I spend a lot of time going from convention to convention, be they for anime, games, comics, or all of the above. After a while you get something I call “con fatigue.” But the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival (MoCCA Fest) is a convention that always leaves me feeling refreshed. MoCCA (April 6 – 7, 2013) at the 69th Regiment Armory (68 Lexington Avenue, NYC) is the best event to see some truly unique and fresh talent emerging in the world of independent comics.
MoCCA was established by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in 2002, but the event will now be overseen by The Society of Illustrators, who bought out Museum after the shuttering of MoCCA's Lower East Side establishment in the summer of 2012.
MoCCA brings together some truly great people working in independent comics. Ranging from pros such as Bill Griffith (Zippy the Pinhead) and Jillian Tamaki (Skim), to newcomers stapling together their first 'zines and mini-comics. MoCCA also brings out a lot of comic creators that primarily reach their fan-base and publish their work online as webcomics.
While 69th Regiment Armory is only about as big as a school gymnasium, every inch of it is packed with comic creators and illustrators. There will also be panel discussions featuring Griffith, Tamaki, animator Bill Plympton and other authors and artists as they discuss making a living off comics, the authorial process and more.
MoCCA is without a doubt my favorite “little” convention. Major comic and media events like the New York Comic Con can be so huge and overwhelming, that it is refreshing to have a festival like MoCCA that is much more intimate and lets you really meet and interact with comic creators. If you want to see people taking comics in new and fascinating directions, this is a must see event.