Very belated SPX overview

I have to say that SPX was without question the comic con that I felt most at home at out of all I have attended. Granted, I have only attended a handful of them but, regardless, it was great. I got to say hello to publishing luminaries like Chris Staros (Top Shelf) and Chris Pitzer (AdHouse) and tell them how great their output is as well as meet in person many talents I admired then and some that I admire after meeting. I also was surprised to see Bob Schreck there and took advantage to thank him for pointing me that way. I blew too much cash on all the great items that I found but tried to play it smart by only purchasing rarities and minis I wouldn't be able to get anywhere else.

Among the greats of these were the J. Chris Campbell (a small publishing luminary himself)"Fat Pack" of minis, a mini sketchbook pair by Jamie Tanner and (even though I have not read his acclaimed Johnny Hiro) a really clever mini of portrait progressions of Michael Jackson over the years by Fred Chao. I did break my rule to buy Jeff Lemire's Essex County vol. 2: Ghost Stories because I loved the first volume, Tales from the Farm, so much (and the second volume is quite good as well), Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds because I enjoyed her panel discussion and she was doing great sketches in the books and Joey Weiser's The Ride Home because I had someone recommend it to me.

My wife usually enjoys the cons to a fair degree but really dug this one. She used to purchase comics but had stopped. However, she came home with an appreciation of Jamie Tanner's near obsessive sense of cross hatching as well as her first two graphic novels, Nick Abadzis' Laika and Matt Kindt's Super Spy. Abadzis was also on the panel with Rutu and impressed us both. I've read Laika and it is very good. To Matt Kindt's credit, Lisa was sold almost completely based on his art alone. He merely had to summarize his book to her and it was sold. Still waiting on Lisa to finish that one so I can read it myself.

Nearly all of these talented folk may be found to the right in the list as well (I'm still working on a few of them). I urge you to check them out.

Images on their way soon...

ARRRRGGG! I knew I was going to forget someone. I also have to give a thanks to the highly talented Nate Powell who gave me a couple of names of books to look into regarding ASD (and, of course, his collection, Sounds of Your Name, was well worth buying even though I already own some of the material). I'll be emailing you for those titles again very soon, Nate.