Miriam Katin (l.) and Alison Bechdel

Exhibitors' tables expanded to fill the sunlit seventh-floor area that had been reserved for panels in previous years, in addition to the three ground-floor rooms they've always occupied. The programming, in turn, was inconveniently relocated to the museum's offices a few blocks away. Alison Bechdel (recipient of this year's MoCCA Art Festival Award), Kim Deitch, Keith Knight, Lauren Weinstein and novelist Austin Grossman all took their turns in the spotlight; the best-attended panel, according to MoCCA organizers, was Jeffrey Brown's spotlight, at which the Chicago cartoonist announced plans to publish a regular 32-page comic book (and narrated his unpublished Wolverine story).

MoCCA's audience is more of a fine art crowd than most other conventions', and the bags shoppers were carrying around at the show were as full of limited-edition prints and objets d'art as they were of books, comics and minicomics.

Geary's ninth volume in his violent but informative and well-researched series covers the little known tale of the so-called Bloody Benders, a mysterious family of possibly German immigrants who set up a small grocery/hotel catering to travelers along the Osage Trail in southern Kansas in 1870. The townspeople figure out pretty quick that the Benders are an odd lot (the ethereally beautiful daughter holds séances and claims to be a healer, while the ape-like father barely speaks, and the son seems simpleminded). It takes them quite a bit longer to glom on to the fact that too many travelers, especially those with money, are disappearing near the Benders' place. By the time the locals catch on, the Benders have fled, leaving a multitude of gruesome clues behind. Because much about the Benders remains unknown, the story easily lends itself to fantasy and speculation, and Geary recounts theories about who they really were and what happened to them, presented in a quite credible manner, all accompanied by his usual exquisite art. Geary's riveting writing has a journalistic, matter-of-fact tone,making it quite palatable to adult audiences; though the subject matter may make some school librarians think twice. (July)

In Eddie Campbell's new graphic novel, The Black Diamond Detective Agency, the artist of From Hell and creator of such graphic novels as Bacchus, the Alec series and The Fate of the Artist was called in to take a screenplay to a graphic novel. The always-fascinating Campbell talks about transferring a property like Black Diamond to the illustrated page, the realities of the emerging work model for creating graphic novels, and much more.

• Macedonia (Villard Books)
• Le Chevalier d'Eon Vol. 1 (Del Ray Manga)
• Fox Funny Bunny (Top Shelf)
• The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning (Fox Atomic Comics)
• Togari Vol. 1 (Viz Media)
• Wolverine: Blood and Sorrow (Marvel0
• Crossing Midnight (DC/ Vertigo)
• Beowulf (Candlewick Press)
• Coyote Ragtime Show (Broccoli International)
• Forever Nuts: The Early Years of Mutt and Jeff (NBM)
• Paintings of You (Iris Print)
• Maintenance Vol. 1: It's a Dirty Job (Oni Press)

• ICV2 on ALA Conference
  
• Wolk, Grossman Talk Comics
  
• Tokyopop Creators at B&N
  
• Comics Blogs on G4TV
  
• Seven Seas at AnimeExpo 2007