Hello
everyone! I am back from Columbus and what an amazing weekend it was! This year
I brought Mike Roll and his adorable little zombie girl, Apooka, with me.
FRIDAY:
I was able to come in Friday for preview night which was a little evening
pre-con con. I was able to get some sketch requests that night and a lot of the
VIP'ers purchased prints from me which was nice because I had restocked with
the new 11x14s. I also got a lovely note from Drew Blank who knows about my
utter love and affection for How I Met Your Mother.
It's
always a pleasure chatting with that guy.
I like it so much I asked him to write the foreword to HEART. Speaking
of, when I went to check in the hotel, there was a package there waiting for me
containing the first shipment of 72 books!
I couldn't be more excited.
SATURDAY:
This was the MEGA SUPER…and I really do mean SUPER. I was technically flying
solo this weekend. My better and way
prettier half of the crime fighting duo, was spending time with her family at
EIU this very same weekend. So I had to handle the business side of things too:
keeping track of inventory and sketch list, money handling, learning how to
add, square transactions. It was pretty chaotic but I felt I had a good handle
on it.
This
was only the second con I offered up the cardBORED sketches and the appeal is
really building. People like how different it is and really dig the way the
inks pull a lot of texture from them. The amount of sketches vary through out
conventions but I am noticing as I produce more work for the table that the sketches are starting to even out
with the amount of business I get from my books. That's a good thing as I am getting more
people flipping through the books. Don't
get me wrong I love drawing for people and it's something I will favor over
doing the sales pitch over and over again.
It's nice to see them finding their level and it made it a lot easier
for me running the one man show.
It
was also a big print show. I sold out of
all my TMNT prints that I made for the Fanfare last year and the Avengers one
selling well. I didn't bring that many WIWL books with me because I really
wanted to push HEART and Playing the Alphabet so by the time Saturday had come
to an end, I was already down to my last When I Was Little Too. It was a good
feeling.
The
lovely Lora Innes stopped by to say hi and congratulate me on HEART which she
got to scope out the night before with Trevor Mueller's copy. She also brought
a fellow Paper Winger with her, Scott Hoffman, who was interested in talking
children's book shop with me. He was a nice guy and even picked up a set of the
WIWL books before he left. I didn't bring that many WIWL books with me because
I really wanted to push HEART and Playing the Alphabet so by the time Saturday
had come to an end, I was already down to my last When I Was Little Too thanks
to Scott. It was a good feeling.
Yay!
Paperwings' connections being made at conventions. Before Lora left I gave her
Nicole's Mulan sketchbook and asked her to do a li'l something something with
it. She gladly took the book and looked
wide eyed when I told her it was about Mulan. Later on Lora sent me a tweet to
come by and pick up the sketchbook and she presented me with this:
It
was incredible! When I showed Nic she loved it, laughed cause she knew the
scene that she drew.
It
picked up quite a bit by mid-afternoon but I elected to dive out for a few
minutes to meet my favorite Superman ever, Dean Cain. As I was walking back
from the restroom I noticed he had just sat down at his booth and the line
didn't start forming yet. So I rushed back to the table and grabbed my Season 1
dvd of Lois and Clark. I walked right up there, shook his hand and chatted
about his new show, Stars and Stripes. Just enough time to soak it all in
before the next group of people came his way.
As I made my way back to the table I went straight for the Photo-Ops
booth and purchased a ticket for a photo.
I was totally geeking out and it's something I never really do at
conventions any more. I'm so numb to it
seeing all these celebrities walking by amongst the comic crowd. But this was
Dean Cain and growing up he was my Superman. How could I not geek out about
this. I thought as a token of my appreciation for all the work he did on the
show I would give him a World's Finest print.
Later
on when I walked up to him to get my picture taken. I handed him the print
whilst at the same time trying to form words that sounded awkward and mumbled
but to the tone of, "Hey I got this print for you." He felt humbled
by it and he really dug it. He said so.
He's Superman. He doesn't lie. The whole experience was a blur but it was
really cool to meet him and he was very gracious about the whole thing. The
cherry on top of the cake was that after he was done and I was long gone back
at my table working on another sketch request, he walked by my table to tell me
again how great the print was. Then we did the most epic of handshakes and we
both went about our business. Superman acknowledged me, he called me by my first name and said he liked something
that I had done. Right then and there, I felt like the coolest kid on the
planet.
I
didn't need to sell anything else that day, but I did and I was riding that
high.
I
still am.
SUNDAY:
Miker and I got an early start because we needed to get into the good parking
lot across the street so it wouldn't be such a haul for us later carrying all
our things. We got in early and scoped out some of the artist alley and table
booths. Got to snap some sweet photos of the Ecto-1 and some Dr. Who stuff.
When the show opened it was pretty slow in the beginning. (My theory is that everyone was watching the
new TMNT show on Nickelodeon.)
Anyway,
the show picked up right around noon and I got a lot more cardBORED sketch
requests in. I also sold the last WIWL2
which made table room for more copies of HEART.
Rachel,
another con buddy I met at my first MOC, stopped by my table and dropped
off some mini cupcakes, another convention highlight. It's always great to see her and her family
at the show. They stopped by again later in the day and picked up some more
coloring books for their son, Jonathan, as well as a copy of Heart. It
got really slow the last two hours so I used that time to walk around and I
spotted Humberto Ramos deep into a Spiderman sketch cover. I ended up getting
his new Art N' Out: Sabotage book and told him how much of a fan I was and that
I donated to his Fairy Quest Kickstarter. I was pretty tired towards the end
but managed the 6 hour drive by myself without any real long stops.
This
show has always been a favorite of mine and I was glad I got to bring Miker
with me. Hopefully next year, the great
Joe Foo will come with us and dominate.
Thanks for having me Columbus we will see you next year!
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