More Bumbershooting

I just completed my first day of bumbershoot in which I saw no music. Of course, I did overhear some music but I didn't actually go to see any acts. First was the One Reel Film festival. The program I saw was three science related films. The best of which was Chaos Theory, which shockingly starred Greg Lee Of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego fame.

After the films, I met up with Headstart, and she showed me the awesomely "exciting" volunteer job she's been doing for the One Reel fest; packing and mailing the previous days films in FedEx boxes and mailing them off. After we dropped off the FedEx boxes at Kinko's we got some dinner. Headstart had a free drink ticket so went to a beer garden, the first for both of us. The bouncer at the door informed us that on Saturday night there was a 15 year old girl passed out on the grass that had been drinking vodka all day that had to be ambulanced out. He said, "15 year olds ain't like they were when I was a kid". Truer words were never said. Otherwise the beer garden proved to be as boring and lame as I suspected.

Next we checked out the art installations in the northwest rooms. There was an entire room dedicated to comics and at the Fantagraphics booth we chatted with some of Headstart's former co-workers and I picked up a copy of Steve Brodner's new book Freedom Fries. After that we mostly saw a bunch of art that made me think this is art? And think of this recent Peter Bagge cartoon.

Then it was time for the main event of the night the Graphic Novel Panel. Hosted by Fantagraphics owner Gary Groth, the panel featured Harvey Pekar, Gilbert Hernandez, Peter Bagge, and Jessica Abel. Harvey was as crumudgeony as ever. Some of the interchanges between Harvey and straight man Gary were high comedy. I could watch them banter for hours. Peter Bagge was as glib and goofy as I expected. Gilbert Hernandez was pretty quiet but when he did say something he was to the point. I was most impressed by Jessica Able who in addition to totally being my type proved herself to be one of the most erudite thinkers in comics today. Ellen Forney was also in the crowd and asked some good questions. Harvey Pekar had the best point of the day, "If more people do comics, the more good comics we'll have."