Note: Since this article was first published, the organisers of SPX have decided to keep their convention independent of the Baltimore convention.

I just flew in from Washington DC, and, boy, are my arms tired!

Now, that's not just a bad joke. I left London with enough changes of clothing to maintain my reputation as a snappy-casual latter-day dapper Dan, but returned with enough comics, mini-comics and trade paperbacks in my luggage to give myself a hernia. My travelling companion and fellow editor Antony Johnston had to put some of the comics in his suitcase because I didn't have room.

That's a testament to two things. Firstly, to the unflagging enthusiasm of my unofficial tour guide around the Small Press Expo, Pulse and Sequential Tart's ebullient Jen Contino. Secondly, to the sheer amount of stuff worth taking home from the expo.

I haven't had a chance to read it all yet, but what I have read has impressed me enough that I'm looking forward to going through the rest of it. In fact, I'm unusually excited about the diversity and talent that SPX has flung my way. I've come away from this convention with no doubt in my mind about why I love comics.

That's important. When I went to the San Diego Comic Convention last year, my overall impression was that people were tired and disillusioned. I had fun, but then I kept good company - the fun didn't come from the convention itself. San Diego offered little inspiration and drained more energy than it provided.

It was at that convention that I made a promise to two of the organisers of SPX - Karon Flage and Greg McElhatton - that I'd try to come to their next exposition in Bethesda, Maryland. Of course, the 2001 expo was unavoidably cancelled due to the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, but this year I was happy to be able to keep my promise.

This was both my first SPX and, in theory, my last - at least in the form that its regular attendees recognise - since next year it's merging locations with the nearby Baltimore comic convention. That marriage is bound to produce some changes, the most notable being the end of the Sunday softball game and the arrival of retailer tables in the convention space.

The Sunday softball game was a major factor in persuading me that this was a con worth attending. I don't - and didn't - play softball, but the very idea of taking the con outside, putting the merchandise away, and socialising over barbecue chicken was inspired. The pressure was off, the sun was up, and if you looked around you, every face was smiling.

How many times do you get to surround yourself with dozens of comics people, and every one of them is smiling?

And when I say comics people, what I mostly mean is creators. Yes, there were a few journalists there, a few publishers, editors and administrators, but mostly there were creators. Some of them produced hardbound bookshelf volumes, some of them scrawled on printer paper and folded it in two, but they were all comic creators.

This wasn't a convention for the benefit of the fans or the retailers, but for the benefit of the artists - and the art. Though I'm sure many of the exhibitors go there with a commercial incentive in mind - to sell their comics and raise their profile - they weren't there to make their fortunes, but to place their creations in front of an audience.

Which takes us back to the retailer tables, or the lack of them. At SPX, if you buy a comic you're probably buying it from the people who made it. What sells you that comic is the creators' genuine enthusiasm and their absolute faith in the validity of comics as an art.

That may sound pretentious, and it's true that people often dismiss small press publications for that very reason, but one thing most of these creators definitely lack is pretensions. The poses and plastic smiles that I've come to associate with the industry on display at San Diego weren't in evidence on the face of the industry in Bethesda.

In fact, I'll admit, SPX has made me a whole-hearted convert to the cause of the small press. It's not something I've shied away from before, but until I saw it on full display last weekend, I don't think I ever fully gauged what it had to offer. After all, my relationship with US comics began with Secret Wars, and it's a long walk from there to here.

While there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with publishers like Marvel or DC (and fie on thee for your narrow-minded prejudice if you say otherwise), their marketing pull does drown out the little guys. If you're not seeking out the small press, and you're not reading about it from people like Chris Ekman, you're missing out on a lot. You're missing out on stuff like:

MY UNCLE JEFF: A touching and compelling family tale by Damon Hurd, beautifully illustrated by Pedro Camello - both talents well worth discovering.

DEEP FRIED: Jason Yungbluth's deliciously depraved humour series, with more than enough out-loud laughs to make it worth your while.

THE CAVALCADE OF BOYS: A cheekily well-observed gay soap opera by Tim Fish, with Jay Laird - America's best answer to the UK version of QUEER AS FOLK.

MAX HAMM, FAIRY TALE DETECTIVE: Political cartoonist Frank Cammuso's magnificently well-packaged and hugely entertaining hard-boiled storybook tale.

ZOMBIE HUNTERS IN SPACE: An eleven-panel hand-drawn mini-comic by MK Reed that I don't even remember picking up, but very much enjoyed. Silly, and about as sketchy as you might expect a mini-comic to be, but a great example of the democratic opportunities of comics creation.

And that's literally just the stuff I had in my hand luggage on the plane. Yet with each of these creators, I only had to read their works once to know that I wanted to see more. Which means you'll probably see more of them, too, right here on Ninth Art.

This is what I mean when I say my love for comics has been reaffirmed. Wandering through the tables at SPX was like stumbling into comics' Lost World - the physical and navigable representation of that back half of Previews so dense with text that it's tough to make sense of it without a guide. It's very difficult to understand just how much good stuff is out there, but it is there.

And there's enough to entertain, provoke and inspire just about any reader. Books like John Gallagher's BUZZBOY, Second To Some Studios' FADE FROM BLUE, and Rick Spears and Rob G's TEENAGERS FROM MARS speak to the enormous reservoir of ideas that comics has tapped in to, and the incredible diversity of the remarkable talents that are working to place those ideas in our hands.

I'm hopeful that the steering committee will be able to maintain SPX's unique character when it moves to Baltimore next year, and that the next expo will retain that mood of optimism and unbridled creativity that made this SPX so much fun.

My lasting memory of SPX will always be that it showed the art of comics at its very best.

Andrew Wheeler is a London-based entertainment journalist.

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