The Stumptown Comics Fest 2012 is coming up this weekend (April 28th & 29th, 2012). The show began in Portland, Oregon back in 2004 when several local cartoonists decided to take matters into their own hands to create a convention for themselves. Attendance has continued to increase year over year culminating in a larger room at the present site, the Oregon Convention Center.
Every year comics creators and cartoonists of every stripe converge on Portland for the show bringing their works with them for sale. More often than not, selling merchandise is the primary way that online comics creators supplement their income or even make their living. We spoke with some planned attendees, many of whom have webcomics listed on Comic Rocket, to discuss what they’ll have for sale at the show. Yes, these are shameless plugs, but if you buy their stuff the creators will be able to keep making the comics you love reading!
Chris and Kyle Bolton, creators of the comic Smash, will be selling buttons, shirts, and the SMASH Fun Book of Super Fun. They’ll be at table 104.
Samuel Boyd, creator of HamstaPowah, is bringing, among other things, a print of his Bronies button that people liked so much at ECCC. He’ll be at table 312.
Kory Bing, the creator of Skin Deep, says she’ll “have a bunch of new prints and a cardgame called Borogove to sell!” Look for it at table E-7.
Dylan Meconis of Bite Me and Family Man fame will bringing an awesome print screened by her fellow Periscope studio mate Erika Moen. These Skullhouette screenprints should sell fast. Dylan will be at table B-15.
And speaking of Erika Moen… besides bringing the usual goodies like DAR volumes, she is bringing this limited edition screen print called Octopus Lady in Profile. She’s also bringing this neat mini comic she did with Brendan Adkins called #IsawU. Erika will be at table B-8.
Kel McDonald creator of Sorcery 101 will be selling print versions of her online comics such as From Scratch, As We Were, and Strange Someone. She’ll be at table B-25.
The multi-talented Jason Thompson best known maybe for the quite enjoyable King of RPGs, (or possibly Manga: The Complete Guide) will be at the show selling his great Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath poster. But more importantly he’ll be launching his new webcomic, The Doom That Came to Sarnath which you will be able to see starting Friday, April 27th. He’s with The Couscous Collective at table 303
And what would table 303 be without the rest of the Couscous Collective and the incredibly accomplished Shaenon Garrity of Skin Horse, Narbonic and Li’l Mel fame? She tells me that Couscous will be debuting a whole bunch of new works at their table. They’ve got:
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Beards, the longest Couscous Collective anthology yet (as well the previous Couscous anthologies, Forest, Space and Ocean.)
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A Mythos Card Set by Pancha Diaz which is a set of prints in the style of Mexican loteria cards illustrating a new mythology.
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A set of postcards by Liz Conley from her food portrait blog, Filling Content. (She’ll also have original watercolor art from Filling Content and Mirror, Mirror, wherein four fairy-tale villainesses tell their side of the story. It’s a limited-edition silkscreened, hand-bound comic!
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Narbonic: The Perfect Collection by Shaenon, the convention debut of the new omnibus edition of her classic webcomic Narbonic. Also Skin Horse Volumes 1 and 2 (with Jeffrey C. Wells). Note that Volume 2 will be making its Stumptown debut too. And don’t forget about her Kickstarter to fund Skin Horse Volume 3!
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The Looney Tunes Treasury which is Andrew Farago’s guide to the history and characters of Warner’s Looney Tunes.
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Jamie the Trickster by Chloe Dalquist which is the first chapter of her ongoing webcomic.
There’s more from Couscous but you’ll just have to come by table 303 to see!
Sean Kelley of Roy’s Boy’s says he and fellow artist Roy Kwong will be at table C-2 selling the Roy’s Boys: Year One TPB at a discounted convention rate.
Jason “jfish” Fischer creator of Jaephisch and the Dark Rainbow and other comics tells us he’s going to have “a special art print at my booth” and that it has “something to do with my upcoming shirt at SEBEI!” He assures us that no one’s seen it and that it’s still secret. It’ll be printed as an 11×17 that you can get at table 204!
Arthur Culang tells us that Raynato Castro and Alex Culang are bringing some great Buttersafe stuff like the Buttersafe Year One book which is the complete first year of their webcomics at a whopping 200 pages. They’ll also have Buttersafe T-Shirts including the new Robot Cat shirt, and the popular Slow Animal Club shirt. And then there are signed prints of classic Buttersafe strips and even Buttersafe buttons. They’ll be at table 100.
E.K. Weaver, the creator of TJ and Amal, is bringing books and prints, and will also be signing and doing sketches. Find out at table E-20.
Shing Yin Khor, creator of Marlowe the Monster says she’ll be bringing all “my books/postcards/prints as usual, but also con-only monster paintings on wood!” Find her at table E-21.
Here’s a picture of these works in progress:
Alas, time is running out. I could keep going!
This is but a partial list of all the great items and great artists that are going to be on the floor for the Stumptown Comics Fest 2012! A complete list of webcomics artists whose comics are listed on Comic Rocket can be found here along with the tables that they’ll be at.
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