Surely writing a review of a comics conference is on par with dancing about architecture? Text seems such an impoverished medium now – unequipped to condense three days into anything like a reasonable representation of the event. As unaccompanied text, “diverse”, “exciting” and “passionate” sound somewhat fatuous – the reviewer’s equivalent of multiple exclamation marks or a string of emoticons. A series of comic-panel vignettes really would be so much better.
If I did this review as a comic, “diverse” would be replaced with pages showing the work of artists like Karrie Fransman, Elodie Durand and Ian Kirkpatrick. In a comic, “exciting” would be replaced by quick-cut series of panels of Daniel Merlin Goodbrey flicking through a stream of digital-format comics, each one more inventive than the last. In a comic, “passionate” would be replaced with speech-bubbles from the intense, disquieting, sometimes overwhelmingly honest talks by Andrew Godfrey, Paula Knight and Katie Green.
Comics Forum 