This year’s president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, Rex Babin, has posted a letter to AAEC member about the upcoming convention in Portland, OR this June. This year’s convention will be held in conjunction with Portland State University.
Born out of necessity in this day of disappearing newspapers, vanishing sponsorships and eliminated travel expense accounts, the upshot of the university-partnership model, in addition to having the potential of being a sustainable method to continue our annual get-togethers, is that it liberates us from the confines and expense of the overpriced convention hotel.
…
Wednesday night’s opening reception for example, which quite often is held in a uninspiring hotel conference room, this year will start off at the Portland State Alumni Association’s Simon Benson House, a beautifully restored Victorian house and courtyard.
As I found out during our mini-convention, Portland, among other things, is a surprisingly geeky and cartoon-loving town. Expect to have a number of opportunities to cross-pollinate with our adoring public and the local avant-garde cartoon scene, like when we take over the legendary Powell’s Bookstore in downtown. Call it Powellapalooza, if you will. Only to be followed by an all night pub-crawl with Portland hipster Bors as our guide.
Having the convention on a college campus instead of a hotel convention center sounds like a much better idea to begin with. I’ve only been to two AAECs but at both of them (DC and Seattle) the best parts of the entire event were when we had external events open to the public.
I agree totally. And we “more seasoned” cartoonists welcome the opportunity to ogle those lovely young college girls the age of our daughters and granddaughters.