We're
back from this year's Comic-Con and we had an amazing time. My head
is still spinning from the craziness of those 5 days, but I'll try
my hardest to remember the hi-lights. Let's start on Wednesday morning,
July 31. My beloved wife and I got up at 3:30 am and left L.A. for
San Diego by 4:30. The day before, we had rented a U-Haul truck
and loaded all the stuff we needed for the convention. The ride
was quite smooth and we reached our destination in 2 hours. We were
actually too early to set up, so we decided to kill some time by
having a greasy breakfast at Denny's. By 10:00 am we were inside
the convention center setting up the booth. We were pretty much
done by noon, so we went to the hotel to try to catch some shut-eye.
All my synapses were firing up so there was no way for me to get
any rest.
We
went back to the convention center around 5:00 pm to get ready for
preview night, which ran from 5:30 till 8:00. Those first 2 1/2
hours were a total success. Our sales were good from the very start.
If this was any indication of things to come we knew we were in
for a fruitful convention.
On
Thursday morning, we had breakfast with Bill Shanes (Diamond's vice
president of marketing) to discuss our new distribution deal. We're
very optimistic about the outcome and are looking forward to working
with them in a new greater capacity.
By
9:30 am, we were back at the convention center. The doors opened
to the general public around 9:45 am, and everything went great
from that point on. I sketched for fans, answered their questions
and loved every minute of it. Our location was great (Independent
Publisher Pavillion) with excellent foot traffic.
Our
neighbour to the left were Animation Hut which was comprised of
Amid Amidi from Animation Blast, the musical Will Ryan, the gifted
Gabe Swarr and the talented Shane Glines. Amid was selling full
sets of his fabulous magazine and as far as I can tell, they were
flying off the self. He was also selling a dream and eating a lot
of nuts. Gabe, was having great success with the second issue of
his amazing comic Big Pants Mouse. Those guys seemed to be having
a good time, although they went insane a couple of times, screaming
loudly for no apparent reason. On our right hand side was Scott
Sava and his effervescent wife, who were promoting their independent
comic The Lab, as well as a new Children's Book. Scott's latest
project is a four issue Spider Man mini-series entitled Quality
of Life which will soon be release as a trade . Across the aisle
was Mike Kunkel burning up the sales floor with a wide range of
merchandises from his popular Herobear and the Kid comic series.
Mike won an Eisner Award this year and he was overwhelmed with joy.
Congrats man!
I
previewed my Batman project on Friday and Saturday at the DC booth
and got a nice response from the audience. Virtually everyone agreed
that this was the most insane Batman story they'd ever seen.
On
Friday, I stopped by the Fantagraphics booth and finally met Dave
Cooper, whose work I really admire. He's the most laid back guy
and not the crazy demented maniac I had envisioned. Dave had two
new books out (Weasel #5 and The Pip & Norton Collection) and
was busy signing for the fans. When he came to my booth on Sunday,
I was unfortunately doing a signing for Last Gasp and missed the
opportunity to have a more in depth conversation with the master.
Other folks who stopped by include Bill Plimpton (who seemed in
awe of my short fim Prelude to Eden), animation historian Jerry
Beck, a bunch of people from the Animation Nation Message Board,
animation director Eric Goldberg, cartoonist Phil Foglio (who is
teaching his kid how to read with my books), Phil Bourassa (First
World), Jon Hooper and Steve Kellener from Animation Meat, designer
extraordinaire Stephen Silver, the Viz crew, comic reviewers Augie
De Bliek from CBR (read his account of our meeting here), James
Taylor from The Small Press Magazine, Rebecca Salek from Sequential
Tart, Randy Lander from The Fourth Rail, font designer supreme Nate
Piekos, and many many more.
I
had virtually no time for shopping. I managed to get away for 15
minutes here and there but it was usually to go say hi to friends
and peers. I didn't even get time to browse at one of my favorite
spot, the Bud Plant booth. Incidentaly, Bud was having great success
with our books and ended up purchasing over 300 during the convention.
Cold Cut Distribution also stocked up on our books with a large
purchase order.
All and all we had a blast and look forward to do it again next
year.
Michel
Gagné, August 6, 2002.