SPACE Report

I hoped to have my SPACE report out sooner, what with Free Comic Book Day being Saturday and all (that kind of snuck up on me considering the first Saturday in May this year happens to be May 1), but I've been pretty busy lately.  

One day, this will all be his.

Anyway, last weekend Candy or Medicine made its first SPACE appearance as an exhibitor. I met a lot of really great creators and reconnected with others I met last year. Some Candy or Medicine alumni who attended were my tablemate Nick Marino, Matt Feazell, Dan W. Taylor, Colin Tedford and Dan Olson. Colin came all the way from New Hampshire with his Trees and Hills gang while Dan and his wife AJ traveled from Minneapolis, after making a trip to Chicago for C2E2, then a return trip to Minneapolis, then down to Columbus. Fortunately, Columbus is only a two-hour trek for me.

Matt Feazell

SPACE was held in a new location this year, and it had its upsides and downside. On the upside, it was located in a hotel, so it was nice leaving your room, going down an elevator and arriving on the showroom floor (last year's event was in a conference center with no hotel). Plus there was a decent restaurant and a pool, which my 3-year-old son loved.

Daniel Olson

On the downside, the room was smaller and L-shaped, so there was much meandering on the attendees' part to visit each table. Even though attendance was low, I was at the beginning of what I would call the "dead zone," an area with little foot traffic. I don't blame and attendees, though, considering you had to do a lot of walking to hit each table.

SPACE loot

I didn't sell a lot of books, but I did trade a lot, as seen in the photo below. Out of all the stuff in the bag (hand-stamped, by the way), the only things I purchased were a mini-comic from Joe Kuth (I already have his Embereley Galaxy book, which I would have purchased had I not), Papercutter #12 from Nate Powell, Super Maxi-Pad Girl #s 2 and 3 from Dan Olson and a mini-comic from SPACE organizer Bob Corby. There are a lot of greats book I received in trades and I haven't had time to go through very many yet, but I hope to have some short reviews up here in the coming weeks. I'm working on some reviews for the upcoming issue of Zine World, so hopefully I'll be in full throttle review mode.

  

Dan W. Taylor

Despite slow sales, I had a really fun time, picked up a lot of great comics and got to meet some new comic creators (Bruce Chrislip showed me some of his original art from comics published in Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s. He also told me to stop making comics), and catch up with others (Carol Tyler told me she really liked Dan McEwen's "Comix Not Dead" shirt I had for sale). I hope this to be the first of many years that I'm a SPACE exhibitor. It's funny because there is definitely a genertional divide at the show (a lot of young guys and a lot of old guys), and I found myself wondering if I'll be one of those old guys in 20-30 years. Who knows?

Nick Marino

For more coverage of SPACE, check out the SPACE blog.

Colin Tedford