EXTRA: THE BATTLE OF
LITTLE BIG CON
BY KEN APPLEBAUM

---

So I'm on a train down to D.C. on September 15 with one of my best friends Chris. Chris is making a mini-vacation of this journey to cruise around our nation's capitol offense, but the only explanation for the bags we have near to bursting with comics is that we're headed to one of the nearly undiscovered treasures of what now passes for comic culture, the annual Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD.

I've not been to SPX since 1995, when it took up two or three medium-sized rooms at the Holiday Inn Select. Dave Sim was the featured guest that year, though in truth of all the people who were there I knew of at most three. Luckily, I ran into my BBSing buddy Beto and we went for burgers afterwards, and that might have been the last time I saw him. Back then my dad and stepmother lived in Silver Spring, and thus so did I, about five minutes on foot from D.C. city limits. Now that I think back on it, SPX must have been earlier that summer, as I would have been back at college by late August, though I can't recall when it was. No matter; now my dad and stepmom live in PA, I live in Queens and I'm on a train back.

Here's how big comic geeks we are: I'm drawing in my sketchbook, trying out Chris' pens, and he's trying to copy my characters with his distinctive ability with detailed linework, which makes for odd and interesting results since my figures' proportions tend to be more cartoonish. Aside from talking and thumbing through each others' auxiliary comic libraries, this is how we pass the time for over three hours.

There are people I've set my sights on seeing up close and personal. Many of them are the ones on the guest list, of whom I'm familiar with the work of a much higher proportion than five years ago, despite its increased size. Others are people I know only through posts on the Ellis forum, and of course there is the thrill of meeting complete unknowns (at least to me), getting in on the ground floor of something really new that even the Journal, despite their presence, won't be mentioning for another six months at least.

Chris and I get a late start on Saturday morning after staying up late talking and drinking with our hosts Floyd and Katja. Saturday morning while Floyd nurses a wicked hangover, Katja insists we stay for a home-cooked breakfast, which somehow means that I cook it. (Note to self: I can make scrambled eggs. Holy shit.) Because of a fluke in the D.C. Metro system, we actually have to take two trains into the heart of the district and then back out again to reach Bethesda, all while lugging these monster sacks of comics. I'm wearing exceptionally stylish but also excruciatingly uncomfortable black leather boots which are slicing into my ankles, flat black pants, a black disinfo.com t-shirt and my luxuriantly-long, blood-red zoot suit jacket. I haven't shaved in weeks and I wish I wasn't wearing my glasses. I feel like the Bizarro Spider Jerusalem. I know I'd fuck me, but I'm freaky that way. Chris for once looks like he passed over Mr. Rogers' hall closet for his wardrobe and is at least wearing something I'd be caught dead in.

Upon entrance, Chris and I do a quick lay of the land. SPX is much bigger than it was five years ago. It now spills out of two large ballrooms into auxiliary halls. Five minutes in, Chris begins tugging on my arm. "Look," he coos, "It's Dorkin."

So it is. Surrounded by fans and accompanied as usual by Sarah Dyer of Action Girl, I caught sight of him as soon as we entered. But I can't bring myself to just run up to him and begin gushing. I know he's read my ode to him in the pages of SAVANT, so I've made my admiration for him public already. I'll catch him later when he's less swamped.

Chris and I opt to not hinder each other with our personal agendas, and agree to meet for lunch at 2 pm. It's difficult deciding whom I wish to chat up and entreat for personal authentication of their works, but I quickly decide upon Carla Speed McNeill of Finder. Contrary to her haggard appearance in CBR's San Diego photos, Carla seems younger than I expected and far more genial (probably since when I see her she's only thus far endured a single day of the con and hasn't had to weather the kleptomania of greasy fanboys who've never heard of her fantastic series). As Carla has on rare occasion been spotted on the Ellis forum, I use that as our common ground while she signs each issue of Finder.

"I'm also here as a representative of SAVANT," I offer.

"Oh yeah," she replies. "I think I've seen it a few times. I really have to check on it more often. What's the URL?"

