Oakland sacked, gaffled by comics thugs

Hi Friends, this is Alixopulos posting about a big weekend for comics in the Bay Area. On the eve of the big San Diego con the ranks of cartoonists in town swelled to outsize proportions. In addition to the SF Zinefest Saturday and Sunday (check this space for a forthcoming blog on that)there was an animation night hosted by Janelle Hessig at Gilman St, the big Horses Mouth reading at the Cartoon Art Museum and what amounted to a Sparkplug Showcase Reading at the Oakland Public Library last Thursday. Yours truly, Jason Shiga and Hellen Jo read comics out loud to people, like they're stupid or something! Since I was too busy getting ready for the SFZF to make it to those other events, here's the lowdown on the OPL reading.


(here's where i would put a break if i knew how and was a real blogger pro)

Billed as a "thriller night" of exciting stories, the event was as much a welcome-back-conquering-favorite-son for Jason Shiga, who is a former employee of the library. Jason has a pending major book deal and was reading from and signing copies of Bookhunter, his action packed library thriller:


(image courtey of Calvin Wong's flickr page)
Hellen Jo and I were accorded the star treatment that comes with being with Jason on his home turf. Besides hosting us in their beautiful vintage library, check out their nice display of Shiga, Jo and Alixopulos comix:



The library director totally brutally brutalized us with introductions, by using her reference librarian skills to pull information about us from the internet! Here I am flailing my arms helplessly in the onslaught of her intro:


Hellen Jo reads an excerpt from her upcoming graphic novel, Jin and Jam:

(image courtey of Calvin Wong's flickr page)

Jason quite effectively dramatized the breathless dialogue of Bookhunter:


Thanks again to the Oakland Public Library and its charming staff! And thanks to Calvin Wong for the photos of the event that I poached from his photostream.