Guest list update

Here is the beginning of our guest list. Check back for more updates.

Atomic Pulp: Christopher Mills is the writer of Femme Noir from Ape Entertainment and Kolchak from Moonstone Books.

Joe Staton is a veteran comics artist whose credits include virtually every major character from DC and Marvel Comics.
http://www.atomicpulp.com

Marek Bennett: Marek is the Xeric Award winning creator of Mimi's Donuts.
http://www.marekbennett.com

Ben Bishop: Ben is the creator of the graphic novel Nathan the Caveman.
http://bishart.net/

Boston Comics Roundtable: A collective of comics creators from the Boston area. Their members published Inbound, an anthology of original comics. Their Spring '09 Love and Romance issue will be out in time for the festival.
http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com

Corbett Features: Barry Corbett and Brian Codagnone are equal partners at Corbett Featurs. Barry is a panel cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Ginger & Shadow. Brian Produces two comic strips, Misfits and S1019 and writes a humor cloumn. They have published 3 trade paperbacks; Hey America! It's Misfits Time by Brian, Embrace the Pun!, a collection of pun-based panel cartoons by Barry, and Kitty Nirvana, a collection of Barry's comic strips. Nirvana won a Silver Medal at the 2008 Ippy Awards.
http://www.corbettfeatures.com

Sam Costello: Sam Costello is a writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. He writes the webcomic Split Lip, which the Horror Blog called "the predominant original horror comic work on the internet". His comics have also appeared in Cthulhu Tales and Negative Burn.
http://www.splitlipcomic.com

Dandelion Studios:Gynn Stella Silva

Originally from New Hampshire, Gynn received her degree from Massachusetts College of Art with a major in filmmaking. She currently lives and works on Cape Cod with her husband, Rick Silva. Together they make up Dandelion Studios, a small press comic book company. Gynn does all of the artwork for their comic Zephyr & Reginald: Minions for Hire as well as for her minicomics and her upcoming graphic novel, Knifeclaw Company. Her artwork has appeared in Space & Time magazine, and she was selected to be published in the 2005 24-Hour Comics Day anthology. In addition to doing her artwork, Gynn is involved in animal rescue. She is a volunteer at the Cape Wildlife Center, and has adopted two special-needs cats.

Rick Silva

Rick Silva has been involved in small press publishing since his college days. He published and edited Kinships magazine. Along with his wife Gynn, Rick is a partner in Dandelion Studios, a small press comic book company. Rick co-writes the Dandelion Studios comics Zephyr & Reginald: Minions for Hire and Perils of Picorna. He publishes his own zine, Caravan, and he is one of the featured contributors for the fiction webzine The Edge of Propinquity. Rick Silva grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, attended Cornell University, and currently teaches chemistry at a high school on Cape Cod, where he resides with his wife and two cats.
http://www.dandelionstudios.com

Zack Giallongo:
http://www.zackgiallongo.com

Mark Gonyea:
http://www.mroblivious.com

Lucy Knisley: Lucy Knisley is the author of the drawn travel journal "French Milk" from Simon and Schuster. She went to the Center for Cartoon Studies, and lives in Chicago. She is 24.
http://www.lucyknisley.com

Dave Naybor: Dave is the creator of Walking Christendom.

Jennifer Omand: Jennifer is the creator of Squarecat Comics, an online diary comic that has run daily since 2003. It has been collected into two (so far) volumes.
http://squarecatcomics.com

Jay Piscopo: Jay is the creator of The Undersea Adventures of Capt'n Eli from Nemo Publishing.
http://www.captneli.com

Joel Rivers: Joel is the creator of the Xeric Award winning comic series Along the Canadian.
http://www.obioncomics.com

Sarah Searle: Sarah has been making comics for five years in the Portland area and has recently begun self-publishing again. Check out her newest work at:
http://www.swinsea.com

