sammy for serious

although i really like SPX each and every year, i don’t know if i’ll be going next year. i really love walking around the small room and looking at everyone’s books, but something was different this year. the air is changing.

i used to pay an average of $2 a mini, which i didn’t mind paying. at times i felt ripped off even then, but every once in a while you’d get a really great comic. now those same $2 comics are being sold for $5-$8, and i do mean the SAME ones. some artists come every year but have nothing to show for it except maybe they’ve put together a few weird felt finger puppets or a “sketchbook” which are usually just licensed characters drawn in a satirical way to bring customers to their table.

for all the selling of their own souls people were doing, it was hard to get people to talk on camera about their comics, like i was going to use it against them or something? it was bullshit, people who would make me feel weird all weekend weren’t even willing to say their name and the name of their book.

indie comics for the most part DO see themselves as different (read: better, smarter, newer, more interesting, etc.) than “mainstream” comics. people will by poorly drawn and  irony filled jeffrey brown’s incredible change bots but they would never touch a science fiction book unless fantagraphics publishes it or if it were to have come out 30 years ago.

just like super hero fans, indie fans are in general close minded and don’t want to rock the boat, they want comfortable, safe, familiar stories that they can relate to on some elementary level, they just want it to take either 10 pages or 300 pages, because if it’s a single issue comic format, it’s uncool. of course, unless fantagraphics publishes it.