All Things Cartoon - with Steve Kanaras

This weekend, my partner in cartooning crime Matt Ryan and I attended a great comic book convention in Portland, ME called the Maine Comic Arts Festival (MeCAF). Unlike most comic conventions, the MeCAF puts the spotlight on the independent and underground comics scene, as opposed to the higher profile and corporate publishers. As you might imagine, the crowd is notably different, far fewer attendees dressed in homemade Spiderman or Batman outfits (none in fact), and the superhero is actually a stranger in this environment.

What you find are dozens of comics creators, of varying skill levels selling their books, sketches, postcards or what have you in an intimate environment. There were no resellers, a typical feature of a comic convention, save for the local comic shop and sponsor of the event whose table featured mostly the books of the artist guests in attendance.

From the nostalgic point of view, the show brought me back to my last year of high school, when I first put together the gumption to produce my first comic book, with Matt on illustration. It was called Sweet Vengeance, and was self-published by us using a copier, scotch tape, scissors, and Big Macs for fuel. Summer Graphix was our publishing company and we put together a few books that summer. Very rough, but full of energy and we were very proud of them.

So being in Maine, now a veteran of sorts, seeing the creators with their mini-comics (a crude term for a comic photocopied or laser printered and stapled into existence) was a homecoming of sorts. It is a pleasure to see the outpouring of creativity from young (and not so young) creators in an environment specifically tailored for this sort of thing. Future blogs will cover the many facets of the comics industry and creative community including manga, webcomics, digital comics, etc...a good deal has changed in twenty years, but this well-run, well-attended festival represents for me the still vibrant environment in which my creative seeds were planted.

I made sure to buy a small stack of mini-comics, some very good ones in fact, because rewarding this kind of creativity is the only way to keep it going. The flagship Free Lunch Comics series Bigger began life as a mini-comics, and some of the creators currently working for Disney or DC Comics got their start at conventions with the same feel and spirit as MeCAF. 

If you ever have the opportunity to visit a comic convention, look for the table with folded mini-comics, and toss a couple of quarters their way. Who knows what might grow out of them twenty years later.

For Matt and I, it's the weekly we get to share with Patch readers every Friday. And the classes and workshops we conduct for the next generation of mini-comic creators. 

It's important work, and so much fun, you don't even realize it's work. The best kind.

Until next time,

Steve Kanaras