Well, another Emerald City Comicon has come and gone, and I live to tell the tale. I thought I should collect my thoughts on the con while they were still moderately fresh in my head.

First off, I have to thank my girlfriend for coming with me to the show, for helping at the table and for being a sport about giving free tarot readings there at the table. She really got into it, even coming in costume for the readings! Lots of people said her readings were 'eerily accurate'. Not bad for a health insurance salesgal! If you're going to a convention and getting a large space, I can't recommend enough making sure you have someone with you to watch your back, go on lunch runs, give you a break from the table, and helping direct people's interest as you're busy with sketches, signing books, or talking to that editor who just found your table and might have a project to talk to you about. Kim did all of that for me and more, and it contributed greatly to my emotional well-being over the weekend.

So, the show:

Saturday got off to a quick start, I sold two Tarot decks in the first half-hour. The crowd was bustling, seemed like lots of people came to the show to buy, which is always a plus. Several long-time Ellie readers visited that day, and it's always gratifying to hand someone a flyer and have them tell me that they already have the site bookmarked and they read it regularly. Should have pointed more people to the new Badge set, but the Preview book got a lot of support, even after telling people that the content was all available online. I was worried that my placement near the back of the hall would hamper traffic, but I didn't notice any lack of activity around me.

Also, I sold more NES Triptych badge sets than ever before. I think it paid off making packages of the sets, rather than having them lumped in with the rest of my individual badges. Definitely going to move the badges in that direction from now on and get rid of the single badges from my store.

The high point of Saturday was getting a visit from Ellie, in the form of superfan Nicole, who made her costume herself and drove all the way from Wenatchee to show it to me. Of course we had our pictures taken and I gave her a set of the new badges. I'm officially instituting a convention policy: If you attend dressed as one of my characters, I WILL give you free stuff! Guaranteed! Way I look at it, it's free advertising for my work! Plus, I know those costumes aren't cheap to assemble.

On Sunday, the show floor was quite a bit slower, which is almost always true of Sunday mornings (though the fact that it was daylight-savings weekend didn't help in the slightest!). Empty show floors allow attendees to breeze past lots of things, especially on their way to the nearby bathrooms. Location definitely hindered me a bit on Sunday, as many exhibitors in my area had shown up late or left early, that part of the room began to resemble a wasteland, as it did last year. The two or three tables to my left were only sporadically filled during the weekend, and by Sunday afternoon had been taken over by squatters doing commissioned drawings for money. I wish there would be some sort of penalty for blocks of exhibitors who leave the show early or don't show up, or at least a movement to break them into smaller groups in subsequent years. Having large areas of empty tables kills the flow of attendee interest in an area, and the exhibitors who did show up suffer as a result, I believe. Either way, Sunday was still a pretty good day, though sales were quite a bit slower.

I didn't get a chance to socialize much during the show as, like I say, several of the tables around me were empty most of the weekend. In the evenings, my plans revolved around primarily getting together with several people who I don't get to see very often, such as Chris Baldwin and Jim Zubkavich. There are always a number of cartoonists whose friendship I would like to foster (ironically, many of them local to pdx), but I've gotten to the point finally where I've decided it's better to preserve my good mood than to risk getting snubbed again. So, I mostly kept to myself and to people I knew were good company, and I enjoyed myself much more than I normally do at conventions.

In the end, I scored some great deals on items I'd been wanting for a while, and I even pre-registered for next year (my first time pre-registering, I believe!). So, put it on your calendars, I'll be back in Seattle next March, if not sooner!

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