MoCCA '26, Part 4: Odds and Ends of MoCCA

Other miscellaneous encounters at MoCCA Fest '26 to close out this feature.

So, initially, this was going to be a short video project for my comics course in uni. My professor thought it would be nice, considering I'm a film major, to forgo the creator research essay and instead get right in there and rub some elbows. He also didn't know if he could stand me talking about Akatsuka over the 2k word maximum, but I digress. If you're reading this, Professor, please keep it OTL ("on the low"...no comments, no reposts, no associations, and no university award submissions), as anonymity is something I wish to keep. Thanks!

If you'd like to read the last entry, a portrait of Mort Walker's assistant Bill Janocha, click here.

This is the last one of these. A lot of what I'm gonna talk about wasn't caught on camera or mic'd up, so I'm going to be recalling off memory for some of the stories. I think it's fine, though, since It's quite vivid, even for something that had happened a month ago.

I want to shout out Dummy, a phenomenal little comics history zine project being put together by one John Kelly, once again. I'd talked with him at the booth, expressing interest in subscribing to the next run of issues planned. Sent him over the money, but I'll have to get back to him on updating the address, since I'm moving soon.

At the Dummy booth, over the day, were a rotating murderer's row of cartoonists. Mark Newgarden, Bob Camp, Kim Deitch, but missing was Gary Hallgren, who was up to appear for the show. Asking John where he was, he'd explained that it was hard for him to catch a plane to NYC for MoCCA due to some health issues, to which I'd mentioned I'd send my regards.

Kim Deitch was quite nice. His new book, Making Comics, had just come out, and the Fantagraphics booth was selling copies. I had a window to get the book signed by him, but I was running low on funds for the trip, and decided not to. His wife Pam Butler was there as well, so I chatted them up.

I feel so bad about it getting
beat up in the post

Asking Deitch about his newest book, he'd said he was quite proud of it, and that he was happy to work on something with Butler for the first time in a while. I'd explained why I was here, and that I was happy to rub some elbows with big comics guys like him. His response, laughing: "this is how you do it."

Later, I'd caught up with Bob Camp, best known for his work on The Ren and Stimpy Show and other Spum-adjacent projects. He's currently on The Patrick Star Show with one of my longtime industry pals, Eliza Herndon, and I watched as he drew a picture of Stimpy with some acryllic markers.

We had a brief talk over the awesome qualities acryllic markers have and how good they are for painting and signing stuff. I'd told him that I knew Eliza, to which he said that he had never met her in person, believing her to be out in California working on the show. This is not true, as Eliza had confirmed that most of the people working on the SpongeBob-adjacent shows do so from home and have all their work sent to a private server. The bigger guys are in Burbank, but, as I'm led to believe, the animation industry became more dispersed after COVID.

Camp also did work from home for the show, and so I'd asked him if I could get two signatures of his Ren and Stimpy art, with one to be sent out to Eliza. He was super chill, and was grateful to do so.

The last of the big guys worth mentioning was Mark Newgarden, who I feel terrible for not immediately recognzing. I was getting that same time-sensitive nervousness from when I talked with Hallgren, and was profusely apologizing for beign nervous. His wife was there, too, and I was incredibly close to just getting down on the ground, head on the floor, in apology.

They were very nice. On why I apologized so much, I'd explained I was from the Midwest and was short on time, as the hall was closing very quickly. I could feel that buzzing in my cheeks again, and I thanked him for his work and especially for How to Read Nancy, which is a book I heartily recommend for anyone studying comics theory.

That's pretty much it. Later that night after I finished with Janocha, I stopped to talk to my mother in our hotel room. I'd explained to her all the cool stuff that happened to me that day, and upon hearing me say that I took a ride in Janocha's car to Taco Bell, her eyes widened in surprise. "You got in his car?! Well, I think I had a pretty good judge of character. She wanted to learn more about it, and was leaning forward in excitement to hear about all the people I'd met that day. She knew I was realizing some kind of dream, and that's all that matters with your parents, really. Them knowing about your happiness is sometimes enough.

Later, I went to go get some gelato, stopped at some shops, visited the Ralph Kramden statue at Port Authority, and finished with a trip to 2 Bros. Pizza on W 35th and 8th. Can't recommend the last place enough, the drink and slice combo is an incredible deal in this economy.

 Thanks to everyone who I'd chatted with for this quick little feature. Special thanks to my mother, perhaps one of my biggest cheerleaders and sources of light in my life, my professors in my university's comics program for being so encouraging on this trip, and, of course, YOU!! I don't just write for myself, you know!! Thanks for the patronage, it's much appreciated.