I tell her I owe her an e-mail anyway and I'll send her the address then. We talk for a while about how much the SPX has grown since its inception, how to motivate oneself to work on one's ideas (my greatest obstacle), the crucial comics that made us each realize the potential of the form (hers was Cerebus; mine was, of course, Milk & Cheese), making ends meet financially and whether she'll be attending Ellis' appearance in NYC on September 30.

"Shit," she says, "I really need to finish up Finder #19, so probably not. Next time, I guess."

Carla asks to see my sketchbook. Of all the times not to have it on me! I say I think I'll be coming back Sunday morning for the Small Press Summit and I'll bring it then. As I'm ready to move on, she says, "I'll remember you for your awesome jacket and these prayer beads! You've got a great sense of color."

I'm too sexy for my beads...

I'm waiting, ohhh GOD, am I trying to hold off on that first comic purchase. I just know that once I do I'll be a goner for the rest of the day, trying to show the love as widely as possible, splitting my funds between the established and the upcoming, until my wallet is empty and my bag explodes with comics, killing scores of Guatemalan peasants. More than once I tell people that I'll be swinging back past their booth later to purchase something, and most of the time I'm not even using that as an excuse when I'm duly unimpressed with what's offered. I'm really impressed. Even with the broader floor at WizardWorld 1999, I wasn't as almost universally floored by the product selection as I am at this humble expo. O Little Con of Be-thes-daaa...

I run into Chris in front of Bob Fingerman's table; with the acclaim his colleagues like Dorkin and Kyle Baker have found in the last several years, there is no good reason that doesn't involve Satanic powers why Fingerman should still be an unexploited source of creativity. I might have first found Fingerman's work in 2099 Unlimited in two stories starring the "R-Gang", a futuristic send-up of The Little Rascals, during my last period of regular Marvel patronage, though as I pointed out to him his work appears unexpectedly in such a variety of sources that it well could have been earlier than that without my knowing. When I hand him a copy of 2099 Unlimited #2 to sign, he starts laughing.

"What is it?" I ask.

"Oh, it's just that the complementary copy of this issue I received from Marvel reprinted the first three pages over and over, so I don't actually have a copy of this story in print." I was so tempted to offer him my copy, but I doubt that issue is terribly difficult to obtain if he really wanted it, and he'd already signed it by then.

Bob eyes the cover to 2099 Unlimited #9. "I think this has to be one of the ugliest comic covers I've ever seen. Look at it! Spidey looks like his ass is stuck to that wall. And what's this shit over on the side?"

"Uh, smoke?"

"Nope, it's crappy computer coloring done right after it started being used everywhere in comics. Done for no better reason than because they could, in theory. Just not done well."

Bob is so cool he inspires me to buy his new one-shot Monkey Jank and the first Minimum Wage collection, his semi-autobiographical series following a suspiciously familiar cartoonist named Rob Hoffman. Bob sketches a doodle of his avatar Rob on the front page of the collection. The genie is out of the bottle. Fingerman has made me spend.

It is at this point that Chris and I go looking for edibles, though at the exact same moment the sky has opened up and is taking an enormous piss on us. The nearest food dispensary outside the hotel is a Chinese takeout place. While I'm waiting on my Sesame Chicken a group of people also from the SPX comes in. Noticing that some of the non-exhibiting guests have entered their credentials as retailers or what-not into the space on their passes, I write my name and "columnist, SAVANT" on mine. Chris begins to do likewise until I remind him he has no credentials.

All of a sudden one of the other SPX attendees wheels around and exclaims, "You're from SAVANT? Cool! I didn't know any of the SAVANTs would be here!"

I'm too sexy for my magazine...

It turns out to be Christopher Butcher, the editor-in-chief from PopImage. With him are reporters from The Slush Factory and other online magazines. I try avoiding the question of whether I'm as versed with their fine sites as they are with mine.

"Did Wizard send anyone?" I ask, half-expecting the answer. A pause, and then everyone laughs. Wizard has in the past done features on SPX when it was a fringe curiosity; today, with what SPX represents and what Wizard represents, I'm certain Wizard wishes SPX would go back to being a mere blip on the comic-reading community's radar.

