Here's photos of Dean Haspiel's minicomic collection being sorted through before going to the Library of Congress for the new SPX collection.

Small Press Expo Executive Director (and infrequent blogger here) Warren Bernard answered some questions about this year's convention for me...

CDC: How’d you personally get into comics?

WB: When I got my tonsils out in 2nd Grade, my parents bought me a Superman comic. It has been downhill ever since and I am waiting to hit bottom....

CDC: How is SPX different than a standard comics con?

WB: Well, to be Clintonian about it, depends on your definition of 'standard'. There are two different standards in the comics world, one is the SDCC, Baltimore Comiccon, Heroes Con etc world of the super hero comic and the other is the SPX, MOCCA, TCAF, Stumptown, etc indie/self published comic.

But regardless of which standard you apply, the main difference is, we have the most fun. ;-)

CDC: How many years has it run, and how many years have you been a part of it?

WB: SPX started in 1994, I started as a volunteer in 2002. Staring about 2004 I began to handle the PR duties, last year was the Assistant Exec Director and this year, well, the whole enchilada is now mine.

CDC: How many people are you expecting?

WB: 2500-3000 or more!!

CDC: Any cartoonists you are particularly proud of having come? Favorite guests of past years?

WB: Well, I have to admit, Roz Chast and Jim Woodring this year are the two that I have to pinch myself to be sure I am not dreaming that they are coming. In terms of past years, Joost Swarte, Will Eisner and Harvey Pekar are the three that will always stand out in my pantheon of SPX Guests.

CDC: How fast did the tables sell out? Are you sold out?

WB: Tables sell out in like 3-4 weeks and we have been wait listed since February 1st. So you really have to move fast to get a table!!!

CDC: Is there anything special about this year not mentioned yet?

WB: Well, no real last minute surprises, but the both the SPX Collection at the Library of Congress and the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, comprise a major shift for us, taking SPX from being a festival to widening our responsibilities into becoming an institutional foundation of the indie comics world.

The Small Press Expo takes place 11 am–7 p.m. Sept. 10 and noon–6 p.m. Sept. 11 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Road, Bethesda. $10-$15.

Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising talk by Warren Bernard, August 24, 2011. I like this book a lot. Here's more photographs.

I'll be there.



Warren Bernard - Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising

Aug 25 2011 7:00 pm



The comic strip has its roots in advertising as well as in art. In the first book-length study of these dual sources, Rick Marschall, founder of Nemo: The Classic Comics Library, and Warren Bernard, a prolific commentator on and extensive collector of cartoons as well as the Executive Director of Small Press Expo, look at work from the 1870s to 1940, documenting how popular cartoon characters like the Yellow Kid, Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye have figured in advertising campaigns, and how their creators were highly sought-after pitchmen, selling products alongside the best movie stars in Hollywood. As part of his presentation, Bernard will have on-hand select original ads and other advertisting items from the era.



In anticipation of Small Press Expo (SPX) 2011 - being held September 10-11 in Bethesda, MD - a complimentary one-day pass to the show will be available with the purchase of Drawing Power at Politics and Prose on the night of the event. More information about SPX 2011 at www.spxpo.com.

I'll be there.



Warren Bernard - Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising

Aug 25 2011 7:00 pm



The comic strip has its roots in advertising as well as in art. In the first book-length study of these dual sources, Rick Marschall, founder of Nemo: The Classic Comics Library, and Warren Bernard, a prolific commentator on and extensive collector of cartoons as well as the Executive Director of Small Press Expo, look at work from the 1870s to 1940, documenting how popular cartoon characters like the Yellow Kid, Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye have figured in advertising campaigns, and how their creators were highly sought-after pitchmen, selling products alongside the best movie stars in Hollywood. As part of his presentation, Bernard will have on-hand select original ads and other advertisting items from the era.



In anticipation of Small Press Expo (SPX) 2011 - being held September 10-11 in Bethesda, MD - a complimentary one-day pass to the show will be available with the purchase of Drawing Power at Politics and Prose on the night of the event. More information about SPX 2011 at www.spxpo.com.

One of the nice things about going overseas is seeing how much more other countries respect comics than we do in the United States. Though indeed we invented many elements of the medium, we still are far behind our international counterparts in giving comics and cartooning their due in a museum environment.



I was in Kyoto, and decided to take a half day off from seeing amazing Japanese gardens and Zen Buddhist temples to go through the International Manga Museum that was conveniently a six-block walk form my hotel. A true happy accident of planning.



The museum is housed in the Tatsuike Primary School that was built in the late 1860s, when downtown Kyoto began to see a population explosion that required a number of schools be built to handle all the new students. Like America's classic central-city population migration to the suburbs, by the 1990's the school, along with many others, was closed. After having the property lie dormant and vacant, a partnership between the City of Kyoto and the Kyoto Seika University had the school renovated and made into a museum. They have kept two rooms as a museum to the school itself. One had portraits of all the principals that ran the school from inception -- a hard looking bunch if there ever was one.



