JanerBlog

APE Question.

I (obviously) didn't make it out to APE this year, but I did read some commentary about it, including this link to a video blog of the show.

I just have a question -- since when did APE become an arts-and-crafts show? I mean, it's a tiny hall, with room for maybe three hundred exhibitors. Demand for these spaces is so great that the reg forms go online and are taken down again within a matter of one, maybe two months, and then the wait list starts. They don't jury exhibitors in, but it seems like they'd at least be screening for, I don't know, comics creators. Puppets and fiber arts and ipod covers are all really neat, and deserve to have their due, but... at the expense of comics artists at a comics show?

I'd really, really hate to see APE go the way of some of the midwestern comics shows, where actual comics creators are shunted aside to make way for everything from Harry Potter knockoff replicas to teeshirt vendors to washed-up Playboy models. I mean, if you're going to go that way, fine, but stop billing it as a comics show if the focus is no longer going to be on comics. Call it a "Pop Culture Con" or whatever.

Call me a purist, but I think a comic con should be about comics, especially one of the few shows in North America where the small and independent pressers get their chance to shine.