Reflections on Wizard World Chicago

Josh and Aaron

Wizard World Chicago is a behemoth.  The convention has come and gone and I feel like I can finally relax.  I had been to Wizard World Chicago a couple of times in the past (though not as an exhibitor), so I had some sense of what to expect from the show.  Also, I exhibited at C2E2 earlier in the year, which is another big convention also held in Chicago.  Still, WWC is the biggest convention I've exhibited, and there were some key differences from this convention and the conventions previous.

Firstly, WWC is a 4 day con.  So, I was at the con from Thursday through Sunday.  That's a long time which feels even longer behind the table.  Secondly, with the exception of a few hours on Saturday, I was doing this convention completely by myself, so I had very little time to relax and enjoy the con for myself.

Last year, Wizard received a lot of flak for how uncomfortably crowded the floor was.  The layout was like a confusing labyrinth in which you were smashed butt to gut with the people on either side of you.  I had the hardest time finding specific people I was looking for, even using their maps.

This year, they tried to correct their space problems by splitting the show into two levels with the retailers on the second floor and the artist alley on the ground floor.  It's not a bad idea entirely, but there were so many problems which I can only ascribe to poor organization.  I won't go into details because there are other places around the web that do, but I will say that the whole convention seemed like a chore just to get into (even as an exhibitor).  Despite all that, what bothered me the most about this convention was the prices.  The table prices had gone up, which I can deal with, but the general admission prices were nearly doubled from the year previous.  There is no way that convention was worth $70 for a single Saturday admission, and many people were paying hundreds of dollars more to attend convention panels and shake hands with a second rate Spock (sorry Mr. Quinto, but it's true).

The real problem with the immense size of WWC is that the show is basically a giant flea market.  There is no selection process when it comes to exhibiting at Wizard World.  Anybody who pays the table fee get to exhibit, which results in a saturation of people selling the same thing.  It doesn't take an economist to tell you that that is going to spread the profits thinner among the large group of sellers.  The retailer floor was just row after row after row of the same set up of comic long boxes and popular toys.  It's easy to get lost and overwhelmed.

The artist alley felt a little different than it had in years past as well.  Not to sound like an old man pining for the glory days, but I remember walking through the artist alley and stopping at every table to talk to the artists, and most of them were self publishing their own comics.  There were lots of mini comics, and well as self published POD comics (like what I do).  I walked away from the convention with a bag full of comics I couldn't get anywhere else.  These days, it seems like there are less and less self published comics in the artist alley.  There are a number of reasons for this, and they all kind of tie into each other.

Firstly, we are in the middle (or maybe near the end) of a changing comics landscape.  With the easeability of webcomics, people don't *need* to self publish to get their work out there.  Secondly, self publishing is expensive.  Even if you're writing and drawing everything yourself, printing a book costs money.  Digital comics cuts out the costs of printing while still making yourself available to your audience.

Along with this decline in self publishing, I've noticed an increase in what I shall call "professional fandom".  Marvel and DC have always had a lax policy of not enforcing copyright infringements when it comes to artists selling prints and other merchandise with their corporate owned characters on them.  It may just be my perception, but the Wizard World conventions seem to be overrun by artists selling what, at best, could be considered "legal grey area" merchandise.  This has caused a curious situation wherein the "retailers" have effectively infiltrated the artist alley.  Upon entering the artist alley, you are no longer finding self published original comics and art, instead you are bombarded with even more Spider-man and Doctor Who t-shirts and prints.  The only difference is that in the artist alley, consumers can feel good that they are supporting an artist instead of the big evil corporation that owns all the characters they love and worship.

The other trend that I've noticed has become all the rage these past years is the pop culture mash up.  This is when you see a property drawn in the style of another property, or perhaps finding a common word or theme between two properties and combining them.  These kinds of merch may actually be more legal than outright selling a print of Thor and Loki because it could be considered satire and fall under fair use.  Occasionally, they can be clever, but more often than not I find these kinds of mash ups to be lazy, pandering, and at the very worst shallow cash grabs.  But if you're a fan of two different things, what could be better than a single thing that represents both?

I'm not here to play art police or to define what is and isn't "Art" because ultimately I'm going to take the stance that everything is and can be Art with a capital "A", but that doesn't mean that all art is inspired or interesting.

I don't want to sound too sour about the convention.  Yes, it was stressful and frustrating, but I also got to see friends and fans old and new and had some genuinely great experiences, one of which went as follows:

     A young couple were walking by my booth casually talking to each other when the man stopped suddenly.  The covers of Science Hero had caught his attention.  He picked an issue off the rack and started flipping through it.  "Science Hero," he said, "this looks interesting."
     Before I could even rev up my pitch and try to make the sale, his girlfriend cut me off and said excitedly, "Oh, I've heard of this!"
     The young man said, "Really?"
     And I said even more surprisingly, "Really?!"
     The young girl replied, "Yeah, Sean bought it and said it's great."
     This, of course, is great news for me, but the only thing that was running through my mind was, "Oh god!  She's got it confused with a different book.  He's going to buy it thinking it's something else, something more popular and better and great and he's going to be disappointed."
     Fortunately for me, the young girl cut off my paranoid internal dialog by saying, "He texted me a picture of it and said to look out for it."
    Wow!  I couldn't believe this was happening.  People weren't just liking my book, they were recommending it to their friends.  It was the most flattering thing I could have ever heard.
     The guy took the first issue in his hands and cheerfully said, "Well, if it's good enough for Sean then it's good enough for me!"
    And then they were off.  I was left with a five dollar bill in my hands and perpetually stunned look on my face.

So, that was a good thing.  I'm still convinced that there was some kind of mistake, but I'll take 'em when I can get 'em (as long as they're in my favor, of course).

