If it seemed like this year's Stumptown Comics Fest, held April 26 and 27 in Portland, Ore., followed very quickly on the heels of the last one, that's because it did: for its fifth year, the show moved from a fall to a spring date, filling the void in small press comics conventions left by Alternative Press Expo's move to the fall.
But it was easily the biggest show yet, repeating its trick of topping the previous year's total attendance by the end of the first day. Almost 1,200 admissions were sold on Saturday, and Portland's Lloyd Center Doubletree was fairly full on Sunday, too. Stumptown is mostly, but not entirely, a small press show; most of the 133 display tables were filled by local publishers (Oni, Dark Horse, Top Shelf, Microcosm) and self-publishing cartoonists. A lot of the programming had a DIY focus, including a life-modeling session from Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, a kids-only comics workshop and an hour devoted to collectively producing an "instant graphic novel."
Still, there were crowds for panels featuring bigger-name cartoonists, both local heroes (Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, Blankets cartoonist Craig Thompson, Secret Invasion writer Brian Michael Bendis) and some out-of-town visitors (Perry Bible Fellowship's Nicholas Gurewitch, Making Comics' Scott McCloud). Larry Marder premiered at his panel a short Beanworld animation and announced that Dark Horse would be reprinting his '80s-era Beanworld material as well as releasing a new Beanworld graphic novel and a line of toys next year.
There weren't a lot of square-bound graphic novels debuted at the show, although Ken Dahl's Welcome to the Dahl House quickly sold out, and Karl Stevens's Whatever, Nate Beaty's BFF and Meredith Gran's self-published Octopus Pie all attracted some attention. Other well-circulated projects included two unofficial Free Comic Book Day anthologies, Nerd Burglar and the cheekily titled Diamond Comics, as well as Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which won the Maisie Kukoc award for minicomics.
The social nexus of Stumptown, as usual, was at retailer Cosmic Monkey Comics' Saturday night party, at which the show's Trophy Awards were presented. The second issue of Erika Moen's DAR swept the awards for Outstanding Writing, Debut and DIY; Shaenon K. Garrity's Skin Horse won for Outstanding Small Press; and Barry Deutsch's Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword (a self-published book, subtitled "Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl") won for Outstanding Art. The party also included the by-now-traditional "cartoon battle," in which teams of web cartoonists (including Dylan Meconis and Bill Mudron) and print cartoonists (Steve Lieber, Carla Speed McNeil, Corey Lewis and others) squared off for challenges like drawing an adjective-noun-verb combination ("engorged Abraham Lincoln curling") suggested by the audience.
