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while i’m an avid comic book reader, my realm of expertise is mostly limited to the big two mainstream publishers and larger independents. the world of small press remains shrouded in relative mystery to me, so when aaron suggested that i join him and our other friends at the our friend the atom table at 2007’s SPX (small press expo), i was pretty excited!

monica & i got to bethesda MD pretty late on friday night and met up with everyone for dinner. afterwards, monica, julie and a couple of the guys went to a dave & buster’s while i went to find the hyatt regency, which turned out to be right in the heart of the city (i didn’t even know bethesda was a real city until i was actually in it) and quite a PITA to find.

got up early the next day and used the hotel gym, which was on the roof and had an amazing view of the city. the guy on the treadmill next to me was spraying sweat like crazy, it was getting all over everything and grossing me out. three miles, 100 pushups of suspect quality and one hold steady/david cross mix later, i grabbed a shower and set off to explore the city for a while. found a couple of cafes and a safeway, nothing to write home about. by the time i got back, monica was up and we had an amazing breakfast at the daily grill. monica had the blueberry pancakes, i had the “protein scramble” of eggs, chicken sausage & spinach; we both agreed that the potatoes were awesome. one of the best features of the hotel is that it’s right above a metro stop, so we immediately hopped on the train to north bethesda, where SPX was being held.

once inside, the vibe was closer to a zine fest than a comicon and definitely more of an indie/punker crowd with scattered uber-geeks. while it wasn’t exactly the heart of nerd city (i will reserve that designation for wizard world), it wasn’t quite out of town either. the OFTA table was well-stocked with griffin’s karma schmarma #1 (collecting the mini comics & documenting mark vs. cancer round two), aaron’s adventures in stereo mini & the germs (yes, it’s really about the germs) comic that he worked on with mcmurray, the debut of phil’s woodland (diarrhea diaries was for sale too), mcmurray’s dumb jersey white boy, ronnie’s full run of claviger and julie’s open late.

i walked around, checking out the different tables of books, zines, prints and artists. with much of the art being self-published (i recognized only the smallest minority of publishers and artists), i was reduced to literally judging books by their covers. manual comics’ mauled! looked pretty good, as did liz baillie’s my brain hurts. however, the sheer volume and variety made it a completely overwhelming experience and i regretted the fact that i hadn’t come a day earlier just so i could digest everything i was looking at.

paralyzed with indie consumer overload, i only picked up the perry bible fellowship hardcover, the trial of colonel sweeto, and then checked out what everyone else in our group was buying. monica found a bunch of amazing books and original art; the loveboundtrain.com pack she bought blew me away. phil got the last copy of the incredible change-bots, a hilarious send-up of the transformers. aaron bought too much stuff for me to recount here but his enthusiasm for small press, wacky comics & DIY ethos in general is totally inspiring and infectious. next year, i’m going early and you should too!