The 2009 MoCCA Festival included panels on comics and animation, and a wide variety of creators and publishers took part in them. Among the most highly-attended panels were Saturday’s “Making Good Comics in a New Era,” about the challenges and opportunities facing independent comic-makers in today’s publishing climate. On Sunday, visitors packed into “Adrian Tomine and Seth in conversation,” which featured the creators of “Optic Nerve” and “Palookaville,” respectively.

For “Making Good Comics in a New Era,” the discussion touched on both the current bad economy and Diamond Comic Distributors? recent decision to raise their order minimums. As a result of the economic downturn, Brett Warnock from Top Shelf said several books scheduled to be published in 2009 have been pushed back. “I’ve had to call people and say, ‘The good news is, it’s not cancelled. The bad news is it may not be published until 2011,’” Warnock said.

With regards to Diamond’s new order policies, which were announced earlier this year, panelists said the means of distribution need to change. Cartoonist Tom Neely said he would like to see more comic shops buying directly from creators, thereby circumventing what he and others viewed as Diamond’s monopoly.

Meanwhile, Randy Chang of Buenavista Books, who said Diamond’s changes had not much affected the way Buenavista sells its books, hypothesized that if comics distribution were to become more fragmented, smaller distributors would eventually pop up. One name repeatedly mentioned was that of Tony Shenton, who acts as a go-between for small publishers, artists, and indie-friendly comic stores.

Panelists said the Internet is no sure-fire way to earn a livelihood off comics, although sites like Amazon have been an effective means of exposure. Finally, the conversation touched on whether publishers have changed how they pick their cartoonists based on the declining economy. Chang said he looks for “consistency,” while Dylan Williams of Sparkplug Comics said what it all comes down to is, “Do I like it”

Warnock said Top Shelf looks at how prolific and willing to promote the work creators are. “In today’s world, it’s not enough to do good comics,” he said. “Can you be a good self-promoter”

Perhaps taking that as a cue, panelist Julia Wertz, creator of the online comic “The Fart Party,” revealed how some of publishers sitting on-stage had previously rejected her work. “But I just got published by Random House, so you guys can suck it,” she said, in what might have been the highlight of the hour.

The “Adrian Tomine and Seth in conversation” panel on Sunday started off with Seth telling a series of unconnected stories about comics. The cartoonist whose “George Sprott” had been syndicated in the New York Times from 2006 to 2007 talked about his childhood passion for drawing comics, and how it reconciled the outer reality with his inner life. ‘simply sitting and imagining is no fun,” Seth said before a packed room. “Drawing comics created an actual portal to that inner world.”

He also connected his childhood love for Charlie Brown and superhero comics with the idea of “powerlessness and being small,” and admitted his nom-de-plume had been the result of looking for a scary name to change his own to. “It was a youthful decision I regret many times, but I live with it,” he said.

Tomine talked about his “32 Stories” returning to press, and said he had been looking forward to the day his earlier works would finally go out of print. However, he realized “32 Stories,” which collected the comics he produced between the ages of 16 and 19, represented the last time he created artwork for his own personal enjoyment. “That mindset is something I will constantly be trying to trick myself back to for the rest of my career,” Tomine said.

So Tomine assented to the re-issue, which Drawn & Quarterly will be publishing in something close to the original format: a set of seven mini-comics with lots of extras, including the letters pages from the original minis. “Sometimes, trying to eradicate and erase something is worse than just letting something be,” Tomine said.