The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Big Fat Whale  |  Failure  |  Hoopleville  |  Idiot Box  |  Lifestyle Features  |  Reality Check
Nominate-best-2010

Drawn together

Comic Koffeeklatsch
By MIKE MILIARD  |  June 3, 2009

090706_comics_main
Boston needs more superheroes. Not because our metropolis is gripped by an unprecedented crime spree, but, says Dave Kender, because our comics are perhaps not muscular enough for their own good.

Kender is creator of the Boston Comics Roundtable, a loose collective of Hub cartoonists and graphic novelists that serves as an in-person professional- and social-networking group for artists who usually toil in monastic solitude at their drawing tables.

Most of the work done by the Roundtable's members "has an indie-comics look," Kender concedes. "But I sometimes wonder whether we may be pushing away people who are into mainstream comics, like superheroes. I see people drawing in cafés and I strike up conversations with them and find out they've drawn for Marvel or DC or Image Comics. And they've never heard about our group. I'm trying to bring in as many different genres as I can."

His strategy for growing the Roundtable seems to be working. At its first get-together three years ago, just one other guy came, recalls Kender. But "the next week, a third person showed up, and then the next week, a fourth person showed up."

Including informal posters on the Roundtable's Google group, there are now as many as 120 local scribes and scribblers comparing notes, offering publishing advice, critiquing each other's art, and networking.

"That's why people keep coming back week after week," says Kender. (Members meet every Thursday at 7:30 pm at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square.) "They're meeting people who understand their problems — who share their joy when they phrase the words in a panel just right, or they like the way the ink is laid on the page for a certain character." Whether they use India ink on Bristol board or InDesign and Photoshop, "the social aspect is crucial."

For evidence of what such creative cross-pollination can lead to, check out the Roundtable's semi-regular anthology, Inbound, the third issue of which came out in April. Another title,Outbound, which focuses on sci-fi stories, premiered three weeks ago. They're testaments to the breadth and creativity of the Boston comics scene. (The next Inbound, due in October, is slated to be the biggest yet: a 100-plus-page paperback collection of narratives, arranged in chronological order, about the history of the Hub.)

Meanwhile, plans are afoot to relaunch the group's Web site with "a much different look to it and a much more active blog," says Kender. Take note, caped crusaders: superheroes are certainly welcome.

Related: Hooplelabs lab analysis, Dance, Monkey!: Rob Crean, Bath time, More more >
  Topics: Lifestyle Features , Science and Technology, Technology, Media,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
HTML Prohibited
Add Comment

ARTICLES BY MIKE MILIARD
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   OBAMA'S YEAR TWO TO-DO'S  |  January 20, 2010
    This week marks the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration. Can you believe it?
  •   HARVARD'S BREATHABLE CHOCOLATE  |  January 22, 2010
    Not long ago, Harvard engineer David Edwards was dining in Bordeaux with famed French molecular gastronomist Thierry Marx and colloidal chemist Jérôme Bibette. Suddenly, tucking into a plate of gourmet fare, Edwards — who specializes in aerosols — had what might be called a voilà! moment.
  •   FLYNN-TERROGATION  |  January 13, 2010
    In his powerful new memoir, The Ticking Is the Bomb (W.W. Norton), Scituate native Nick Flynn recounts a conversation he had with a man in Turkey.
  •   DROPPING THE BALL  |  January 06, 2010
    At last, the golden moment has arrived.
  •   REMEMBERING JOEY RAMONE  |  January 08, 2010
    On top of everything else that was a drag about the decade just past, there was this: in a three-and-a-half-year span, we lost three quarters of the Ramones. And then CBGB closed.

 See all articles by: MIKE MILIARD

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2010 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group