"Jonah Weiland and Augie deBlieck are around," Butcher mentions.

"Really?" another reporter asks. "I don't even know what Augie looks like."

I take off my glasses and put them on Chris' hopelessly blonde face. "Kind of like that."

Butcher laughs. "But shorter." I push down on Chris' head to complete the effect.

I would never actually run into Augie that day; it would seem the man who devoted days of his life and weeks of column space, not to mention rolls of embarrassing pictures, to San Diego only deemed SPX important enough to stay for a couple hours before running off to play tourist in D.C. Then he devoted only half a "Pipeline" to chronicling the event. Initially, upon learning this, I was offended, but that's given way to more of a sense of pity. Not as condescending as that which I have for Wizard and WizardWorld, but palpable nonetheless. Maybe it was pity on Jonah's behalf. Who can say?

Butcher, Chris, the other reporters and I sit in the lobby of the hotel eating our Chinese food and name-dropping who we've had personal encounters with in the industry: Butcher talks of drinking with Garth Ennis and Chris and I speak of Morrison's drunken address at Disinfo.con2000 while he was coming up on something or other. I feel a nice sense of camaraderie and reserved confidence in this lot, an unspoken awareness that our focus and approach to covering the industry and the artform is the right one and that people are coming around to it. After about an hour of shooting the shit, it's back into the fray.

I find myself on my knees in front of Bill Griffith and Charles Burns' table, not because I'm prostrating before them but because I'm frantically digging through my overstuffed bag to find the couple items by each I have with me for them to sign. While doing so, I inform "Griffy" that my earliest exposure to his work was through his, Mavrides', Spiegelman's and others' Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids cards from Topps.

"It's a funny thing," Bill says, "When we first did Wacky Packages I did a card spoofing KFC called 'Kentucky Fried Fingers.' These things turned up on the windows of KFCs around the country so much that we nearly got sued. We settled by recalling all of those stickers." I also mention that I own a book he provided illustrations for called The Couch Potato's Guide to Life. Griffith seems confused at that. "That wasn't really mine," he says. "That book was written by my friends."

"I remember that," I say. "But you did illustrate it."

Griffith seems embarrassed for some reason. "Oh, not all of it..."

Burns interrupts. "Bill, have you gotten a bunch of people running up to you and yelling, 'Are we having fun yet?'"

"Thankfully not as much as I fear, but yeah. After a while it gets really annoying. Yeah, I know, I wrote it, thank you."

"I refused to be one of those people," I offer.

Bill squints at me. "Yeah, you didn't look like that type."

What I don't tell him is that I plan to run up to James O'Barr and, on news that the rapper DMX will star in the yet unproduced fourth Crow film (while the third is probably going straight to video), start yelling, "Y'ALL GONNA MAKE ME LOSE MAH MIND!!!" A good thing, perhaps, that I never find O'Barr.

I turn to Burns. "You know, at SAVANT, we've inducted Black Hole into our Essential pantheon."

"You did? Well, thank you." He looks again at my credentials. "I'll have to check that out."

One bit of embarrassment for me: At the Fantagraphics booth stands a man with a gray beard, and I know right away I should have some clue who he is. A little too demonstratively I lean over to look at his nametag. "Sooo, let's see who you are... ah! Kim Thompson! Hi, my name's Ken Applebaum, and I'm a columnist with an online magazine called SAVANT."

"I've not seen it yet. I think I may have heard of it."

"Oh. Well, that's quite all right; we're still pretty new. I'm sorry to say I don't own any of your work."

Seeing as Kim Thompson is co-publisher with Gary Groth of the entire Fantagraphics line, saying I didn't have anything of his probably painted me as the most uncultured schmuck possible in regards to comics. His expression would seem to have reflected that reaction, despite my subsequent attempts to save face ("Er, that is, I've read plenty of it in the past, though right this moment I can't think of a single one, uh..." [cue Chris Farley-like self-abuse]). My error? I'm confusing him with Kim DIETCH. The name "Kim" is rare enough in men; why did two of them have to end up at the same arty publisher?!? I immediately purchase some more Fingerman as a show of good faith and scurry off, probably for fear of some chastisement of this magazine in a future edition of the Journal.

