GIE Con. & the Graphic Classroom – and a cool bar.

 

So. I am trying my best to write this brief regarding the Graphica in Education conference now—already—a couple days behind us, and so much of it is already fog. If anything, gather that that’s just testament enough to the caliber of the whirlwind Chris W. and I got swept-up in this past weekend in New York City.

The Skinny – We proposed to and were invited to present at the inaugural GIE Con. [“guy-con” IMHO] (courtesy of Fordham University) to a smattering of upper-echelon librarians, educators, journalists, marketing coordinators, and a slew of nerds-at-heart academics  our case—based on Chris’s research—for comics in the classroom. We were pretty fortunate to have an established and original niche—(The Graphic Classroom)—that briefly garnered Chris and I a sort of ad-hoc expertise (this field is ultra new), which leeched a couple of the concurrent sessions of its audience. We felt pretty low, but the fact was that even though we were among far better academicians than us, this sort of talk is so new – we just figured smart and laid-back introductory heffalumping was the right way to swagger.

 It was a part-lecture we approached primarily as fans of the genre, and the back-and-forth behind the doors made for an insightful and fun hour-plus rife with panels and anecdotes. I was just happy to get carried away and gift swag and horse around.

Some Mingling – A journalist from the School Library Journal interviewed us. I was happy to meet with Random House, Diamond Bookshelf (John Shableski), Teachers & Writers, and – mm, I can’t even remember, let me look … – oh right: Dawn Reshen-Doty from For Beginners Books, who was way-too-kind, and (of course!) Gina Gagliano from First Second Books (killer). DC Comics was there, lurking, and a [the?] curator from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Spoiler: she says the movie Watchmen was great. Here’s to Alan Moore’s health and wealth.

A mispacked mac cord sent us trekking up-alongside Central Park to the creepily modern Apple Store (an elevator that descends from a glass box into the store-proper). It was very cold.

Denouement – Chris and I ducked into a solid dive on ninth ave and drank some beer.