports below or use the Quick Links in the lefthand sidebar to go directly to the content. Click on the comic covers to go to the creator's website. Below the photos is a summary of a few of the program presentations.

	Jim Valentino Image Comics Valentino Comics
	Jason Leivian Floating World Comics 20 NW 5th Avenue, #101 Portland, OR 97209 Tues - Sun 11 AM - 7 PM 503.241.0227 Top
	Kevin Moore Mooretoons Top
	Susan Tardif Website Top

	Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier Dave's Yaytime Raina's GoRaina Dave's Presentation Top
	Brian Oaster Misunderstanding Between Friends Top
	Andrew Farago William Bazillion Top
	Shaenon Garrity Narbonic Top
	Craig Thompson Doot Doot Garden Craig's Presentation Top
	Ron Chan Website Top
	James Ratcliffe ComicSpace Top
	Jon-Mikel Gates Cowboy Orange Top
	Aron Nels Steinke Website Top
	Pancha Diaz 2D Comics Top
	Tom Lechner Website Top

	Sarah Oleksyk and Ryland Thomas Sarah's Website Top
	Graham Annable Grickle Top
	Scott Campbell Blog Top
	Lukas Ketner Blog Top
	Meredith Gran Octopus Pie Top

	Cat Ellis and Rich Ellis Cat's Website Rich's Website Top
	Alec Longstreth Website Top
	Jonas Madden-Conner Blog Top

	Sara Ryan and Steve Lieber Sara's Website Steve's Website Top
	Randall Kirby Stop Stealing My Stuff Top
	Cassi Richoux The Otaku Survival Guide Top
	Philip Barasch Dancing Chapman Studio Top

Nicholas Gurewitch

Nicholas answered questions from a packed room of readers and fans. His responses are summarized below:

Nicholas drew a comic strip for a couple of alternative weeklies while attending Syracuse University. As graduation approached, he figured it would be a fun way to make a living. He sent samples to ten other weeklies and picked up about half of them. Since he was living at home, his expenses were minimal and a small subscriber base could sustain him. A year later he had about a dozen.

The UK Guardian ran his work and kept an online archive that was a big help. It led to him being approached by other newspapers.

Comic strips need to communicate quickly in order to be funny. Think about George Costanza's trials. They're funny because they happen so fast. If you expanded on his trials over a longer period of time they'd be tragic.

The cover of his book with all the candy characters was very controversial due it's edgy content. A major toy manufacturer felt the packaging too closely resembled one of their properties and sent a cease and desist letter about it. But Nicholas' work is often controversial. Even his hometown weekly has censored his strip at times. Like the one with the pig having sex with a chicken . . . But tame things don't cut through, so Nicholas like to push things.

He's a strong advocate of getting feedback on comic ideas as they develop. In college he used to collaborate a lot with his buddies, like his freshman-year roommate, Evan. Bouncing ideas off friends is an integral part of getting things right. Now he often discusses ideas via email and sometimes has lengthy strings of back-and-forth as ideas are refined.

2002 was a tough year due to a bad case of writer's block. It got so bad he sought help from an Engineer and a Psychologist. They helped him design An Idea Machine, which was brought into the room on a cart. In the photo, Nicholas is shown placing an order for a joke. Sometimes the stuff that comes out of it is so funny you can't even find the humor in it.

The artwork he uses for his strips varies from very simple to more fully rendered. He approach is based on the joke he's trying to tell. A bare bones style for simple ideas and artwork with greater depth—wash or markers—for more complex ideas.

In college he majored in film, which influenced his comics. He always loved film and his comics were a side interest. He worked on a concept for Comedy Central called Daisy Garden Story Time. But unfortunately, it was never produced.

After the success of his book he felt less pressure to spend 40 or 50 hours a week at the drafting table. The book made him feel more comfortable about his work and he's enjoying being less deadline driven about it. He gets requests for band posters and he's open to other work as well. He'd like to do lots of other things like film, too.

The title Perry Bible Fellowship came when he noticed a poster for a Christian Group on the wall at a friend's house. It was for a performance at the Perry Bible Fellowship. The name grabbed him, so he grabbed the name.