There are quite a few new discoveries I make at SPX that you should all be on the lookout for, or, better yet, instructing your LCS to order for you. Emphatic thumbs up go to Jeff Nicholson, probably best known for Ultra-Klutz (a parody of UltraMan) and Father & Son, for his current project, Colonia. He describes it to me as "mythology set in the New World." Without revealing too much, a boy named Jack and his two uncles find themselves shunted to an alternate reality wherein the Americas are collectively known as Colonia, the Scandinavians and pirates have dominance over the hemisphere, sophistication is at a pre-Industrial Revolution level and, oh yeah, animals talk. With my aversion to birds (they are, after all, what became of the dinosaurs), if a flying rat the uneducated call a "pigeon" ever approached me cooing, "Some for me? Some for me?" I'd jump out of my skin. (Later I'd laugh my ass off, once my ass catches up to me.) Jeff is kind enough to give me a great deal and throw in some of his older work, which is far more cartoonish and gag-oriented.

Right next to him is Tom Beland, author of the strip True Stories (Swear To God). If any small press mini-comic should be able to bridge the gap between comic aficionados and the uninitiated, it's this book (my sister has already put in her order for all six issues to date). His style is loose and nicely cartoonish without being Disneyfied, and his topics are mature while appropriate for all ages (the strip is syndicated in a number of papers). Tom discusses in some detail some of his innermost feelings (he frequently gushes about his girlfriend, a radio journalist from Puerto Rico) and delicate issues from his past (such as both his parents dying of cancer within several years of each other while he was in high school). This book pleases me so.

Another excellent mini-comic I pick up was Super Monster #12 by Kevin Huizenga. Ranging in topics from his mother's illness to elderly neighbors, from dadaist juxtapositions of cartoon pictures with random snippets from various publications to a melancholy wordless strip called "Wild Kingdom" portraying a character's listless routine. The style is simple and clean in most places, nicely accented with halftones and should definitely go on a pull list in your better comic shops.

At one point, while scoping out the line to see Jeff Smith and deciding not to brave it, I stumble onto the table for Aweful Books' Jasen Lex and Dick Troutman, both attired in snappy yellow jumpsuits.

"Holy shit, it's SAVANT!"

"Holy shit, it is!" I reply. "Where do I know your names from?"

"I dunno," Jasen says. "Are you on the Ellis forum?"

"Yeah!"

Suddenly they start shoving books into my hands. "Here!" Dick says. "This is my book, Outfitters, and here's Jasen's, The Gypsy Lounge. We said that if anyone from the Ellis forum or SAVANT came by they'd get free books, and you're from both!"

Yes, folks, we are not above bribery here at SAVANT. Want a positive review? Give us free shit! If Wizard does it as a standard of practice, it MUST be ethical journalism, right? In all seriousness, I have almost nothing bad to say about these two titles. Outfitters is cinematic, has as good dialogue as anything you'd expect from Bendis, believable characters and not a stitch of spandex. Gypsy Lounge's major flaw is that it's over-produced; some of the Photoshopped enhancements detract from the gorgeous artwork, and the black, unusual word balloons are sometimes oddly placed or blend into dark backgrounds.

Nonetheless, this is definitely hip, urban flava, kinetic action and flickers of 21st century cyberpunk in the vein of Channel Zero. Find these books. Find them now.

Much praise has been heaped upon Monkey Suit and its new sequel, Bride of Monkey Suit, and I will add to that pile. Anthologies such as these should be the rule and not the exception. All contributors have worked in animation, and it shows in a number of the stories, including "Rex Steele" by Bill Pressing (I want to see a Tom Strong special showcasing his talents) and "Kamikaze Joe" by Miguel Martinez-Joffre (whose style reminds me of Gary Fields). Miguel is such an emphatic pitchman that despite my "I'll be back later" blow-off I actually come back! Other selections of note are "I, God" in Bride by Prentis Rollins (whose style is like the best manga you could find), "Profiles In Tenacity" from the original by Ben Edlund (yes, THAT Ben Edlund), Johnathan Royce's "Keef and Bruno" strips in both (I'd watch a cartoon of these characters religiously) and, and, and so much quality I can't list them all since this report is already far too long. Just buy the fuckers, if for no better reason that every one of the contributors I meet are disgustingly attractive people.

