In this post:
1. My belated MoCCA 2010 wrap-up, with plenty of pictures taken in the dark!
2. The Crack-A-Thon with Oderus Urungus!
3. And at long last, some solid details regarding the zine launch party at Babycastles!
First off, apologizes for the lack of updates as of late. I still can’t believe that people actually enjoy my epically long gaming news and nonsense round-ups, considering that hardly anyone leaves a comment, though most real-deal blogs are somewhat suffering on that end, not just mine. Yet plenty of folks have asked where the hell I’ve been and what’s been going on. Again, I take for granted that not everyone subscribes to 126 RSS feeds, plus I do admit that I try my best to make those 20,000+ word somewhat more slightly by also presenting as much compelling imagery as possible. Like this pic of a naked Samus Aran (NSFW-ish), which has been popping up all over NYC as of late. It’s already been posted on Kotaku, courtesy of Steve Totilo, but I spotted it first, dammit! My snapshot was from I went to DUMBO to pick up those Nullsleep shirts for MoCCA last week.
Well, regarding my lack of activity around here, cue the usual excuses: been a crazy hectic past couple of blah, blah, blah. But seriously; not a week goes by in which I don’t find myself involved in some brand new, totally off the wall, top secret project. Though this one takes the cake, cuz I’m dealing with Communists! No joke. Okay, I’ve said too much already, so moving on… Also got sick, again. For days I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s a nasty cold or just allergies. Turns out, it’s both. And it’s not entirely uncommon to get bitten by a bug during a show, especially a comic related show, though I’m fairly certain me ingesting that bacon flavored custard from Shake Shack in the super chilly breeze with hardly any layers on played a substantial part. BTW, how was it? Surprisingly awesome. Oh, and I had to file my taxes. Not too happy with that one; I owe the government a TON.
And I guess I should also mention that yesterday was my birthday; I am now 33 years of age. And a hearty thanks to everyone who was kind enough to pass along best wishes via email, text, Twitter, and Facebook! I especially enjoyed Bruno from Eastern Mind tapping into Boku no Natsuyasumi!
But before going into all that, let’s go back in time, about ten days…
Attract Mode Invades New York City
Time once again for yet another better-late-than-never con report! Though first a pair of pics from the Thursday before MoCCA, at Jim Hanley’s Women in Comics signing…
… In addition to pestering Katie as she tried to sign copies of Nurse Nurse for folks, I got the chance to catch up with Abby, whom I hadn’t hung out with in a whole. Turns out she’s currently ga-ga for Rock Band, to a similar degree when Katie and I first got part 2, especially the virtual hottie dress-up portion of the game. To the point that she actually proposed that I do a comic that fleshes out all the backstage fantasies that I have with my virtual rock star and Katie’s! Afterwards, myself, Katie, Pat, who had just rolled into town, and Dave Mauro, all went downtown to St. Mark’s for dinner at Kenka. As expected, the wait was quite long and less than pleasant…
… Some friendly advice: do NOT order the Coke Float like Dave did. While not nearly as nightmarish as Chinese fruit salad (which is often orange slices and mayonnaise, so f’n joke), it was equally retarded. But hardly a shocker since most of the food there blows, but at least the beer was, per usual, dirt-cheap!
The following Friday was when I made the difficult decision to throw in the towel when it came to getting the third zine done in time for the weekend. What else can I say, other than it was what it was? As for the show itself, when all was said and done, MoCCA Art Fest 2010 was a smash success, despite (which is the key word, hence the bold) the organization behind the event.
It’s no big secret when I say that virtually everyone’s expectations were the absolute lowest going in; after the epic fail that was last year’s show (to recap: it was literally a hundred degrees in the new space, which not only drove away customers, but made everyone behind the table extremely bitchy, even legitimately ill), MoCCA’s follow-up and over demeanor leading up to this year’s did nothing to mend fences or qualm fears that another train-wreck was dead ahead. The only issue that was even remotely addressed, and in the lamest fashion possible, was to move the event from its usual summertime setting to early April, due to them not wanting to fork over the necessary amount of cash to cool the venue, which is still the Armory on Lexington Ave. Sorry, but you have that many people in an enclosed space with zero air flow to speak of, it’s still going to be hot and muggy inside, even if it was the dead of winter outside. One must also ask why Armory was chosen again in the first place; other than temperature issue, its a total eye sore, and while it’s true that nothing will ever live up to the grandeur of the Puck Building, we’re in Manhattan, so surely other options must exist. It’s not like MoCCA has zero dollars in the bank, especially after the ridiculous price hikes when it came to the tables, yet another reason why quite a few decided to skip out this year. And those of us who blindly signed up in advance were not only less than pleased by the jumping of two months ahead, which severely impacted many people’s schedules, but also royally pissed by the piss poor head?s up notice.
