Pencil, 2010.

For the uninitiated, “CosPlay” is simply an abbreviation of the words “Costume Play,” and refers to the act of dressing up as characters from Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comic Books, Anime and video games. This phenomenon isn’t new—people have been dressing up as superheroes and characters from Star Trek and Star Wars for decades—but those who associate themselves with the CosPlay scene tend to skew younger and have a greater affinity for Japanese pop culture. I found this to be true at Sac Con: while there were a few exceptions, most of those in costume were teenagers. They were so young there was even a game of Red Rover going on out front when I got there:

Of course, just because you’re a teenager into CosPlay, that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily limit yourself to characters from Japan. Here’s a kid dressed up as the Mad Hatter from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which wasn’t even out at the time of the show:

The nice thing about people who dress up for comic book conventions is that they’re always quite happy to take have their picture taken, so I was able to get a photo of a group of kids who didn’t even know each other. I told them we old people are fascinated by their strange customs:

CosPlay outfits can be quite intricate, as seen in this Link / Epona duo (Link is the hero of the Legend of Zelda video games from Nintendo; in the popular installment Ocarina of Time, Epona is Link’s horse). The kid dressed up as Link wasn’t content to let his own face substitute for Link’s, he actually wore a Link mask that more closely resembled the character’s blocky, Anime-style features. The Epona costume was even crazier, worn and operated by only one person using hand-stilts for the front legs!

As weird as CosPlay may seem to us old people, the Furry phenomenon is even weirder. Furries are fans of fictionalized anthropomorphic characters that also create their own costumes, either of existing Furry characters or characters of their own design. Some Furries enjoy pornography featuring anthropomorphic characters and even have sex in costume, although the Wikipedia article I linked above downplays this aspect of the subculture. Still, being aware of Furry sex makes seeing Furries a bit awkward:

The last weird thing I saw at Sac Con was a doppelganger of my young protégé Clave! Although he cut his hair last year, Clave used to have long, wavy red hair, not unlike local cartoonist Griffon Lyles, seen here with fellow cartoonist Devon McMindes:

Griffon even has a similar drawing style to Clave’s, as seen in this self-portrait:

Like I said, Sac Con was a lot of fun, and there are several such events in Sacramento every year, so check out their web site and go to the next con, if only to be a voyeuristic creep like me! I can’t be the only cultural tourist at these things!

My favorite work by Heffernon is the statue “Farm Poet.” Here’s a picture of the sculpture from the artist’s web site, and a picture I took at the gallery using my camera phone:

I didn’t realize it until I visited his web site, but I’ve seen Heffernon’s work before. His a picture of my fiancé Audrey standing in front of Heffernon’s statue, “Rabbinoid, male”:

The gallery also featured two other statues by T.S. Linzey from their “Emerging Artists” show that would be of interest to fans of comics: “Load” and “. . . transition . . .”

The con was held in the Scottish Rites Center on J Street. I recently read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, which taught me that the Scottish Rites people are Masonic, so I was on the lookout for secret symbols. Sure enough, as I crossed the American River on Sunday I saw what appeared to be a pyramid on the back of the Scottish Rites building! Aha! Dan Brown put me in the know! Turns out though I’m more of a know-nothing: the pyramid structure is actually part of a Seventh Day Adventists church East of the Scottish Rites Center. Robert Langdon I’m not.

Anyway, Indy Euphoria’s special guests included Jeffrey Brown and Nate Powell; Jim Woodring cancelled, apparently. Like many female fans of alternative comics, the girlfriend of local painter and metal God Skinner has an inexplicable and unhealthy crush on Brown, and used the cartoonist’s appearance in Sacramento to further stalk the poor man. “He better not have brought his fucking family!” she told me. I bought Powell’s gorgeous Swallow Me Whole, and upon learning that Powell has worked for some time providing support to adults with developmental disabilities, I also purchased his autobiographical book on the subject, Please Please, for insights on a field I recently entered as well.

