#spxhaul

SPX 2016 Haul Post

1. When I moved to Paris, there was never any doubt that I would be flying back for SPX as often as possible---ideally every year that I was granted a table. I've been working on a book for First Second, but since that won't be out for a while I put out a little knitting zine just to have something new to sell this year. To promote the book, I knit up a bunch of swatches for people to handle at my table---I thought this helped people get an idea of all the different possibilities knitting offers. How To Knit sold out really fast, but if you still want to get a copy there will be more for sale when I open my etsy shop back up in late November/early December. Anyone who follows me on twitter knows I'm very dissatisfied with the french knitting scene, so I was eager to visit the yarn stores I love in Baltimore. I picked up some new, hopefully plane friendly, knitting needles after United/Charles deGaulle Airport destroyed the ones I tried to bring (SOME knitting needles are fine, others aren't, and their policy is totally unclear) and two issues of Rowan magazine with some patterns I've been dying to try. I'm proud of myself for not buying more yarn, but I did cast on this sweater with the yarn I'd brought with me. I was grateful to be able to work on it, as the flight home was very turbulent and stressful for me.

I've felt pretty out of place in some ways in France so far---Orsay is completely unlike Baltimore, and I haven't really had time to explore the comics scene in Paris. SPX would be the last time I'd get to be among "my people" before facing a long winter in a new country, so I gave myself permission to buy as much as I could fit into my suitcase. I had an incredible time hanging out with Sarah, Casey, Deanna, Bob, Lisa, Julia, and Emily---thank you guys so much.

2. The Wolves of Currumpaw by William Grill My first impulse buy of the weekend. Not only do I love the gorgeous illustrations for myself, but Erik and I are talking seriously about starting a family after my book is finished. Our kid may not be interested in drawing, but as an illustrator I know how the illustrated books I grew up with informed the way I thought about the world and myself. No parent has any control over the kinds of books their kid will like, but I think I would have really loved this book as a kid who did love to draw.

3. Geis: A Matter of Life and Death by Alexis Deacon the style reminds me a bit of Manuele Fior, story looks up my alley. Excited to read this!