Speaking of disgusting, a mini-comic that is definitely not for the squeamish is Dale Rawlings' Artichoke. A warning: Don't read it while moving your bowels. That's all I can say without inducing vomiting. A single random page makes me compulsively buy this book. Fine artwork, though you may be sorry for the clarity thereof.

Nemii by Anibal Marin is an unusual book with an odd style and format, and I look forward to future installments, as Marin obviously is excited by this idea, evidenced when he thrusts a pin-up and other promotional materials into my hands. It is a bit convoluted in layout and border art, and the characters seem capable of a limited set of expressions, but if those issues are resolved I see no good reason in a sane world why Nemii himself shouldn't be emblazoned on lunchboxes and be in every child's bed in stuffed animal form.

A book anyone who enjoys comic history should be carving a bloody swath through the mindless throng to reach Thomas Scioli's Xeric Grant-winning homage to Jack Kirby, The Myth of 8-Opus. Reminiscent of New Gods without being an outright ripoff, the artwork absolutely crackles with bold, dynamic shadows and forms. Unfortunately I don't linger long enough in front of Scioli's table before I buy a copy of #1 to make much of a connection with him, but the art is so compelling and so like The King's that I've since tracked down #2, and if you've a brain in your heads you will as well. I'm a little disappointed that with #3 the price is going up from $2 to $2.75 and that the art is going to have gray- shaded gradients. It's quite good as it is with just the line art, but you should pick it up yourselves to judge whether it's lost any of its punch.

I've avoided it so as not to be thought a drooling obsessive, but the end of the merchandising segment of the Expo is growing nigh, and if there was anyone I came to SPX to see five years ago that I'm here to see today, it could only be Evan Dorkin.

As I'm waiting in line to see Evan I eavesdrop on Ariel Schrag and her cousins. Sad to say it would seem years in the industry have driven her quite mad, as she and her kin were incessantly singing some song involving "yummying on down" (which according to The Bloodhound Gang is a colorful term for oral sex) and Super Mario Bros. 3. So sad. I get to the front, and there he is: unshaven, bespectacled, short brown hair, semitic, about my height, dressed almost entirely in black except... for touches... of... red...

GAH!

I pray he doesn't think I dressed like him on purpose. Or maybe he dressed like me. The last time I saw him I had long hair and was clean-shaven and dressed like a freak. Either he's gotten freakier, or, more likely, I've read him long enough that in some way I truly have turned out as his hatechild. I think I'll keep that to myself.

"Hey, Evan. Ken Applebaum from SAVANT."

"Hey, how are you?"

"Getting a hernia, but otherwise swell. How's the expo been treating you?"

"Can't complain."

This startles me: Evan Dorkin can't complain? Five years ago he ranted about how he wanted to start a charity to kick the shit out of Sally Struthers. Is the therapy actually working? I realize that Schrag's dementia could be the result of a contagious brain fever, and it's taken hold of Evan's mind. And sweet Lordy, I just touched his hand! I start to retreat under the table towards my bag; if need be I can dump out its contents and put it over my head as a filter for the air. I've been silent too long; best to distract him and put a barrier between his airspace and mine.

"So Evan, are you up for a few signatures?"

"What the hell. You can just put them--"

THUNK! I slap a veritable mountain of Dorkin essentials on the table in front of me; if nothing else, the plastic bags should keep a sterile shield from this virus.

"Would you mind taking those out of the bags?"

Blast him! He's too smart for me! I begin hurriedly removing all contents from their respective bags while the line of future brain fever carriers grows behind me. Evan gets to work. At one point he stops, lingering over a spread in one of the latter issues of Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book, then, shaking his head and chuckling to himself, he moves on.

As I'm furiously working to debag and re-bag, he occasionally would signs an issue of someone's behind me in line who only had a couple of items. He finally turns to Sarah and says, "Look, Sweetie, he's got everything I've ever done."