Speaking of Skinner, he purchased my last copy of The Bridge Project, an anthology containing a story by Carolyn Main and myself. Skinner also bought a copy of The Time Tripper, a comic by Max Challender, one of the artists I work with at Studio 700. The comic tells the tale of Max travelling through time to meet beautiful women, his deceased father and even a version of himself in the far-flung future. Besides selling Challender’s book, my mini-comics and my flip-comic with Clave, How Hipsters are Like Superheroes / Baggs & Me, I was also selling, as always, drawings for a dollar. If anyone out there who purchased a dollar drawing finds their way to this blog, email me a scanned copy of your drawing and I’ll put it up on the Internet for all to see! In the meantime, here’s a scan of my dollar drawing ad:

(Scratch Papers, Page 77)

Also attending Indy Euphoria was a large contingent of Bay Area cartoonists and artists, including Jed Alexander, Kane Lynch, Josh Frankel, Andrice Arp and Jesse Reklaw (formerly of the Bay Area), Susie Cagle and Francois Vigneault. I got to better know a few of those fine folk, and get some of their comics, including Relic #2 and Laikia-23 from Kane Lynch, and the hilarious Pancakes Solve Nothing by Josh Frankel, plus the equally hilarious Desert Island Paradise and Only the Lonely, two Frankel-edited anthologies.

Having so many Bay Area cartoonists exhibit at the sparsely attended Indy Euphoria was a little embarrassing, especially with the great attendance at Francois Vigneault’s own SF Zine Fest. Still, it was organizer Anthony Leano’s, and possibly Sacramento’s, very first expo or convention for independent, underground and alternative comics. Which is weird considering Sacramento’s connection to many famous cartoonists. Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky lived outside of Sacramento in Winters before moving to France. Charles Burns went to UC Davis. Justin Green, who is now considered one of the first graphic novelists, and Carol Tyler lived in Sacramento for a time. Some of Green’s comics were published in now-defunct Tower Record’s music magazine Pulse! by fellow Sacramento resident Marc Weidenbaum and later collected as the anthology Musical Legends. Weidenbaum also published comics in Pulse! by Sacramento teenager Adrian Tomine, who went on to become one of the great talents of alternative comics. The aforementioned Josh Frankel went to high school with Tomine, and the aforementioned Jesse Reklaw also lived in Sacramento while growing up. There are, in fact, several similarities between Reklaw and myself: we both share the same first name, love comics, grew up in Sacramento and, as I learned in his Expo 2000 anthology story “How I Ruined My Bladder,” both have bladder problems.

Despite its comic connections, Sacramento may never have an alternative comics convention as well attended as Stumptown, SPX or SF Zine Fest. There were, however, some Sacramento-specific things about Indy Euphoria that I really enjoyed. Local DJ Roger Carpio was spinning the choicest dance-rock cuts in the lobby, just as he does at Lipstick, Tuesday nights at Old Ironsides, and Fuck Fridays, Friday nights at the Townhouse. When I was newly single after my divorce, Carpio helped me angry-dance away my troubles. There was also a live drawing session Saturday night with Mike Hampton, zombie girls, and Dan Brereton of Nocturnals fame, who was really fun and approachable. Here’s one of my better drawings from the session:

(Scratch Papers, Page 76)

The zombie girls were clients of tattoo and comic book artist Brandon Bracamonte, a guy I knew in high school and hadn’t seen again until the show. When I met Anthony Leano at a Drink and Draw last year I heard Brandon was still in the local comics scene, and then at APE his badge was accidentally included with the set of badges for my table, so apparently this meeting was pre-ordained. I also got to meet, for the second time in a long time, the Sacramento News & Review’s editorial cartoonist John Kloss, who shared tales of knowing Crumb, Justin Green and Carol Tyler back in the day, and revealed the number one cause of divorce: marriage. I also got to know local cartoonist and WoW enthusiast M. Neils, aka “Pocket,” who sat at the table next to mine.

A few final Indy Euphoria highlights: watching Chris Perguidi pretend to get beat up for his local access show in Gilroy, seeing a guy I don’t know wearing one of my t-shirts who gave me two funny mini-comics (send me an email guy and I’ll send you some credit!), meeting a girl who owns another one of my t-shirts, meeting Ann Masushima of Eyeball Burp and her fiancé Alex Chiu and reading their inspiring zines and comics, and of course everyone who stopped by the table to buy a comic or chat!

