988 Valencia: Part II

As I noted earlier 988 Valencia is a space I'm giving serious consideration to. And over the weekend, I mailed off an official "Offer to Lease" letter to the landlord. That felt very archaic and overly formal considering I've already met with the landlord informally several times recently. But one thing I'm continuing to learn is that every commercial landlord seems to have their own process that they're comfortable with for negotiating a lease agreement. This particular landord has two adjoining properties that he'd prefer to lease together, if he can't do that, lease to two separate business at the same time. Right now, he has a wine bar interested in leasing the larger space with the roll up door, which could be very complementary to my business and another incentive to stay open later then the typical comic bookstore or art gallery for that matter.

Another Retail/Gallery in the Hood

Stopped by the new Artillery Apparel Gallery at 2751 Mission & 24th St. this afternoon, and was very impressed! I'd been watching the space for a while, but somehow their opening slipped by me in the past two weeks. It has great selection of apparel items, most with a hip-hop, skater stylee. The opening group art show was impressive tool, which included the fabulous Blair Bradshaw and his period chart work, as well as some great 3-D art. I also really liked that Artillery really felt like it was really of and from the Mission, and not some corporate crap that imposing generic "mall culture." Looking forward catching co-owner Ivan Lopez painting up custom t-shirts! I can see it becoming a new neighborhood fixture quick style. Love the logo too!

It makes me feel good about the retail/gallery mix that I've got planned for Mission: Comics & Art. It very much seems to be a viable business model for all sorts of ventures and well suited to the Mission as it continues to grow and change.

They'll be having an opening event on Thursday July 2nd and I'll definitely be checking it out

Welcome to the neighborhood Artillery!

Artist ASSEMBLE!

I've just started putting out exploratory feelers for artists to participate in the preview/"proof-of-concept one-night group show at Space Gallery on July 24th. And so far the response has been fabulous! Already I've got four artists down, favorites like telephone & soup and the stupendous Matt Delight, as well as new friends Audrey Welch and Meredith Scheff-King. I'm very excited to be pulling together a pretty eclectic mix of artists whose work I think will really complement each other well! Can't wait to see the walls covered in mind-blowing awesomeness!!!

If you'd like to participate in the show with some pieces of artwork, don't hesitate to drop me line at missioncomicsandart@gmail.com

Comic-Con conflict

I just realized this morning that my preview/"proof-of-concept" show is the same weekend as the world famous Comic-Con in San Diego. Thanks to the excellent artist Wahab Algarmi for the heads-up.

That's sort of a bummer, since at least of the comic book crowd in the City will be heading down that way. On the other hand, lots of other folks who normally aren't interested in comic books may have comic books on the brain that week, and be intrigued enough to come check out my show locally at Space Gallery on July 24th. So it actually could be quite fortuitous after all.

Meanwhile....

While I keep on continue working on finding the right location for Mission: Comics & Art, I've also been working quietly in the background to organize a pre-party/proof-of-concept event!  This event will to showcase some of the artist I hope to highlight later at Mission: Comics & Art, and to give a taste of how I see comics and art supporting each other. In addition, it'll be a chance to get all my lovely supporters together in one place for an amazing inaugural evening!

And now dates are set and location secured!!

It will be July 24th at Space Gallery, with more details coming soon. The number artist involved isn't totally set yet, but I can announce that the internationally known telephone & soup will be showing some of their latest imaginationings. Will it be classic telephone & soup? Shitty Kitty? Or the brand new frenemies? Come and find out!

No doubt, it'll be fun, Fun, FUN!!!