I went to Boston Comic Con this year thinking I’d walk around and talk to a few artists for three or four minutes and make a nice, snug little minicast. My plans changed quickly. There were so many great artists and writers, and people selling strange and wonderful work, that I wound up with about an hour or interview material. I learned a lot from these folks about the comics industry – what independent and self-published authors are up against, what an ambitious author can get done in three weeks sleeping just three hours a day, how cons can be a place where artists and writers find each other, and how the very nature of comic cons have changed drastically in a short time. David Petersen, creator of Mouseguard, put it in perspective when he said that comic cons used to be places to find the hard-to-find thing. Now you can find those things on comic book shop Web sites or EBay, so now the creators are the thing people are seeking out (well, that and a throng of incredibly well-designed and/or completely inappropriate costumes).
Petersen was first up, followed by doll-maker Jessica of Mystic Asylum, publisher and creator Tyler James of Comix Tribe, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Archie artist Erica Henderson, author and creator of the Seven Forges book series James A. Moore, elf-ear maker Lindsay of The Elven Caravan, artist and co-creator of Shutter Leila del Duca, artist and novelist Drew Blank, and one half of Sun Bros Studios Brad Sun.
It was amusing and enlightening talking to these folks, and I now have an even longer reading list to contend with. Enjoy the conversations, and support the work of these artists and writers!
