Fantagraphics promotions director and MOME anthology editor Eric Reynolds was in Minneapolis last week for the opening of the MOMEntum art show, which, as you may have guessed, features art work from the anthology. Reynolds helped curate the show, and he also gave a lecture about the history of the work and comics in general, which Sarah Morean of  The Daily Cross Hatch has transcribed for your reading pleasure:

When I first started reading comics and cartooning it seemed like it wasn’t that hard to get published through anthologies, zines, etc. In 2004 when I first started to conceive of MOME in my head, and with Gary Groth at Fantagraphics, one of the reasons we started thinking about it is because there are virtually no regular comic anthologies on the market. Graphic novels were booming, but there wasn’t a place you could send a short script when you finished it, and anticipate having it published in a few months. You pretty much had to self-publish or web-publish. The best anthologies that were out there in 2004 were probably Kramer’s Ergot and also NON by Jordan Crane. They came out very infrequently though, maybe once every couple of years, while simultaneously pushing the boundary on what comics could be. But they weren’t the kind of thing you could send a strip in with the hopes of being published.

Reynolds also has a photo diary of his trip and the exhibit, which, if the picture above is to be believed, involves talking baby tour guides. Mome contributor Tom Kaczynski has an additional Flickr set worth checking out too. No baby tour guides there though.

This show is on display at the MCAD Concourse Gallery now through April 19th