The independent comics scene has historically had
few shows of comparable caliber to the major comics
conventions. Most fans are familiar with the two
stalwart ones: Maryland’s Small Press Expo (SPX) and
the California Bay Area’s Alternative Press Expo.
Recent years, however, have seen the rise of fledgling
cons also capable of supporting and encouraging the
growth of the indy market, such as Columbus’ Small
Press and Alternative Comics Expo and the Denver Comic
Arts Festival. This past June 23, in the heart of
America’s biggest city, the Museum Of Comic and
Cartoon Art Festival (MOCCA) opened wide the door of
the alternative press to what was by all accounts an
appreciative and enthusiastic market.
The genesis of New York’s MOCCA Art Festival can
be traced back to the tragic terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001. SPX was to be held a mere three
days afterward, and amidst the chaos of the hours
immediately following the attacks, exhibitors
speculated as to whether or not the show would go on.
The next day, the SPX organizers announced the show’s
cancellation, to perhaps no one’s surprise. However,
several grassroots movements to arrange impromptu
gatherings sprung up that same day across the country
- including in New York, where ARTBABE creator Jessica
Abel spearheaded a drive to arrange an indy comics
show that weekend. The one-day, Brooklyn-based show,
dubbed “SP-Xiles,” attracted a number of the New
York area’s finest comics artists and turned out to
be a success - not to mention a very therapeutic means
to come together and cope with the horror of the
attacks.
Such a gathering raised the possibility of being
able to hold a similar event on a bigger scale in the
Big Apple. All it needed was someone to get the ball
rolling. In October, this reporter first
revealed who that would be: Kristen Siebecker,
best known within the comics community as the longtime
girlfriend of BOX OFFICE POISON creator Alex Robinson.
She had already begun scouting locations at that
point, and talking to creators, and by January of this
year she had officially announced the show as a go, in
cooperation with MOCCA, an
organization dedicated to creating a physical museum
for cartoon art. It would be held in Manhattan’s
Puck Building on Houston Street.
Over the subsequent
months, the names on the guest list grew and grew and
grew, attracting both self-publishers and big-name
creators alike. Among the attendees: Frank Miller,
Jules Feiffer, Jeff Smith, Bill Plympton, Phoebe
Gloeckner, Hilda Terry, Top Shelf, Alternative Press,
Drawn & Quarterly, the Comic Book Legal Defense
Fund, Friends of Lulu, and many more.
The exhibition space took up one floor, with two
large, well-lit, comfortable rooms for the artists and
publishers, connected by a thin corridor, and a third
room adjacent to the entrance for the panel
discussions. As you entered the first room, the
exhibitors were arranged in a ring around the room,
with an outer ring against the wall and an inner one.
To the far end was the corridor connecting to the
second room, where the exhibitors were arranged by
rows and aisles. The show was consistently busy nearly
the entire afternoon. Everywhere you looked, fans,
young and old, longtime readers and fresh newbies,
swarmed the aisles of both rooms, chatting it up with
the artists and purchasing their wares. The following
is but a sampling of the type of creators present and
their thoughts on this day.
“[It’s] just about the best comic show I’ve
ever been around, actually. I’ve been amazed and
pleased that’s it’s run so beautifully,” said
STUCK RUBBER BABY and WENDEL creator Howard Cruse, a
veteran of the indy scene for many years and a
trailblazer of gay-themed comics. “Most of them are
not like this. Most of them are about STAR TREK and
toys and everything but comics. This is all about the
art of cartoons - a chance for people to meet
cartoonists whose work they enjoy. That’s what they
should be for. If they were more like this, I would go
to more!”
Some creators approached MOCCA differently than
others. Newcomers Myatt Murphy and Scott Dalrymple of
Second 2 Some Studios gave away copies of their new
series FADE FROM BLUE, which in a relatively short
time has garnered much praise for its portrayal of the
lives of four women. “I wanted to do something that’s
gender-neutral, that you can hand to your girlfriend,
that you can hand to your mom, that you can hand to
some guy that’s not into comics, and they’d still
appreciate it,” said Murphy in describing the
book.
From attending a predominately-female college to
writing for women’s magazines, Murphy has plenty of
real-life influences to draw from, and indeed, he said
he lets his women friends read everything he writes.
He’s also aware of how some may perceive a man
writing about women. “When I’m asked, ‘Do you
think a man can write a comic book about women,’
because the book reaches both men and women, I think
it’s no different than a television series or a
movie where no one questions can a woman write a
sitcom, or an episode of LAW AND ORDER. The head
writer for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE is a woman. So it’s
like vice versa; you take that and think it’s more
adolescent guy stuff, yet it’s predominately written
by women. The entertainment industry already falls by
the standards where men write women stuff and women
write men stuff. I think it’s a natural progression.”
The characters look very distinctive from not only
each other, but from the usual archetype of women
comics characters. “We’re trying to keep this true
to life,” adds Dalrymple, the artist. “[We’re]
tired of the image of big-breasted, drop-dead gorgeous
women everywhere. The girls - each one looks a little
different. Myatt and I, we came up with the
characters; he gave me a pretty good general idea of
what he wanted, so I just went off on what he did.
Some of my female friends are obviously some of the
female characters, same with Myatt’s friends. I’m
pretty much basing it on people that I know.”
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