Independent Comix Art & Mini-Comix at the Library of Congress We’ve got our own event happening mid-day on Friday. Cartoonist Dean Haspiel and SPX Exec. Director Warren Bernard will appearing be at the Library of Congress to discuss the Small Press Expo Permanent Collection and Dean’s incredibly generous donation of his own minicomic collection to the LOC. If your on Cap Hill tomorrow, this should be a good talk. And with Dean there’s always a 50/50 shot the shirt’s coming off so there’s that. I’m planning to be there as well and will post pics in the afternoon of what goes down!
Pop-upView Separately

Independent Comix Art & Mini-Comix at the Library of Congress

We’ve got our own event happening mid-day on Friday. Cartoonist Dean Haspiel and SPX Exec. Director Warren Bernard will appearing be at the Library of Congress to discuss the Small Press Expo Permanent Collection and Dean’s incredibly generous donation of his own minicomic collection to the LOC.

If your on Cap Hill tomorrow, this should be a good talk. And with Dean there’s always a 50/50 shot the shirt’s coming off so there’s that.

I’m planning to be there as well and will post pics in the afternoon of what goes down!


DeForge, Harkham, Haspiel announced as SPX 2012 honored guests

Folks, we’re pleased to announce Michael DeForge, Sammy Harkham and Dean Haspiel as honored guests of SPX 2012.

They are in addition to the previously announced guests: Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Francoise Mouly, Jamie & Gilbert Hernandez and Adrian Tomine.

While none of these three gentleman need any introduction to you, the faithful, here’s what we shared with the press release-reading public:

Critically acclaimed Michael DeForge will be appearing at SPX for the very first time. We are honored to have the creator of the one-man anthology series Lose, from Koyama Press, at this years show.. DeForge won the Best Emerging Talent category at the 2010 Doug Wright Awards, Canada’s most prestigious award in the comics field and provided the art for the cover to the SPX 2012 program.

Emmy award winning artist, Dean Haspiel, created the Eisner Award nominated, BILLY DOGMA, and illustrated for HBO’s “Bored To Death.” Dino has drawn many superhero and semi-autobiographical comix, including collaborations with Jonathan Lethem, Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, and Inverna Lockpez. Dino also curates + creates multimedia projects for TripCity.net, a Brooklyn-filtered literary arts salon.

Sammy Harkham is the editor of the groundbreaking anthology series Kramer’s Ergot, 8th volume of which was released late last year.  He is also the creator behind the comic Crickets and his new book, Everything Else, a compendium of his works, will be released this Fall from Picturebox.

Maybe I am biased, but SPX 2012 is shaping up to be pretty amazing. 

Can I get a witness?

SPX Acquires The Dean Haspiel Collection and Other Mini-Comic Donations for the Small Press Expo Collection at The Library of Congress We’ve talking about this a ton but the formal announcement is finally here from SPX and the Library of Congress. Look for a press release today with all the details. If you’ve been following our Tumblr for any length of time then you’ve seen our scans of Dean’s monumental mini-comics collection. His gift to SPX, to the Library of Congress - and not to sound grandiose, his gift to posterity is really over the top. The Small Press Expo Collection at The Library of Congress is a first of its kind partnership to preserve the legacy of the indie comics community by focusing on limited edition mini-comics and other publications that are sold every year at SPX. No where else is an institution like the Library of Congress collecting this kind of small-batch indie comics material… The Small Press Expo is incredibly proud to have forged this relationship. We’re indebted to Dean and the other participating artists who have helped us launch our permanent collection with a bang! Georgia Higley head of the newspaper section serial publications division library congress has this to say about these additions collection:A wealth of creativity was donated to the Library in this first year of the SPX-LC agreement. I was impressed with the diversity of subject matter, formats, and artistic styles represented by this year’s comic book donations. To an even greater extent I was impressed with the generosity of the creators and publishers who willingly gave their work to us for safekeeping. From the tiny two-inch square mini-comic to the oversize hardback and from the promising newcomer to the long-established publisher, it’s obvious that the independent comic book is alive and well and now is represented at the Library of Congress. We look forward to next year! Us too! Photo via: playgroundghosts
Pop-upView Separately

SPX Acquires The Dean Haspiel Collection and Other Mini-Comic Donations for the Small Press Expo Collection at The Library of Congress

We’ve talking about this a ton but the formal announcement is finally here from SPX and the Library of Congress. Look for a press release today with all the details.

If you’ve been following our Tumblr for any length of time then you’ve seen our scans of Dean’s monumental mini-comics collection.

His gift to SPX, to the Library of Congress - and not to sound grandiose, his gift to posterity is really over the top.

The Small Press Expo Collection at The Library of Congress is a first of its kind partnership to preserve the legacy of the indie comics community by focusing on limited edition mini-comics and other publications that are sold every year at SPX.

No where else is an institution like the Library of Congress collecting this kind of small-batch indie comics material…

The Small Press Expo is incredibly proud to have forged this relationship. We’re indebted to Dean and the other participating artists who have helped us launch our permanent collection with a bang!

Georgia Higley head of the newspaper section serial publications division library congress has this to say about these additions collection:

A wealth of creativity was donated to the Library in this first year of the SPX-LC agreement. I was impressed with the diversity of subject matter, formats, and artistic styles represented by this year’s comic book donations. To an even greater extent I was impressed with the generosity of the creators and publishers who willingly gave their work to us for safekeeping. From the tiny two-inch square mini-comic to the oversize hardback and from the promising newcomer to the long-established publisher, it’s obvious that the independent comic book is alive and well and now is represented at the Library of Congress. We look forward to next year!

Us too!

Photo via: playgroundghosts

Source: Flickr / playgroundghosts

#7 - Dean Haspiel Mini-Comic Donation to The SPX Collection at the Library of Congress

Here are a few pages from the absolutely brilliant “Landscape of Possibilities” mini comic by Nick “Laika” Abadzis. I really want to track one of these down for my collection!!

Top