![\"FRANCE-US-COMICS-PORTRAIT\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778619729_312_0x0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
US comics artist James Tynion IV poses during a photo session in Paris on February 3, 2026. (Photo by Joel Saget \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
In 2019, after a six-year run, the Comic Arts Brooklyn (CAB) festival was held for the last time at Pratt University in Brooklyn. Not long after, the annual affair devoted to indie and alternative comics found itself placed on \u201cindefinite hiatus,”<\/a> becoming one of the many in-person casualties Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Now, half a decade later, Eisner Award-winning comic book creator James Tynion (Something Is Killing the Children, Department of Truth<\/a>) is part of an initiative to fill that void with a similar convention dubbed Brooklyn Expo of Comics<\/a> (BEC). <\/p>\n Kicking off in November at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in Williamsburg, the gathering represents the first major endeavor organized by the Brooklyn Organization Dedicated to the Endurance of the Graphic Arts (BODEGA), a non-profit Tynion founded alongside fellow industry veterans Bryce Gold (creator of Pyrite Press) and Courtney Menar (formerly of Z2 Comics).<\/p>\n \u201cThere was really a utility to create a larger organization that could help stand up the Brooklyn Expo of Comics every year,” Tynion said over Zoom, \u201cbut also provide more resources to artists here in the city and create more incredible events that really help bring this community together.”<\/p>\n Gold agreed that the trio felt \u201cthe community wanted something, was hungry for something\u2014specifically a show\u201d in the vein of Comic Arts Brooklyn. “BEC is our first product, but we really have so many big plans for the next five years to continue growing and finding new ways of supporting local artists here.\u201d<\/p>\n The creative community began to dwindle significantly throughout the pandemic, with many indie creatives leaving the city due to a lack of resources, a terrible blow to their financial stability, or some combination of the two.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the resources for cartoonists here in the city are tied to academic institutions that are expensive to be a part of, or they don\u2019t exist, or they\u2019re dedicated to other art forms,” Tynion said. \u201cAnd despite New York City being the center of arts philanthropy in the United States, it doesn\u2019t feel like comics have really ever been allowed to be a huge part of that conversation.”<\/p>\n BODEGA seeks rectify that problem with BEC, which Tynion describes as an \u201cindie comics show\u201d exercising a real emphasis on creators not associated with the major publishers (i.e. Marvel, Image, DC). \u201cThis is more the people who are doing art-forward, creator-owned projects that are really on the cutting edge of the comics medium that don\u2019t always get the big spotlight at major conventions like New York Comic Con. That was the hole in the local comics event scene we are hoping to fill.\u201d<\/p>\n Echoed Gold: \u201cWe really want to showcase every aspect of comics-making\u2014from creators that want to talk about their artistic process, to live reading events, to artist talks about what it’s like to publish locally or beyond. We really want to fill all the gaps of what it takes to make comics and showcase the wide variety\u2014both of taste and type of comic, but also just what it takes to be a creative today in this business.\u201d<\/p>\n As Gold alluded to earlier, BEC is only the first step in an ambitious master plan involving a slew of exhibitions, educational programming, and even monetary incentives to remain in New York City and keep the community alive. <\/p>\n \u201cThere really hasn\u2019t been an organization whose core focus has been creating events and programming to further the education and further the development of artists,” Tynion added, “let alone one that can offer grants to creatives.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, you can expect future announcements to boast their own truncations. \u201cIt developed a taste for the acronym in all of us,\u201d confessed Tynion.<\/p>\n Like CAB, BODEGA, is a loving nod to a new New York staple: reliable corner stores where one is apt to spot the proprietor\u2019s snoozing feline somewhere in the establishment as they browse basic pantry items or taste the best bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich they\u2019ve ever had (hence BEC). To that end, a number of of their planned endeavors such the BODEGA Comic Arts Trophy (to be awarded at BEC) and a magazine titled the Brooklyn Annual of Graphically Elevated Literature fittingly bear the acronyms CAT and BAGEL, respectively.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll notice,” teased Gold, \u201ca repeating theme for all of these as we come up with more products and share them with the world.\u201d<\/p>\n One could say this non-profit is a way for the Tynion and his contemporaries to give back to aspiring artists in the wake of their own professional success. \u201cIt was a really great opportunity to go back to my roots,\u201d Gold said. \u201cGoing back to the indie space.\u201d<\/p>\n Tynion\u2019s lucrative endeavors, meanwhile, have been prolific, including the formation of his own company, Tiny Onion<\/a>. A play on his surname, the enterprise was \u201cborn out of the pandemic era and me wanting to take the reins of my own career,” Tynion shared, \u201crather than sort of wait for permission to do the things I wanted to do creatively and in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cOur company kind of functions as an independent creative studio. It\u2019s a model a more familiar over in the independent film space, where you have independent development companies that cook up an idea and then sell that idea into the system. Essentially, we build, a world in-house and then take that world to the publisher that we feel is going to help us bring it to market in the best way.\u201d<\/p>\n At present, Tiny Onion has deals in place with major publishers like Dark Horse, Image, Penguin Random House\u2019s Inklore, and BOOM! Studios. The latter is home to Exquisite Corpses<\/a>, a Purge-meets-Squid Game series where a cabal of ultra-wealthy individuals force serial killers to battle to the death once a year. <\/p>\n Since launching last spring, the title created by Tynion and artist Michael Walsh has sold around \u201c700,000 copies in single issues across all the issues over the first year,\u201d estimated Tynion. \u201cIt has been the least sales attrition issue-to-issue of any series that I\u2019ve ever worked on.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to a continuation of the main story (coming in 2027), Exquisite Corpses is also getting three spinoff books; a tabletop card game (which has already exceeded its $50,000 goal on Kickstarter<\/a>) and two adaptations (one live-action, one animated) from by way of Lyrical Media<\/a>.<\/p>\n Exquisite Corpses and its forthcoming transmutations are more of a recent development, however. The creator-owned jewel in Tynion\u2019s impressive repertoire has to be Something Is Killing the Children, which introduced readers to monster hunter Erica Slaughter. Nearing its 50th issue, the title co-created with illustrator Werther Dell\u2019Edera is receiving similar multimedia treatment via themed apparel<\/a>, a prose novel<\/a>, and two adaptations from iconic horror banner Blumhouse<\/a>. Moreover, Something Is Killing the Children\u2019s debut on the WEBTOON comics service <\/a>last month brought in nearly 100,000 views and over 20,000 subscribers in the first week.<\/p>\n \u201cMore of them are discovering this incredible world that Werther Dell\u2019Edera and I have built together,” Tynion said. “And honestly, WEBTOON, is really only the beginning \u2026 I just want to see the audience grow bigger and bigger\u2014get more people introduced to Erica Slaughter.”<\/p>\n