Small Press Expo has announced numerous events that take place throughout the surrounding area during SPX 2024. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, across the street from the North Bethesda Metro stop on the Red Line). SPX will have over 500 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, 22 programming panels and 14 hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.

Lists of Special Guests, Debuts, Exhibitors, Program Panels and Workshops can all be found on the SPX web site.

30th Anniversary of SPX Exhibits

Exhibits showing works from the SPX Collection at the Library of Congress will be on display on the second floor of the Jefferson Building, as well as a smaller exhibit in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room LM-133 of the Madison Building 101 Independence Ave.

Ongoing 8:30AM-5PM | Jefferson Building 10 First St SE, Washington, DC 20003
Ongoing 8:30AM-5PM | Madison Building 101 Independence Ave, Washington, DC 20003

Friday September 13

SPX Lecture at the Library of Congress: Tillie Walden, Ideas for Tomorrow: The Future of Queer Comics

Join us as award-winning artist and author Tillie Walden discusses her career and process while also considering the future of the medium in light of all of the challenges facing creators and books alike. A small display of materials from the Library of Congress’ Small Press Expo (SPX) Collection will accompany the talk. 

09/13/2024 | Noon – 1:00pm | Dining Hall A – 6th Floor Madison Building – 101 Independence Ave. Washington, D.C.

Drawing on History: Creating the Graphic Adaptation of 1177 BC

How does a cartoonist adapt a scholarly work of history, specifically Eric H. Cline’s 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed? In this talk, award-winning illustrator Glynnis Fawkes will describe the process of interpreting Eric’s text in comics. Join Glynnis Fawkes and Dr. Eric Cline as they discuss the creation of 1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton University Press).

09/13/2024 | 3:00pm – 5:00pm | George Washington University Campus Store – 2125 I Street Northwest Washington, DC 20052

Monday September 16

Solas Nua, in partnership with Drawn & Quarterly and Georgetown Global Irish Studies, presents:

Luke Healy In Conversation

Solas Nua and Georgetown Global Irish Studies are proud to present Luke Healy in a public conversation panel event to discuss his latest work from Drawn & Quarterly, Self-Esteem and the End of the World.

09/16/2024 | 7:00pm – 9:00pm | NYU DC – 1307 L St NW, Washington, DC 20005

Small Press Expo (SPX) announces its a full slate of in-person programming for the 2024 show and advance ticket sales.

To avoid registration lines to SPX 2024, pick up your advanced tickets at Eventbrite.

The programming slate at SPX 2024 has a variety of panels, highlighted by Dash Shaw in Conversation with Eleanor Davis and a performance of Cartoon Carousel led by Robert Sikoryak.

There are twenty-two panels in all that will be held on Saturday, September 14th and Sunday, September 15th. The full programming schedule with descriptions can be seen on the SPX website.

This programming is in addition to the previously announced 14 hands-on workshops, which you can sign up for here. 

Here are a few highlights from this year’s programming slate:

• Big Concepts in Non-fiction – Moderated by Jonathan Gray with Glynnis Fawkes, Dan Nott, Nate Powell, Bill Campbell, Caitlin Cass.

• Queer Sports – Moderated by Tanya Dorph-Mankey with Tillie Walden, Ngozi Ukazu, Jonah Newman, Coco Fox.

• Reproductive Rights – Moderated by Karen Green, with Sage Coffey, Marnie Galloway, Isabella Rotman, Anna Sellheim.

• The Pitfalls of Time Travel – Moderated by Warren Bernard, with Carol Lay, Jess Fink, Benjamin Wilgus.

Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 500 artists and 50 publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year.

The convention has revealed its exhibitor list and map where you can find them at the show.

The convention takes place September 14 and 15 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center.

Small Press Expo has announced that over 110 books and comics will debut at SPX 2024. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 280 exhibitor tables, 500 creators and publishers, 22 programming panels, and 18 hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.

A complete list of of the over 160 books debuting at the show, including cover images and publishing information, can be found on the SPX web site.

SPX 2024 is proud to list a highlighted selection of books debuting this year:

Tender – Fantagraphics

Not only an SPX debut, but also the graphic novel debut of Beth Hetland!