"Not quite," I correct him, knowing full well he's exaggerating. "You might appreciate this: About two years ago, I was living off-campus in my college town in Wisconsin, and my roommate at the time let this local punk kid and his knocked-up girlfriend stay with us for a few days, eat our food, all that bullshit. And when I say this kid was punk, I mean he had the mohawk, wore leather, shot up smack (as, I suspect, did his chickie) and thought he was Sid Vicious' illegitimate child."

"Oh God."

"So since I associate some of your work with the punk and ska scene, I showed him my complete run of Milk & Cheese. A later printing of #1, but everything else was first printing. Not thinking, I told him what they were worth, not because I thought of them in such terms, but because I thought it was ironic considering that I'd never sell them."

"And he stole them."

"No shit he stole them. Next time I went looking for them, no M&C. I told my roommate about this, but he didn't believe me, though he did believe this kid stole a spiked collar from him. Pissed me off more that he'd stolen these books I'd had for years than that they were worth any money. So but for that and perhaps a couple other things here and there, I have your entire catalogue."

"Same thing happened to me. I think it was in one of my first apartments, my friend had a huge record collection he kept in the garage, maybe about 2000 separate LPs."

"Holy shit."

"And the landlord's kid made off with the entire thing, plus I think some comics of mine and some other stuff, too."

"People suck."

I hung around Evan and Sarah's table a little longer. I feel like a schmuck every time I see Sarah, since I don't own any Action Girl, and yet I'm such an outright fanatic about her boyfriend's work. It's one of those books you know you should be reading, and yet the new, shiney books catch your eye and once again you pass over it. Finally I say to Evan, "Are you guys going to be at the Ignatzes tonight?"

"Nah. We're going out to dinner right after this is done with."

"Doing anything specific afterwards? Can I at least treat you two to a drink?"

"You've already bought everything I've ever done; I can afford to buy my own drinks!"

"OK then, how about just meeting for drinks?"

"I'll let you know. I drank quite a bit last night for the first time since I was sick a couple months ago. Plus I've been trying to get into better shape; I've cut back on the alcohol to cut out some calories, and I've even been going to the gym."

Dorkin is pumping iron?! I realize Evan is the true carrier of the brain-fever. I suddenly feel like an incredible slug, but a slug who's slowly backing away from his table. "Will you be around?" he asks me.

In truth I think Chris and I had discussed maybe going back to Katja and Floyd's and dropping off our bags, but despite that I answer, "Sure! Just look for me in the lobby."

I stumble away in a fog. Am I going to have drinks with Evan and Sarah? My feet don't touch the ground for a while, and when they do again I've found Chris in front of "Roarin'" Rick Vietch's table, just as he's informing some chap that he's far too tired to do any further sketches today.

I make my introduction to Rick and ask if he's too tired to do some signatures, which he is not. I produce copies of 1963, Rare Bit Fiends and Tomorrow Stories, and I purchase the Rabid Eye collection of Rare Bit Fiends to sweeten the pot (so to speak). It works; Rick doodles himself asleep on the front page while Chris and I compliment him on his mastery of the Eisner style in his and Alan Moore's homage to The Spirit and The Shadow in the form of Greyshirt. We top off this butt-kiss sundae by declaring ourselves regulars on the www.comicon.com bulletin board (even though neither of us have spent much time there since discovering the Ellis forum).

"Really?" Rick says. "Then you should also tell that to Steve."

Steve? Steve! Steve Conley of Astounding Space Thrills is sitting right next to Rick the whole time. Of course they should be adjacent; they're partners on comicon.com. I guess I'd always imagined Steve older; instead, he has a very youthful face. A little sheepishly I admit to Steve that my collection is in so many pieces right now that I forgot to pull out the few issues of his fun space adventure book that I own, but I do him right by purchasing issues I don't have. (At least I think I don't have them; later perusal of my collection reveals that one of the copies I bought I'd already purchased. Stupid, stupid rat creature.) Right next to Steve is Marty Bauman, the creator of The Crater Kid, a backup feature in AST and a star of his own daily online strip like AST's Argosy Smith. I'd have liked to have bought a t-shirt from Steve resembling Argosy's, but the couple he had left were not in my style. At some point I must remember to order a properly-sized one from the back of an ish of AST.

