Coast-to-Coast Comicdom: Sweating the Southwest
Illustration by Monica Meehan |
Santa Fe, NM
The night I arrived in Santa Fe, Bram and Monica Meehan took me out for New Mexican food. Carne Adovada. I got it with the red chiles and I sweated through the entire meal. I love spicy foods (I got that from my mom), but I sweat when I eat something with pepper on it (I got that from my dad). I went through a stack of napkins, trying to keep the sweat out of my eyes.
The Meehans were two of the founding members of the DC Conspiracy. Several years ago they decided to move out to Santa Fe, NM. They instantly fell in with a local group of comics creators called 7000BC. Just like the DC Conspiracy, 7000BC meets once a month to drink and draw. They produce an anthology called String. The individual members have their own books representing a wide range of genres and styles. Unlike the DC Conspiracy, 7000BC doesn’t have the benefit of having four major comic shows within a four-hour drive. We have the Small Press Expo up in Bethesda, Baltimore Comic-Con, MOCCA, and New York Comic-Con. These are easy shows for us to get to where we can network, distribute our books, and find collaborators for new projects. The comic book convention is a must for anyone trying to take their comics to the next level. And while 7000BC has been represented at Phoenix Cactus Comic-Con, STAPLE (in Austin), Wizard World Chicago, and SPACE (in Columbus), they’re done. No more conventions this year. The Meehans weren’t even sure what next year looks like, given the rising cost of travel.
I think the uncertainty of where they’ll be going next guided the discussion we had over breakfast. It was me, the Meehans, artist Jamie Chase, and True Believers co-owner and manager Kevin Drennan. Our conversation primarily dealt with what 7000BC (and True Believers) can do in order to ignite their local scene. Santa Fe is the third largest art market in the world. You can’t turn a corner without seeing a couple of studios, and a year-round snapshot of the demographic seems to be 50 percent artists and 50 percent tourists. It would seem logical, to me, that this crowd can really dig the more literary-minded comics 7000BC puts together and any shop in the area should see copies of Mome, Kramer’s Ergot, and The Rabbi’s Cat flying off of their shelves. But neither of those things seems to be the case, and we spent our morning trying to get to the root of why that is.
Awareness is a big issue. The artists in Santa Fe seem to be a bit on the older side. Comics, to some of them, could still be about big boobs and x-treme fights (don’t get me wrong, I like big boobs and x-treme fights in some of my comics, especially when they’re combined). But do these people know about David B.’s autobiography, Epileptic? Probably not. We talked about several ways to promote literary comics amongst the community, including a festival, some ink in their alt-weeklies, and cartooning gallery shows. It seems like the folks from Santa Fe might be experimenting with several of those ideas, and I’m very excited to see how they turn out.
Yaoi Manga only sold to people 18 and older, at True Believers in Santa Fe. |
Yaoi (sort of pronounced Yowee) are boy-boy love comics from Japan. They are a tremendous category right now. Eighty-five percent of their massive audience consists solely of teenage females. I know, “Yowee.” But those are the numbers, that’s the way it goes. If you commit to selling Yaoi in your store you’re committing to servicing a huge female teenager population. And I just found it strange that they weren’t for sale to teens. On a follow-up email, Kevin told me the stuff they had was 18+ but they’re getting some 16+ stuff in with their next order. I hope they sell it; otherwise I’ll look like an ass.
After the True Believers tour we went to the Comic Art Indigene exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. This was a fantastic exhibit (with design work done by Monica Meehan) that studied the influence of Native American art on comics as well as the influence of comics on modern Native American artists.
 Andy Kuhn's comic library in Albuquerque, NM. |
Albuquerque, NM
Dinner with Andy Kuhn and his wife. I love Andy, he’s a great guy, but I was nervous to see him. Andy is one of the cartoonists attached to the second volume of Postcards, my anthology that’s sort of in limbo at the moment. And, sure enough, the status of the book is one of the first things he asked me about.
After I gave him some info we got to talking about his involvement with other local cartoonists and local comic shops. Andy seems to help folks from Albuquerque get into comics, bringing Bill Crabtree on to color Firebreather (and he went on to color several books) and helping Paul Ziomek with his cartooning in exchange for web assistance. As far as shops go, when he first moved into town he did signings at some of the local shops, but that’s died down a bit in recent years. I should also point out that Andy is an avid…f’ that….voracious comic reader. His library made me jealous and he seems to read all types of comics, from capes to dada.
Flagstaff, AZ
Flagstaff was gorgeous and, like Santa Fe, has a large artist population. Unlike Santa Fe, it doesn’t have a single comic shop. I met with cartoonist Eric Young, who used to manage the only comic shop in Flagstaff, and he says the shop owner’s resistance to alternative comics and apparent obsession with Glen Danzig (who had his own comic line once-upon-a-sad-time) was what caused the shop to fail.
Eric showed me a bunch of his self-published comics and zines. He used to do a strip for the local alt-weekly called Zygote’s Fables until the publisher realized it was a bit too racy for the audience reading the paper. He hasn’t been doing much lately, but he wants to get back into the zine scene. Our conversation seemed to turn towards me proving that I know nothing about the current zine scene.
After chatting with Eric, we met up with his friend Max, a cartoonist who has yet to show anyone his cartoons; he doesn’t feel they’re ready yet. That blows my mind, since he studied under Ivan Brunetti, so they can’t be that bad!
Phoenix, AZ
Oops! Several of my appointments in Phoenix were canceled since folks were already leaving for San Diego. I was going to stop by some of the shops, but after a four-hour hike at the Grand Canyon, a visit to Flintstone’s Bedrock City, and getting lost in Sedona, I got to Phoenix too late and decided to shoot straight through to Yuma. I honestly have a ton of raw data already, anyway, and after hearing everyone in Flagstaff refer to Phoenix as “The asshole of Arizona,” I can’t say I regret skipping it. Flintstone’s Bedrock City is kind of comic related, so I didn’t completely avoid my responsibility.
Yuma, AZ
I got a phone call in the morning telling me my dad went into emergency surgery. I know, I know, I’m a Debbie Downer but I just wanted to say – nothing worse than getting that call at the end of a nine-day road trip, in the middle of the desert with no airports around. I skipped visiting Yuma shops, figuring they’d mainly be gaming shops anyway, and headed straight to San Diego. He’s alright, out-patient stuff, and I’m ready as I’m going to be for the convention.
Some theories I’m working on: I’m starting to think about a new role the comic creator can play with the local shop. Relationships where they help each other realize the full potential of what the community wants. I feel like everything’s dovetailing now. I’m seeing a story.
Road-trip tip: Driving 3,311 miles barefoot will make the bottoms of your feet transform into the most disgusting excuse for flesh imaginable. I hate to admit it, but I’m going to need a pedicure or something.
Energy level: After a little dip, I’m ready for the show.
-Jason Rodriguez