Monday, April 20, 2009

Stumptown Comics Fest 2009

I think I said the same thing last year, but my thought upon exiting the Stumptown Comics Fest is, "I have six tattoos and live an alternative lifestyle, but man, am I mainstream in there."

Actually, I love it. The comics culture is as interesting as the comics themselves (and there were some incredibly talented people there (Michael J. DiMotta, Spike and Zander Speaks especially).

I have a yearning to try my hand at comics and graphic novels, but fear of the unknown stops me. Michael DiMotta said just to drink a glass of wine and go for it. Have to skip the wine, but otherwise the advice is good. Why is painting a portrait so much less scary?

I've gone to Stumptown Comics Fest three years in a row now, and the abundance of images of naked, voluptuous women hasn't waned, though the number of female artists and writers has boomed. I have mixed feelings about this: okay, I want a Bat Woman T-shirt pretty bad, so I'm not against images of voluptuous nearly naked women (they fall under the "do I want to be her or do her?" category), and the graphic novel I'd like to try is based on my rom/com screenplay about a supposedly straight pediatrician and an erotic dancer (both female), but I do get this feeling, as I pass tables full of naked women in objective poses, that I wouldn't want my daughter hanging out with the artist for any length of time.

The images of dastardly things happening to the voluptuous women just gross me out, but they always did, even in high school, when I hung out with Paul Roman, constantly drawing violent imagery, bored to death with junior year.

That's what it felt like, too, at Stumptown, like I was in a room full of grownups who had once been those smart kids bored to death in high school, drawing their way through the day, creating worlds because the one around them was so dismal and dull. Love those people; wish I could be one of them.

1 comment:

Zander Speaks said...

I think the best way to start writing a comic is to create a regular deadline for yourself and go. Just be aware that it's going to be awful for the first few months, eventually you'll figure things out and it will get better. Please don't look at my early comics. *twitch*

-Zander