Jan. 31: Guests Announced!

Ted Naifeh
Ted Naifeh swooped onto the comics and goth culture scene as the co-creator of Gloomcookie with Serena Valentino in 1998. Beginning in 2002 he introduced the world to Courtney Crumrin, a young loner girl who uses magic to navigate her world of school bullies and bloodthirsty goblins, adolescent peer pressure and deadly coven politics. His latest title, Polly and the Pirates, features action, adventure, treasure, and piratical etiquette, with a second volume scheduled to appear in January 2012.

Brian Hurtt
Brian made his comics debut with the second arc in Greg Rucka's critically acclaimed series Queen & Country and continued with Skinwalker, Hard Time and the critically-acclaimed Gotham Central for DC Comics. In 2006 he began his collaborative partnership with writer Cullen Bunn, beginning with The Damned. Their current series is the phenomenal monthly title The Sixth Gun for Oni Press, whose third collection will be debuting in April 2012.

Nate Powell
Nate's graphic novels include Sounds of Your Name, It Disappears, and Please Release, as well as the Eisner and Ignatz Award-winning Swallow Me Whole. He has also created dozens of self-published issues, and short story contributions to anthologies such as Papercutter and Meathaus since he began self-publishing at age 14. Nate's joining us to promote his latest graphic novel, The Silence of Our Friends, published by First Second in January 2012.

Steve Lieber
Steve Lieber is a staple of the Northwest comics scene, and has been dubbed the "official Nicest Guy in Comics" by noted author and fellow Portlander Douglas Wolk. His work has been published by DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, Carus, Oni, Dupuis, and others, but he is best known for his creator-owned works Whiteout and its sequel, and Underground, with co-creator Jeff Parker.

Brian Churilla
Brian Churilla is a Portlander, born and raised. His work includes The Engineer: Konstrukt for Archaia, The Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet for Marvel Comics, and numerous pin-ups for Oni Press, Dark Horse Comics, and Image Comics. His heavily anticipated series, The Secret History of D.B. Cooper, debuts this March from Oni Press and has already garnered much acclaim from fellow creators.

Stumptown Comic Arts Awards 2012 Open for Submissions

The Stumptown Comics Fest, the largest creator-focused comics convention in the Pacific Northwest, is now accepting submissions of comic work for consideration by our judges for the 2012 Stumptown Comic Arts Awards. Publishers and creators interested in submitting work should include one copy of each title to be considered, accompanied by an official Entry Submission form which can be downloaded from the link below:

2012 Comic Arts Awards Submission Form

Please include one form with each work being submitted.

Categories for this year's awards include Best Artist, Best Writer, Best Cartoonist, Best Letterer, Best Colorist, Best Publication Design, Best Small Press, Best Anthology, and Best New Talent. Any work published after April 2011 will be eligible, and digital comics (meaning any comic published either online or for mobile devices) are also eligible for any category by following the instructions on the submission form. Submitters may not submit more than five distinct works per category, but works may be submitted in any number of categories.

Entries must be postmarked no later than the submission deadline of March 5, 2012 to be considered, and should be mailed to this address:

As with last year, all work submitted will be subject to consideration by a jury of industry professionals. The jury will issue a final ballot in March 2012, which will be available online for voting by any and all professionals, fans and readers of the comic arts. The votes will determine the final winners of each category, which will be tabulated and awarded at the Awards Ceremony to be held during the Stumptown Comics Fest on April 28 & 29 in Portland, Oregon.

Any questions about the Comic Arts Awards should be directed to the Director of the Comics Fest, Indigo Kelleigh at director@stumptowncomics.com.

Curating the 2012 Comics Fest

This week we completed the bulk of our exhibitor confirmation and emailed all of our applicants informing them of their current status. Thanks to everyone who applied! We confirmed a lot of excellent exhibitors for our 2012 Fest, but unfortunately our space is limited, so we also also had to leave left a lot of excellent artists on the waiting list.

We consider every application we get, but our top priority is to grant space to people making comics. Some terrific game companies, non-comics illustrators, and designers of all kinds applied this year, but our mission is to support comics, and so we had to turn away these applications in favor of people making comics.

We strive to present as diverse a face of the artform of comics as possible, so we weighted table selection towards cases where applicants were able to show us where they fit in the creative spectrum. Other factors that account for how we evaluate your application include: Whether you've exhibited at Stumptown in the past, how familiar our committee is with your work, and how easily we were able to evaluate your comics on your website. In creating a curated comics show, we make every effort to be familiar with all the comics that our exhibitors make, and if we couldn't see a representative sampling of your comics on your site or with your application, it made it harder for us to see how your work would fit on the show floor.

This is only the second year where Stumptown has been a completely curated show. Previously it was simply first-come, first-served, and if you didn't get your application in quickly you simply didn't get a space. Our hope was that the Curated approach would increase the overall quality of the experience for our attendees, and we feel that proved true with last year's show. Attendance was up, and the consensus was that it was the best Comics Fest we've ever held. We believe that our 2012 Exhibitor List will continue this tradition of excellence, and we regret that we can't provide space to everyone who wants it. But we still want you to be a part of the show, and encourage you to come to the Festival, meet us, and continue to apply in the future. Stumptown is about creating a great event for Portland and the comics community, and we're grateful that you're a part of it!

