Hey, Folks, welcome to part two of our APE coverage. The Alternative Press Expo was this past weekend, and there was so much fun stuff we had to break our coverage into several tasty morsels. If you missed part one and want to read about some folks making with the funny, please feel free. In this post, we're focusing on some creators that combine a less obvious type of humor with some great art and a generally longer form of storytelling....

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. ...

We've told you about Pet Noir here before, the comic anthology published by Manic D Press featuring an impressive list of local talent. If you still haven't picked up a copy get yourself down to the San Francisco Public Library tonight for a slide show and an enlightening, lively discussion about pets, comics, true crime, and much more. The event will feature many of the fine comic artists who contirbuted to the book, including, editor/artist Shannon O’Leary, John Isaacson, MariNaomi, Lark Pien, Trevor Alixopulos, Damien Jay, Peter Conrad, and Melanie Lewis. The fun goes from 6:30-7:45pm and will be held in the Latino room at the Main Library. Best of all it's free, so you can use your cash to buy a book, or dog food. Main Library is at 100 Larkin Street (@ Grove, Lower Level) 415-557-4400 ...

Mari Naomi is one of the most prolific bay area artists we know-- just when we think she's going to rest for a while she unveils a new set of kick ass clown sumo wrestler watercolors, or tells us she's going to be on TV, at a reading, or putting up a new show. We not only admire her humming bird like motion, we adore her art. Mari will be reading at a Pet Noir event on April 5th at the SF public Library. You can also find volume four of her comic Estrus in stores now. Read on to learn why we're such big fans of this native bay area artist. ...

SFist Christina, contributing. Last night was the book release party for Shannon O'Leary's Pet Noir, a comic anthology of true pet crime stories published by San Francisco's very own Manic D Press. If you weren't there you missed one hip affair. Held at the wonderful Cartoon Art Museum it was packed the entire night and Pet Noir was selling like hot cakes. Many of the artists who contributed to the book were in attendance......

We first met Shannon O'Leary at the last Alternative Press Expo, where she was showing the floppy versions of her books Pet Noir and Fortune's Bitch. Now, she's about to publish a hardbound, 120+ page graphic novel version of Pet Noir and, lucky us, we got an early review copy. We share our impressions and condect an interview with Shannon! ...

On a day when the sun finally came back to San Francisco, we thought it best to hide from those destructive rays in pursuit of a hobby often associated with living in one's parents' basement--the collecting and reading of comics. These aren't your typical funnybooks, though--this was the yearly Alternative Press Expo (or APE), wherein the exhibits center on the self-published, the smaller markets, the oft-ignored subjrects and probably the most creative stuff going on in the world of sequential art today. We spoke with Bob Lipsky (Uptown Girl); Alex Robinson (Box Office Poison, Tricked); Randall Christopher (Kleeman and Mike); Deb Aoki (Bento Box); Miriam Libicki (Jobnick!; Towards A Hot Jew; Shannon O'Leary (locally produced Pet Noir); and SFist favorite Julia Wertz of Fartparty.org....