I had a blast at CAKE, thanks to everyone who came by my table!!
I stayed with my friend Jon Mastantuono (AKA Jon Drawdoer). He draws great psychedelic comics that grow from slices of reality, check out his stuff here. He also helps organize CAKE so I got to see some of all the hard work the organizers put into making a show happen.
A drawing from Jon’s Tumblr.
Chicago is such a cool city, I’d never been before. KC is only a ten-hour drive away so hopefully I’ll be back soon. As a Texan, that was the coldest June weekend I’ve ever experienced, and I loved it!
The Friday before CAKE I went to Quimby’s for the first time. That’s an amazing comic book store! I felt so honored to see my Vortex promo print up on one of their bookshelves.
Do you want a promo riso print of Vortex for your comic book store? Let me know…
CAKE is in a gymnasium. I went to BCGF in Brooklyn in November 2012 and I was in the gym part of the show. It was so hot and humid in there. Everyone was sweating and the books were curling from the humidity. So when I saw that CAKE was in a gym I got worried. But the gym was freezing which I prefer to heat. It’s kind of ironic that BCGF was in November and sweltering and CAKE was in June and frigid.
View from the balcony of the third floor of the Center on Halstead, where CAKE happens.
One bummer for me was that I ordered a PayPal chip card reader for CAKE but it could not connect to my phone via Bluetooth (the only connection option) when the show was bumping, probably from all the interfering signals. Fortunately I brought my Square card reader that just plugs into the headphone jack of my phone as a backup. But I would advise against buying the PayPal chip card reader. I’ve heard the Square chip card reader is better but it’s much more expensive.
My table.
Sales were brisk. Selling some books from Retrofit Comics helped me out. Tyler Landry’s Shit and Piss really draws the eye. I was also in a good spot in the gym, in between Paradise Systems, a micropress who translates and publishes Chinese indie comics and other quality comics, and Secret Acres, who had a new, wonderfully out-there collection of short comics by Edie Fake, Little Stranger.
I haven’t had a chance to read everything I bought, but some highlights for me so far have been:
- Behind is Late by Cynthia Alfonso – a formally experimental and beautifully produced (it has a laminated cover!) poetry comic
- Grip by Lale Westvind – a fantastic, frenetic homage to the power of the hand
- But is it… Comic Aht? – a new, all-newsprint comics mag put out by Domino Books with in-depth interviews and articles for slow reflection in today’s too-fast times
