The Picnic - 5 decades of the Million Year Picnic (2021,2023) directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

 

This was a decade+ long project. Getting interviews and information was much harder than I thought. It was edited and re-edited quietly a few times: sometimes making it longer, sometimes shorter. Getting it shown anywhere was also difficult. I foolishly thought the place was such comic store legend I could get conventions and small festivals to show it. A couple a small festivals did end up showing but the place I really wanted it to play was the Brattle Theatre which is almost across the street from the store. That happened in July 2024 and those who went were good to tell me they liked it. Never got paid, sadly but at least it got it's day in that historic cinema. 

I would really love more people to see the film, the Picnic is and has been a fantastic, special place run by special people and is one of the last independent stores in Harvard Square. The original owner, Jerry Weist, was a ground breaker when he started the store and continued to lead the way when he left the store and started selling the original comic book art at Sotheby's elevating it as the original form of American art it was and is. I was the manager there in the mid-80s and still count my colleagues from those days as friends. 

Just another part of Boston(ish) history I don't want to be forgotten and I hope this makes people want to visit Harvard Square and see how wonderful this odd duck of place is and get captured by it's friendliness and charm. 

festival BD de Montréal 2025

 I had the chance to walk around the comic book festival today for a couple hours, only the second time I was able to go. It was a little wet but still great to see what must be 2 km of kiosks promoting not just comics but the artists who make them, especially local artists. 

This is nothing like a comic con, it's much more grass roots and no one dresses up and no big studios are here promoting the latest super hero movie. Graphic novels are taken seriously here and there is a huge variety of content to see from commercially published books to those made at the copy centre to children's stories, to political tale, horror, sci-fi, slice of life, humour... you name it. 

There wasn't a lot of original artwork on sale so what i saw was really good and many artists were there in person to sell their books. Book stores and local comic book stores were well represented. I noticed there were a large number of formats being sold from limited edition beautifully designed hard covers and boxed sets to self published works. Almost no toys, movie posters or any of the other trappings of conventions now aimed at the general public over serious art fans looking to see more than just big commercial efforts. There seemed to be more English books this year but they also just might have stood out to me more since i usually don't see English books normally for sale. The people there were mostly men as these things usually are but not too much of an imbalance. The artists were really diverse - racially, age-wise, and it was a very open and welcoming and atmosphere. English and French were pretty evenly balanced as well.