CAKE 2015: I brought home many things

This past weekend was the fourth annual Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, or CAKE, and I'm happy to say that it seemed to be a successful event for everyone involved, from the organizers, to the attendees, to the many amazing artists who were exhibiting their work. I've volunteered for the event in previous years, but this year they asked me to get even more involved, so I was the Social Media Coordinator for the weekend, running the official CAKE Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr accounts. I spent the weekend walking around, taking pictures on my phone, and doing lots of tweeting, retweeting, and sharing, so if you check out the past couple days of activity on those accounts, you'll have a pretty good picture of what I was up to.

But anyway, as I usually do when I attend these sorts of events, I want to share all the cool stuff I picked up. Check out this pile of comics goodness:



And here's an explanation of just what all that stuff is. Starting from the top "row":

• Vreeland, by Chad Sell
• True Stories #1, by Derf Backderf
• Take the A Train, by M. Dean and Z. Akhmetova
• Cyanide Milkshake #6 and Turbo Mutt, by Liz Suburbia
• A little package of minicomics by Kevin Czapiewski
• An issue of the punk rock magazine Razorcake, featuring an interview with Liz Prince

Going across the middle:

• King-Cat #75, by John Porcellino
• The Return of Japanese Wolves, by Rumi Hara
• Failwolves: Three Tales of Inept Lycanthropy, by Betsey Swardlick
• Tits!, by Caitlin Skaalrud
• Fuckwizards, a "super-dirty" minicomic by Eleanor Davis
• Past Coasts and Buck, by Jon Drawdoer
• Three neat comics promoting the Center for Cartoon Studies, by Kevin Huizenga, James Sturm and Marek Bennett, and Jon Chad

Along the bottom:

• A bunch of comics from One Percent Press: Broken Summer, Super Mega Buds, and Simple Routines #19, by JP Coovert; and Rough Age, by Max de Radigues
• Not On My Watch: A Bystanders' Handbook for the Prevention of Sexual Violence (plus a "Consent Cavalry" pin!), by Isabella Rotman
• Goodbye, by Ben Passmore
• Miggy Mouse's Sweets & Treats and New Best Friend, by A.T. Pratt
• A cool donut comic by Keith Pakiz
• Handout Comics #4, this year's Free Comic Book Day minicomic by a variety of Chicago cartoonists
• Wastoid, by Kelsey Wroten
• An "Octocat" print that I made at the CAKE printmaking workshop
• Divided, a fold-up comic by Matt Reints

That's a lot of comics to process! I'll be reading them over the next week or two, and since CAKE has gotten me inspired, I'll even try to write some blogs about them. But first, I'll do a post sharing the awesome Groo sketches that I got this year. Stay tuned!