New York Comic Con Report

This past weekend was NYCC, bigger and better than ever. The Javitz Center construction allowed for the expansion of small press and artist alley with some elbow room, as well as all the anime stuff in the lower levels.

Last year, I sold out around 2 PM on the third (last) day of the show. This year, I brought slightly more inventory. This made me nervous as the book market is so soft. Long story short, I basically sold out in the last 30 minutes of the show. Left with only a few books in tow.

I got to hang out with my usual NYC comics pals, and a special treat to see my Toronto comics pals, and even a west coaster, too.

Friday night, I made it into the DC Comics freelancers party, which was so much fun. I ran into Jen Van Meter who was excited about her HOPELESS SAVAGES collection, which the story we worked on together was in. Afterward, we went to some straight-bar-upstairs but gay-bar-downstairs place nearby.

Saturday morning, it was crazy. teenagers dressed in anime garb EVERYWHERE. I was kinda discouraged because no one was buying for the first 3 + hours of the show. Then suddenly, MADHOUSE sales. Tim Piotrowski and I kept haunting the Marvel booth too, to try to get on the list for the Marvel freelancers party (since we actually have freelanced for Marvel...) to no avail. Also stopped by to see Jen at the Oni booth and got a copy of the collection. It looks GREAT. On the way back, inadvertently did some networking, nice.

Back at the booth, after selling a Northstar sketch, there was an impromptu dramatic reading of my story, "The Vomiteer" which was hilarious. Then on to the LGBT comics panel with Howard Cruse, Abby Denson, Joan Hilty, Phil Jimenez, Dan Parent, and Tim Piotrowski. Jeff Krell did a great job moderating. It was jam-packing, SRO, and they turned away a lot of people at the door. Good signs for getting bigger space next year.

On Sunday, sales were sluggish the morning (expected) but got crazy by the afternoon. Along the way, dear Matthew stopped by and we had the opp to walk around the show together a bit. While he explored solo, Dennis demanded a sketch from me on his iPad's sketch program. It was tough to use!—not used to my finger as stylus. But the image attached is the result. The image is meant to be Matt, looking sad, nervous, wistful maybe, and of course cute. The brown splotches represent him (his eyes) and the blue splotches represent me (my eyes). The title of the piece is "what a fucked up mess" which sums things up.

After a crazy busy end to the show, we broke down and loaded up the rented van to get everything back to Tim's place. Then, we all ran out of steam. So tired. After an easy start to my Monday, I Bolt Bussed back to Boston last night. YAY NYCC!