Christina Siravo:
http://www.zazzle.com/csiravo

Matt Talbot: Matt is the co-creator of the indy comic Johnny Raygun.
http://mattrobot.com

The Underburbs: Joe Haley and T.J. Dort are both graduates of Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA where they majored in illustration. The Underburbs, a tale of Halloween, montser worlds, and world domination, is their first comic series.
http://underburbs.deviantart.com

Jen Vaughn: Jen Vaughn is proud to attend the first Maine Comics Arts festival. As a transplanted Texan, she is enjoying her time at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. Stop by for a sketch or a copy of Supergrrrl Adventure Comix or her newest tiltle, 321.
http://www.the vaughncurse.com

More guests coming soon....

Groundhog update.....

Hello,
It has only been two weeks since we opened exhibitor registrations and already half of our tables are committed. We should be able to make some special guest announcements soon. I expect that once that happens the remaining tables will sell quickly.

If you are going to be at the New York Comic Con please be sure to stop by and talk with some of our Portland area creators who will be there. They include Jay Piscopo ( Nemo Publishing "The Undersea Adventures of Capt'n Eli" ), Ben Bishop ("Nathan the Caveman") and Joel Rivers ("Along the Canadian", a Xeric winner).

Watch for further updates. Thanks!

Hotels in Portland part II- The Holiday Inn by the Bay

We have reserved a block of twenty rooms at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland for Saturday, May 16- Sunday, May 17 2009. The room rate is $119 per night. The Holiday Inn is located downtown in the Arts District. There will be a shuttle available to bring people to and from the festival or anywhere else in Portland.

http://www.innbythebay.com/

The rooms feature two beds per room and are for single or double occupancy. Reservations must be made by calling the hotel's local reservation department at 1-800-345-5050. Attendees must ask specifically for a room from the Maine Comics Arts Festival block to ensure you get the proper rate and availability. Reservations must be made by April 15, 2009. After that any remaining rooms will be released from the block for general public resale.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Website up/ registrations open

The festival website has been published. It may take a day or so to work its way across the internet so don't be surprised if you don't find it immediately.

http://mainecomicsfestival.com/

If you can't wait to register as an exhibitor you can download the registration form here:

http://casablancacomics.com/mecaf/mecafcon.pdf .

Some things to keep in mind. There are not a huge number of tables available. Some tables are committed to invited guests. We are still waiting to get a final table count but hope to measure things this week. If the first offering of tables sell out we will start a waiting list in case more tables should become available. Please feel free to e-mail us with any questions. Thanks!

Hotels in Portland- The Portland Regency

We have three hotels that we are working with in Portland. The first one is the Portland Regency.

http://theregency3-px.trvlclick.com/default.htm

This fine hotel is right in the heart of Portland's Old Port. This is where we usually reserve rooms for guests who are appearing at our store. It is approximately a 30 second walk from the hotel to our store.

They have set aside a block of rooms for people attending the festival for the dates of May 16 and 17. The room rate is $149 a night (savings of $20 per night). Reservations must be made by phone to their reservation department and you must mention that you are attending the Maine Comics Arts Festival.

Reservations & Information: USA: 1-(888) 636-8311 or 1-888-893-4606.

Of the three hotels we are working with, this hotel is the most convenient to shopping, restaurants and bars.

We will be listing the information for the other two hotels next week. We need to finalize the contracts and have codes assigned to the reservations. Please e-mail us with any questions. Thanks!

Updates/ website/ registration

Hello,
The website and registration forms are finished. I am having some people review them for errors and then everything should go live this week.

We have some cool sponsorships that we should be able to announce later this week. More should follow. Thanks!

Vendor table registrations

We should be opening vendor table registrations within the week. We need to visit the event site one more time to get an exact table count so that we do not oversell the room. If we do not have a chance to do that, we may open most of the tables but hold a few back to be safe. A few tables have already been committed to invited guests.

Planning on attending? Please feel free to post in the comments section. Thanks!