4. The Hunter by Joe Sparrow Sam Bosma said I should, so I did, and I'm very excited, because Sam knows what's up. 5. Fantasy Sports No. 2 by Sam Bosma non-optional purchase, Sam's comics blow me away 6. Hilda and the Stone Forest by Luke Pearson Luke is a darling darling comics boy 7. Dream Tube (postcard by Rebekka Dunlap) Sad I didn't see you, or get to buy anything from you! 8. White Rattlesnake by Cathryn Virginia Cathryn has a piercing instinct for expressing fraught psychological states. Her newest zine is about sleep paralysis  9. Frontier #12 postcard by Kelly Kwang 10. Rachel Suggs I'm really into Rachel's work, having discovered it back in the spring. I love her wicked smart use of halftones and can't wait to see what she makes when Sarah's riso is fixed. 11. Tough Guys (have feelings too) by Keith Negley I played a lot of catch up this year, and as a huge Negley fan I've been dying to get Tough Guys since it came out. 12. The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo by Drew Weing I've been wanting to get into Drew's work ever since I discovered him through his partner, Eleanor. Unfortunately I have a hard time with webcomics, so I was thrilled to buy a print copy of his children's series from him in person. I can't wait to read this! 13. Libby's Dad, Flop Top, and Frontier #11: BDSM by Eleanor Davis. I will literally buy anything from her. There are days where I wake up and get so excited because Eleanor is going to make new things and I will get to read them, and that thought gets me through those moments where I'm staring at the "what to do in case terrorists open fire on crowd" illustrated posters they put up in the RER stations now. 14. Newdini, and Frontier #13: Fatherson by Richie Pope Richie's work really excites me---he's one of those artists where I'll see a new thing from him in my feed and always think "Richie nailed it again". 15. Night Hunter by Chris Kindred Chris is making gorgeous, emotional, raw comics while somehow also slaying it at NPR. Please check his stuff out, you need him in your life. 16. Kill the Drug War by Tres Dean, Stewart Jester and Kendrick Drews. Total impulse buy but how the fuck was I supposed to resist this insane art 17. 4-99 by Shannon Wright. Ask me who is one of the most relevant, important editorial artists working today and Shannon makes the top of the list. 4-99 is a delightful little comic that I shared with everyone I spoke to that weekend. 18. Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak thanks for bringing this to my table; I'm sorry I wasn't there to chat! This looks gorgeous. 19. House of Women, vols. 2-3 by Sophie Goldstein. Excited to continue collecting this beautiful, ignatz award winning series. 20. High Dive by Jon Marchione Another recent discovery, I met Jon while hanging out at Sarah's studio. Jon's work is really charming and his new risograph zine is such a little gem. 21. After Nothing Comes by Aidan Koch  Aidan does with pencil what I try and often fail to do with my watercolors; she pushes the limits of sequential art while remaining visually very accessible. I've wanted to own one of her books for the longest time and snatched this up as soon as I saw it. 22. Sex Fantasy #7 by Sophia Foster-Dimino and Our Concerns by Sophia and Roman Muradov. Sophia makes beautiful work that is (often) about living with and around the vast gulfs that exist between people and themselves. She visited me recently in Paris, and like in her latest comic we also took a disastrous short cut in our long, long walk together in the country-side. 23 and 24. Joe Sacco: Safe Area Goražde and Palestine; March series by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. Someone at Top Shelf was telling me about how kids being born today will never know what it's like to vote for the first black president, and how we need to find ways of capturing the context of that experience so that they will understand better their own context. Erik and I feel strongly that comics are an ideal medium for understanding conflict, for learning about the world from another person's point of view in circumstances completely outside our personal experience. So whenever I see first-hand accounts of war and oppression like these I make a point of picking them up, not just to read them but also to make sure they'll be in the house in case younger minds want to understand the world in a way they aren't getting in school. I'm especially excited, as a long time fan, to see Nate Powell doing such important work, and to finally read Sacco’s work after he expressed so well what I often couldn’t at the height of “Je Suis Charlie”. I wanted to pick up Sarah Glidden's Rolling Blackouts too, but didn't manage to find the table in time. 25. Julia Gfrorer: Laid Waste, Too Dark to See, and two copies of Dark Age because Erik wanted his own copy. I've been a giant, sweating fan of Julia's work ever since I discovered her comics at a panel she was part of a few SPX's ago, but by complete chance we became close friends after being tablemates at MICE last fall. I don't even want to read these right away; I'm saving them for the next time my back gives out and everything I draw looks like flaming turds. Julia won't make me feel better at all but she'll make my suffering feel important somehow.  Follow Julia on Twitter, buy everything of hers you can get your hands on. 26. Dressing by Michael DeForge. Sad I couldn't pick up the volumes of Lose I'm missing, but I couldn't leave SPX without buying whatever new thing Dr. Seuss’s fetish-boy has come out with. 27. Frontier #6: Ann by the Bed by Emily Carroll Emily will always have my money, for all that she so generously shares online for free. I'm saving this one for when I've reached peak Halloween feels in a country that doesn't make a big deal out of the only holiday I care about. 28. Swan Lake by Ping Zhu. I always love seeing Ping in the New York Times, and was so happy to own this beautiful fold-out book by her. 29. Rosemary Valero O'Connell: If Only Once, If Only for a Little While and Phylum. An impulse buy and new discovery for me, check out her gorgeous work! I almost bought her last screen print but the woman in line ahead of me snatched it, and I'm STILL salty about it. 30. Modern Lovers by M. Dean Whenever Erik isn't covering my table for me, I encourage him to go out and discover new comics for himself. He's a programmer with a masters in physics, so I'm always interested to see what he'll pick up on his own without my input. Modern Lovers appealed to him because he's interested in tesselation. 31. MASSIVE!!!! As soon as our table was packed up Sunday night I climbed into this XL shirt and lived inside it for the next two days---what's up M&T bank, yeah I'm depositing a fat stack of con cash inside you while wearing this shirt as a dress. What's up Hampden meth heads covered in white power tattoos, y'all think you're gonna look at me in this shirt long enough to catcall me? DIDN'T THINK SO. Hello RER train, are you ready for me in this shirt?! 32 + 33. Titty Time by Amanda Lafrenais, and Deanna's free SPX 2016 erotica catalog and table map. Deanna very generously asked me to be a part of her panel on Erotic Comics, and give this free catalog out for people to find SPX's dirty comics. I'm excited about Deanna's plans; I'll let her announce what they are when she's ready but I will say that I will def. be involved! Check out the other panelists: Shivana, Kori Michele, Jenovasilver.  34. Gertrude the ShowCard letterpress print from PaperBase. PB just launched a kickstarter to fund the repairs for Baltimore's first accessible Risograph machine. Risographs are like copy machines, except they take the process of screen printing and mechanize it. It's low-cost, high speed, and offers a MUCH finer halftone than traditional screen printing. Access to a risograph opens up a whole new world for independent artists and self publishers. Please consider donating! 35. Cycles by Kyle O'Connell and Beth Hetland. Another one of Erik's picks, bought purely because it's in some way about bicycles. Interested in reading this for myself! 36. Drinking Alone with the Moon, an illustrated translation by Jia Sung. A gorgeous little inkwash zine, thank you so much Jia! 37. "Pack Mentality" print by Jenn Liv. 38. All my Kevin Jay Stanton trades! He was a few tables down from me. Kevin nervously introduced himself to me at SOI a few years ago and his work has just blossomed in every sense of the word; I'm a huge fan and feel so lucky to know his work. Now I'm just trying to find the perfect match among my vintage blazers for his tear-drop enamel pin. Please support his work! 39. Deep Deep Down by Thivá Fróes. Given to me after the erotica panel; I'll be interested to read this. Thank you for listening to women, Thivá. 40. Portugal by Cyril Pedrosa. What new can be said? Everyone is eagerly waiting; hopefully the french version selling out at SPX will convince Dupuis to translate it. 41. No Mercy vol. 2. by Carla Speed McNeil and Alex De Campi. I was so lucky to have Carla as a mentor in college; not just because all my friends with male mentors were inevitably gaslighted, plagarized, and sexually harassed by the one person who was supposed to have their backs, but because she's an incredible artist with so much of the good sense I didn't have (and still barely do, though not for lack of trying on her part). Incredibly generous with her time and support, I'm glad to see her subsequent interns doing well. Her original series Finder is a lesson in world building, but volume two of her new collaboration with De Campi is something I've been eagerly waiting for since I finished volume one. Go out and buy her stuff! 42. Megahex + Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam by Simon Hanselmann. Finally decided to see for myself what all the fuss was about---I know I'm late to the party but I'm still recovering from when Simon got DeForge to marry him to comics at SPX 2014. 43.  Aw yeah TOTES. France doesn't do plastic bags which suits me just fine, as totes are a functional way to signal to the rest of my sleepy town full of squares that weird shit is out there and it is cool and they are MISSING OUT unless they talk to me. Featured totes: Jen Bartel, @dumplingheart, and Jensine Eckwall. 44. Finally, FINALLY got my copies of Lisa Hanawalt's books, Hot Dog Taste Test and My Dirty Dumb Eyes. Casey describes Hanawalt's work as "the voynich manuscript if it was drawn by an 8 year old". Ha ha, if he were talking about me I'd put that shit on a calling card.