Now the ballrooms are being stripped of their hucksterist accoutrements, and Chris and I lounge exhaustedly in the lobby of the hotel, reading our acquisitions, doing some sketches and deciding our next move. I'm happy with everyone I've gotten to speak with during the day, though there are so many I never found: Marc Hempel, James O'Barr, Mark Wheatley, Scott McCloud

Hey! Scott McCloud is right over there! And who's he speaking with? Ah, there's Carla Speed McNeil, but who...

...oh my God. It's Will Eisner.

If I get up onto my aching feet right now and walk over there, I can talk to both Scott McCloud and Will Eisner at the same time. Get up. Get up now. GET UP!

I get up, and slowly, casually, stroll over. Carla seems to break from the group just as I'm approaching, and touches me familiarly on the shoulder as we pass (or maybe she's just feeling the material of my jacket), but I hardly notice. I insinuate myself into their conversation as gently as I can so that it's just me, Scott and Will.

("Will"? Impudent whelp! Call him MISTER Eisner!)

"Gentlemen," I begin, "I never had a chance to find either of you upstairs, and I just wanted to say how glad I am to see both of you here today."

"Well, thank you," Eisner says.

"No, thank you." I'm outrightly kissing ass now. A small, erudite section of my brain screams at me that I shouldn't be this ingratiating to complete strangers. I ignore it. "Now Scott, I'm not going to make you sign anything."

"Oh, God, thank you."

I remind Scott that we'd corresponded via e-mail about a year ago when I won one week's panel on the "Choose Your Own Carl" section of his website, and I'd asked him if I could now put on my resume that Scott McCloud had drawn something I wrote. "Yeah, that was real cute," Scott recalls.

"And I just wanted to express what's probably been expressed to you thousands of times before, which is that Understanding Comics was one of the most important things I've ever read, and Reinventing Comics was important in the sense that all those ideas needed to be collected into one place."

Before Scott would feel the need to thank me for pointing out the obvious, I turn to Eisner. "And You... you just make this all possible. Without Comic and Sequential Art there might not have been Understanding Comics, and without everything else you've done there might be no future to this industry at this point. Especially as a third generation New Yorker, I found your books like Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood to be wonderful cultural histories."

Eisner puffs himself up a little. "As long as there are miserable Jews, I can keep writing about them."

We all laugh. "Well, I'll do my part to keep Semitics in the industry. I think in the younger scene Evan Dorkin has a monopoly on the 'miserable Jew' demographic."

"Huh?" Eisner asks. "Ben Katchor?"

"No, Will," Scott says, "Evan Dorkin."

"Evan Dorkin has created his own demographic," proclaims Eisner, "so he's the best in it." I can't contain myself any longer. "You know," I say, "this is such a thrill for me to be able to speak with the two of you together, especially since I used both Understanding Comics and Comics and Sequential Art as texts in a class on comic semiotics I taught at my college about a year and half ago."

"Really?" Eisner asks. "Where was that?"

"Beloit College in Wisconsin."

"Ah, yes," Eisner says, either recalling the name or humoring me. "You know, I think there's a count of maybe 80 different courses on comics at different colleges and universities around the country now. That's wonderful to see. Scott and I have become like the New and Old Testaments of comic study."

We laugh. "And that works perfectly," Scott adds, "because I'm a goy."

We laugh harder. Around now Chris gets up his gumption and wanders over. I introduce him to them, shake both McCloud and Eisner's hands again and return to a couch while Chris has his way with them. I don't know how long he speaks to the two of them, as I'm enveloped in an airy bubble of contentment. Ahhh... so sexy it hurts...

After a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant, Chris and I head upstairs to the Ignatz ceremony, hosted by Chris Staros. As we're settling in, a woman plops herself down next to me and begins talking up a storm. It soon becomes apparent that she's more than a little tipsy, but that in itself isn't necessarily bad. What's worrisome is that it actually increases in density and volume as the Ignatzes begin, heckling and talking trash about some of the nominees. More than once I hope no one thinks I'm with her.

