Welcome to New York

IF you can make it here, you’ll make it anywhere. New York’s original indie comics showstopper, MoCCA, has come and gone once again. As you almost certainly know by now, we’ve been co-steering this one for three years running under the warm and welcoming Society of Illustrators, who took over for the old Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art. Way back when, we dug ourselves a little hole, bitching and moaning about the declining fortunes of our fair city’s hometown hoedown. We volunteered to help if anyone ever wanted to let us inside, and, lo, our bluff was called. So how’re we driving?

The party started early for us on Thursday, which was the Society’s VIP night at their own glitzy digs. We probably spent a little too much time gazing at the downstairs gallery exhibit of Alt-Weekly Comics, and we feel safe saying that the microscopic patterns and textures in Mark Beyer‘s art serve as great evidence of his insanity. Upstairs, in the Society’s dining room, which someone like the Beat might call stately, we saddled up some signature cocktails and sliders. The bands played along while we caught up with Tucker Stone, flirted a bit with Keren Katz and cozied up to Leslie Anne MacKenzie Stein while staring in wonder at the Crumbs. We discussed our favorite kinds of drunks, the major categorical division being Defensive Drunks (“Bullshit, I didn’t do that!”) and Remorseful Drunks (“OMGZ, what did I do?”). Signature cocktails having signed our death warrants, and drunk on the evening’s glamour, we decided to pub crawl our way home. At least one of us woke up in a deluxe, crime syndicate townhouse surrounded by a pack of adorable dogs. Don’t worry, we couldn’t find our way back there if we tried. File us under Remorseful Drunks.

 

 

For once, we took advantage of the Friday early load-in, which meant that we were on time and fully recovered when the doors opened on Saturday. Going to MoCCA without a debut was tough, and we made it worse by not really having much of an artist schedule, either. The Jersey show, ECCC, as it’s currently known, divided a little bit of the day’s attention. Or so we thought. By the time Brendan Leach made it to the table, all actual MoCCA attendance records fell to pieces with over 5,000 guests wandering around Center 548. The space rocks. People complained about the stairs, which were overwhelmed by the traffic, for sure. MoCCA remains a little heavy on the Pikachu set, those exhibitors who exhibit the kind of Not Comics that one would expect of a show like APE. In these days of lotteries and curated everything, these guys looked like they crawled of 2003. The crowd changed a bit with the surroundings, though. They showed up later, they dressed better, more aligned to the folks at Brooklyn’s own CAB. They held on to their money a little tighter than we’re used to. Then again, we only had the classics to offer and the world loves a new kid.

 

 

We’ve talked a bit about the con economy on this blog before. But let’s go there again. MoCCA has the highest table cost of any show we attend at $460 per table. That’s a whole $110 above SPX and a whopping $64.50 above TCAF. TCAF costs attendees nothing. MoCCA is five bucks. SPX is three times that, asking a whole fifteen dollar bill of everyone coming through the door. They look alike from here. Or do they? Tony Breed, a Chicago guy and our RIPE neighbor of a couple weeks ago, came by and said the most interesting thing: his sales at CAKE were slow, but he makes more money at that show than at any other. This year, we brought home something less than half of our take from MoCCA 2014. We made money. We can’t not make money. We live here.

Our most expensive show, by far, is TCAF. Believe us, if we could afford to skip customs and ship our books to Canada, we sure as shit would. Depending on the exchange rate, food and shelter and gas, we need to clean up every year or we go broke. We’re pretty sure Annie Koyama is making more money at TCAF than she could at any other show and, at any other show, break-even has got to be way up there for Koyama Press. We’ve enjoyed a couple of years of making more money at TCAF than we have at MoCCA, but we took home less money every time. And we’re a publishing company, micro or no. If you’re an artist making mini-comics, you’re not making table at MoCCA without a gang to split costs – and profits – and if you can’t make it there, you’re not making it anywhere else, either. How much are you saving traveling to Toronto or booking a room at the SPX Marriott? If not for the money, why bother with shows at all? Do we really need to answer that question?

 

 

Speaking of Annie, she and her gang took our gang out to dinner on Saturday, because that’s how Annie does it. Ian Harker waited on us, saying smartass things, teasing us about desserts he wouldn’t give us, and reminding us, fondly, of ye olde TCJ message boards. We ran over to Bergen Street for some books, beer and bubbly, and a Bergen Street Amy sighting. Brendan pointed out that this was an entirely different crowd at Bergen, mostly people we’d never seen before in our lives. The weirdos multiply.

 

 

Sean Ford made his way to MoCCA on Sunday, Shadow Hills in hand. Having two of our gang at the table brought things to life a bit and let us sneak out for lunch with our VIP night flirtee, Keren Katz. The tales that woman tells. First, she’s an army vet, having run a runway or two for fighter jets. She bungee jumps to impress her dates. She wrangled a thousand escaped alligators. She holds more than a few passports. She may be a compulsive liar. We’re in love. And we’re heartbroken, too. For further evidence of New York’s devouring of it own soul, MoCCA finds itself homeless once again. (Unlike local deity Art Spiegelman who survived several attempts on his life over the weekend at the hands of an imaginary glass floor, his wife and her Jetta) Center 548 joins the ranks of Florent, Kim’s Video and Picturebox, going bye-bye. Yes, more condos. This city needs more condos like we need another round of gonorrhea. We’re bleeding friends here, as everyone who pretends to like us gets priced out to greener pastures. Someday, that’ll be us. Until then, we’ll keep cranking out comics that are probably too good to pay the rent.

 

 

Although a couple of our guys are blowing deadlines with gale force winds (not a good start for our new, grown up style distro), Robert Sergel has delivered unto us Eschew 4. We won’t be walking into TCAF unarmed, at least. We’ll return to remind you of all this before we head north of the border. See you on the other side.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

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