My Name card painstakingly rendered by Jesse Reklaw
with Julia Gfrorer & Brodie Kelly Manning the table post me.
Whoa! What a weekend!
So I was invited by the magical Jesse Reklaw who does the super rad Slowave comics, to participate at Worstock about a week before it would open. Wordstock is a festival of sorts dedicated to all Literature stuffs basically. I was asked to do a workshop. I gathered myself and set out in a panic thinking about what I could pull together in a week. I went and roamed the city for about 2 hours to think it out. I finally sat down under the influence of a cup of coffee in the main headquarters of wordstock, “Powell’s City of Books” and began to work out the details of what was going to be the raddest workshop I could muster! At headquarters I ran into my buddy Kathy who calmed my nerves and anxiety of this new endeavor, she gave me mega good words of comfort and support. I decided the workshop would be about how to become your very own Jam Comics Champion, or “Jampion” if you will (thanks Brodestar!). It is going to be based on my general understanding of my jam comics group (Vortex Comics) and our nearly psychic connections to each other. Most importantly I wanted to make people inspired to be creative and work with friends, but make things that were super amazing quality comics. Surely the penis joke is hella funny, but not all jam comics have to end with a dick joke or nuclear holocaust. REALLY THEY DON’T!
In mega production mode I decided I would try to put together at least a tiny mini comic from my Vortex comics jam group and have it available as an example of sorts.
I worked diligently at outlining the things I thought were important and then enlisted mega pal Catherine Peach to help and be my partner in the workshop. We worked in a panicked way over the next week to get Awesome. The workshop made many twists and turns but we finnaly came up with a solid pamphlet of sorts to hand out outlining all the major keys of being a Jampion!!!
Then We embarked on day 1 of Wordstock. On arrival Catherine and I had to center our radness, and then mega Pal Theo came and swooped in and we had celebrations of rock fingers all around!!! We made haste while taking notice of the enormous Alien seed in the convention center that was on display (was it real and filled with aliens or was it really just asculpture???). Jesse Welcomed Catherine and I, and got us all settled in nicely. We got to set up next to mega bro Dylan of Sparkplug comics and Theo who was to be helping him as well as sell his own new mega book “Capacity” along side his publishers (Secret Acres) other books. Mega Pals Brodie Kelly and Julia Gfrorer made there entrance and got rad at a table. Julia was to do a workshop on book binding and
beautifying you’re mini comic or zine.
The hours seemed to zoom by and then it was suddenly go time! I slammed a piece of pizza in the crowded
convention center hall, then chugged a burger that Brodie Generously purchased. Catherine and I set up and JAMMED!!! We got Awesome Jamming with Jesse, Julia, Brodie, Conch, Alex and dooders across the board! It was awesome and crazy fun!!! People seemed to like the Pamphlet and get a good laugh out of it as well. The only thing that could have made it radder was to have chairs and clipboards to enable more people to participate. Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and getting to know not only Jesse better, but so many rad dooders. John Isaacson! You’re the raddest!!!
Day 2 was Awsome!!! NO MEGA AWESOMEEEE!!!! It was a day of inspiration indeed. I had, had a bizarre night after day 1. It began with a lovely sit down and drink sessoion with Theo, Heather, Brodie and Julia. I had to call it an early night though, as I had to be to work early in the morning before making it back for round 2 at the convention center. On my way home I was alerted that one of my family members that I have particularly strong feelings (Long story) about had died. I followed it with a night of poor sleep. When I got up I had to be at work at 6am and then race to the Convention center immediately after. In transit I read and was lifted and rejuvenated by Jesse’s new mini simply called “Diary”. It’s a Diary of his recent book tour. It inspired me both as an artist and also to make my own. I have always wanted to log adventures in this format. However I felt like there was always too much radness to pack into a diary comic. He has it broken down so that large things over 3 or 4 hour periods are covered, it seems. This keeps it concise and engaging.
On arrival at the convention center Jesse was midway through his workshop and asked both Catherine and I if we had any dreams. He had been making fast comics on a large paper pad live from the crowd as they told him their dreams overnight. I had not dreamt much and was foggy on it from my poor sleep. Catherine had a pretty amazingly embarrassing dream that she squirmed through while Jesse and I burst out in Laughter. Jesse is very thorough and articulate with is questioning on the subject. It is obvious that he has been doing this for years, mastering this skill, and it shines on him in his every question expression, and flick of the pen. He got all the necessary points of Catherine’s dream to paper and we got settled. I was entranced making buttons at this table with 2 brothers of about 10 years of age or so. They were trying to raise money for their own computer by selling buttons they pre made, or for 50 cents more, buttons you designed yourself. They apparently had a tyrant of a father who wouldn’t let them use his computer for anything. One of the brothers had a shirt from a theme park of him riding a shark and his brother being eaten by the shark. His brother assured us that he had the same shirt in reverse.
These doods were clearly the radness, and they meant business! I made 3 crass pins (one for Brodestar, one for theo and myself), a pin of some new characters, I got a pin by Theo and Another of theo drawn by Jesse HAHA!!! Ridiculous!!! HAHA!!! I could have made pins forever!
John Isaacson did a rad print making demo of the coolest dino toy ever. Its part a transformer set called “Tamagoras”. I will likely be reading up on these for the next 2 days (thanks John).
Theo, Julia, Brodestar, Catherine and I all sat and soaked up the most inspirational talk by Lynda Barry. OOOOH Man!!! It was sooooooooo Good! I am not capable of describing the feeling it gave us all. The feeling deserves a new word that isn’t made of an existing language or even spoken in a frequency previously heard. If you could see me right now trying to release it, it looks something like the rock fingers with no pants on and a
load of ecstatic eye twitching and thigh jiggling!!!
We got Awesome afterwards under some booze and met up with mega lady Amy mega Bro Stefan and mega pal Marcella. It was a lovely evening with a lot to think about. We all seemed to have left our wordstock duties with new goals, fresh faces and inspiration to move into even radder zones that we as mega pals and individuals alike are capable and destined for!!!!
LETS GET AWESOME!!!
