Barry Brownstein

Last weekend this year's Small Press Expo was held just outside of Washington, DC. SPX is an annual convention celebrating the little guys in comics. Most of the creators exhibiting at the show are self-published. Some of them have been lucky enough to have found a small publishing house to print their book for them. Some of the people end up going places. Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O'Malley used to exhibit there, for instance. In other cases you may encounter a neat comic that you will literally never see again if you don't purchase it at the con. This year cameraman Barry Worthington and I wandered around and interviewed anyone who would talk to us and wasn't being mobbed by attendees. It seemed to be one of the busiest SPXs I have attended. The embedded video below included conversations with Chris Yura (Two Italian Guys), Michael Auger (contributor to Trickster anthology and DC Conspiracy member), Jonathan Baylis (So Buttons), Josh Jenkins (Plan B), Vanessa Satone (Wasted Minds), Colleen A.F. Venable (Guinea Pi), Charles Brownstein (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund), R.M. Rhodes (Oceanus Procellarum), Lance Hansen (Don't Cry, Hayseed), Jeff Sharp (Coal), Nate Marsh (The Obscure Animal Compendium), Josh Eiserike (Assholes), Tom Arvis (Sureshot Comics) Steve Kozak and David McAdoo (Red Moon), and Jim Rugg (Afrodisiac and Ignatz Award-winning mini comic Rambo 3.5). I encountered an interesting rumor during the interview with Baylis: is DC Comics relocating to California? Due to the current close-knit relationship between comics and movies and so many of the comics newer publishers being based out west it does sort of make sense. Although one of the big two leaving New York would be weird. And if this were to happen would Marvel follow?

Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein are starring a new series coming out with IFC that will be executive produced by Lorne Michaels. Allison Silverman, a former big shot writer at Colbert Report, will be writing as well. [THR] Seth MacFarlane, who is the Roast Master on the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff, is releasing an album of Big Band staples. He was on The Tonight Show last night to show off his pipes. [NY Times] Nick Turner and Jason Saenz started a website named Free Comedy where you pay money to watch comedy. Just kidding! It's free! The best video so far is this episode of "Scream Room" starring Kevin Allison. [Free Comedy via Comic's Comic] Todd Barry is going to be in Detroit August 9th and he booked a last minute show. What else is there to do in Detroit? Break windows in abandoned car factories? And deal with all the raccoons? Go see this show instead. [Ticketmaster] David Cross's British TV series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is coming to America on IFC in October. Alright, England, we're square for that saving you from the Nazis thing. [IFC] Will Ferrell stars in these Wired shorts created for their iPad readers. Great, now the iPad has another use besides getting strangers to look over your shoulder on the subway. [NY Times]

Wild Flag is made up of some of the most respected punk-slash-indie musicians of the 90s, with a lineup that's sort of a late-period riot-grrrl who's who: Carrie Brownstein (Sleater ... as part of Marion Barry's Summer Youth Employment Program.

Berry's organization, along with the Workers' Compensation ... which showed that since January, the firm of Brownstein Farber Hyatt Schreck, for example, had been paid $781,458 for lobbying and had a contract that says the firm will be paid ...