No joke, every single stupid thing leading up to the show simply spelled disaster. The day before, when Pat and I stopped by the Armory to pick up our badges, the handwritten sign, which was supposed to alert exhibitors that the entrance was on 26t Street, was impossible to read because the number two appeared to be some sort of alien alphabetic character, like a made up language from a sci-fi show. Which caused our hearts to sink even lower and tempers flare even more so. Such a silly thing to get worked up, I suppose, but it was only #872 of things that MoCCA had needlessly screwed up. Also, when was the last time you ever heard of anyone not being able to write the number two? Though the icing on the cake was the very next morning; the table between myself/Katie and Pat/Travis had been vacated, with the former owner giving Katie and myself the okay to use it as however we wished, so the plan was for the four of us to expand our sections a bit. Which was made needlessly complicated by the fact that all the tables are of inconsistent lengths and widths. Again, sounds like a dumb thing to bitch about, but when you pay $400 for a table, you assume that everyone who paid that same amount is getting the same thing, and not a few feet more, which means the whole world when you’re trying to utilize every single inch to begin with.
But anyway, in the end, everyone did far better than they expected, myself included. Another reason for anxiety was, as previously mentioned, much of Attract Mode’s stock had been wiped out due to PAX East. Which in turn led to me running around town the week leading up to MoCCA, picking up stuff to make sure the table was not barren. Though in the back of my mind, I also wondered if the effort would actually be worth it; I knew that there’s some cross over with video games folks and indie comics folks, but not a whole lot. To be honest, I recall game related goods being more prominent in MoCCAs past; most were related to hand crafted goods, which as a whole has been somewhat overtaken by Etsy, at least in these here parts. Anyway, leading up to last weekend, I had repeatedly told Adam that he shouldn’t expect 1/100th of the sales of PAX, so I’m happy to say that I was completely in the wrong. Attract Mode’s NYC debut was a pretty strong one! Here’s a look at the table…
The hottest overall item was easily the 8bitpeople 50th release, mostly cuz it was such an easy recommendation to those who wanted to an introduction to chiptunes. Tristan Perish’s Loud Object sound toy also did exceptionally well, simply because it grabbed the attention of everyone, even those casually walking by. I’m also pleased as punch that my zine did super strongly; I believe I sold about tens times the number of #1s and #2s as I did the previous show (where I think I moved about two to three of each, at best). Though it also made not having #3 handy an even bigger blow, though it was really nice that SO many people stopped by to asked what happened and what exactly was wrong with the covers, since that pic from before looked a-okay. Well, it wasn’t.
Here’s Katie, who was to my right…
And to my left was Pat and Travis. Once again, my fave loli-molestation game for the iPhone made an appearance at yet comic! No worries Hilary, Travis didn’t even come close to topping your high score…
Hey, it’s the Life Meter dudes, Zack and Dave Roman! I believe Dave’s pose is inspired by the third zine’s cover. Or maybe not…
And here’s a futuristic, yet still throughly ghetto-tastic car that was parked outside. Note the parking ticket…
Sorry, but day one was so busy that I basically had no time to take any other pictures, let alone walk the floor and check stuff out! Though I did manage to step away for a few minutes to take a peek at the Dongery table and chat with some Norwegians. To say I was pleased as punch to discover that they remembered me is a vast understatement. And I of course picked up all their latest books…
… At the bottom is actually a CD-ROM, which I did not hesitate to snatch since their DVD from last year was such a jackpot. Though when asked what was on it, purely for the sake of curiosity, they didn’t know either (it was their only copy, which they had been trying to get rid of since forever, hence the lack of familiarity, I guess). Not that it would have mattered of course. As for it’s content, some QuickTime videos and PowerPoint presentations…
… When I asked how long they were staying in America, one noted that he was staying an extra couple of days, and had hopes of catching Ben Folds in concert. Which then led to him asking how one goes about acquiring concert tickets and me awkwardly trying to explain what Craigslist was.
Day one wrapped up with a mass migration to Shake Shack for dinner, which was conveniently located a few blocks away. The line and the wait was long, very long, though hardly all that different from a normal workday afternoon…
Here’s Travis, not taking part of the festivities and eating a salad instead (one that smelled, mind you), since the dude is all healthy and couldn’t consume any of the shack’s offerings, like the aforementioned custard that tasted like bacon… what a prude, right?
