The Alternative Press Expo (or APE) was this past weekend at the Concourse here in San Francisco. The show, which is put on yearly by Comic-Con International, features indy and small press creators of zines, comic books, mini-comics, and more. After getting Larry Young's help to kick off our coverage, we attended on Saturday. We met so many cool people and saw so much neat stuff that we're breaking our experience into several posts. First up: the funny stuff. ...

The Alternative Press Expo is this Saturday and Sunday, and hot damn we're psyched. Who better to help kick off our celebration of alternative press than one of the guys doing comics right? Larry Young is a fixture at APE -- his company, AiT/Planet Lar has been presenting there for years, exhibiting a diverse and interesting line of OGNs ("Original Graphic Novels") and other comic books. We spoke to Mr. Young about his company and pending projects....

We're sure you're familiar with the brooding dark haired girl known as Emily the Strange. Clothing, shoes, comic books, calendars, CD's, you name it, Emily's done it. And Sfist is proud to call Emily a native to the Bay Area. Rob Reger and an illustrator for Emily, Buzz Parker, will be signing books at Things From Another World this Saturday at their Metreon location in San Francisco, be sure to go and get something signed. In case you don't already have an Emily book to bring, Chronicle Books has offered free books and journals to three lucky SFist readers. ...

In case you haven't noticed, we're rather fond of comic books, particularly those written by locals. And parties! We like parties too. That why we said "yay" when we heard that our irreverent colleague Lev is throwing a release party to celebrate publication of "The Seven Habits of Highly Negative People," part three in his Tales of Mere Existence series. Lev's modestly drawn stories center around "stuff you think but don't talk about," and......

Man, we were all set to start up a new column about our new favorite reality show "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?" (which is tied as our new favorite show with our other new favorite reality show, HGTV Design Star. Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance are our other favorite reality shows.) So the premise of Who Wants To Be A Superhero is that Stan Lee, of Spider-Man and Fantastic Four......

Before we get to this week's comic books, we must first point out that Issue 2 of Kevin McShane's Toupydoops has, as the kids say, hit the stands. (We reviewed Issue 1 a few weeks ago.) This latest installment sees our heros standing in line to get into a club where, it turns out, everybody sucks. Poseurs and floozies and five dollar beers deflate their enthusiasm for Los Angeles, but just when all seems......

Free comic books?!?! As Kool-Aid Man says, "OHHHH YEAH!" This past Saturday was Free Comic Book day throughout the world; a day when comics publishers send out random snippets of work, free of charge, for the public to gobble up, mull over, and hopefully consider purchasing in the future. Some years, the pickins are slim; but 2006 will be remembered as a banner year for free books. There were a slew of excellent titles......

Oh, so you think you're SMART, do you? You think you're some kind of Poindexter? Some kind of Einstein? Some kind of vos Savant? Pah! Smarty-pants philosophical musing is no longer the provenance of the eggheads among us, now that Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey are publishing "Action Philosophers!" ... a new series of comic books chronicling the explosive life and leanings of such thinkers as Machiavelli, Marx, Derrida, and Descartes. With their......

This week's comic books bring us, Sherpa-like, into two worlds we know relatively little about: comic book conventions and Mormonism. If only there were a way to combine them. We find it difficult to discuss our favorite of the books because of its incredibly horrible title -- let's just say it once, just to get it over with, and then we'll never refer to it again. "Toupydoops," by Kevin McShane. There. It's done. Let us......

Though we do tire, at times, of the alpha-male genre, few comic books or movies do it with more relish and gusto than Frank Miller's Sin City. So unless you're some kind of sobbing tree-kisser who doesn't like cartoonish violence and macho grandstanding, you'll be glad to hear that Frank Miller is hosting a screening of the film this Sunday at the Act 1&2 in Berkeley. The whole shebang benefits the Comic Book Legal......

Frankly, we sometimes find it hard to sign off on that whole Tough Guy motif that so many comic books shoot for. Yes, a surly squint, trusty sidearm, and simple machismo are familiar hero-ingredients, but after a while it can be a bit numbing and silly. Which is why we were pleased that Isotope Comics pointed us to The Annotated Mantooth, by Matt Fraction, Andy Kuhn, and Tim Fisher, in which the alpha-male dialogue is......

Theater isn't just theater anymore. Throw in some dance, circus, puppetry and even a bit of some horror and comic books, and you've come a long way since, say, Neil Simon....

Oooooh, romance. Every Monday we review a slew of nifty comic books, courtesy of the neato kids at Isotope Comics, but we didn't expect the get a warm mushy feeling this week. Nevertheless, tiny little hearts and flowers bubbled out of our head as we read "True Story, Swear to God," the first volume of a romantic autobiographical comic book series by former Napa resident Tom Beland. A few years back, just as he......

Wait a minute, starf**ks! We're just reporting the news! Don't sue us like you did to local artist Kieron Dwyer when he produced the image at right for his comic book series Lowest Comic Denominator. Though we don't know much about the terms of your settlement with him, we do know that it wasn't terribly favorable to the artist, and includes such stipulations as that he's never allowed to design a circular logo ever......

"Our princess is in another castle!" remains protected speech at the moment, thanks to a ruling from Northern District Judge Ronald Whyte yesterday. The ruling placed a preliminary injunction on the law written by San Francisco Assemblyman Leland Yee and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger last month. We're happy about the injunction, and not just because it guarantees kids will be able to develop the skills they'll need to survive in an increasingly zombie-slaying and......

Kablammo! Oh excuse us. We were just reading some comic books. This week, courtesy of Isotope's guidance, we're checking out Harvey Pekar's new book, The Quitter; as well as Desolation Jones, a newish series inked by a central-valley artist who was recently in town; also the dizzyingly cute Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, by local Debbie Huey; an X-Men book written by dreamboat Joss Whedon; and a sad-scary zombie story called The Walking Dead. First......

Musicals, musicals everywhere in this edition of Stage Fog....

At the Alternative Press Expo (or APE), overstimulation is an understatement. There is a ton going on here. Held yearly in San Francisco, heretofore in February, APE took place this past weekend, April 9-10, at the Concourse Exhibition Center. ...

"Straight guys really ought to know about this," we're told by Scooter, a local cartoonist and signmaker, "because, I mean, talk about a sure-fire place to pick up women." He's talking about Yaoi-Con, a yearly gathering of the mostly-female writers, artists, and fans of Yaoi (also known as "Boys Love"), anime-styled comic books about young affectionate men. (Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that; but for now let's forgo a discussion on the......