I could not have felt more honored for the work I do here than I was when David Pepose invited me to try out for the team, and in the year plus since I joined, my respect for David and the rest has only grown.
Thus, it brings me great pleasure to learn that one of my colleagues at Newsarama, Zack Smith, is also working on spotlighting creators who will be at the Small Press Expo in September.
Smith, who has written about creators he met at the show for 'Rama, has taken it one step further this year. Like the work I do here for the SPX Spotlights, Zack is going to take readers into the world of small press comics for Newsarama, finding names both well-known and lesser-known for readers and potential attendees of the show to seek out.
I'm really excited about this, because while Panel Patter has a great ear to the ground for SPX, there's only so much time for me to cover the show. In addition, Newsarama's main audience are those who are heavily into mainstream comics, where my work here is more in the world of indie comics to begin with. Zack can use the huge platform of Newsarama to bring folks who don't know much about indie comics into the fold, just like I was guided into the world of indie comics about a decade ago now.
On a personal level, this is a chance for me to see who all is out there in the SPX mix that I might have missed, so I'm happy for that opportunity, too!
You can read Zack's first post about SPX here, covering A Stray in the Woords. Zach's posts look to be interview-centered, so those interested in how these comics come to be will have a lot to look forward to.
I didn't see a tag on Newsarama for the posts, so you may have to just search (but the search function works very well). I hope you'll take the time to check in on Newsarama's SPX coverage in addition to mine, because the more people who stop by, the more the indie comics scene can get major coverage. If the interest is there, the coverage will follow. In the end, we all win--especially the creators going to the best comics show on the east coast, SPX!
