Welcome to Stumptown 2010!

Well, hello and welcome again!

Quite a year since many of us last met here at the Doubletree. April is now not only Comic Book Month here in Portland (check out copies of the third annual official decree around the Fest - courtesy of Portland Mayor, Sam Adams), but seemingly across the nation! We are very grateful to Comic-Con International's San Francisco Wonder Con, The New York based Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art MoCCA Festival and C2E2 - the new Chicago Pop Culture event from the NYCC organizers, for working to share April with us. Thanks gang (and shout out to Staple and ECCC, as well)!

Speaking of great thanks, please be sure to let our guests and exhibitors know how much you appreciate their making the trek to Stumptown. Dean Haspiel (ACT-I-VATE, The Alcoholic) and Paul Pope are winging in all the way from New York, Batton Lash and Jackie Estrada are up from San Diego,  Kate Beaton (Hark, A Vagrant) is in from the wilds of Halifax, Montreal-based Drawn and Quarterly exhibits for the 1st time and hosts R. Sikoryak and James Sturm, Graham Annable debuts his Grickle collection from Dark Horse Comics, Craig Thompson is once again taking rare time away from his drawing board during the home stretch of Habibi, Hope Larson is a host of Drink & Draw Like a Lady, Lucy Knisley created stunning badge art for us, illustrator of "Stumptown" from Oni Press Matthew Southworth is here, and home town hero Theo Ellsworth coaxed his NY based publisher Secret Acres to visit. Plus, we've got exhibitors from literally all over the world!

Sponsors are a huge part of what makes this show possible; MacTarnahan's Tap Room and Brewery, Muse Art & Design, Bob Self of Baby Tattoo Books, Portland Art Museum (bringing the R. Crumb Genesis exhibition to PDX beginning June), Brown Printing, Pollyanne Birge and the office of Mayor Sam Adams, CBLDF, Dr. Sketchy's PDX, Wacom, Alter Egos Society, and The Sequential Art Gallery, to name a few. Supporting them supports us!

More support has come from great friends of the Fest including Diana Schutz, Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Richardson, Jim Valentino, Dylan Williams, Kevin Smith, Harvest Moon, Bernadette Baker, Cort and Fatboy, and countless others. We are ever grateful to them. On a more personal note, thanks to my mom, who encouraged my love of comics throughout her life which ended abruptly last summer. You are missed. Thank you to Angie Kelley, Bob Schreck, Diego Kirsch, and all of you for your personal support of me. It means more than I can articulate.

Enough gratitude cannot be given to the Festival organizers. Many do not realize that the Stumptown Comic Book Festival and the Foundation which sponsors it are entirely volunteer based. From the people walking around handing out water to the Festival director, to the board of directors of the Foundation itself, we all do it for the love of comic books and the joy of community. Thanks go to Sequential Art Gallery proprietor and Stumptown Foundation President Kaebel Hashitani, Zeo Cohen, Dylan Meconis, Michael Cassella, John C. Worsley, Fest founder Indigo Kelleigh, Neal Skorpen, Sarah Corsiatto, New Yorker Cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, Cosmic Monkey Comics co-owner Andy Johnson, media maven Merrick Monroe, Floating World Comics owner Jason Levian, Adam Rosko, the mysterious Myrrh Larsen, Geek-in the-city and now with Things From Another World Aaron Duran, to recognize by name just some of the people responsible for wrangling this show!

Once again, we end where we begin: with you. Thank YOU, because without your continued outright love and championing of comic books, cartooning, graphic novels, manga, graphics, or whatever else you wanna call comic books, none of this would happen. Your passion and appreciation provide the support and drive that it takes to make the Stumptown Comic Book Festival a community-based event celebrating the thriving artistic and cultural expression that is comics. May it remain so forever.

Best,