Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art Festival

Cards: Connie Chan, Raymund Florida, Kiki Jones, David Boyle, JM DeSantis, Fyodor Pavlov, Pigtail Studio, Alex Krokus, Heidi Black, Eyeheart.us, Plushteam, Susie Oh; Photo: Aedan Roberts

Article by Tristian Goik.

Once or twice, I have heard of people talking about how they ‘got a table’ at the MoCCA Festival. The Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art Festival is a gathering of artists (mostly illustrators) at the Lexington Avenue Armory. Only this year have I been fortunate and intelligent enough to go. It is a large, but manageable convention. The armory is filled with both young and more mature artists, who are manning their tables filled with comics, illustrations, posters, and more. Some of them are eager: smiling over their work with the confidence that they will peak your interest. Others are more extroverted and hand out a flyer or two. Some are more likely just holding the table for the artist in absentia, and fortunately only a few are too emotional to make eye contact. I drifted through this colorful reef of people and emerged with a bag full of paper-swag, which I present to you here. Please keep in mind they are just a fraction of what was available, and try not to over analyze one poor man’s experience and choices…

Cards: Kyle Anderson, Anna Jung, Yasmin Liang, Ztoical, Topher MacDonald, Cooking Up Comics; Photo: Yao Xiao

Here are a few fun things I noticed. “The Man with F.E.E.E.T.”  is an original View-Master adventure-comedy by Eric Drysdale, narrated by John Hodgman, of all people. Heidi Black  sells anthropomorphized Pokemon book-marks for $3. I totally bought Suicune, which you can see on my own blog if you like. And I bought a scroll from Aeden Roberts because it pleased me to do so. It had a nice part involving monsters and despair in the subway…

Cards: Cuddles And Rage, AC, Samandal, Photo: Dan Pinto, Fakeheads

It’s nice to see ASIFA-East has many connections to MoCCA. I was pleased to see Signe Baumane, Bill Plympton, and Mo Willems set the standard for the Board of Advisors (also Moby?!). I made two social calls on my visit. FakeHeads  is a group of artists who publish their own comic books every year. Dan Pinto is just one of their members, and owes me a book called “Hedge-hug in the Fug.” Alisa Stern is a fine purveyor of hand-crafted robots, established in 2011. Fakeheads is always a treat and you shouldn’t miss their gallery shows either. I also visited some great NYU buddies. Connie Chan, a designer at Hornet Inc,  has a particularly cute comic book called “Sir Baby” about an egg shaped knight. She shared a table with Steve Neary, who animated “Dr. Breakfast” of recent ASIFA-East fame… Neary’s train-ride-sketches provide some illumination into his story process, I think. They are a lot of fun.

Steve Neary & Connie Chan

The MoCCA festival is quite an opportunity for the young artist. You can smell the hope and dreams dripping off of these people. I noticed many people left their own tables to peruse, buy or trade other people’s comics. (No sense of competition here). If you need to break into the scene, here is a great place to get a feel for it, either in the open exhibition space or at one of the panel discussions. And if you need to decorate the walls of your new loft, I can recommend a few good pin-up posters.