Confessions of a Pop Fan

Friday, September 07, 2007

THE LAND OF BROKEN HEARTS

The title of this post refers to a show in Portland last night featuring the art of elusive comics artist Al Columbia. Set up at Floating World, who also hosted the 12 Reasons party last year, it was a pretty impressive showing of the weird and the even weirder. I was telling friends that my impression of Al's art is that it's as if early animation came out of the Weimar Republic rather than the U.S. film industry. Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out my photo set.

A lot of people came out for the show. I was actually working the cash register for the store, so I didn't end up listening in on the two question and answer sessions they conducted. One fan flew all the way from San Francisco for it, and another came even farther, arriving from London. When the prices for Al's prints was finally announced, it was like a feeding frenzy. I could barely keep up, and I just tried not to get my hand gnawed off.

Afterward, a group of us went out for drinks. I ended up talking quite a bit with visiting Seattle cartoonists Brandon Graham, creator of Oni's excellent Multiple Warheads, and Corey Lewis, Sharknife himself--who had a joint show at Floating World last month. The store hosts only the best.

The night ended most bizarrely, however, with the remaining revelers ducking back into the comic book store to avoid some strange danger on the Bus Mall. I am not sure exactly what it was, I didn't see it, but it had something to do with a bike being thrown...? Once inside, it got weirder, with Al Columbia emerging from somewhere within the building wearing a ratty wig on his head. Someone also got a picture of him mockingly reading Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, which I really need to get for myself.

Just to make the whole comics thing even larger and more odd, I got home and sent Renee French a drunk e-mail that rambled on and on. Nothing too horrible, but I thought I knew better than to hit the keyboard when inebriated! Sorry, Renee.

I believe this is instant karma for the ego of how much I had cracked myself up earlier in the evening. At the first establishment we went to, I was at the bar when the waitress was complaining about some slobbering patron who was trying to get her phone number. "You want my phone number?" she said. "555-GO-FUCK-YOURSELF."

"Are you kidding me?" I interjected. "That's my phone number! Are you the reason I get so many strange calls?"

If nothing else, she was nice to us the rest of the night and kept me updated on the guy's downward spiral of shame, which is much better than the blank looks I often get when I think I'm being funny.

Current Soundtrack: Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury

Current Mood: queasy