Conventions

  by Zachary Clemente While at SPX this year, I was able to grab a quick word with seven amazing cartoonists about their work in Hana Doki...

OK, comicsphere, we need to talk about conventions. This convention hubbub that’s flared up in the last week or so is a fairly complex one. Just for the sake of the arguments that are still going on, let’s break this down into the individual issues that are affecting creators that are exhibiting at comics shows. Issue #1 - CCINO Yes, I’m borrowing from political rhetoric. “Comic Conventions In Name Only.” Ever been to an alleged comic convention that had little-to-zero comics programming, few (if any) comics publishers exhibiting and pretty much all the comics content was artists alley and anyone selling comics in the dealers area?

The CAF (comic arts festival0 circuit continues to expand and here's a new show in New Orleans, called the NOCaZ Festival for "comics and zines." The event will be held November 14-15th at the New Orlenas Public Library. According to their mission statement:

Even though it's two weeks in the rearview mirror, a lot of worthy writing has been done about this year's Small Press Expo. I'm...

Last week Denise Dorman, wife of veteran artist Dave Dorman, who is best known for his excellent painted covers, wrote a post on her blogm which is called Comic Book Wife. The post was titled: The Hidden TRUTH About Comic Book Convention Earnings: For Creators, Have Comic Book Conventions JUMPED THE SHARK? in which she pointed out that sales for her husband were off at several shows this year, and given the costs of exhibiting—hotels booths, food, travel—it made more sense to stay at home and do actual money making work.

I'm not sure if this is a brand new thing, but hotels for the increasingly ginormous Emerald City Comicon how require a night's deposit on booking. The main hotels are still pretty affordable—even the ultra swanky W Hotel where you get free Bliss facial cleanser and they change the rugs twice a day, is under $150 a night. But I guess given the popularity of the show and the early sell outs, some "hotel room jockeying" is taking place, necessitating a deposit to keep people from stockpiling hotels.

The comics scene in Nigeria has been thriving since the 1980s, but has yet to burst into the mainstream. There are tastes of what may soon emerge as youth in Nigeria fully embrace the internet—check out this sci-fi short on YouTube here, which includes an animated spaceship—but comics are still an emerging industry. On Friday, the third annual Lagos Comic Con will launch in the commercial capital of 20 million people. I corresponded with comics creator and co-founder Ayodele Elegba about the event, where we wrote about attractions, popular comics, Ebola, and cosplay.

by Zachary Clemente This past weekend, the 20th annual Small Press Expo (SPX) brought an explosion of independent and small press comics to the Marriott...

  by Zachary Clemente On Sunday of the 20th annual Small Press Expo (SPX), The Beat grabbed a strange, backless hotel couch surrounded by vacated folding...

The convention season never stops, and West Coasters will be enjoying the sights and sounds of the Long Beach Comic Con on September 27-28th at...

Following yesterday's post on Salt Lake Comic Con's attendance this weekend—widely reported as somewhere between 120,000-130,000—in which I examined some doubts about this number that have been expressed to me, I received a press release on the numbers, and some clarification from Bryan Brandenberg, Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder of the show. He told me, "We feel real good about our numbers. The capacity for the Salt Palace is 150,000 not 82,000. We not only were in the Convention Center, but our film festival was at the Gateway two blocks away and our gaming tournaments were offsite as well. Besides ticket sales, we gave away over 15,000 tickets to schools, military, first responders and charities and we counted free kids."

The third Salt Lake City Con was held this weekend, and it was by all measures a success, becoming the largest convention in Utah,...