ComicsPRO 2011 pt. 2 of 3!

Last Saturday night, after the ComicsPRO meetings ended, Chris Powell of Lone Star Comics, organized a tour of four Dallas comic book stores. Here in this self photo taken on the bus as it departed is Kate and myself (from Alternate Reality Comics in Vegas, of course) in the foreground and on the top left is Jay from Maximum Comics (another Vegas store - he's got two actually) and Derrick from Comic Oasis (yet ANOTHER great Vegas store), with Gary Dills of Laughing Ogre Comics trying to muscle in on the Vegas posse (grin!) on the very far right. Derrick and Jay are good friends of Kate and myself and being as we're all busy with or own stores, we don't get to get together with each other as much as we like, so we got some good hanging out time done in Dallas. And we all got to do some good visiting and sharing of ideas with other fellow retailers, even though they weren't from Vegas (double grin)!
The first store we visited was Keith's Comics and here's Keith welcoming us into his store. Keith's Comics is enormous, which you can't tell from the exterior, it's VERY long and a person could get lost looking at all the treasures within.

I apologize for not having better (or more) photos here on this entry that would give you a sense of these stores if you haven't had the pleasure of visiting yourself, but I will have more interior photos on my Alternate Reality Comics, Las Vegas facebook page tomorrow (blogspot doesn't allow for more than five photos per entry, that's why this ComicsPRO report is in three parts).
The second store we visited was Chris and Richard's Zeus Comics and it is a beautiful, fun store. Zeus Comics is a great example of a modern comic book store, whereas Keith's Comics is a great example of an old school comic book store done right.

In this photo above from left to right is: me (Ralph, natch), Chris (Zeus Comics), Kate, and Richard (Zeus Comics)
The third store on the tour was Wayne's Generation X Comics and this was also a VERY large store with gaming being a very big part of their operation (but comic books were well represented). Wayne and his wife made ribs for those of us that weren't vegetarians or vegans and Kate (not being a vegetarian) was very happy.

In this photo above you can see within the window to the meat room at Generation X Comics, Derrick from Comic Oasis on the left and Chris from Lone Star Comics.
The tour ended at Lone Star Comics, which is another LARGE comic book store (well we were in Texas, where they seem to do everything king sized!) and this store also had a big gaming section, but they also have a large, very nicely displayed selection of the diverse cross section of genres comics encompass. I love their graphic novel shelves!

I want to thank everyone at all four of the stores on the tour for being so hospitable to all of us. Please remember to check out the Alternate Reality Comics, Las Vegas facebook page tomorrow for more photos of all four of these fab Dallas stores!

ComicsPRO 2011 pt. 3 0f 3!

Boom Studios!, brought out an RV that was filled with brews to the ComicsPRO meeting, and although it was parked in the Doubletree parking lot, everyone managed to not spend the entire weekend within said RV (as tempting as that was)! I think Boom Studios! wants retailers to remember the RV experience when placing orders for their titles, which isn't a trick they need as they publish a wide variety of a lot of what's great in comics today!

Here in this first photo is me and Kate on the right, with Chip Mosher from Boom Studios! to my left and his boy wonder at Boom Studios! to his left (sorry I'm a putz and can't remember his name - I blame it on the Blue Moons!) and Jay from Maximum Comics (Vegas & Henderson) in front of all of us in his Hammer Time! shirt!

Another shot from inside the Boom Studios! RV featuring Stuart Shreck (DC Comics sales guru) and Kate.





John Munn of Comic Book Ink, Kate, and Joe Field from Flying Colors Comics (also creator of Free Comic Book Day, of which this Saturday, May 7th will mark the 10th anniversary!, and President of ComicsPRO).

Joe Field (Flying Color Comics in Concord, California) with Barry from Southern Fried Comics in Hattiesburg, Missouri, who will be celebrating his store's one year anniversary in August!


Calum of Strange Adventures in Halifax, Canada (also a ComicsPRO board member), with Amanda Emmert, who owns Muse Comics in Montana and is the engine of ComicsPRO (seriously, she's like the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby of ComicsPRO and all the other board members always say that the organization wouldn't be were it is today without her).

