Anyway, Heroes was my very first con – EVER (at least as an artist with a table). I had been to many conventions before as an attendee but this year was the year I decided to take the plunge and get a table at Heroes and Baltimore Comic Con in September.

Maybe it’s because I was a rookie, but I had an absolute BLAST! It was great meeting and talking to everyone and the people that did stop by my table seemed to be very receptive of my work. If any of you stopped and talked to me, thank you. You probably have my postcard – it’s of my main character, Marc, wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt and saying that it was the last clean one he could find.

Anyway (part 2), I did a lot better on Friday and Saturday then I did on Sunday but I still made a small profit. my table was paid for in the first day so that made the rest of the convention extra special for me. I’m hoping Baltimore will be just as good as it’s going to be hard to convince the wife that it’s worth an extra $100 for next year’s con.

But again, I had a blast!

Just a new guy on the block…
Chris Flick

http://www.capesnbabes.com

Taken out of context, I can see how that line would appear funny. However, I still believe a lot of the indie exhibitors should rethink their set-ups. You don’t need eight copies of a book on the table when two or four would suffice. Put up signs with your names on them in the space you just created by taking some of those books off of the table. Most of us have no idea what the major superhero artists look like, much less indie creators. I didn’t even notice Bryan Lee O’Malley until Sunday. I certainly understand the desire to get the most out of your investment by using all the space you possibly can, but by doing so you could end up getting less out of your investment. People tend to be drawn in by images and things which jump out at them. If everything is crowded together, it’s less likely that something will jump out. Whether it’s a mostly empty white table or a mostly full colorful table, it’s slightly off-putting to passers-by. Heroes Con wouldn’t be the same without the effort you put into Indie Island, and I would love to hear nothing but good things about exhibiting there. That was not the case here, and I was only trying to help.

Scott Bieser,

You guys were in kind of a bad spot. No offense, Dustin. It just happens that way sometimes. Sometimes it’s not so much where you’re located in the hall itself but what is around you as well. I’m sure there are times when setting up next to a major writer or artist benefits the lesser-known writer or artist next to them, and then there are times when the major draw will completely overshadow all of their neighboring creators resulting in little to no traffic because a lot of people won’t go through those long lines or crowds to get to the lesser-known creator who happens to be their favorite. Has Big Head Press put out any books other than Roswell, Texas? Every time I see an advertisement for you guys it has always been advertising that book. If that’s the only book you have out right now (other than what you may be serializing online), you would probably benefit from just having a table. No backdrop to worry about, and you would have one image from one book with an interesting title and a nice cover to draw people in.

Maybe I’m wrong. Apparently my advice is more humorous than helpful. Next year, I hope Indie Island sees a major increase in revenue.

Our booth was at the far north corner of the “Small Press” area and facing away from Indie Island, which did not help our visibility — although some of the other small press folks we talked to with better locations also had long faces.

The price-sensitivity we discovered from attendees (the Sunday discounts) tells us high gas prices may well have been a factor, leaving attendees less money to spend.

Next year, I will likely return but this time it will be a solo trip with a table rather than a booth. I do appreciate what Shelton and Dustin and crew are doing to promote Indie comics, it’s just too bad the attendees weren’t more hip to the program.

I’ve been reading HeroesCon reports for the last hour or so in my sweltering office (our AC just broke), and this is by far the funniest line I’ve seen yet.

I definitely got reports from Buenaventura and Picturebox of disappointing sales, although Chris Staros told me that they had one of their best HeroesCon’s ever. Top Shelf has been setting up with us for years and years, though, so they’ve really built an audience with fans around here. I think that as Indie Island grows and creators return with new books to fans they met in previous years, things will be much more profitable for these creators. Maybe that’s just “if you build it they will come” thinking, but as someone who is very proud of what he’s built, I like to go for optimism.

Thanks to everyone who made this year’s HeroesCon such an unmitigated success! We’re still kind of drunk on the praise, not to mention the lack of sleep.

Fair enough, but it’s indicative of the whole “Us v. Them” attitude instead of the “Us teaming up with Them” attitude that will win the day. The fact that the publishers (gross generalization) feel it is a menace to be fought means one thing:

Readers will end up being the losers.

We will end up paying more for less in a rapidly dwindling market. We will not be able to find the books we want to read. Retailers will cut down on orders and niche books will be eliminated from distribution. Potential new readers will spend their money elsewhere where they get entertainment value for money spent.

Well … I dunno … there are a lot of stupid kids out there … They take to computers and what-not because that technology is there. Adults tend to want to “understand” everything … a kid just joyously takes to cell phones and text messaging cuz its a gadget, and you get to push lots of buttons. I hear stories on the news about teens sending nude pictures of themselves to their classmates, or posting films of themselves committing misdemeanors on youtube, and I’m not so sure about the intelligence …

Of course, I’ve heard plenty of stories about how comics corrupt our youth, so who knows?

ya your right. Its ingrained in them.

It’s no different today. Besides, you highly underestimate the intelligence of today’s younger audience. They can play on a computer and they understand the capacity of all this new technology almost better than adults, as if they were preprogrammed before birth.

So having a kid decipher a George Perez sequence is not the problem. It’s getting a kid to buy a comic that’s not somehow based in anime that’s the problem.

Could be that all the non-anime comics of today aren’t as good as the creators and audience believes they are.