15 Years of Nix: Reflections and Gratitude #3

It's been turning in my head for a while, about how lucky I am that circumstances have allowed me to publish Nix Comics for 15 years. So many people, places, and events that had to fall into place to get to this point. I've decided that I need to take the days leading up to the sharing my thoughts on it and thanking everybody who helped me get here.

(Opening Confession: I won't be able to fully reflect on the circumstances or give full gratitude to everybody who deserves it. Apologies to the folks who deserve a nod, but get this wink.)

I was just interviewed by Andy Downing of Matter News about the Nix Comics anniversary. (I didn't do any press outreach, so Andy taking the time to reach out to me really made me feel good. It's an extension of the great relationship I've shared with local journalism going back to my record store days that I plan to go into in a future reflection.) Like all good interviewers, Andy asked me a surprise question that hit me in an unexpected way... "When did you feel a part of the Columbus comics scene?" Not a hard question, really. In fact the surprising thing to me was how quick-and-easy-like the answer just fell out of my mouth. It was the first time that I exhibited at Columbus's longest running comics show: The Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo.

Or S.P.A.C.E. if you're friendly!

My first SPACE experience* was March of 2011, and, honestly, I was kind of set up for failure. The only thing I had to sell was the first issue of Nix Comics Quarterly. I was a late registrant and the new guy, so I ended up in the crook of the L shaped ballroom. (Deadman's crook... nobody called it 'til now) There was a fellow exhibitor who was going table to table to tell everybody what was wrong with their comics as part of his own sales pitch. (Who I ended up dressing down.) It could have been a shattering experience if I didn't sell anything, or worse, got in a fight for telling some guy off.

*I'm a little embarrassed, but I had never even heard of S.P.A.C.E. to that point. Show-runner Bob Corby suspects that Rudy Goose Comics never existed because he never gave me flyers. Just one of those classic missed connections, I guess.

Of course, I wouldn't be talking about it now if it had been a disaster. It was the opposite. It was eye opening. I don't know if i can explain the rush being at a comic show where all the corporate bullshit has been stripped away. Where you could see award winning artists who have been making stuff for decades on the same stage as a dopey kid who is sharing his/her/their first comic. From slick to hick and everything in-between. Just like I like it!

Michael Neno and Max Ink, who I already knew, were also there

to help me ease me into joining what I almost immediately came to think of "my people."I sat next to two artists in from Chicago (Chad Sell and Denver Brubaker) who were very welcoming despite being from out of town. A couple years more experienced than me at that point, they were great about sharing "veteran knowledge." I also spent some time talking with the also veteran Panel Collective guys and mutually-neophyte creators from 2 Headed Monster Comics. Everyone was very complimentary about NCQ. Many wanted to know how I had gotten local press attention for my comic when they always (fairly) felt left out.

I felt like I had a place at S.P.A.CE. That's an experience that is rare in my life.

So, that was my first experience vending at comic show, but obviously not the last. I've done S.P.A.C.E. every year since. I've at least tried a dozen or of the alphabet-soup comic show circuit shows. (SPX, CXC, APE, MOCCA, NYCC... I'm forgetting a few...) I've done a handful little "classic" comic shows where people sell most back issues and collectibles. Whether its in their literature or not, to me these shows make two promises in exchange for my table fee: One; a shot at doing well in their transient marketplace and two; membership into the community of artists. For the me, the delivery of those promises have been at best sporadic in fulfillment and at worst maddeningly woeful in delivery. S.P.A.C.E. is the only one that has consistently delivered.*

*For a while I ran my own Indie Comics fair where I tried to bring a lot of my philosophies learned through non-profit work to create a "good" show. I think I did pretty well.

So in gratitude:

Thank you to Bob Corby for creating S.P.A.C.E. to artists, fans, and the city of Columbus! Thank you for being a consistently good person in the process. You give me aspirations to do the same.

Thanks to all of the artist who I met at S.P.A.C.E., especially the ones I ended up in the pages of Nix Comics! (Looking at you, Andy Bennett, EJ Barnes, JT Dockery, Joel Jackson, Gideon Kendall, Matt Kish, James Moore, Mark Rudolph, and the handful that I'm forgetting!)

Thanks to the people who have helped me table at S.P.A.C.E., my wife Kate, Bob, and MJ. Couldn't have had bathroom breaks without ya!

And thanks to everybody within driving distance of Columbus who is gonna come to S.P.A.C.E. this year! It will be March 28th and 29th at the Makoy in Hilliard, Ohio. As always free to get in!

(Cough!) March-29th-is-my-birthday-if-you-love-me-you'll-come. (Cough!)

Poster by local-great Tom Williams, who I also met at S.P.A.C.E., below.