MOCCA FEST 2006 REPORT

Cheryl Gladstone, Karla Krupala, Jerel Johnson, and I were sitting at B37, smack dab in the middle of everything. Literally the most heavily trafficked area of the conference, as it runs along the direct route between rooms A and C. We were sitting between, to our right, Kingly Books from London, including Ed Pinsent and John Bagnall, who'd flown across the Atlantic to personally hawk their books (I traded a couple of Elsewheres for Ed's lush Primitif and two beautiful new minis of John's) ...

and to our left, Matt Madden and Jessica Abel, who gave a talk on Sunday. I already had everything of Matt and Jessica's, and as Matt is a former teacher (of everyone at my table; that's how we all met), he gets free copies of all new books. I bought an original ink drawing of Matt's, of Eteri Andjaparidze. I'd scan it in and post it here, but that would require backing out into System 9 from System 10. Trust me: it's lovely.

Reports from MoCCA say audience was down a bit from last year, but still about 5,000 people paid to get in.

Early in the day I asked if anyone had seen Richard Hahn. I wasn't expecting him to show up, but he was there, sitting at a table with Fay Ryu and Sakura Maku. Sakura hadn't yet arrived when I visited them, so I traded the new Elsewhere for two new Heart and Brain comics (in full color!) by Fay and bought Sakura's East Broadway (day-glo cover, b&w insides). I finally met up with her later and she gave me a copy of Flash (b&w). Richard isn't yet finished with Lumakick 3, a disappointment to fans like me, but something to look forward to. Also got Prizms a collab mini by Rich, Sakura, and Fay. Rich couldn't remember which page he'd done. I pointed it out for him. A guess, but apparently a good one. Our styles are not necessarily obvious to ourselves. (Ourself? Our Selves, two words, like Our Bodies, Our Selves?)

In my first pass around Room A I picked up Miriam Libicki's Towards a Hot Jew: The Israeli Soldier as Fetish Object. It begins "Although one of the streams of historical Eurpean anti-Semitism is a pronouncedly sexual one, the Jew in North American consciousness is curiously unsexy, especially in Jewish eyes." (Miriam apparently hasn't met Nada.) This over a kissing couple--both in Israeli military fatigues. It was kind of an ironic moment getting and reading this book so soon after reading a perfectly sincere blog essay by Barbara Jane Reyes on masculine Asian figures in film. "Many Jewish movements, from Enlightenment onwards, have tried to substitute new images, 'muscular Jews,' for negative stereotypes. This photo, and Israel's 1967 war, may have finally done it." Lots of pics of strong Israeli soldiers, with a text that veers between irony and overt critique. Miriam also had a 4-issue series, Jobnik, about her own experiences in the Israeli army, but she wasn't trading, so I just got the one book.

Near the back of Room A I discovered a couple of new Ben Jones (aka Paper Rad) mini comics. I picked them up, along with what I'm guessing is a not-terribly-available copy of Lauren Weinstein's OMG! I HEART BECKY!!!. Like I really have the fortitude to resist something like that.

I nearly had a heart attack when I came back in to Room B and discovered a copy of Jason Shiga's Meanwhile... at the Global Hobo table. I was ready to throw like fifty bucks at the face of the woman selling it. No, just kidding. But when she told it me it was $10, I didn't blink an eye. Sadly, Jason himself wasn't able to come to the conference. But to give you poets an idea of how difficult to get this book is, when I went back to my table and showed Matt my copy, telling him there was one left at Global Hobo, he immediately extradited (sp? wc?) himself and rushed off to get a copy. He came back about 15 minutes later, empty-handed. "Yeah, some guy was looking at it, so I went over to look at something else for a moment, and when I came back, he'd already bought it."

What is Meanwhile...? I'm going to let you Google it. You're a poet. You can figure out how to track down obscure info.

I saw another former SVA adult ed teach of mine, Seth Tobocman, who was manning the World War 3 table with Kevin Pyle. I gave Seth a copy of Elsewhere, and traded with Kevin for a few prison-related items, then bought the run of their prison-related spin-off series, "the real cost of prisons project." The new World War 3 was free, and so I got that one, too. The prison stuff looks especially great. I think The Comics Journal finally did a profile of Seth, or maybe of World War 3, an issue or two back. I want to hunt it down now.

Dude? Did I like forget to tell you about Hellen Jo? Right. So, at the Global Hobo table I also picked up the two most awesome books by a "new" (to me) artist: Paralysis: A Romance and Blister No. 1. Holy fucking shit. I can guarantee you that someone soon will commit these self-published gems to a big trade paperback in the next five minutes. Puking, crying, menstruating, fighting, snake-loving, knife-weilding, hallucinating girls and boys, some with 18-inch long tongues and fangs, most of them in their skivvies. (One V or two?) Seems heavily influenced by Suehiro Maruo and Junko Mizuno. Would go over very well in the poetry world, I'm thinking. (Kidding.)