Carolanne wanted a perfect wedding, a perfect husband, a perfect family. She carefully performs her own roles (gal pal, bestie, girlfriend, wife, and expectant mother) and in trying to enact agency over her life, sacrifices it completely. Her desire to control the uncontrollable ultimately becomes her undoing.

Find Tender and Beth Heltand at table 10B!

Processing: 100 Comics That Got Me Through It – D&Q

Ignatz award-winning cartoonish Tara Booth debuts her new graphic novel, Processing!

Known for her buzzing colors, delightful patterns, sharp humor, and unflinching vulnerability, Tara Booth does not miss any mark in this exquisitely woven collection of pure and nasty magic. Part advice column and exhibit, exploration of psychic pollution and tranquility, Processing is—quite simply—intrepid: in its honesty; its unapologetic grossness; its unrivaled and frank portrayal of life with a body that bleeds.

You can find Processing at Drawn & Quarterly’s tables, W80-W83!

Boy Island – Silver Sprocket

Leo Fox, a 2024 Ignatz Award nominee, debuts the new graphic novel, Boy Island!

Your name is Lucille. You live on Girl Island, one of two islands created when the world was cleft in twain by an entity bigger and more powerful than you. But you have a secret. Your secret is that despite living on Girl Island, you are a boy. You fear deep down in your insides, that you may have been a boy for a very long time. And so you leave your home and your mother and begin the journey to Boy Island. Although it may be treacherous, it is the only way forward.

Find Boy Island at tables W68-W71!

The Scrapbook of Life and Death – Avery Hill Publishing

In The Scrapbook of Life and Death, J. Webster Sharp adapts some of the most bizarre stories from the archives of George Ives’s newspaper clippings. Collected from 1892 through 1949, these cover topics such murder and theories of crime to cricket scores. With often shocking, visceral black and white artwork, the strangeness and eccentricity of the Edwardian era provides a backdrop for Sharp’s own struggles with mental health.

Find The Scrapbook of Life and Death at the Fantagraphics table, W51-W55

Space Junk – Top Shelf

Faith has a metallic mystery bolted to her head. Hoshi keeps his rage in check with an emotional support chicken. On a dying world where most adults have already left and the remaining kids are training for their turn, these two are starting to wonder: what’s the point? Gradually, a cluster of lonely souls who’ve spent their lives emotionally adrift are pulled into each other’s orbit as they try stay in place in a universe that is moving all too quickly. With Space Junk, the startling imagination of award-winning graphic novelist Julian Hanshaw explores profound questions of past and future, trauma and recovery, staying grounded and taking flight.

Find Space Junk at Top Shelf’s tables, W56-W59!

A Night Ride to the Day – Bulgilhan Press

Breeze Hu debuts their first graphic novel, A Night Ride to the Day!

A tired salesman and a grieving girl meet by chance in a desert, each of them lost and alone in their waking dreams. Fate – or something like it – brings them together to navigate the maze-like city of Lynbo and unravel the truth of the past that’s haunting them.

Find A Night Ride to the Day at Bulgilhan Press’s table, H1!

Punk Lab Girl: Burn it Down! – Self-Published

Shannon Spence debuts a new volume in their series, Punk Lab Girl with Punk Lab Girl: Burn It Down!

In a near-future world where bizarre diseases run rampant, desperation lands punk rocker Shelly in an unexpected spot: working as a medical technologist at Care 4 U Labs. Little does she know that this seemingly caring institution harbors secrets darker than Theranos.

Find Punk Labl Girl: Burn It Down! at table D12!

Real Tiny Fairies: The Fairies Go To the Library

Up-and-coming creator Robert Jackson debuts his new minicomic, Real Tiny Fairies: The Fairies Go To the Library!

Rachel and Rebecca are fairies and they are 1/2 an inch tall but magic doesn’t exist. Despite that, crazy stuff happens anyway.

In this adventure, the duo go to the library and find out that Sheila the shady librarian keeps breaking into the houses of fairies that borrowed books, hiding the books they borrow, and putting the books where the fairies could find the books at a later date.

Find out more at Robert’s table, F6B!