Broken Frontier

The 8th annual Stumptown Comics Fest will take place on April 16th and 17th, and be held in its new location at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. In recent years the exhibition hall has been packed to the gills; this move to the Convention Center will give attendees room to breathe with 30,000 square feet of exhibition space (nearly double the square footage) and will allow the amount of table to be increased with room for future growth.

A small number of guests have already been confirmed for the next fest, from local, national, and even international stages. Guests are to include: Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Molly Crabapple (illustrator, founder of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School), Kurt Busiek (writer for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image), Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld), and Barry Deutsch (Hereville). This list is by no means complete, and regular announcements will be made over the coming months as more details are confirmed.

Indigo Kelleigh, founder of the Stumptown Comics Fest, is returning as the festival director for the next three years (2011-2013). Kelleigh brings his experience in both event coordination and the comics industry to the team, and is already working to make this upcoming year a peak at what’s to come. Shannon T. Stewart, Festival Director for the 2009 and 2010 fests and a current Board member of the Stumptown Comics Foundation, is supportive of Kelleigh’s involvement. "We're all elated to have Indigo, the creator of the Fest, return to the position of Director,” says Stewart, “and I personally look forward to working with him and to the amazing ideas he has in store for Stumptown over not just this season, but the next few years leading to the ten year anniversary!"

This will be the eighth year of the Stumptown Comics Fest (founded 2004), which has become the largest creator-focused comics festival in the Northwest. The amount of comics fans attending the event continues to climb as does the national and international attention our local event garners from artists, writers, editors, and publishers. For continuing updates regarding the event, head to the official website at www.stumptowncomicsfest.com