Oh, and one last thing: this super-cute doll by Chartruz Lovelace, which I got for my super-cute doll, Audrey.

I’m not sure which “kids” Joe Quesada is talking about here.  Does he mean kids ages 8-16, who were born after the Cold War ended, the kids who were very young when terrorists killed more American civilians on September 11^th, 2001, than the Soviets ever managed to kill during the entire Cold War, the kids who grew up in a Nation reacting to that horrible event?  Those kids?  Or does he mean the older “kids” who grew up during the Cold War and still read superhero comics?

I know I shouldn’t take this statement too seriously; it is, after all, hearsay in a puff piece by Wizard, which tends to be just one big uncritical advertisement for whatever is going on in Corporate Comics these days anyway.  Still, this is the sort of ridiculous, unchallenged statement that appears all the time in the media, whether in serious journalism or in entertainment rags like Wizard, and it drives me crazy.

Another ridiculous, unchallenged statement I love to hate also comes from Joe Quesada regarding Marvel Comics, although this line of bullshit certainly didn’t start with him.  It’s the statement that Marvel Comics, unlike DC comics, takes place in the “real world” (you can see Quesada say this after being prompted by Stephen Colbert.  Say it ain’t so, Stephen!).  When Marvel shills say this, they don’t mean that Marvel tells nuanced, detailed stories about ordinary individuals struggling to find meaning in their lives in the face of social pressure, poverty, disease, wars and, ultimately, death (that’s what Adrian Tomine’s comics are about), but rather that many Marvel characters live in New York City, as opposed to the fictionalized New York of Superman’s Metropolis or Batman’s Gotham.  That’s it.  In the Marvel Universe, just like the DC Universe, there are still people who gain super powers from random events who then don skin-tight costumes to fight crime, aliens and demons.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t fictional places in the Marvel universe, either; there’s Atlantis, Genosha, Latveria, and Wakanda, to name several.  It just means that Marvel wants to distinguish itself from a competitor that offers products nearly identical to their own, so they take one tiny difference that isn’t really a difference at all and then blow it up to make themselves look better.  And no one calls them on their shit.

One last thought: offering a product nearly identical to one’s competitor is probably one of the motivations behind Disney’s recent purchase of Marvel Comics.  Disney, like Warner Brothers, owns or co-owns a television network (ABC for Disney, The CW for Warner Brothers), various movie studios (Touchstone Pictures for Disney, Warner Brothers for Warner Brothers), and a slew of animated properties (Disney for Disney, Looney Tunes for Warner Brothers), but until now, no superheroes (DC Comics for Warner Brothers, and now, Marvel Comics for Disney).  And while I’m sure publishing superhero comics is profitable (Wizard wouldn’t exist otherwise), Disney is probably less interested in publishing quality funny books for the kiddies than they are in making superhero movies and taking advantage of the worldwide marketing opportunities those movies provide.

Speaking of Watchmen, I just read a great article at Slate by Grady Hendrix entitled, “Watchmen Failed:  The revolution it was supposed to inspire—comics about ordinary people—never happened.”  It’s about the history of the Watchmen comic, the intentions of its creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, its ongoing influence on superhero comics and the problems with Zack Snyder’s film adaptation.  My one complaint is that the title of Hendrix’s article can only be considered correct if one completely ignores the history and existence of alternative comics, which began (some argue) with the publication of Gilberto, Jamie and Mario Hernandez’s Love and Rockets in 1981, preceding the publication of Watchmen by five years and inspiring a revolution of comics about ordinary people that did happen.  In his article, however, Hendrix limits his criticism of comics to superhero comics, so it’s quite possible that some editor chose the title for its inflammatory, rhetorical value, rather than for its honesty.  And as I’ve shown in the past, the titles of Slate articles, like the covers for superhero comic books, don’t always accurately represent their contents.  Anyway, here’s the money quote from Hendrix’s article:

[. . . A]rtistically, Watchmen came and went, and the promised revolution in comic-book storytelling never happened. [. . . Instead it] became to comic books what The Sopranos is to TV: an intellectual fig leaf concealing the vast wasteland of Two and a Half Men reruns.

