So it's a retelling of OEDIPUS REX with gangsters starring a guy named Eddie?

We may not be Vertigo, but heck, we have one of those! NUMBERS: A Tale of Shades and Angels by John Ira Thomas and Jeremy Smith is the tale of Eddie Foote, a gangster playing a dead pool that turns on him. He's got a bonebreaking psychopath on one side, a frail mother who holds a strange power over him on another, and a bunch of people laying down money that he'll be dead in a couple days to fill in any escape routes. It came out in 2003 but is still in print and you can get it lots of places online.

A Second-hand SPROCKET Review

The first supercolossal Candle Light Press maga-jam book SPROCKET: Gaps In Film (available in our store, hint hint) had it's first review from CLP friend (and author of the great foreword in ZOO FORCE: We Heart Libraries) Brian McNeil. He had a bad run-in with a cat last week (only scratches, so we know it wasn't the good Captain...) and now his arm looks like a human one only bigger. They didn't stitch him up at first to let the goo run out, but the goo kept coming.

He told me this while were in the concessions line before seeing THE HANGOVER together. "Get your own popcorn," he says. "I'm oozing pus." Anyways he decides he'll go to the ER after the movie to have them take another look. Before he goes, I give him a copy of SPROCKET to pass the time in the ER. You only think you've waited for stuff if you've never been to the Emergency Room.

About 10pm he left a message on my phone. He'd read SPROCKET and it had him crying laughing in the waiting room. The story of the Questoleros in particular, he said, drew the best response and had people looking at him for a while there.

So there you go--SPROCKET: Gaps In Film is funny enough to make you laugh even if you're in the ER with a mauled arm that's oozing pus. You're welcome.

--John

ZOO FORCE: We Heart Libraries Reviewed in June BOOKLIST

"Before Thomas and Smith's costumed crime fighters broke through in Shades and Angels, there was Zoo Force, the three previous collections of which this volume corrals sans the puzzles and coloring pages in their original editions. Those nuisances-for-libraries banished, what remains are the most outré comics this side of The Maxx."

No link, sorry, but Amazon usually get the full BOOKLIST reviews placed on books it lists, so you can watch this space for the whole deal to appear.

Nikki Harris Comic Book Bin review

"In spite of its digitally produced artwork, The Adventures of Nikki Harris is a throwback comic book. It is a self-contained, fight comics full of weird scenarios and kooky characters… and it leaves you wanting more. The fight scenes are reminiscent of the Steve Ditko Doctor Strange stories from Strange Tales."
Read it here.

And there is still no love for Marcus Wright at the Times Square TRU...

Been back from NYC and MoCCA for a couple of days now. Just now getting around to blogging about it.


The flight in Thursday was uneventful, although both JIT and myself arrived at almost the same time from two separate locations. Cabbed it to the Ramada Inn. Met up with Todd and Ede and then had dinner at Hill Country. The food was okay-to-decent, although I wouldn't value the ribs at $11.50 (although I think a certain K9 would disagree). Wrapped up by swinging by Forbidden Planet and got some comics.



Friday looked a little like the first part of the Day After Tomorrow. Rain, rain and more rain. Glad I picked up a cheap umbrella. Went to the Times Square TRU. Someone over at Playmates Toys is got to be sweating by now by the looks of the TONS of Terminator Salvation toys warming pegs. Terminator AIN'T for kids. Checked in at MoCCA HQ. Was missing a few letters on our badges (among other things). Had tacos at a place across the street from Toy Tokyo, Had a late lunch at a noodle house in Chinatown. Good food all around. Capped the evening off by catching a damn good show at the Slipper Room. Yes, I'm in love with Ms. Saturn. How could you not be? And then almost was accosted by some LI thugs Jimmy's BBQ near the hotel.

Saturday's weather was much nicer. After only a few hours of sleep (damn you STELLA), it was off to the show. Oh, the calamity! Not only were books late to getting to the show, but then the organizers decided to push back the opening of the show. I didn't hear any grumbling from the attendees (and bless you all for waiting an extra hour to get in), but it was probably not the best of ideas. Who knows. Met some nice folks. Had lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen. That night for dinner we ate at Vatan.






Sunday was better (and hotter) than Saturday. Sold more books. Met more interesting and nice people. Felt like there was more traffic. After a busy afternoon, the show came to a close. Spent the night having dinner at a Mexican Restaurant on the Lower East side and then a few beers at The Back Room. Thanks, Tim, for the hospitality.


All in all it was another great weekend in the Big City. Glad to be back home in Iowa. Thanks to Todd, Ede, the fine folks at the Slipper Room, all of the people that came to the show. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone or something. Maybe I'll get it done next year.

