I learned from Karen Knighton that to get a table in the Small Press area, the artist must have a new comic for the convention and that comic must pass CCSD’s approval. Ms. Knighton’s new comic this year is Snowsville; it is a 20 page, printed and handmade, edition of 50. Snowsville is more visual poetry than sequential art. It is a sequential story, but not a linear narrative and has no dialog or narration. The main character is injured and journeys to Snowsville, as much externally as internally. This book does for me what only certain kinds of art do for me: it stops the world for the duration I’m engaged with it. It’s an ontological pause in the chaos of being. I am very grateful to Karen Knighton for making it and Comic Con for having it where I could find it. There were only 49 remaining of the numbered edition after I left with mine. I hope 49 other lucky folks are having an experience similar to mine with Snowsville.
As with many other artists at what Comic Con has become, Karen is selling more cute pillows than comics. I find this sad, but if she wasn’t here selling more pillows than comics, I would never have read Snowsville, so how can I not be okay with the pillows? But in a perfect world…we’d all die of boredom. Anyway…
This is Karen’s sixth Comic Con and she’s been making comics and art for a long time. She’s always been an artist. The comics split a table at Comic Con in 2003 and she put together a book with the bird and bunny she’d been drawing for a while. She does a new book with those characters every year. She went to Cal Arts for animation and is an animator by trade. I met a few animators at Comic Con that made comics because they love comics and it got them away from the computer screen for a few hours. I can dig it.
See Comic Con 2011 for links to all these artists:
Anson Jew (agoynamedjew.blogspot.com)
Ron Brown (freefallart.com)
Sabrina (sabrinabellydancer.com)
Ben Henderson (goldencrusader.com)
Steam Crow (steamcrow.com)
Kirstie Shepherd (curioandco.com)
Paul Roman Martinez (19xxad.com)
Ryan Claytor (elephanteater.com)
The Frantic Meerkat (franticmeerkat.com) and The Mincing Mockingbird (mincingmockingbird.com)
Karen Knighton (birdenvy.com)
Mary Bellamy (marybellamy.com)
John L. Brooks II (11thhourbooks.net)
Mike Bocianowski (artistmb.com)
Anthony Hon (motenaicomics.blogspot.com)
Shannon Wheeler (www.tmcm.com/tmcm)
Brett Bean (2dbean.com)
Celine Chapus (purpletophat.com)
Amy Mebberson (mimisgrotto.com)
Sho Murase (shomurase.com)
Katie Cook (katiecandraw.com)
Cat Staggs (www.catstaggs.com)
Bryan “Kaiser” Tillman (dark-legacy.net)
Sze Jones (szejones.com)
Maddox (maddox.xmission.com)
Thien Pham (thienisawesome.blogspot.com)
Ben Costa (shilongpang.com)
Jeannie L.S. Galster (jeaniels.com)
Debbie Huey (bumperboy.net)