(Buddy Prince is in this photo, on the left. I’m on the right, in the green shirt, behind the pastries!)

Yesterday was the big day! As expected, I did not get a lot of sleep in advance of the convention. I never do. It’s not even about being unprepared, I was more prepared for this show than any I’ve ever been to before… I just never end up sleeping much or well before any big thing.

I had a bunch of original art with me, and some sketches and prints for sale. I loaded up the truck and actually got to the show early! The new venue was nice. It was a good looking hotel and the layout of the comic showroom was nice. I found my spot, checked the WiFi access, and setup my table for the day.

For a post-Christmas show, you never know what to expect. Are people tired from celebrating the holidays? OR are they ready to get out of the house for a bit? Did they spend all of their money already on Christmas? OR will all the people who received money as a gift show up ready to spend? It seemed like the show got a pretty good turnout, but I literally only sold one of my prints.

I’m still new to the guest artist gig, so I don’t know how much my lack of sales had to do with me being new versus people just not looking to spend money. I did have a lot of people looking through my stuff, and got a lot of positive comments… so I’m figuring it was a mix of me still being new and people being choosy how they spend their money. Being honest, going into the show I wanted to have stuff for sale and hoped to sell some things but I was mostly there to spread the word, advertise myself, and promote my blog and ‘Sects comic strip.

Specifically for this show, I made eight promotional ‘Sects character cards (Buzz, Red, Bob, Blue, Buzzarro, Dez, Nell, and Al). These were 2.5 in. x 2 in. cards with a brief blurb about the character and a link to my blog. During the show I handed them out to everyone who stopped at my table, and tried to flag down people as they walked by to let them know they were free for the taking. After the show I also went around to all the dealers who hadn’t stopped by my table already to bring them into the fold as well. I’m hoping my blog will see some new visitors and fans as a result!

Fellow guests at the show were Chris Kemple and Buddy Prince. Buddy was at the first show I did, back in 2014, and I hadn’t seen him since that time. Chris and I talked a bit and each thought the other looked familiar, and we mutually concluded that we probably already knew each other because we used to shop at the same comic book store (Capitol Comics) and I actually worked there many years ago. Buddy and Chris are both good guys, and good artists, and they seemed to have a lot of interaction at their tables too.

During the show, I was able to draw some ‘Sects sketch cards and a Batgirl sketch card. I also drew a nice larger Spider-Man sketch. I posted these last night on the blog after returning from the show, but I was too tired to post this summary until tonight! 🙂 It was nice to be able to prove to myself that I could finish sketches while talking to people at the same time. Sometimes multitasking can be challenging, so it was good practice.

All in all, it was a good experience. It was a much better experience than my first show too. I was much more prepared going in, and I had a stronger comic strip to promote this time around. Next time I’ll have more art to sell and more comics to promote too… it’s a growing process. It was good to see some old friends that I hadn’t seen in a while, and make a few new ones. If anyone reading this met me for the first time yesterday, and has now come to check out my blog as a result, thank you for coming to the show and thank you for visiting my blog. Hopefully I’ll be able to get to more shows in 2016!