I can't say for certain that I will attend Wizard World Chicago next year.  The convention is expensive and time consuming.  I like the more intimate feeling of smaller conventions, especially when the focus more on comics and less on celebrities.

   

Convention Comics

Chris McJunkin at C2E2

Unsurprisingly, my favorite thing about going to comic book conventions is meeting other comic fans.  I'm always thrilled to meet other readers and humbled to meet people who like my work, but I like meeting other comic creators just as much.  Comics is an interesting medium when compared to other genres like film or television.  The industry is so small, and it's relatively easy to self publish because of the low production costs involved.  You can bet that every single person making their own comic started off as a tremendous fan of comics in some fashion.  In short, nobody self publishes a comic for the money.  They are there because they love comics.  So, since the majority of self publishers love reading comics as much as selling comics, it is common practice to trade your comics with other creators, which is great because nearly all my money goes toward comic production without much left over to support my reading hobby.

My comics haul.

Having finished my first three conventions of the year, I've accumulated a nice pile of comics that are waiting to be read.  I didn't trade for all of these, some of them were purchased.  I only presume to trade with people that are seated near me or approach my table.  I certainly wouldn't ask guys like Chris Samnee or Cullen Bunn if they wanted to trade their award winning, money making books with my rough self published hobbyist books, but I can't resist the allure of cool comics so I'm more than happy to pry open my wallet every now and then.

I'm not doing any more conventions until next August, so I'll be using my summer time to push forward on all the writing I need to finish before then, but I'll also be reading through my new haul of comics and posting about them periodically on the blog.

 I love doing conventions, but they can really drain you.  I'm glad to take the next few months and immerse myself in my favorite hobby.

At Planet Comicon, someone asked me if I was cosplaying Spike Spiegal.

Wizard World St. Louis Day 3

Whew.

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.

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!

LUMPY SPACE PRINCESS!

Mr. Gumby

Hunter S. Thompson

Wizard World St. Louis Day 2

Whew, today was long, but fulfilling.  I don't have a lot of interesting things to report because I spent the whole day behind the table chatting it up with the con goers.  I was again fortunate enough to meet some people who were regular readers of Zero's Heroes, as well as a couple of aspiring creators and other would be artists.  I always like meeting other comic creators because they share a passion with not only comics, but usually a sense of Do It Yourself Independents.  From what I've seen, there's usually one common road into the "mainstream" of comics, and that's through self publishing.

Science Hero was a big success today.  There were a number of people who saw us from across the aisle, noticed the big blue Science Hero logo, and were compelled to come over and ask what it was.  So, I guess I owe Chris McJunkin a big fat raise for designing a killer logo!

We saw a lot of kids today, most of them lured over by the siren call of Free Stickers.  We also saw a fair share of parents who were looking for comics for their kids or grandkids.  Since Zero's Heroes is largely PG (sometimes veering in to the PG13 arena), it received a lot of attention from them.

I was also surprised by the amount of people who were themselves pleasantly surprised and intrigued by the notion that I describe Zero's Heroes as a Superhero Comedy.  I've never really thought of superhero comedy as being a novel concept, but I was raised on The Tick and Freakazoid cartoons in addition to the regular regiment of Spider-man and X-Men, so maybe I'm the outlier.  I suppose, if we're being honest, the regular fare you see from Marvel or DC these days is about as far from "comedy" as it can be, discounting the unintentional hilarity that they sometimes find themselves publishing.

All this is to say that, though I dread to dredge up the recurring complaint, it seems very obvious to me that Marvel or DC could be doing a lot more to reach out to kids or younger audiences with a wider array of styles and genres.

But that's okay if they don't.  Assuming there is a demand for such a thing, then it's a hole in the market that I can try to fill.  That's your Free Market Economics at work!

As usual, there were also a lot of great costumes today.  I managed to snap a few pics of some my favorites.  It's hard to pick an absolute favorite.  It's a toss up between Kiki's Delivery Service and Flash from G.I. Joe.  Of course, that tiny Harley Quinn was just adorable.  She probably had to pose for hundreds of pictures by the end of the day.

Dr. Quest

Kiki and Jiji

He's Batman

Yo Joe!

Tiny Harley Quinn

SPAAAAAAAACE GHOOOOOOOOOOST!

The Rocketeer

He does whatever a spider can.

Wizard World St. Louis Day One

Hello everybody.  I haven't been that active on the blog lately, mostly because for the last few months, I've been preparing for my first real convention season.  This is the first year I've ever been in an Artist Alley of any kind, peddling my books Zero's Heroes and Science Hero.  Today was the first day of Wizard World St. Louis.

This is the booth, dutifully manned by colorist, Sara Rude while I take the picture.  For a first day, I can report that it went very well.  We only made a few sales, but we gave out a lot of free stickers which people seemed to respond to.  Who doesn't like free swag, right?

Needless to say, being in St. Louis, the Dogtown print got a lot of attention.  I also got a chance to chat with the awesome Chris Samnee (Daredevil, Thor: Mighty Avenger) before the convention began, who's friendliness was only overwhelmed by his talent.

I had the great fortune of meeting a lot of other really nice people, a few of whom had actually read the comic online, which was a very pleasant surprise.  Tomorrow is going to be a big day, we expect to see a lot of people corralled through the convention floor, which means we'll be giving out a lot of stickers, I'm sure.

And of course, there were a lot of great costumes.  I've never been able to commit to cosplay, myself, but I appreciate the hobby for what it is.  Here are a few of the cool costumed people who swung by our booth.

Little Link!

ADVENTURE TIME!

GHOSTBUSTERS!

Nightwing and Batgirl

Superman and Wonder Woman

Both Sara and I are looking forward to a fun day tomorrow.  Thanks to everyone who visited the booth!