It wasn't all Krazy Tradin Time with the Kingly Books people: I also bought a few things, most notably two books by Chris Reynolds. What is the appeal of Chris Reynolds. And why do all questions having to do with Chris Reynolds have to end in periods rather than with a question mark. Yes, that's the mystery--isn't it. Anyway, the two books--Cinema Detectives and Adventures from Mauretania look great.

Oh! I traded Elsewhere 1 and 2 for the second issue of Kevin Mutch's Blurred Vision. It's got Kevin's legendary comic, "Captain Adam," made up of redrawn panels from several dozen other comics. Well, legendary to me, ever since Matt talked about it in class. He didn't know Kevin then--in fact, he brought the book in as a kind of mystery item. Look! Here's this great thing! God knows what happened to the artist. Well, the artist showed up in NYC a year or so ago, and has been doing this rather kick-ass anthology. Kevin's other comics involve photographing Barbie and Ken dolls and doing odd things to their faces. Some of that's in issue one, which I'm going to have to track down soon.

I'm losing steam here, and I've got like another thirty-forty comics to account for. It's not going to happen. Rather, a fast-forward of people I met & comics I got:

Met the legendary Tom Spurgeon and also Derek Badman. Both were very nice and I gave both of them the new issue. They were the only two people to give the first issue negative reviews, and I'm banking on their disliking #2 twice as much. Oh, just kidding. I have no idea what they'll think, although if Tom likes it, I'm not sure my aorta or however you spell that will be able to withstand the shock.

Met Tom Hart, who gave me his tabloid-sized Hutch Owens sampler. We talked a little bit about Nada and my essay (in which his Ramadan is discussed) and "otherness" in general. Traded for Jesse Reklaw's Couch Tag #3, which is every bit as good as the previous issues. He seemed like a very nice guy; I wish I could have hung out with him a bit.

Saw Josh Neufeld, whose Vagabonds 2 is on the horizon. In lieu (sp?) of that, he slipped me a copy of Hickee. I begged him to start a comic about his experiences in New Orleans after Katrina, which he apparently was already fixing to do. I think it'll be great.

Saw both Kate Allen and Dylan Williams within minutes of each other. Kate's work is rather flarfy, including such titles as "Calcified Shit from the Kinks of Elvis' Colon." (Yes, it's as good as the title, too.) Dylan's Reporter Number Five focuses on U.S. soldiers (all or mostly black in this instance) in the Korean War. I want to sit down with it tonight.

I met Matt Feazell, who was pretty hilarious. Traded for a bunch of his Cynicalman comics. Got Lilli Carre's Tales of Woodsman Pete and two newish minis by C. Malkasian, who may have a Fantagraphics title on the horizon. met both Craig Yoe and Austin English. No new book from Austin this year. Craig's Modern Arf 2 is out, but something I'll easily be able to get at Jim Hanley's.

Got the new Fredo book, Circus Peanut. He kept walking by our table and I called out to him a couple of times, but he didn't hear me.

Speaking of calling out: my table mate, Cheryl, who just self-published Bernie, the Wackiest Jewlipino on Earth, a collection of funny anecdotes about her mother, kept calling out: "Are you Filipino?" whenever she saw someone who looked like they might be Filipino walk by. I think she must have brought over two dozen people to our table that way, and yes, they were all Filipino. Almost every one of them bought her book--Bernie was by far the best-selling item from our table.

I saw Robyn Chapman, and traded for her Matching Jackets. Like Stan Apps' Soft Hands, the cover is one of those green hanging files that's been printed on. Beautiful. She lives in Vermont now and teaches at the comics equivalent of Black Mountain College. (Yes, such things do exist. Just no longer for poetry.)

Paul Hoppe stopped by our table and we had a nice conversation. I got a copy of his book Casual Comics, which is beautiful, too, speaking of beauty, and the issue of Rabid Rabbit that he edited. And speaking of rabbits, I picked up two issues of Geoff Vasile's Track Rabbit, which look great.

Rich introduced me to Alvin Buenaventura, who must be the single grooviest comics publisher in the U.S. today. We traded; I came away with the new Yeast Hoist. (Poets, I'm relying upon you to like that title enough to Google it. You will do that, right?)

Oh, and I can't forget the Bries table. OMFG. I picked up Frederic Coche's Hortus Sanitatis. Truly disturbing etchings. Look it up.

When I got home, I read my table mates' work, not that I hadn't read all of it before. But Jerel's Machine Vision really held up--I think it's a wonderful & unique comic--and I also really loved the aforementioned Bernie and Karla's absolutely gorgeous and experimental-despite-herself The Anatomy of Us.

I got a few other things, but I'm exhausted, so I'm going to crash now if you don't mind.


The "take"