With your help, I’ll be tabling here next weekend. This is an important show to me- an indie comics show in New Orleans can mean a lot for aspiring artists in that area. I’ve attended Mechacon for the past three years, and LouisiANIME last year, and one constant theme is that there are a lot of young people who’d like to pursue comics, but they don’t believe there’s any industry for them in the US. Indie comic shows give a wide variety of artists an opportunity to represent their work, and are often an opportunity for OEL aesthetic artists like myself to talk about comics with peers (as anime cons don’t usually attract a lot of practicing comic artists). Right now, the other ‘comic’ show in New Orleans is owned by Wizard World, and is much more of a media expo than a show that celebrates comics and their artists. This city is where my roots are- I grew up in Lulling, 40 minutes across the river, dreaming of a comics career in Japan because I didn’t realize the variety American comics had to offer. I attended the University of New Orleans for undergrad, where my fine art teachers tried their hardest to dissuade me not only away from comics, but away from commercial art and towards fine art, because commercial art isn’t considered highbrow enough. I had to leave Louisiana because the lack of a comic community was stagnating my growth, and I’ve sworn to do whatever I can to help out from afar. Travelling down to New Orleans this weekend is a bit of a hardship- my finances are tight and I did a con last weekend and have another next, but this is important to me. I’ve already given what I can afford- $50 for donation at the time of registration, another $25 to help the Kickstarter along. Now I’m donating my time and social networking to raising the $3000 NOCAZfest needs to be a reality. I realize many of my followers aren’t really interested in screenprinted bandanas, so I ask that you donate with a new generation of comic artists in mind. New Orleans has so much to offer- wonderful food, fantastic music, kindhearted people, but the comic scene is fledgling and needs all the nurturing it can get. The art scene in New Orleans is still arguably more geared toward their perception of ‘fine art’, and if things haven’t changed, students are still being discouraged from pursuing comics. Although one indie convention may not be enough to change longstanding prejudices, a successful, longstanding indie con (which is what successful baby cons grow up to be, sometimes) may provide artists with an opportunity to show New Orleans what comics can be about.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 04:46:45 +0000
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