The Alternative Press Expo was held April 9th and 10th, 2005 San Francisco
Concourse Exhibition Center

When I got to the corner of the street where this year�s Alternative Press Expo (the largest gathering of alternative and self-published comics in the country, which drew over 3,800 attendees in 2004,) was taking place, I saw a long line. �Heeell no!� I exhaled, �I am not waiting in line. If I have to wait in line to pick up my press pass, I am leaving.� As usual, the situation was not quite as threatening as I had perceived. Getting my press pass was easy. �Hi, I�m with Roaddawgz/Pacific News. We have an exhibit table here and my editor left me a pass???�
I decided to look around. Through three levels of other people�s imaginations I walked, admiring their creative force. Some were self-published, which I thought was great; to be able to create your own work and then be able to market it how you want to. Like a lot of people I have met since moving to San Francisco, I am a fan of DIY! Running into my buddy and fellow Roaddawg contributing artist Milo (check out his work at www.roaddawgz.org) was inspirational. He had written a small sign and stuck it on his shirt. It read, �No Money for Comix� and had a drawing of a dollar sign inside a circle with a line through it. His interest knew no bounds here. He discovered the dismayed reaction of others was too much to bear when he had to tell them he had no money after enthusiastically perusing their wares. The sign seemed a creatively appropriate response to the situation. Of the panels and lectures that were going on over the two day event, he attended several. During one, he told me the members of the panel began arguing vehemently regarding the subject of whether or not one could edit one�s comic without being forced to redraw all or a significant portion of the piece. Clearly my friend was in one of his Heavens. �You�re not a �comic book person� Milo offered up to me and suggested that he understood that I probably wasn�t having that great of a time because of said lack of interest. That wasn�t the case at all. As an artist and person-on-the-fringe (of Society!), I enjoyed so much seeing the artistic expressions of these other artists and �subversive� types. Truly, I was impressed with their talents, but with their enterprise especially. As I often am treated as an odd-ball by our culture, it was nice to spend a Saturday afternoon walking amongst others who weren�t interested in judging peculiarity, but rather celebrating it and (obvious by the expressiveness in their work) drawing inspiration from it. That was inspiring to me.

Many exhibitors hailed from across the country as did many spectators. Exhibitors included publishers: Manic D. Press (Molotov Mouths, Michelle Tea, Clint Catalyst) Gorsky Press (Bucky Sinister�s Whiskey and Robots), AK Press, Jhonen Vasquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac), Lauren Weinstein and Seth, Last Gasp (William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski), RESEARCH, just to name a few.

Explore the dark side - literally and figuratively - of evening time
By far, one of the coolest things I experienced at this year�s APE was getting to meet people who had traveled from other places such as Chicago and other parts of the country to attend. One such person traded me a couple of her zines for some of our Roaddawgz zines, which we were there to promote. In one of her creations, she documented her bus trip here by highlighting all the individuals she traveled with in a collection of personal interviews she conducted with each one of them en route. Her name was Ruth and the reason she traveled by bus was because she needed to recognize real time exists in our super fast-paced, anxiety driven world. I appreciated interacting with her and sharing in her personal translation of the creative force. That was my interpretation of the spirit of this year�s APE: sharing the concept of free and creative expression.

For more info http://www.comic-con.org/