Comicdom Con Athens 2010 [CCA2010]

Greece' only comic con is here again, brought to you by Comicdom/Comicdom Press and the Hellenic-American Union. This time it's our 5th birthday and we're going to celebrate with an all-star guest list:

*** Kyle Hotz (courtesy of Jemma Press)
*** D'Israeli
*** John Romita Jr (JR jr)
*** Mike Carey

Also, this year our Con is 3 days long, instead of the usual 2, so there's lots going around in CCA 2010. Here's the Con's program (remember, to attend a workshop you should have registered, our workshops are all closed now so no more entries can be entered, but there are always waiting lists, so consider joining per chance you get to attend a workshop):

Comicdom Con Athens 2010 Schedule

Friday 16/04

Theatre (2nd floor)

18:00 – 19:45 Open Discussion On Comics and Education
20:00 – 20:45 Opening Ceremony. Spotlight On New Publications
21:00 – 22:00 Documentary Screening “Tintin Et Moi”

Saturday 17/04

Theatre (2nd floor)

11:30 – 12:30 Kamishibai: Pictures and Fairytales For Children
13:00 – 14:30 Panel: “Seven Greek Creators Discuss Comics”
15:00 – 18:00 Q&A and Signing: John Romita Jr.
19:00 – 20:30 Sketch Event: Comparative Anatomy In Historical Comic Book Tissue
21:00 – 22:00 Screening of “Marine Express” anime

Seminar Room (4th floor)

12:40 – 13:30 Workshop: Mike Carey – “Structuring A Scene”
13:40 – 15:00 Workshop: D’Israeli – “Thinking About Color”
18:00 – 19:30 Workshop: Edu-Comics – Utilization of Digital Educational Comics in Class

Sunday 18/04

Theatre (2nd floor)

11:00 – 13:00 Playing With Comics
13:00 – 14:40 Screening of the animation feature “Wall-E”
15:10 – 18:00 Q&A and signing: Mike Carey, D’Israeli and Kyle Hotz
18:30 – 20:00 Panel: Comics and Cinema – Far Away, So Close
21:00 – 22:00 Comicdom Awards Ceremony

Seminar Room (4th floor)

12:00 – 12:50 Workshop: John Romita Jr. – “The Art Of Sequential Storytelling In Graphic Novels”
13:00 – 13:50 Workshop: Kyle Hotz – “Making Scary Comics”
14:00 – 14:50 Workshop: Alekos Papadatos – “McCloud’s Panel Transitions – The Logicomix Paradigm”
15:00 – 15:30 Spotlight on Helm Publishing

All three days

Exhibition “From The Yellow Kid To Conan (Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas Gallery, 1st floor)
Publishers and retailers bazaar (Kennedy Gallery & Atrium, 1st floor)
Self-publishers hall (Foyer, 2nd floor)
Michael Dialynas spotlight exhibition (Library, 4th floor)


I'll be at the Con for the 3 days, hope you can come as well and have fun (even tho' I'll only be at Comicdom Press' booth only for Saturday, as for the other 2 days I'll be working at Jemma Comics' booth because they are my employers after all, hence I wont be talking much to anyone, so be reasonable...) .
I'll be drawing a little something something for anyone that wants me to.

Blood is in the eye of the beholder

This country's psychology and personality eludes me. It always was elusive to me and I think it will continue to be. I've always considered myself to be -not anti-greek - a non-greek, a neutral amongst Greeks at least. I dunno why. Because. Sometimes I'm ashamed I've been born in Greece, I can't easily relate to people here (of course there are exclusions), I can't understand some things they do. All the controversy of being a Greek.

I know (especially now) some people from abroad think of us as vulgar people, monkeymen, frying stuff around in olive oil and being loud, pretending to pay the bill when is another one's turn, dancing sirtaki or another exotic but stupid dance while drinking wine that tastes like paint thinner (because it's tradition) and speaking in bad bad BAD english to women that we wanna have Greek sex with (ah yeah, Greeks call anal "ottoman sex", while in the UK they call it "Greek sex" and it is said that ALL Greeks love it ) while eating souvlaki/moussaka/rice-in-vine-leaves/something obscure and overpriced. People that have no problem stealing money from the EU or any other benefactors when they are so deep in it for them to do such foolish things...
I don't care about the money stealing accusations, every country/politician/blah random authority is "stealing" from the money they are supposed to use from something else, others steal little, others more and so forth (I just think it's hilarious they get to blame Greece for de-stabilizing the whole economy, when we are in the middle of a WORLDWIDE economical crisis and especially when we are always last to do anything/to feel the waves of changes in general as a country.).

I'm just sad others put all Greeks in one basket. We are all bad. Period.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was riding the bus to work, I saw something that made me feel especially ashamed to tread on this Greek soil. I saw about 5 gorilla-looking 16/17-year olds cheering up for another more-gorilla looking 17-year old that was beating up a Pakistani man (who is a regular on that particular road, usually cleaning windshields like yesterday). The gorillas, after beating the man up, crossed the road again to go wherever they had to go, while the man stood not being able to understand what happened that very moment, his face covered in blood. Some people pulled their cars over and gave him bottles of water. And then the bus left and I couldn't see more.
I, then, wished I was in another bus, a bus that could take me far away.

How can Greeks demand foreign respect when they THEMSELVES treat foreign people like that? How could teenagers be beating up a grown man and NO ONE would lift a fucking finger?

I officially want to be adopted by another country that wouldn't mind about my Greek past.