Wizard World is over and, though I know this is what everybody says, I am wiped out. As I've learned, Sundays are usually really slow days for everyone at the convention. Obviously, there's less people coming out to the con because most of them will all come out and do everything on Saturday. In our case, however, not only was it slow because it was Sunday, but St. Louis also saw six inches of snow all day. So, needless to say, there wasn't a lot of foot traffic, and from casual conversations with other artists, it sounds like everybody had a pretty lousy day for sales. Now I see why some people don't bother to do Sundays. If it's a lousy day for sales and they can catch a late flight out Saturday night, why pay for an extra hotel day? It's a basic cost/benefit analysis.
So, cost/benefit for me, was it worth doing the convention? Well, to use an industry term, I did not make table, which is to say that I did not make enough money to pay for the costs of using the table at the convention. I did make some money, I was within double digits of "making table" but add the costs of parking, food, gas, and dang ol' Chris Samnee for charging me TWENTY-FIVE dollars for his awesome hardcover collection of The Rocketeer that he did with Mark Waid, and that starts to eat into the coin purse (Capitalist jerks!).
But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a loss. First of all, to be brutally honest, I've been operating Zero's Heroes at a loss for the last four years. What's a couple bucks compared to the (much, much larger) production costs of putting together the actual book? I'm perfectly okay with that. The name of the game at this point is getting my work out there in front of as many people as possible, and to that end the convention was a success. Sara and I must have handed out at least 1500 stickers, and while there were plenty of kids and adults who were just collecting swag, there were also a good number of people who seemed genuinely interested in the pitch I gave them after luring them to my table with stickers. Though, it's entirely possible that I'm not as good at reading people as I think I am. Time will tell how many people follow through and enjoy the comic.
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| Galactus |
I had a fun time at the convention and I enjoyed seeing all the fans and, more importantly, the kids who are interested in comics. The guy sitting next to me was a nice guy named Wade who made custom figures. He had an awesome 6 foot Galactus made out of a mannequin.
Sitting next to each other for three days straight, we had plenty of time to talk. He was frank about how he never makes any money doing conventions, he just does it to be a part of the festival, because a six foot tall Galactus is the exact kind of thing that people come to comic conventions to see, and he's happy to contribute to the overall experience, with the added bonus of seeing the convention for himself, and possibly finding a new customer interested in commissioning a custom action figure.
Like Wade, I'm happy to contribute to the experience. The amount of people specifically combing artist alley looking for new, independent books was small, but they were there and I was glad to meet them. I'm confident in the books I'm producing and I think with enough time put in, we can build an audience for what we do.
As I said at the beginning, attendance was low today, so there were less costumes, but I did manage to snap a few. There was a good Rogue cosplay, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture. Darn the luck, darn!
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| LUMPY SPACE PRINCESS! |
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| Mr. Gumby |
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| Hunter S. Thompson |
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