MoCCA Day Two and some conclusions

Sunday started out hot. Dog hot. And it stayed there. Getting into the venue was a new adventure today, as the assumption among the Armory staff was that nobody was to be let in until the show opened. Several groups of exhibitors cajoled and begged at all the doors until we were granted access at around 930 to put our displays back up and get ready for the day. There's something about having to explain yourself to a dude in a black-on-black suit with a white tie that makes you feel like you have a very small part in a very violent movie.

But we were prepared for it this time. Lots of water, frequent shift changes, and happy faces made the day work. Sales were much better today--emphasizing that SYPHILITIC COWBOYS #1, an 8x11 20-page full color album of mayhem, was only three dollars moved quite a few of them.

We talked with an interesting array of folks looking for stuff off the beaten path for this room. Even when you have an all indy experience, there are people still looking for more back paths to explore.

Afterwards we took in a great Mexican feast (enchiladas in pumpkin seed sauce and a sangria. Mmmm.) over in the East Village and thence to The Back Room. Our friend Todd is a friend of the proprietor and we got to look the place over a bit. It's a fantastic preservation/renovation of a real speakeasy (Lansky's) and sports old kinetiscopes and huge classic erotica paintings. The drinks were solid and delicious (served in tea cups, natch) and everyone was fantastic. After that, a quick revisit of the Slipper Room to say hi to Matt and the gang and off to bed by midnight, for we had the early flight.

In all, we always enjoy coming to New York, and we'll be back next year. I dropped off the CLP reservation form for a table next year at the exhibitors' table (hoping that come next year I won't have to begin the 2010 MoCCA experience by having to prove that I really did turn it in). I hope MoCCA sits back and takes a hard look at what went wrong this year; the protestations that this is run by volunteers doesn't really hold if you've been to the last few MoCCAs. They've been run just fine in the past; but a new venue means new problems and I get that.

Last year's fire drill was uncomfortable, but helpful volunteers were holding open the doors to provide a constant blast of conditioned air from inside to keep us from falling over. I didn't see the 08 show as problematic at any level. This one had more problems for exhibitors than fans (though standing in line out there Saturday morning can't have been fun), so the general weight of consensus on the 09 show may side with this being the better show than the 08. But the room was good and full most of the time, we sold some books, met some folks, and we go back to Iowa content.

Extra note to Iowans. Your Iowa Hawkeye gear has picked up new cultural significance in New York; don't sweat it. New York just found out how big our hearts are.

--John

(more pictures soon)

MoCCA Day 1

Last night we did our annual ritual of taking in an evening of burlesque at the Slipper Room. It was easily the best show we've seen in our time there, and that's saying something. It was The Hot Box's turn on the stage (Miss Saturn, Gigi La Femme, Queen LaQueefa, Ekaterina and Bunny Love), and they were fantastic! Miss Saturn works with Hula hoops, and when she took up an LED-lit hoop to (I think it was) "Electric Eye" by David Bowie, it was staggering. Ekaterina's take on a troubled contortionist was also a hoot. It really turned the day's events around for us.

Today, alas, started with some drama. The folks who came to check in this morning arrived to find their packages with table assignments and badges and wristbands not there. So exhibitors wait from about 9 to 10 am for those. It turns out we have another packet in this batch. After my emailed protests (also described in this blog), an effort was made to redo our badges. This is much better than the original response, to be sure; but the company name was still wrong. We'd done some surgery on our Candlelit Press badges last night, so we just tossed the new unimproved ones.
This year, for the first time, we participated in a deal where we pay 120 dollars to have MoCCA accept our UPSed books and deliver them to our table. The really big publishers do this as a matter of course, and we did it just to see if it was easier.When the posted show opening time of 11am came and went without our books, we knew we were in another mess. The organizers chose to keep the doors closed until the books finally arrived and were distributed. This was about an hour. They announced to us that they would keep the doors open until 7pm to compensate, but since nobody told the customers, business essentially dropped off shortly after 6 anyway.When the books came up the elevator, many exhibitors approached quickly and started hunting for their books. Volunteers kept asking us to wait for our books to be delivered to our tables, but that didn't hold.
We spotted our boxes, collected them, and set up. After that, the day perked up. We sold books, chatted folks up and went along pretty happily. That said, the new venue is a bit warm. Like the proverbial frog in a frying pan, before we knew it the place was roasting hot. With the extended hours, things got even steamier.
Above is Will, sketching. To his right is Joe, our excellent table-neighbor. Check out his stuff at dasbear.com
We're happy that after all this agitating that at least some effort was made to right things, but if the scuttlebutt we heard over lunch was right, the panels were pretty mixed up too. It's clearly a rebuilding year for the new MoCCA Art Fest. That said, the people are coming and we're doing our best to sell to them. Plus I need to photograph the urinals in the Armory. Some of them are insane.

--John