Well daggum, what a haul this year!
Ah, SPX, what a wonderful year it was, I got to meet so many people and really got my name out. I had a total battle plan, handing out a few unfinished comics, asking for feedback and giving every artist I met a copy of my latest collection of The Daily Odyssey, even if they weren’t trading!
I suppose I’m getting a ahead of myself.
For the trip, Pranas, Keving Singles and Dave Wheeler joined me in Poultergeist (my car) and drove up to Woodbridge, VA where we stayed at Pranas’ for the night. We would return there to crash each night, and I cannot thank Pranas for putting us up, giving us some free roomage.
The first day started out pretty early, Pranas was signed up to get a table alongside friends Falynn and Kevin Singles. So we had to leave his house at 7AM to get there. We got there, tired, hungry but happy to help Pranas get his table set up. We were charged and couldn’t wait for the show to start.
With some waiting around, it finally happen! What a whirl of excitement! The show floor was simply enormous and so many new atendees and vendors to chat with.
I met up with old friend Jon Chad, whom I haven’t seen since graduation, his comic are top choice and he had a new story in Danger Park‘s ginormous first issue of Subterranean. Which was nominated for an Ignatz as best debut comic!s
I also met with SCAD Graduate Chris Schwieser, who had just put a book out with Oni: Crogan’s Vengance. His generosity at the show was nothing more than legendary, I chatted with him, and he spent alot of time with our group all weekend, and was just generally a nice guy to us little folk, who haven’t really ‘made it’ yet.
Sadly, the first day nobody seemed very open to trading, so I pretty much blew through most of my cash within the first several hours. But it was worth it!
Comics!
Eventually I cooled down and just worked in my little moleskin about my biography comic of Shigeru Miyamoto that I’m doing for the SCAD Anthology I needed to sketch up a few enemy characters, and I was using my new bursh pen I bought a few days before. That, and of course read a few of my newly earned comics!
Later on, the show ended for the day and we had to kill some time before the Ignatz Award Show, where outstanding indy-comic artist are awarded with a brick on a small pedestal. There’s a few interesting videos on line of the speeches, my favorite being James Kolchalka giving the award of best webcomic to Chris Onstad of Achewood fame, who accepted in a monkey suit.
Afterwards there were talks of a karaoke party somewhere after the ceremony, and we immeadiatly went for it. There was booze to be had, and drunken fun for all. Some personal hilights was doing shots next to James Kolchalka and watching my buds Jon and Pranas croon a drunken duet of “We Built This City”.
The next morning I thankfully slept until 10am, which was the most sleep I’d gotten in the past five days.
The second day was less eventful than the first, mostly on the fact that it was on a Sunday, and alot of people were dipping out because they had work the next morning.
A fancy hat I’d found nestled under a couch,
this hat and I were fated to be togther.
This mentality was in my favor because it meant alot of people were more inclined to trade, since people spent alot of their money the day before, and they were looking to lessen their stock. So I made several trades with plenty of vendors.
Some of the vendors were pretty surprised at the quality and size of my minis, so that gave me a great ego boost throughout the day.
I had also learned that Dave had gotten a call from his parents, and apparently his father was very ill. So he asked if we could leave home straight from the con, instead of sleeping at Pranas’ and leaving in the morning. This would happen later, but it really worried me during the con, but he was pretty chipper despite the news.
I’d gone to a panel on James Kolchalka, he told alot of fun anecdotes about getting into comics and he sung several songs. He even said a few words of wisdom that struck me, which I recorded in my October 5th comic.
Then, it came time for the show to close, as Pranas packed up his tablet, we watched the other vendors pack up as well. It was an odd feeling, we had watched the floor build itself up on the first morning, and now were seeing its death. I’ve never really seen a con throughout its entire life before.
Afterwards, we helped Chris clean up his table and carry his stuff back up to his room at the hotel. He managed to sell along of his Crogan’s Vengance books! Which is pretty amazing. Later we went out to a Chinese Buffet to beat all chinese buffets. And I even got to meet an online friend of Pranas’ and comic extraordinare: Nedroid.
After that, I suppose SPX was just kinda over. We drove Pranas back home and then we went back to Savannah in the wee hours of the morning.
SPX This Year: Total Success!
I’m totally jived about conventions now and I hope to get my own table at some cons in the future. And really get my named out there!
Here’s to next year!