Well that wraps up my ComicsPRO meeting overview, but it doesn't wrap up what I took out of the meetings and I'm anxious to get cracking on the notes I took to power Alternate Reality Comics further into 2011 and beyond for many more years! I want to close by once again suggesting to comic book stores reading this that aren't already members of ComicsPRO to visit www.comicsPRO.org and consider joining because there really is strength in numbers and I'm sure there's things you're doing in your stores and or ideas you have about the industry that we could all benefit from. And I hope I've imparted upon you all what a fun time is had in addition to the valuable meetings.

The Original Johnson v.2; Trevor Von Eeden

How many ways is there to say how fantastic something is? However many ways there are, they all apply to Trevor Von Eeden's two volume graphic novel biography of Jack Johnson, called The Original Johnson. This was the second great graphic novel that came out last week (the other being Psychiatric Tales that I've got a blog entry below this one) that I read Sunday on the plane back from the Dallas ComicsPRO comic book store retailer meeting this past weekend.

Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the whole world and as Trevor Von Eeden shows in The Original Johnson, he wasn't just powerful in the ring. Being that Jack Johnson was a black man living in the late 1800s and early 1900, he lived in a time that was very racist and many didn't like that a black man was the champion of "their" sport.

People sometimes shy away from biographies because they think they're just boring retellings of history, well there seems to have been nothing boring about Jack Johnson's life, rather he seemed like a force of nature, thus The Original Johnson is VERY exciting. Trevor Von Eeden's art is also very raw and primal and is the perfect style for the power that was Jack Johnson.

Mike Gold, in his equally excellent afterward to Trevor Von Eeden's The Original Johnson has this to say about where we are as a nation almost a hundred years later:

"But we really have made some progress. Lynching is way down, and there's a growing and viable black middle class. We even allow black doctors to have white patients, and in some neighborhoods blacks and whites can swim in the same bodies of water. Who knows, maybe in another century we'll even let Americans of African descent join the Tea Bag movement."

The Original Johnson isn't preachy at all in its depiction of racism, instead it shows how farcical and embarrassing racism is and how little people who hold those views are. Did I mention that The Original Johnson is excellent and fantastic!?

Psychiatric Tales; Darryl Cunningham

On my return flight from the ComicsPRO comic store retailer meeting in Dallas yesterday, I read Psychiatric Tales, one of two excellent graphic novels that came out last week. Psychiatric Tales is written and drawn by Darryl Cunningham and is subtitled Eleven Graphic Stories About Mental Illness, which is exactly what this graphic novel is about, from an insider's perspective, as Cunningham, the cartoonist worked as a health care assistant in a psychiatric ward.

I do enjoy many escapist comic books and graphic novels of the super hero variety, but my very favorite kinds of sequential art productions are in the non fiction, autobiographical vein. So I knew that if Darryl Cunningham handled the subject matter of Psychiatric Tales in a thorough fashion, that this was going to be a book I was going to want to read. I'm happy to say that Psychiatric Tales exceeded my expectations and this will be a graphic novel that I'll be able to easily recommend for years.

Darryl Cunningham writes in his illustrated introduction: "Psychiatric Tales is intended to be a stigma-busting book. This is because fear and ignorance of mental illness remain widespread in society." I strongly believe that anyone who reads Psychiatric Tales will have a new understanding of the various kinds of mental illnesses that people have. I'm sure everyone knows or has known someone with a mental illness and reading Psychiatric Tales will make it easier going forward when this arises again in our lives (and yes, even depression is a mental illness, an ailment that a lot of even "normal" people experience to varying degrees).

Darryl Cunningham's art style as the interior page above shows, is minimalistic, but I think it perfectly communicates the subject matter of Psychiatric Tales. I especially was moved by Darryl Cunningham's last chapter, of which I'm not going to discuss, because I think it's better read not knowing what that last chapter is about, so with this in mind, please don't read the back of Psychiatric Tales when you look at this graphic novel.

Arizona artists visiting Vegas event!

Time to mark your calendars for what's going to be a fun time at Alternate Reality Comics that could very well redefine what a fun time is! Sunday, February 20th from 12-4pm, I'll be hosting several artists from Arizona, California, and Las Vegas!

Here's the line up: Eric Basaldua (artist on comics from Top Cow and Zenescope), Rob Duenas (Penny For Your Soul), Alfred Trujillo (Zenescope artist), local artists Jean Arrow, Andy Bohn, April Grady Reyna, Tosh Delaney, Shelby Robertson, Brieanna Brock (Zenescope cosplayer and contributor on the website www.comicbooked.com), Victoria Page (contributor on www.comicbooked.com and cosplayer), and Michael Duran (who cosplays as Superman on the Las Vegas Strip)! It's a good thing I moved my store to a bigger space!

