In the blink of an eye, the night was over. Months of planning, building, posting, hyping, laughing, hustling, crying and spending waaaay too many nights at Kinko’s paid off in spades as the massive sigil of love, community and comic books reverberated across the streets of Seattle. Hyper-charged by the combined energies of the local comix underground and refracted through the eyeballs of every single person to step through the door that night, Hometown Heroes connected, if just for an instant, the still vibrant aspects of local Seattle that give this city its heart. We, the small in number, but countless in heart, stood proud atop of the mountain of victory and truly shared an experience that none of us are likely to forget anytime soon.
Back to the grind—day in, day out, trying to remember that feeling of pureness that never in my years of searching the illicit highways of perception did I ever stumble across. There was a true power of individual connection that I, (and hopefully all of you) felt that night and I was a little scared at how quickly it dulled over the next few days of just doing absolutely nothing. It’s not like the experience itself would ever fade for my mind, but the intensity of the energy high waned. Then it hit me—that was exactly the problem. I had to get back on the crazy train of creation ASAP if I wanted to capture that motivating energy for not only myself, but everyone that made Hometown Heroes such a success. In an effort to make that happen, I’d like to invite you all to become a part of the coalition year round by keeping it tuned to http://hometownheroes2016.80percent-studios.com/ and the newly created FB page https://www.facebook.com/seattlehh/ where the latest info and visual awesomeness from the artists and sponsors of the show will be channeled into a single feed for easy digestion!
Much love to Artful Dodger, Zanadu Comics, Piranha Animation, Shorty’s, Arcane Comics, Bedlam Coffee, Fantagraphics, Comics Dungeon, Push/Pull, Madison Arts Program and 11th Dimension Press for building the body of Hometown Heroes and the Seattle based artists who made up its lifeblood—Stefano Gaudiano, Peter Bagge, Mark Allender, Syd Bee, Boulet, Morgan JK Brown, Max Clotfelter, Neil Devlin, Mark Falkey, Noel Franklin, Seth Goodkind, Laura Graves, Chris Hogue, Ben Horak, Rhodora Jacob, Brandon Lehmann, Dimi Macheras, Mike McGhee, Jason T. Miles, Marc Palm, Pity Party, Sail, Gina Siciliano, Josh Simmons, James the Stanton, Robert Tritthardt, Adam Vick and Katie Wheeler.
Hometown Heroes will also be producing 2017 calendars as well as “Hero-Maps” that will show new residents or tourists the real Seattle underground. Both are expected to drop later this year and we’ll have visuals soon, but for now, keep your hustle heavy and stay excited about creating—no matter what path you travel!!
CASEY!
80% Studios co-publisher
Hometown Heroes head organizer
//Still in the trenches and lovin’ it//
