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SNAP! The Comics Art Festival
SNAP! is the latest addition to the growing number of conventions focusing on the small press comics scene including shows like Maryland’s SPX and Ohio’s SPACE. While SNAP! was certainly successful enough in its inaugural year to warrant comparisons with some of the bigger shows of this kind, the festival reveled in its homegrown status. There’s been a certain amount of fuss lately about the comics community losing “real” comic conventions. The argument follows that with the proliferation of giant multi-media conventions like San Diego, smaller cons with a focus directly on comic books have a harder time finding an audience. While there is a level of legitimacy behind these claims, most of the comic conventions held throughout the summer focus primarily on the creators that work for the bigger superhero companies, and even the artist allies at these shows favor nationally recognized creators over the local small press crowd. This wasn’t always the case.
Growing up in Flint (an hour north of Detroit), I made an annual pilgrimage from late elementary school until my senior year of high school to the Motor City Comic Con. During most of the 90s, the Motor City shows held in May and October were major stops on the convention circuit for DC, Marvel, and Image. While my friends and I came down each spring for the show to wait for autographs from the popular artists of the day, a majority of our con time was spent getting to know the die hard local guys who would come to every show no matter what. Comics like Josh Ellingson’s Ninja Duck, Steve Stegelin's Boondoggle, and a host of books by hometown hero Randy Zimmerman may not have been far distributed out of the Midwest, but they all had a huge impact on me as a reader. Without the connections I made to local talent and local comics, I would never have become as involved in comics as I am today. However in recent years, these kinds of books have slowly disappeared from the failing Motor City Con as its organizers bring in more multi-media celebrities to cover costs.
In only seven hours on Saturday, SNAP! provided an outright revival of the local comics scene. A majority of the 50 tables set along the floor of the Al Matta Hall were occupied by Michigan artists representing comic and mini-comic scenes in Detroit, Hamtramck, and multiple colleges from the west side of the state. The other exhibitors didn’t come from too far off either (I think the person that drove furthest was from Wisconsin). And in this relatively small group of local creators, there was a wide variety of comics to choose from.
Autobiographical mini-comic artists shared table space with publishers promoting horror books. Stories about fairies and magical creatures fit right alongside black and white superhero epics. Innovative hand sewn indie anthologies were set out with high-gloss, digitally colored action books. And everyone was excited to see what their fellow artists had to offer, not to mention a large number of readers who would bounce from table to table, snacking on the fries served up in red baskets from the Al Matta’s kitchen. Like at many small press cons, the patrons of SNAP! were giddy with the prospect of seeing so much new stuff to read, and artists were able to sell books without jockeying for attention over major publishers.
Merritt watched the floor action in a homemade SNAP! T-shirt. Rather than taking credit for anything that had gone right so far, he insisted that most of the success was the result of calculated risk-taking on the part of himself and his wife Katie. Though the idea for SNAP! had been in the minds of the pair for nearly three years, the majority of work came together in a few months.
The Merritts have given up much more than sleep in promoting local comics. Six years ago, the couple bought out a small comics shop called Comics Plus where Katie had worked as a sales assistant. Though the store had held steady business for nearly 14 years previous, Dan and Katie overhauled the entire operation, renaming the site Green Brain Comics and shifting its focus toward small press creations from local artists (or as one of my fellow SNAP! patrons put it, “They keep the Marvel stuff in the back of the store.”). All the time and effort the Merritts have put into Green Brain hasn’t provided a huge return in terms of money (because seriously…who makes money owning a comic shop?), but owning and operating Green Brain and SNAP! gives back to them as much as they give to the scene.
“It's less of a profit-making venture for us and more of a patronage thing. We really wanted to sponsor these creators and make sure that they have a presence on the rack whether it's profitable or just sustainable,” explained Dan.
From the reaction of people on the floor of the show, the people who sell through and shop at their store are ecstatic to be Green Brain patrons. The most common topic of discussion I heard throughout the little hall during the day was how great it was to have a show like this, and I’m pretty sure SNAP! is the only convention I’ve ever been to where the entire room stopped to listen when announcements were made. This is even more amazing when you consider the fact that announcements consisted of Katie standing on the small stage near the front of the hall, cupping her hands to her mouth, and shouting, “The next panel starts in 10 minutes in the back room!”
