A Day At DINK

Last weekend the first DINK (Denver Independent Comics and Art Expo) was held in downtown Denver. This convention had a number of writers and artist spread around 4 floors of the Sherman Event Center. In these halls there was very little "mainstream" content to be found. This means that if you were wondering the halls of DINK you would be able to find amazing and unique stories in a number of different styles. As I wondered I took a few photos, some of which you will find in the slide show below.

Zines and their writers!

Denver Library

Library cards were getting passed out along with free buttons by these two.

History of Independent Publishing in Colorado

From Left to Right: Artie Romero, Bob Conway, and Artie Romero

Along with the the floors of artist and writers there were three panel rooms. I attended two of the panels that were held. The first involved three of the oldest comic publisher's in Colorado, Artie Romero, Bob Conway, and Dennis Pimple. Artie started publishing when he was in 1969 during his High School years. In 1973 he founded Everyman Studios and published Realm 6 followed by ACME Comics. Bob Conway started doing mini comics (comics with a max of 8 pages) in the early 70's. He was know for doing the Roles Royce of mini-comics. They all looked great and had color covers. Something pretty rare in that day. Dennis Pimple was a writer and worked the longer formats that would not fit in 8 pages. Dennis would work with any artist that wanted a story to draw, but few of these stories saw the light of day. All three enjoyed what they did, but it was not cheap. Most comics only had a single run due to cost. Things changes in the 90' though. Printing comics became cheaper and you could do smaller runs with less risk. They have tons of experience and were wonderful to listen to.

The second panel was about creating Multi-Dimensional Characters. This featured Samuel Teer, Jim Rugg, Matthew Allison, Mike Baron, and Sean Tiffany. They spoke about creating characters that were out of the normal comic character box. They pointed out was that you should always create your characters. It is hard if not impossible to improve on someone else's work, so create something on your own to be original. Characters should be part of the writer, and once you have them, realize they are people. So they will have motives and personalities that will govern how they act. And don't be afraid to make it up as you go, that is what everyone else does.

DINK was great fun and I look forward to returning next year. Several of the artist that I spoke to felt that the event was run spectacularly. They have room to grow in their current venue, so lets hope they put it good use.