Word UNDER The Street

I didn't buy anything from the circus-themed art show Saturday night; I waited too long deciding and both of the pieces I could have taken were snapped up by others. The budget I had alotted myself for art was cold cash, sitting in my wallet, and I decided to liberate some of it at Scratch in exchange for a couple interesting re-releases of vinyl from Gang of Four and Black Flag. As it turns out the Scratch staff sleep late on Sundays, so I was stuck staring at a locked door at 11:30am, wondering what I was going to do for an hour before they'd open the doors. I headed off in search of breakfast.

Walking north on Richards, I noticed the tents set up beside the library on Homer Street. I don't know how I forgot about Word On The Street, considering that I had at least a couple conversations the previous day with people who were going to be in attendance. I headed over there in search of my writer and publisher friends and acquaintances, and saw much, but I didn't buy anything until I found myself in the basement of the library at the Word Under The Street event-within-an-event that was loaded down with zines and comics.

This is where I spent money at the library before heading back to record land.

• Mint Records - a couple singles from Vancouver band cub; thier first release pep from 1992 and a split with The Potatomen, The Day I Said Goodbye from 1995. Not exactly books, but still worth mentioning.


• Steve Rolston sold me on a copy of Jack Spade and Tony Two-Fist; who can resist a beer-drinking penguin hard ass? Steve also designed the cover for the excellent album of cover songs that I've had here for some time; Rocky Horror Punk Show


• Colin Upton did nothing to convince me to buy his stuff; the sheer value of the bag full of mini-comics did all the selling. I keep running into this guy; at an Evaporators gig, and the night before this event at the circus art show. I didn't know that he was a cartoonist, and here he is with a table containing what seemed to be hundreds of different items ranging from self published mini-comics to your more familiar sized comics with glossy covers.


• Bought volume 3 of the collected cartoon by Robin Konstabaris; Clip N' Save which has appeared in Vancouver's Westender


• Hunter Thompson of Champions of Hell had a couple issues of their self published special Zombie Jesus which I had to pick up on principle.


• Fred Grisolm of Hate Song produces a web comic that is angry, bitter, cynical, disturbed, and well worth paying for on paper.


• Josué Menjivar of Way Off Main doesn't seem to think he had any fans to hear him talk. His cartoons were one of the few things that I'd read the odd time that I'd pick up the Georgia Straight... Not a story, only funny by coincidence, he shows the middle of a story, or possibly a snapshot from its epilogue; he doesn't tell stories.


• I also picked up ZZLE four which is titled "James and The Unreliable Drug Dealer" which I imagined might show the same James that you might remember from his peach piloting days. Drugs and giant peaches might go hand in hand... Sadly, I don't recall the author's name and the fact that he shared a table with Fred Grisolm is of surprisingly little use...

I talked to other cartoonists and self-publishers at the event, and looked at what else was there, but I could only part with so much money during the day. I'll likely be visiting their websites for more, such as the penguin print...