Eisner is the keynote speaker; his appearance is greeted by a thunderous standing ovation. While his remarks are brief and perhaps perfunctory, just to have his presence and blessing at this little expo which would appear to be less consequential to the outside world than San Diego or Chicago or even Ohio is absolutely electrifying the audience. He doesn't even have an award named after him at this gig! You can feel the positive energy rippling over all assembled.

As different nominees are announced and displayed on the screen, the woman next to me gets more raucous, shouting out rude comments about Diamond, the tendency for the mysteriously missing James Kochalka and smaller upstart publishers' tendency to imitate the Fantagraphics catalogue. At one point, she sees one nominated book and turns to me, slurring, "I don't remember seeing that book! I'm one of the judges, and I was supposed to see everything nominated, but I don't think I ever got sent that one!" I suddenly become just a little bit more nervous.

The ceremony is nearly done, and I've not yet been vomited upon by my inebriated neighbor, when they get to the final category, which is best new comic debuting at the expo. The list is a good fifty titles long; I wonder whether they might make the category more specific next year. The winner, surprise surprise, is Evan Dorkin's Dork #8. Damn, I think, Evan's going to be smacking himself for missing this...

And there he is, trotting down the middle aisle to go claim his brick. Everyone's braced for another Dorkin surly ramble but what's this? He's upbeat! He's positive! He's grateful! He qualifies it by noting the mundane construction of the award ("They didn't even take a Bedazzler to this thing...") and faces the reality that this award is more for Dork #7 than this book which probably no one has had a chance to read yet, but HOLY SHIT if for the first time in years he actually seems hopeful about the future of the industry.

This is a scoop from SAVANT, everyone: Evan Dorkin has been body-snatched. At the end of the ceremony, my sloshy neighbor gets up, and before departing says to me, "Whooo, guess those margaritas really did a number on me. You don't realize how strong they are, but WOW!" And with that, she staggers off.

I turn on Chris. "Who the fuck was that?"

"Donna Barr."

"Who?"

"She does Desert Peach. She was one of the judges for the Ignatzes. Guess she was in a celebratory mood."

As we are preparing to depart Bethesda that evening, not to return the next morning due to fatigue and convenience, we take one long last tour among the people: men, women (yes, women!), kids, creators, fans, serious journalists, all sharing a drink and laughing and generally sharing Evan's optimism at long last that the next phase has begun. Chris and I swear this is going to become an annual ritual for us, and those of you who care about the future of this artform should consider it you pilgrimage to Mecca or however you prefer to think of it. While the faith is failing in San Diego and the monstrosity that Chicago has become, while the attendances are dwindling along with the profits, as publishers withdraw from exhibiting and those without exposure are ghettoized in dark corners, there is a place where the simple joy of creating and reading comics about every topic under the sun is put on a pedestal, and those who have lost their faith find it again, and if you are not going to SPX out of a sense of duty as a comic reader then

     YOU

          ARE

               MISSING IT.

Before I leave, I seek out Dorkin once more. He'd told me earlier that he'd probably be doing a signing at Jim Hanley's Universe, where he once lived and worked for making his name, in Manhattan sometime in November, so I say to him, "I guess I'll have to buy you that congratulatory drink when I see you at Hanley's."

Evan looked mildly annoyed. "I told you, don't buy me drinks. If you like my books, buy them; if you don't like 'em, buy someone else's."

Not wishing to leave on a sour note, I assure him, "I've liked your books for nine years now, Evan."

He pauses, then replies, "Huh. I've liked them for about three years. See you in November, Ken." On the train ride back to Manhattan on Saturday, I am alone. Chris is staying in Washington until Tuesday, then going back up to Massachusetts. To pass the time, I'm thumbing through my new acquisitions when I come to my copy of Hectic Planet: Dim Future by Dorkin. Inside, I find that he's drawn a picture of his character Blue, accompanied with the message:

"To Ken, "Best from The Worst, "Evan Dorkin, SPX 2000"

Maybe he writes that to everyone. I don't care. I re-read the entire series all the way back to New York.