The annual New York destination for alternative sequential art, the MoCCA Festival, arrives early this year - it's on this weekend at the 69^th Regiment Armory. Each year artists and publishers look forward to the event as if it were a love fest, and this one's no exception. Here's the talk from the street:

Steven Guarnaccia, Illustration Program Chair at Parsons the New School for Design, says,"More than just a festival of comic and cartoon art, as it was born, the MoCCA festival has evolved into what I think of as an alternative-image-making- self-publishing-visual-narrative festival. And this is how we explain it to our students. The work seen at the festival takes many forms, tied together by the participants' interest in and exploration of the varieties of print technology available today. So, for instance, you find photocopied booklets with elaborate silk-screened covers next to hand-stitched artists' books.

"The Parsons Illustration program will be taking a table at the festival again this year, where we'll feature student books and comics, as well as Team Tiger Cobra #2, the entirely student created and produced Illustration Program zine. We will also be showing the work of our alumni and faculty active in the field of visual narrative including Bob Sikoryak, Neil Swaab and Bill Kartalopoulos, so the creative landscape that the MoCCA Festival encompasses is very much intrinsic to what we do in the Illustration Program at Parsons."

Left to right: Market Day by Paul Sturm; Journey Into Misery V.2, by Paul Hoppe; Diario de Oaxaca by Peter Kuper. Art copyright and courtesy the artists.

Peggy Burns, Associate Publisher of Drawn & Quarterly, will be on hand with James Sturm, author of Market Day and co-founder/co-director of the Center for Cartoon Studies. "MoCCA is a great amalgamation of a comics show in that it attracts both fans and new fans, is not too small not too large, is neither too NYC or tries to be too international," she reported from the road. "It celebrates New York City as the center of the North American comic book world, which it is, and why it was so important for a show like MoCCA to be created. We've been going since the beginning and it's really become an destination show for comics fans and industry from around the globe. This weekend, I get to meet for the first time Reprodukt, a German comics publisher I work with, who flew in just for MoCCA. And we have Adrian Tomine, Gabrielle Bell, R. Sikoryak, and James Sturm on hand for your signing pleasure."

Peter Kuper just brought me up to date on his activities this weekend. "There isn't anything on the East Coast like the MoCCA festival that brings in so many people from the comix world but still keeps a toe in other aspects of the form," he says. "On Sunday at 2:00, I'll be on a panel with Bill Ayers (former member of the radical group the Weathermen), Ward Sutton, and several others discussing how comics can save the world and other light topics." Throughout the fair he'll be at a table with World War 3 illustrated which is celebrating its 30th anniversary of publication. Peter will also have copies of Diario de Oaxaca and a preview of the Spanish edition of Alice in Wonderland that he recently illustrated.

Anthony Freda, an artist and illustrator who recently moved back to Our Fair City from rural Pennsylvania says, "I've been a fan of alternative narrative art since I got my first copy of Mad at a tender age. There is no turning back once you go down this particular rabbit hole. From Mad I graduated to Raw and am happy to see the genre continuing to grow and attract more amazing talent each year. The people who create these gems are rock stars to me and MoCCA is a great opportunity to meet them."

Left to right: Art In Time, Unknown Comic Book Adventures by Dan Nadel; Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd's Funchicken Booth; Rockport by Anthony Freda. Art copyright and courtesy the artists.

Paul Hoppe, artist and co-creator of the Rabid Rabbit Comics Anthology, has a table for the fifth year running; Paul sent in his report yesterday: "The MoCCA Festival is New York's biggest event for independent and non-Superhero comics. It started out mostly with self-published and handmade books. One of the mottos of the MoCCA Festival might be, if you don't have a publisher, do it yourself, as there are still many people who photocopy and hand-staple their comics. You can create your book and get it out there and find an audience. It's a very satisfying experience."

The MoCCA Festival, Saturday 11 AM - 6 PM and Sunday 10:30 - 6:00 pm, April 10 & 11, 2010. 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY. Please visit the website for information about exhibitors, signings, panel discussions and more. This year, the Klein Award wil be presented to David Mazzucchelli by Chip Kidd.

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