This museum is in many ways very different from the Tintin Museum in Brussels or the Cartoon Museum in London. One of the main draws of the IMM is the availability of a library of over 50,000 volumes of manga that one can read there, although not take home as in a traditional library. I saw many people there who paid the admission of 500 yen (about $6.25) just to come and read. They were camped out, reading away, in the hallways of the old school or on the main floor at large picnic tables near the main entrance.


The Museum had a very small section of translated material from France, Germany and the United States, which you could also sit and read. But my Japanese is not that good (OK, it's non-existent...) and I already owned all the translated American material so I went to look around.







The manga volumes were stacked in floor to ceiling book cases, some of these reaching over 12 feet high. Computer kiosks were throughout the museum to help you locate a specific book in the densely-packed shelves. The manga were mainly grouped by styles, but in one section that appeared to be in the old gymnasium, they were grouped by decade.





Also in this old gymnasium was the main series of displays that showed the evolution of manga. It is a nice showcase as to the tools and techniques used by the manga artists. I had no idea that Japanese versions of Puck, the American political humor magazine from the 19th-early 20th century, had copycat versions in Tokyo, Yokahama and Osaka. That being said, this museum's view of history was about the development of manga, especially the explosion of it after World War Two. No Little Nemo, Superman or Marvel Superheroes are in this place.



There were three other exhibition areas, of one which had a great exhibit about French cartoonists doing stories about The Louvre. This was apparently the first exhibit they have hosted at the IMM from France and was looked at as introducing French "bande dessinee" to Japanese manga fans. These main exhibition areas were all in both English and Japanese, as were all exhibits I saw there.



But the best part of the trip there? I got the last Astro Boy mug they had in stock.

The next time you're in Kyoto, stop into the International Manga Museum and take a look around. You'll think, just as you wonder about the Japanese shinkensen (bullet train) and their mass transportation system in general, "hey, why don't we have one of these?"

Note our buddy Warren is featured as well.

Craig Yoe - The Great Anti-War Cartoons
Start: April 16, 2010 - 7:00pm
End: April 16, 2010 - 8:00pm

Yoe, a historian of cartoons, has assembled a vast array of anti-war comics that span the globe and date back to the 1600s. These comics run the gamut of emotions, from Bill Mauldin’s humor to Francisque Poulbot’s sorrow. Yoe’s presentation will include source material from Warren Bernard’s private collection.

[The Great Anti-War Cartoons]
The Great Anti-War Cartoons (Paperback)
By Craig Yoe, Sara W. Duke, Muhammad Yunus
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9781606991503
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Fantagraphics Books, 12/01/2009

Location:
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave. NWWashington, D.C. 20008

Independent scholar Warren Bernard returns to the Library of Congress on Wednesday, March 31, to give a talk in conjunction with the Herblock! exhibition, "Declaration of Independence: Herblock: His Foes and His Editors". This event will take place in Dining Room A located on the 6th Floor of the Madison Building at noon.

Warren writes in,

This time, I am going to lecture on his editorial independence, and get into a few battles he had with his editors. This will include showing the cartoons that even the Washington Post did not run (though indeed his syndicated papers did run them) when Herblock and the then-editor of the Post, Phil Graham went head to head. This was not the first time Herblock battled his editors; we will also get into a large battle he had prior to his coming to the Post He was an ardent anti-isolationist, much to the chagrin of the isolationist syndicate he worked for.

We will get into all of this, and show cartoons galore!!

Here are the details, hope to see you!!!

Date: Wednesday March 31

Time: Noon (that 12:00PM...)

Place: Madison Building, Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave Washington, DC

Room: Dining Room A, 6th Floor

Metro: Capitol South exit, Blue or Orange Line

Warren Bernard writes in with another bit of the Secret History of Comics:

Well, no question that all of us capitalists have taken it on the chin recently. To show how things do not change and for your enjoyment, (Well, OK, as much as one can enjoy seeing their life savings evaporate into thin air), here is a cartoon about the stock market from Puck Magazine in 1884.


'The Wall Street Hellgate' by F. Graetz, Puck, 1884.

Note the electrical/telegraph wires in the crown of the "Siren", as she plays her harp of speculation.

Replace the strings labeled "Western Union", "Erie" and "Pacific" (all railroad companies, the growth stock of the day) with "CDOs", "Mortgage Backed Securities" and "Ethanol" and Voila!! Instant 21st Century political cartoon!!

But my favorite part of the cartoon are the foot pedals on the harp. They are named, appropriately enough, "Puts" and "Calls".

We have not changed much in 125 years and I dunno about you, but I surely feel as if I just crashed on those rocks.