Ain’t it the truth.

Also, now that the Watchmen soundtrack is out, I see the powers-that-be chose to ignore my song suggestions.  The pussies.  Seriously though, “Unforgettable,” by Nat King Cole, “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkle, and “I’m Your Boogie Man” by KC and the Sunshine Band for the soundtrack to a movie based on one of the most violent, grim and depressingly existential works of fiction of all time?  And “The Times They Are A-Changin’”?  Really?  You couldn’t have gone for Dylan’s “Isis,” or at least “Masters of War”?  The only song that seems a good fit is My Chemical Romance’s cover of Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” in which the band does a credible imitation of a hardcore punk band.  What is up with My Chemical Romance, anyway?  Their last big song, “Welcome to the Black Parade,” was a credible imitation of a Queen song.  Hey, The Aquabats could be derivative, too, (and derivative of Queen, to boot), but they never made it so big.  I guess they should’ve gone with Emo instead of Ska.

A clever graffiti artist painted a sign in my neighborhood like this back in 1989 when the first Tim Burton Batman movie came out.

It’s probably too late now but “One Hundred Years” by The Cure should be the official song of the movie; quite a few passages from the lyrics match portions of the book:  “In a high building there is so much to do,” matches Ozymandias killing The Comeidan; “Creeping up the stairs in the dark / Waiting for the death blow,” Rorschach creeping up the stairs of Moloch’s apartment, only to find him dead; “The death of her father pushing her / Pushing her white face into the mirror,” Laurie Juspeczyk coming to grips with the identity of her father; “Under a black flag / A hundred years of blood,” Tales of the Black Freighter, the comic within the comic; “A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water,” the quote from William Blake ending Chapter Five, “Tyger, Tyger / burning bright, / In the forests / of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”  I’ve also heard that dark comics like Watchmen influenced Robert Smith, although I couldn’t find any evidence of this online.

Anyway, here’s my Watchmen playlist:

Chapter One, In which a general mood of despair and existential nausea is established.  “One Hundred Years” by The Cure from the album Pornography.

Chapter Two, In which the pasts of our various heroes are reviewed.  “In the Flesh” by Pink Floyd from the album The Wall (Disc 2).

Chapter Three, In which the outlines of a conspiracy emerge.  “Loki” by Rancid from the album Rancid (2000).

Chapter Four, In which we examine the nature of omnipotence.  “Polynomial-C” by Aphex Twin from the album Classics.

Chapter Five, In which there are tygers, reflections and fearful symmetries.  “Day in the Life” by The Beatles from the album 1967-1970 (Disc 1).

Chapter Six, In which Rorschach and the abyss stare back.  “Fitter, Happier” by Radiohead from the album OK Computer.

Chapter Seven, In which we examine the nature of impotence and its cure.  “Banquets (Phones Disco Edit)” by Bloc Party from the EP Bloc Party.

Chapter Eight, In which a mighty hero falls.  “Underdog” by Butthole Surfers from the album Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits.

Chapter Nine, In which one of our heroes struggles with an unwanted revelation.  “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?” by Moby from the album Play.

Chapter Ten, In which our heroes trace the conspiracy to its source.  “Hunter” by Bjork from the album Homogenic.

Chapter Eleven, In which the fate of a wicked city rests in the hands of an angry god.  “Host of Seraphim” by Dead Can Dance from the album Wake.

Chapter Twelve, In which half a city is cast like a spider into the flame.  “Dead Bodies” by Rancid from the album Rancid (2000).

Extra Bonus Trivia: My girlfriend Audrey and I like to be disgustingly cute by adding a “y” sound to the beginning of words, as in “byud” instead of “blood” or “that comic is syo cyute.” After reading the “Life in Hell” strip discussed above, “I fyi away beardface” became a favorite catchphrase with endless permutations, such as “I fyi away blondeface” as a farewell from me to Audrey (because she’s blonde).