WINTER 2011 TOUR DIARY Part One

So, Old Uncle John hit the road again the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I had made plans to attend the acclaimed Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival on December 3rd, and then when I was in Pittsburgh a few months ago, I heard about this comic con in Cleveland, called Ghengis Con, and arranged to attend that one too.

Cleveland has always been a mystery to me.  It's a big city, right?  There must be zine-friendly shops/people, a comics scene, but in 20 years of zine-making I'd never been able to figure it out.  At PIX in Pittsburgh I'd met Kevin Czap, and he clued me in a bit.  So I figured Ghengis Con would be a good way to find out more about Cleveland and its comics world.

The show was held in the lovely Beachland Ballroom.  It was small but fun show, lots of good people.

The Spit and a Half spread.

Afterwards I wandered around the corner to an empty parking lot to talk to Stephanie, and I found this van, completely wrapped in plastic.  Whoa.

Stairway to Nowhere.

The next morning Kevin Czap and I wandered around out by Lake Erie.

Nice owl graffito at the lakefront.

Me too.

Spoken like a true American­™.

After hanging out at the lake and discussing the Situationists, we went to a nice comic shop where I found some Gladstone Shock Suspenstories for half-cover, and then Mac's Backs, one of Cleveland's longstanding indie bookshops, where I picked up a nice looking book called What Was the Hipster?  Lately I've been very interested in looking at the commodification of the underground, and this book looked like a thoughtful discussion of the phenomenon.

Finally, at the last minute, we ended up at the Cleveland Art Museum, a few minutes before closing.  The guards did their best to dissuade us from entering, but we managed to sneak through long enough to see a nice Lee Krassner and a BEAUTIFUL pre-neo-plastic Mondrian called Chrysanthemum (1906).

Then more jabbering about comics and politics, and to bed.  For in the morning Lovely Columbus awaited.

View from the Czap Citadel of Domination.

* * *

NEXT: Columbus, Pittsburgh