Another pic I’m borrowing from Marianne (cuz I’m still struggling to figure out how to deal with my brand new camera), of folks either enjoying their food or waiting for it to be ready as both the sun and temperatures began to settle…
It was at this point that I began to develop an annoying cough, due to the aforementioned chilly breeze and meant flavored frozen treat. But soon it was off to the official MoCCA after party, at the Village Pourhouse, in which everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was at. The place was super packed, too much so, but we eventually found a space in the back, near some passed out little kids. More on that in a sec. Anyhow, here a bunch of pics of myself with the rest of the gang, including Lamar, Zack, Pat, Colleen, Travis, Stephanie, Katie naturally, the Indie Spinner Rack‘s Charlito, and even Mia…
… Though I’m afraid the very best picture was snapped by Jenn Vaughn, as noted by Zack over at Life Meter!
And of course, what MoCCA get-together would be complete without a little drama? In at least one of the pics above, one can spot a little kid, dazed and confused. There were about four in total, none of them older than five or six, who were near us in the back, and all alone, in this extremely crowded bar, filled with loud and drunken adults. At first they tried to take a nap, but I’m guessing the noise was just too much for them. Oddly enough, there were television monitors all around us, playing cartoons, but the European kind, the ones that are all about women giving themselves abortions via vacuum cleaner, and the discarded babies combining with the trash to haunt the parents. Which only added to the children’s misery; they just sat there, completely helpless, at a loss at what to do. We all wondered where the hell their parents were, and quietly waited for somebody to stop by and check up on them. Which never happened.
By the time myself, Katie, and Pat decided to call it a night, the place was abuzz was various folks trying to track down their parents. Apparently, the kids belonged to none other than noted cartoonist Kyle Baker! Whose work I’m a fan of (at least Why I Hate Saturn). According to various folks the very next day, Kyle was, get this, at another MoCCA party, located at another bar, which he had thusly effectively abandoned his children for. But the absolute best part was how he apparently lives about three blocks from the bar’s location; why in the hell he couldn’t just let them hang out at home is simply a mystery. Apparently, about an hour we left, he showed up and commanded the kids to march out, in single file fashion; someone had clearly tipped him off at the trouble he had caused and wanted everyone out ASAP. At least one person I spoke with the very next morning had plans of addressing his shitty parenting skills directly, during the panel he was schedule to appear at, though I’m not sure if that actually happened.
Moving on, day two was, as expected, somewhat slower when compared to day one, but still quite bustling. With plenty of sights and sounds to soak in, like this rather fantastic shirt worn by a passerby (my second weirdo cat shirt sighting in a row actually)…
Here we have Pat with a very surprised Hilary!
… Some might recall that Hilary was originally going to table with myself and Katie, but she decided to bow out when the date was announced and realized that her new book wouldn’t be ready in time (which again was a major reason why many didn’t show up this year either). And wouldn’t you know, a funny thing happened! The best part is how she’s on that list twice, technically, with the other book being Life Meter #3 (which features her fantastic Persona fan art from my art contest last year), so congrats goes out to Dave and Zack as well.
Like I said before, the Loud Objects were the runaway star of the Attract Mode table; here we have Travis rocking out to one of the more melodic variants…
Here’s Colleen and I, enjoying some sandwiches (from Subway, too bad there was no Arby’s nearby)…
Now, one of the reasons stated for the change in date for MoCCA this year was not to avoid the summertime heat, but to make it more accessible to SVA and other college students, who apparently are not around to enjoy the show during holiday. Most will state that such reasoning is rubbish, since a great deal of students generally stick around to not only attend the show but sometimes exhibit (Mia for one had plans for selling a comic, but schoolwork got in the way of its production). Though I did end up seeing a TON of familiar faces from my Computer Art daze, like Yulia here…
Hey it’s Marianne, ready to knock my block off….
One of the best parts of MoCCA, or any comic show, is catching up with old friends, like Farel here, pictured with Roger Human Being…
Another awesome part is meeting new people, like Matthew Swauger, a cartoonist who showed me some of this portfolio. Easily my favorite piece is this one, which has both Star Fox and his sworn enemy Star Wolf working together at a pizzeria…
… Simply genius. Oh, and semi-related; time for one last awesome tee shirt pic from the show, which I nabbed as everyone was attempting to get the hell out of dodge…
As for what else I picked up at the show, not much I’m afraid; was simply too busy to make time for a proper perusal of the show as a whole. Though I was able to come home with neat books; in addition to some choice free books that Hilary would come across and pass along once she had gotten the sufficient amount of yuks from them, Lamar was kind enough to pass a copy of Ferzan Zwei…
… It’s basically pics of hot chicks farting, i.e. early contender for comic of the year…
And regarding the best discovery of the show, it’s easily True Believer…
… Other than “MoCCA Test Press” I have no idea who the creator is. I do recall it being a girl, who I think was giving the books out for free if you bought her friend’s (perhaps boyfriend’s) books, but I only really wanted her stuff. If anyone could pass along her contact info, it would be greatly appreciated!