-indy

Jan. 19: Guests Announced!

Jeff Lemire
Hailing from Toronto, Ontario, Jeff launched into the local comics scene with the 1-2-3 punch of his Essex County trilogy published by Top Shelf. Though he continues to create graphic novels for Top Shelf (his latest, Underwater Welder is due in July), last year Jeff expanded his repertoire by taking on a scripting role for three of DC Comics's 'New52' line of relaunches: Frankenstein, Agent of SHIELD, Superboy, and Animal Man.

We're also excited to be hosting the entire Spell Checkers creative team! This trio's international collaboration is reaching its third volume, and it's a rare treat to have them all in the same place at the same time to talk about their work.

Jamie S. Rich
Author of books like Cut My Hair, The Everlasting, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, Jamie's latest novel is Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?. He wrote the comics series Love the Way You Love drawn by Marc Ellerby, and his second book with Joëlle Jones, You Have Killed Me, was released in the summer of 2009. Jamie is a pillar of the local community, having worked in the past with many of Portland's seminal comics institutions.

Joëlle Jones
Joëlle's work has appeared in comics as diverse as DC's Fables, the Dark Horse anthologies Noir and Sexy Chix, the Minx YA novel Token, written by Alisa Kwitney, and has also worked with writer Zack Whedon on a comic book spin-off of the popular Dr. Horrible web series. Joëlle's collaborative relationship with Jamie began with the graphic novel 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and they've also done short stories for Popgun, Portland Noir, and Madman Atomic Comics.

Nico Hitori de
Nicolas Hitori de is a French comic artist and illustrator currently living in Portland. Having studied at Les Ateliers des Beaux Arts of Paris and Disney Accademia in Milan, he has created works in print (Disney, Milan), publicity, tv (M6, Nolife) and music (Virgin Princesse). After collaborating on Josh Howard's Dead@17 series, he met Jamie S. Rich on Myspace and began the collaborative effort that became Spell Checkers.

Comics Fest 2012 Guests: Round One

We're excited to announce the first round of Special Guests who will be appearing at the 2012 Stumptown Comics Fest!

Stan Sakai
Stan Sakai's celebrated ronin rabbit, Usagi Yojimbo, celebrates its 30th year of publication in 2012, and Stan will be on-hand to share his experiences. Stan is joining Stumptown for the first time in 2012.

Kurt Busiek
Kurt is a prolific comics writer whose most prominent works include Marvels and Astro City. 2011 also saw the debut of Kirby: Genesis with Alex Ross, a reintroduction of dozens of classic Jack Kirby characters in new forms and stories!
Batton Lash
Batton Lash returns to Stumptown in 2012 to celebrate over 30 years of Wolff & Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre comics, and to share the first full-color volume of the long-running series, The Life-Partner of Frankenstein.
Mike Allred
Mike's work on X-Force and X-Statix with Peter Milligan, and I, Zombie may have kept him busy in recent years, but it's his snazzy work with his own character Madman that has kept Mike going for more than 20 years.
Laura Allred
Eisner-award winning colorist Laura Allred has worked with her husband Mike for most of his career, rounding out his art in Red Rocket 7, The Atomics, and Madman, as well as hundreds of other issues for Dark Horse Comics and others.
Randy Emberlin
Long-time comics inker Randy Emberlin returns to Stumptown this year to share his love of comics, and also the tricks of the inking trade! Come learn from one of the best!
Bill Ayers
A once-controversial figure, Bill Ayers now spends his retirement as an educational theorist. Join Bill and Ryan on Saturday, April 28th for a special talk about their views on how to use comics as a teaching tool as proposed in their collaboration To Teach: The Journey, in Comics.
Ryan Alexander-Tanner
Ryan is a local comics artist and educator, specializing in teaching children how to make comics every week at Cosmic Monkey Comics. His latest work is a collaboration with Special Guest Bill Ayers, To Teach: The Journey, in Comics.
Correction: Due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict, Geof Darrow will not be able to join us at Stumptown in 2012 as earlier announced. We regret the error, and hope to be able to bring him out in 2013!

2012 Registration Is Open!

We're pleased to announce that Exhibitor Registration for the 2012 Stumptown Comics Fest has opened! As with our 2011 Fest, registration is being handled online, and if you applied last year you can use the same login information to complete your application.

The 2012 Fest will be taking place on April 28 & 29, and we'll be returning to the Oregon Convention Center for our second year in a row. The exhibitor table options have changed a little this year, as we are making Booth configurations available for open registration for the first time! Artists Tables are still available and include Two Exhibitor Badges, however any artist who wishes may upgrade to a 10-foot Exhibitor Booth, which includes an 8-foot table and Four Exhibitor Badges. Additional configurations are listed on the Exhibitor Application.

Applicants are also welcome to submit proposals for workshops and panels, and we'll consider them as we begin putting together our Schedule! Please send your proposals to me at director@stumptowncomics.com, with the subject line "2012 Panel/Workshop Proposal".

If you'd like to Volunteer at the 2012 Comics Fest, or any of our other planned activities throughout the year, don't forget to fill in our online Volunteer Registration form as well!