This weekend was the Brooklyn Book Festival!  As half of our staff lives in Brooklyn, we like to support the borough.  Also, two of our authors — Derek Kirk Kim (Tune) and Mark Siegel (Sailor Twain) were featured in the programming.  So off we went!

Here’s the program guide!  And it even had a map.  I approve of program guides having maps.

Here’s where the festival was held — at Brooklyn Borough Hall.  It is lovely!  The weather was delightful; if only the entirety of Brooklyn fall could be like this.

Everyone at the Brooklyn Book Festival liked comics!  The picture above was of the Forbidden Planet booth — peopled by individuals of all shapes and sizes and ages.

D&Q came!  That meant we got to see them two weeks in a row!  (I’m not sure how they did this while also not falling over of multiple-convention-exhaustion.)

So did Picturebox!  I got a copy of the new Sammy Harkham book, which I am very excited about.  (Dan’s lack of exhaustion is easier to explain because he lives in New York.)

Mark and Derek (and Charise Mericle Harper) did a draw-off together.  The audience voted on what they should draw, and them crazy things happened.

Calvin Reid from PW moderated.

Here is a small child making a suggestion for the artists to draw.  If I am remembering properly, her suggestion included ostriches and ducks contained in bubbles.

At the end, everyone wanted one of the drawings!

Derek’s signing one of his giant drawings for a fan.

And here Mark’s signing one of his picture books, Moving House.

Derek’s showing a bit of his upcoming graphic novel, Tune.

And then he and Mark sang the Totoro song together.

Mark: “It’s kind of convenient for sailors, right?  She’s a mermaid — what are you going to do?”

Moderator Ellen Kushner’s next question: “Derek, you’re a great champion of neo-realistic comics and now you’re down here in the genre gutter with us.  Do you think of it that way?”

Derek: “Yes.”

Audience Question: “My question is for Mr. Kim and Mr. Siegel.  I don’t know if you’re aware of the comics artist Scott McCloud?”

(Mark: is Scott McCloud’s editor.)

(Derek: knows Scott well enough to convince him to act in his Mythomania show)

Obvious Response: Pray tell, who is this ‘Scott McCloud’ that you speak of?

Mark signs an early copy of Sailor Twain for the delightful moderator — with white ink!

And then we went home!  It’s so nice to have a local book festival.