Aside from Dan and Katie’s joy at seeing their baby get off the ground, the artists had nothing but praise for how the show was run and how well they were doing with sales. Artists Mike Cossin told me how relieved he was to have anyone even want to look at his book after he’d saved money to travel to the Wizard Convention in Chicago earlier this summer only to be ignored by con goers for three days straight.
“It was the best ‘How to Make a Mini-Comic’ workshop ever. We had 13 people in there, and we got 14 mini-comics done. That's never happened before EVER. Usually I'm lucky to get one or two mini-comics done,” Feazell explained afterwards.
That the crowd was that ready to read, make, and talk about smaller comics was perhaps the best part for the show’s talent. While walking the floor, I got a chance to catch up with Todd and Corey Marie Parkhill who run Young American Comics. As with many of the reader/artist relationships at the show, I’d already known Corey through a comic ‘zine she’d printed and distributed where I went to college. It was those small connections that people had made and were willing to make that helped creators justify the cost of coming to SNAP!
Shows like SNAP! have helped the Parkhills expand the YAC fan base. After hitting 10 conventions in 2005, the pair were planning on upping their travels to include more than 20 shows in the next year.
Perhaps that’s the greatest strength of SNAP! – the ability for the local scenesters to step up beyond one convention a year. To make the transition from hobbyist to professional. That’s what Dan Merritt saw as the greatest strength of the festival for all involved.
Regardless of the future of events like the Motor City Con, Michigan artists aren’t likely to find a better show to attend than SNAP! The people involved in SNAP! from the top down are there only to provide good comics to the public. I’m sure that there are still loads of regional small press creators plugging their books at bigger conventions, hoping to get noticed amongst a sea of mainstream announcements and signings. Having such a presence at the bigger cons is something that’s really good for comics in general. However, where SNAP! and similar shows trump the bigger money markets is that they’re not just holding local scenes together or giving them a place to sell their books. The new breed of comics show is one that builds communities and empowers creators while letting them sustain and explore the things that made their stuff unique in the first place.
I expect to see all of you at the Al Matta Hall next year.
-- Kiel Phegley
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The Al Matta Hall in Dearborn, MI is an almost proto-typical Midwestern rental space. Like hundreds of other Knights of Columbus of VFW Halls spread throughout my home state, the Al Matta’s yellowish walls, wood paneling, and 30-year-old light fixtures bring up memories of countless spaghetti dinners, bingo nights, and pro wrestling events I went to as a kid. This past Saturday, it also provided the perfect setting for SNAP! The Comics Art Festival, a new milestone in local conventions.
“We're real happy with the response from the creators,” said co-organizer Dan Merritt, honestly shocked at how many people his first show had brought it. “There's obviously interest in this area. That's a big part. We sold this show out a lot sooner than we thought we would. We didn't think we were going to even get close to this.”
“This was overly ambitious,” he told me. “It was something that we decided wasn't going to get done unless we jumped right into it, which was a necessary step. It was fairly detrimental for my sleep, but I'm more than willing to sacrifice a few hours here and there for my friends.”
“Things are going great! Better than expected!” beamed Matt Feazell, who was busy running between tables and panels and general hand shaking with some of his fellow artists. In the middle of the convention, I was able to watch Feazell give a presentation on making mini-comics in the bar adjoining the main hall. Even though the room was poorly lit and Feazell had to compete with the chatter of mid-day drinkers who had come by unaware of the show, he was flabbergasted by how well all of the panel attendees followed his presentation.
“Today has been really great because it's just a built-in market here. Everybody here is here for this sort of stuff. They're not distracted by the porn stars or the washed up B-list celebrities or speculator collector's market or anything like that. They're here to check out some independent comic books,” said Todd at a rare moment when the YAC booth wasn’t swamped with people.
“These are all people that are completely deserving of your attention, and if not your attention, they need the experience that they gain from being on the sales floor and talking to people. They're learning that they're selling themselves just as much as they're selling the comics. And some of the people that are here today were not able to afford a table at their own large, hometown con. Say what you will about it, they need a place. And that's what we're doing this for. They just didn't have a place. Not in town anyway.”