Once myself, Katie, and Pat dropped our stuff off at the apartment, and had sufficiently rolled around in the piles of cash that had been generated over the weekend, we hopped on the train again, this time to meet up with Marianne for dinner. The best part about the Columbia University is the food, and the worst part is the people; the place where I wanted to dine on a self-congratulatory, big ass burrito was overflowing with dopey frat kids (whose very existence is all the more annoying in Manhattan), so we had to settle with upscale Chinese instead. At least desert was more than satisfactory…
After each con, Katie and Pat go through their ritualistic critiquing of the books that landed in their hands that weekend, but I had to hit the hey for an annoying early wake-up time; I had to go downtown and register for jury duty. But the anxiety of having to figure out what antics to pull in order to get rejected by whatever lawyers, coupled with the annoying cough I had developed, made falling asleep an impossibility. And all attempts to figure a way to postpone it via phone or online was not working for me (pro-tip: the all purpose help line that New Yorkers have, 311, is staffed by complete idiots, not that should be of any shock to anyone). But Pat was able to lend a hand, who also was having trouble falling asleep, and eventually success was had! Delayed to August I think. So to celebrate, we watched infomercials till 5 in the morning. Got up in the nick of time to have a late lunch with Lamar, before had to head back home, which included a stop by the Japanese bookstore to check out Mega Man art books, and a failed attempt to gain entrance to the Port Authority bowling alley, to check out its arcade.
Guess that’s my report? Sorry if it feels a bit incomplete; aside from it being somewhat of a blur (hence the lack of reports across the board, at least imho), the show was also, as strange as it might sound, a bit anti-climactic, which in this instance was a good thing. MoCCA 2010, as expected, did a get a bit stuffy and uncomfortable, but not to the degree that everyone had feared. And the staff was, as anticipated, not at all helpful, but most of the volunteers at least meant well and were friendly, so that’s something. But the worst did not happen, and the show was a surprise success, leaving many optimistic for next year, something that virtually no one could have anticipated, myself included. To a small degree, it does feel like the MoCCA Art Fest has turned another corner, though I hope that doesn’t mean that everyone will automatically give them a free pass from this point forward; there is MUCH that can still be improved upon. I still say that a better venue must be explored, or at the very least, the organization itself needs to seriously address their abysmal communication skills.
Ultimately, as with many things, sometimes stuff just works itself out. I still say that MoCCA 2009 being such a catastrophe was a good thing in the end, since it inspired other shows, so the Art Fest fading away wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the word, yet its nice to know that it’s back in somewhat decent form.
“Dave Brockie, you are a hippie. Eat sh*t.” – Ziltoid The Omniscient
Back to this past weekend, which again, was my birthday. Unlike years past, there was no big shindig, mostly cuz everyone is too damn busy these days! Myself included. Though here’s a picture from last year’s get-together at Revival. Was going to say that everyone could check out the rest over at Flickr, but never actually posted any there, so here’s another, and another, and another. Anyway, as for what kept me busy, well, for starters, Katie and I had to take our extremely stupid cat to the vet…
… Not surprisingly, the vet noted that in all his years of practice, he had never encountered a cat as “special” as ours. Which is code for “my God your cat is such a worthless, furry piece of sh*t.” Hey, did I mention the time, recently, in which I was holding our cat and I noted to Katie that something smelled really bad, and then we realized that she was pooping, right there in my hands? Anyhow, the doctor also said it takes some very special people to tolerate such a unlikeable feline.
Next was a meeting with Kunal, to go over plans for our big thing at Babycastles in about two weeks, but I’ll get to that in just a sec… Afterwards I ventured into Brooklyn to meet up with Joe Simko, where we both made our way to the MF Gallery for the second night of the Crack-A-Thon. Which is a talk show hosted by Oderus Urungus, the leader of GWAR! Joe was actually a guest on the show, and I of course had to be there to witness things first-hand.
