Stumptown Comic Con Festival in Portland

GUEST BLOGGER: JAKE KASCH
INTERVIEWING JONAH ROSE OF DARKHORSE COMICS
What is the best part of working at Darkhorse?

Uh best part about working at Darkhorse, probably just getting to interact with people who do creative things in the business. I also often get to see things before they get done. Free comics…which is cool, getting to meet people in the business like Camilla, the opportunity to be involved in the great world of comics, especially because we have such a great scene of comics in Portland.

What are some of the more interesting or challenging things that you encounter while working in the comic industry?

Probably the hardest thing is that at any time there is 100 people just as qualified as you who want your job. Everyone wants to work in comics but at least at Darkhorse we have a good group of people who care about you there and take care of each other. Making quotas on the sales side and not just messing up in general because there are a lot of things you have to remember to do. I meant to send someone 7 books one time ended up sending them 70. They were not stoked about that.

Where do you see comic books going in the next 10 years?

I think a lot of people think that comics are going to go digital only. But that’s like when people said that the movie theaters are going to go out of business when vhs came out. There is something about ink on paper that you can’t get from staring at a screen. There is also a issue of mobility that you can’t take with you, well except for the kindle. I think comics need to go back to- children. It seems a lot of the people who read comics now are people who read comics when they were kids. There is a great market for comics aimed at adults but if we don’t have kids reading comics then there aren’t going to be people reading them as they get older.

So… Stumptown, it seems more about the self produced comics. What’s it about vs the other cons out there?

…I think that’s why I like Stumptown more than the other comic conventions that I've been to recently. Portland's comic convention is more like a flea market for comic vendors. I went to Emerald city comicon this last weekend for the first time which was really cool. It had the whole people in costumes, had celebrities there and that was really cool. I did get to meet Ben Templesmith. Really fanboy’d it out…got really nervous. I got to speak to a lot of people that I really respect, which was awesome but I mean Stumptown seems like it is filled with people who are still trying to make it and still really care about what they do…not that any of those don’t… well some of those people seem like they don’t but you know… It's such an event in Portland. There’s the before parties, the draw at Cosmic Monkey, the after parties, Chamilla had a signing at The Compound for a new art show that she’s doing. I think Floating World Comics is doing something along with that and even the Mayor declared April to be “Comics Month” in Portland because we have so much comic stuff going on.

Any parting words?

Be creative. Do something original. Stay hard(core)

(More on Stumptown Comic Fest tomorrow) Like my impressions and some great photos including more like this one of super-talent Jeff Smith (author of Scholastic's Bone)