MoCCA Fest 2012 Coming This Weekend!

It's almost here! This year's MoCCA Fest will be held this coming weekend, April 28-29, in New York City. Now that my plans are finalized, I'm getting very excited about all the things to do there. Pre-order tickets are available through Thursday if you're interested in attending.

The following is my list of exhibitors and artists I'm looking forward to meeting at the show. It's very individual, mostly based on so far on posts I've seen on blogs I follow or Twitter. If you're going to be there, please, leave a comment!

Publishers

Just about everyone on my favorite list is here: Abrams, Archaia, Boom!, Drawn & Quarterly, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Fantagraphics, First Second, NBM, Top Shelf, and Vertical (no! really? I haven't been able to be at a con that manga publisher has attended in forever). It will be a thrill to see all these great indy publishers in one place.

(I only linked to MoCCA-specific posts I could find ' if there's more information out there on what these publishers plan to bring to the show, please share.)

Exhibitors and Artists

Way too many to list, but here's a few I'm sure to seek out. (Note: always best to double-check if guests' plans have changed ' the list still includes Faith Erin Hicks and Spike of Iron Circus, both of whom are not planning to attend. Still, even if a favorite doesn't make it, there will be plenty more people and their comics to check out.)

• Sarah Becan
• Kris Dresen
• Laura Lee Gulledge
• Alisa Harris
• Lucy Knisley

And then I will simply walk the show floor, discovering things, my favorite part of an exhibition. I'm beginning to worry that I won't have enough time to do everything I want to do during my time there! Especially when I look at the programming schedule'

Panels

I had planned to visit MoCCA Fest on Saturday and then spend Sunday touring NYC, but it looks like the panels I'd most like to see are kicking off the show at 11:15 on Sunday, with a focus on 'Graphic Novels for Young Adults' (including Raina Telgemeier, MK Reed, and Derek Kirk Kim), followed by advice on how 'To Run a Comic Shop', with four NYC retailers, and then everyone's favorite hot topic, 'Digital Distribution and the Future of Comics' with David Steinberger, the CEO of comiXology.

There are some good panels around lunchtime on Saturday, too, with Alex Cox providing 'A History of Comics Censorship' (sponsored by the CBLDF) at 12:15 followed by Heidi MacDonald moderating a conversation on 'The State of Small Publishing' at 1:15. That's the sign of a good show, right, when there's more to do than time to do it all?