“Headhouse Shambles is, apparently, the oldest open-air market in America whose structure is still standing.
“Arcs made of brick provide a roof for a section of a median on Second Street, directly adjacent to a Wawa. The Headhouse Farmers Market is held there on Sundays, but on Saturday, October 2nd, 2021, it hosted the Philly Comics Expo, PCX, a small press comics festival – an occasion for cartoonists to meet and socialize and trade their wares outside the stifling air of hotel basements the COVID-conscious would prefer to avoid. The presence of a roof overhead would serve to shield from any rain that fell, but that Saturday was accompanied by clear skies and a temperature comfortable enough for short sleeves.
“‘This is the most comfortable I’ve ever been at a show,’ said Sara Lautman, New Yorker cartoonist and forthcoming Diskette Press graphic novelist, who drove up from Baltimore with her recently-acquired dog, which she walked outside the show’s perimeter.
“A few blocks south and to the west of Headhouse Shambles is the storefront of Partners and Son, a comics store and art gallery where wax rubbings of the woodcuts John Vasquez Meijas used to make his book The Puerto Rican War hung on display. Store proprietors Gina Dawson and Tom Marquet organized the show, emphasizing local artists. In the age of Instagram promotions, word quickly spread via DMs to various people who knew each other from the internet and had never hung out IRL before.”
[Read more via The Comics Journal] »