This event is your chance to get some uber cool art sketches from some amazing artists, purchase a raffle ticket for your chance to win a piece of art from these artists, and there'll be additional raffle prizes from Alternate Reality Comics, and the much beloved .25 cent back issue sale! All proceeds from the back issue sale and all raffle tickets purchased will be donated to the Nevada Partnership For Homeless Youth (Safe Place), a local charity that assists teens who have become homeless and or are having difficulty in their lives.

This event is the brainchild of Brieanna Brock, who recently moved from Arizona to Vegas. Brieanna is bringing her skills in helping out at Arizona conventions and is looking to make Vegas an even more exiting place for comic book fans than it already is. Not only is this lineup of artists going to be at Alternate Reality Comics on Sunday, Feb. 20th (from 12-4pm), but they'll be at my buddy Jay's, Maximum Comics in Henderson (just down from the Sunset Station) on Saturday, Feb. 19th (12-4pm), and to continue my talking about this whole event in a backwards fashion, they'll be at Buffalo Wild Wings (Craig and Commerce) for a Drink and Draw on Friday, Feb. 18th from 9pm until the alcohol runs out!

So you get not one, not two, but three chances to visit with young up and coming artists, cosplay people, and other lads and lasses who love comic book art and comic book fandom! I hope that everyone who is reading this Ich Liebe Comics! event entry will come to either the Friday Feb.18th night hangout, the Saturday Feb. 19th signing at Maximum Comics, the Sunday Feb. 20th signing at Alternate Reality Comics (my store's first Sunday event!), or better yet - all three meet ups and show Brieanna and these visiting artists that Las Vegas comic fans know how to have a fun time! Tell everyone you know about this Presidents Day weekend Arizona Comic Book Artists Event here in Vegas! Those of you who haven't heard of the Justice League of Las Vegas can ask Brieanna what it is about and how you can be a part of it!

Vietnamerica A Family's Journey; GB Tran

Vietnamerica is a new 280 page color hardcover graphic novel by Gia-Bao (GB) Tran, published by Villard about his parents, who are from Vietnam, and their journey to America in the 1970s. Vietnamerica is a complex narrative, fitting for a complex country (Vietnam) and America's involvement into that countries war / conflict in the 1960s and 1970s.

I was really looking forward to reading Vietnamerica when I first heard about its release because while I had a historical knowledge of Vietnam, I was hoping that this graphic novel would give me a first hand, personal perspective of what living there was like, especially during the Vietnam War. Vietnamerica did accomplish this to an extent, but ultimately I didn't connect with it as much as I had hoped I would, as it doesn't have the personal, emotional resonances of Maus or Perspepolis. I think that this is partly because GB Tran, the creator of Vietnamerica, was only coming to terms with what living in Vietnam and the Vietnam War (he was born in the U.S. a year after his parents arrived here) was like by the time he gets to the end of his graphic novel and I definitely wish there were at least a couple of chapters more.

I'm sure I'll appreciate Vietnamerica more upon another reading and I definitely believe that GB Tran is a cartoonist to watch in the future. Tran's art is lush and evocative of the best of Craig Thompson, of Blankets fame. I am somewhat concerned that my Ich Liebe Comics! entry here on Vietnamerica reads as a lukewarm review, but I really do think this is a solid autobiographical graphic novel, I just was looking for a little something more and hope that people still take a look / read of Vietnamerica.

Scenes From An Impending Marriage

Scenes From An Impending Marriage is a new hardcover graphic novelette, by Adrian Tomine. Scenes From An Impending Marriage is a reworking of a book Tomine gave to his wedding guests and is a cute (although not in the annoying way, wedding things of this nature can be) and works as an entertaining production by Tomine until he releases his next sequential art production (which like the work of Daniel Clowes, is becoming less and less frequent).

While Scenes From An Impending Marriage doesn't have the subject matter weight of other Tomine graphic novels like Summer Blonde or Sleepwalk and Other Stories, or the fine clean art line Tomine has perfected, it is packaged in a nice hardcover format for only $9.95 that offers a nice look at the private life of Adrian Tomine and what he's been up to lately (he even has a daughter and lives in New York City these days!).