Here’s a shot of the gallery, before the madness ensued…
And here we have Joe labeling his cup, before it got lost in the sea of similar beer receptacles. In the middle is Frank, one half of the duo that runs the space, as well as the lead singer of DETHRACE, and on other end is Drew, who is one of the very first folks I ever met when I first arrived in NYC over 14 years ago, and whose also a member of the band…
Soon it was showtime! In addition to Oderus (to the right, for those of you unfamiliar with GWAR, which is most unfortunate btw), he was joined by Balsac playing the Ed McMahon/Andy Richter role…
… The show as a whole was absolutely awesome, provided you’re a GWAR fan. The best part of their concerts are the comedy bits in-between songs, and the Crack-A-Thon was essentially a live show, sans the music, with extra jokes and accompanying videos (something the band has somewhat moved away from, in favor of more heavy, harder musical entity, not that’s necessarily bad mind you). Anyway, Joe was the very first guest…
… Yes, that is a dildo sticking out of a bowl of cereal on Oderus’s desk. Next up was the lead singer of DETHRACE, i.e. Frank as Mecronos, accompanied by Drew in his get-up as well….
… Much like Joe, it was simply a surreal dream come true, to be on-stage with his childhood hero, though the context is a bit different than originally imagined I would have to assume (since the notion of an internet talk show is a relatively new one).
And here’s the interview with Chippy (not to be confused with the one found on Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job), this large woodland creature that eats children, is advocate the rights of homeless wild animals, and is also loves crack…
… Crack was not surprisingly a running gag throughout the evening. At various points, a slave girl would carry the thing around for audience members to like, while Oderus sang either the official Crack-A-Thon song, or simply random 80s sitcom theme songs…
Another highlight from the first episode alone was the celebrity shout-outs, primarily the one featuring Devin Townsend and Ziltoid. For those who might be interested, all of Joe’s appearance, Episode 6, can be viewed here!
Joe and I ended up sticking around for the rest of the episodes (five in all were performed that evening). Episode 7 featured a snarky female sword swallower, who also could lay down on a bed of nails; to demonstrate that they were legit sharp as hell, she gave Oderus an apple to toss onto the bed, which he thoroughly enjoyed doing so, and then for some bizarre reason began lobbing apples at the audience. So then promptly began throwing back at her. lol. Well, here’s Oderus standing on the girl’s assistant, also her boyfriend…
Episode 8 is when all the beers that Oderus had been pounding all night long began to show…
… The interview with Jimmy Gestapo, lead singer of Murphy’s Law (aka one of the few legit cool bands from the Japan trip, who weren’t all a bunch of spoiled millionaires) was okay, if a bit ramblish. Episode 9 featured Kembra Pfahler, lead singer of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. Because the pic is NSWF, you’ll have to click here to see her completely naked plus pained all in red, standing on her head, and with her husband about to smash an egg filled with paint onto her vag. Also, a bonus picture featuring the guest and host singing some show tunes. If you look closely, you might noticed the projected vestige of Troma Entertainment?s Lloyd Kaufman, who was a guest the previous night, and not a very good one, based upon all the insults throughout the evening.
The final episode, #10, ended with a special appearance by Andrew WK…
… There had clearly been no pre-interview due to Andrew asking after each song “Okay, what next? What do you want me to play? One of ine, one of yours?” And even though Oderus & Andrew did a phenomenal job with their rendition of You Never Give Me Your Money, I had to call it a night around the 1 am mark. Overall, an awesome evening!
As for the very next day, my actual birthday, Katie took me out to a Mexican breakfast and shopping. New bookbag get! Goodbye Weyland Yutani, hello Ben Sherman! Also nabbed some new UNIQLO tees as well. A very nice and mellow afternoon, which was capped off by watching some Trailer Park Boys in bed.
FORT90 X MESSHOF X GLOW ARTISAN X GRAFFITI MONSTERS X BLUE LEADER
Time to spill the details regarding the big zine launch party! In addition to celebrating “THREE”, I’ll also be lecturing… yes, lecturing… on the subject of Jizzmoppa (along with the state of NYC game development, circa 2000, right before the current scene had begun to blossom. Plus I’ll be sharing the stage with some other fine folks, including Mark Essen, aka Messof, and Ramiro Corbetta, the creator of the critically acclaimed DSiWare puzzler Glow Artisan! Plus there will be performances by Mark DeNardo and this guy. All of us will have our games on-hand, including myself; in addition to Jizzmoppa, I’m also bringing the ecstasy that is Love Love 2, as chronicled in FORT90ZINE #2, along with the horror that is the video game adaptation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as chronicled in the upcoming FORT90ZINE #3!
It all goes down on May 1st, at Babycastles HQ, aka Silent Barn, in the heart of the demilitarized zone that is the Brooklyn/Queens border town of Ridgewood! For more details, be sure to hit the Facebook page.