The inspiration for his comics come from life or a good movie. If something affects him, he feels like maybe his work can affect someone else too. He recently saw The Host, which he loved, and he's reading Bone now, which is great. He read What is the What by Dave Eggers and loved the way he mingled humor amidst the tragedy.

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Dave Roman

Even though it's probably not cool to mention it, one of the first comic strips that Dave Roman really liked was Garfield. He thought it was funny and he loved the drawings. In fact, even credits Garfield with his first inspiration to start cartooning as a child. There weren't a lot of other comics around his household, but it wasn't long before he discovered Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts in a nearby bookstore.

Growing up Dave was also a regular viewer of the GI Joe and Transformers TV shows. But after a few seasons even an avid fan had to admit the storylines of these favorites seemed to be a bit predictable and formulaic. Then one day he discovered a GI Joe versus Transformers comic book. The story in the comic was nothing like the TV show and Dave realized that in a comic book anything can happen!

Soon he was reading comics regularly. His favorites included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Donald Duck, Sergio Aragones' Groo, and Evan Dorkin's Milk & Cheese. Dave started making his own comics too. His Mother worked in an office and made copies of them that Dave handed out to friends and relatives.

Dave attended the School of Visual Arts from 1994 to 1999. He partnered with John Green on a class project and they created a comic called Quicken Forbidden. Dave's advisor at the time was Klaus Janson, who gave him great feedback and help guide the development. The first issue of this early comic starring a young girl was self published in 1997. The book went on to have 13 issues and was recently reissued as a trade paperback under the title Jax Epoch.

Dave and John also partnered to create the wacky mini comic Teen Boat. It's a story of a high school boy with the ability to transform himself into a small yacht. So far they've put out 8 issues with print runs of about 2000 copies.

During college Dave interned at DC Comics and worked on their Cartoon Network books. His advisor at DC introduced him to Nick Duffy at Nickelodeon Magazine, where he was quickly hired as one of their Editors.

Besides his main work at Nickelodeon, Dave continues write and draw his own comics. His work has appeared in Flight since issue 3, he's published 4 issues of his Astronaut Elementary comics, and is a cofounder of the websites: Lunchbox Funnies, Life Meter Comics, and Comics Bakery. He recently completed an anthology of mystery stories for Slave Labor Graphics featuring his character Agnes Quill.

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Craig Thompson

Craig was born in 1975 and grew up in central Wisconsin. He moved to Portland early in his adult life and landed a short-lived job at Darkhorse Comics where he worked for about 7 months as a designer. After working all day on a computer he'd go home and work on his first graphic novel, Good-Bye, Chunky Rice. It wasn't long before his arm froze up and he was forced to quit working entirely for about 3 months to recover.

During the time he needed to finish his first book, he earned a living freelancing, doing a lot of comics for Nickelodeon Magazine. He did a lot of Jimmy Neutron comics in particular.

His next book Blankets, took about two years to complete. He did very rough thumbnail sketches of almost the entire book and then began working on the final pages. He left the end for last because he wasn't sure exactly how to end it. So the last chapter was written and drawn after everything else was finished.

Although Craig doesn't do a lot of artwork for musicians, after Blankets he happened to do some artwork for a friend's band. He was invited to go on tour with them in Europe and "performed" live sketches on large canvases at the band's performances. It was a wonderful experience and out of the rich European surroundings came inspiration for his next project, Carnet De Voyage (Travel Journal).

Craig's daily routine is to start work around 9:00 in the morning and break for lunch at noon. Then he goes back to work until the early evening. His current book is about one third complete.

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Web Comics for the Clueless

Web Designer Magda Diaz gave a terrific presentation on website basics. She covered Design, Production, Development, and Management and has created a complementary website with her presentation's content and links to numerous resources. Web Comics Workshop

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The (Way More than) 7 Habits of Highly Profitable Webcomics

CulturePulp blogger and cartoonist Mike Russell gave a lively presentation with 14 points he's observed about webcomics that actually receive a reasonable revenue stream. Better yet, he's written them all down and posted them here. (By the way, #14 is Quick Response. Whether it's a simple question, an order, or a business proposition, don't forget you're running a business. When a customer walks in the door, respond quickly to their needs.)

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A few of the postcards and flyers from the literature table at Stumptown.