So the two day NC Comicon in Durham this weekend was both my worst single day at a convention and my best.
Saturday varied between being empty (in my section), to being so crowded attendees were penguin walking to get through the hordes clogging the aisle. I talked with a few folks, but that was it. Zero sales. Nothing even remotely hopeful happened. It was nine hours of soul crushing nothing.
To top it off I worked the entire time on a print of Baby Groot, using my printer I brought to scan it in, and then inking and coloring it on my laptop. I used a small screen to let passersbys watch what I was doing the entire time. I had gorgeous, uber-professional, top-of-the-line, 5-star photo paper that'll never deteriorate to print it on...and it didn't work. It kept leaving two discolored marks on each print. The printer had a hard time loading, and even the times the paper misloaded and was spit out with no ink on it, it had the marks. I tried both photo paper and special paper settings. I checked the alignment and cleaned the cartridges, even though they printed fine on normal paper. I rebooted the printer and my computer. If I'd known a priest, I would've had an exorcism performed on the damn thing. Nothing worked. My big plan to sale prints and do on-demand color art for folks was ruined.
So all that was pretty devastating.
Sunday was a shorter day with less people, but almost right off the bat it was a different, more normal feel. I had a steady stream of people come up and express interest in my work and buy things. In fact, it was far and away the most I've sold in one day. I even put out two of the flawed Groot prints that printed clean enough to sale at a discount, and sold both for $5. If it had been at a local con I would've made up the cost of admission with my sales!
Overall it was a pretty impressive, well set up con. Artists were segregated from dealers so I didn't have a dealer's book shelves or racks squeezing into what little space I had. There was no space between tables but there was more than enough room to walk in and out of the aisles for creators, which was a refreshing change. The floor was carpeted, the chairs were cushy and comfortable.
The table setup is a bit odd with some creators, like me, getting clearly marked 6 foot space that took half of two tables. This made using my table cloth impossible, but my set up covered the whole top of the table and my banner acted as a table skirt, so it didn't matter.
The banners from Vistaprint.com worked well. I put the tall banner stand together wrong twice before I saw the properly assembled banner of Superville's Bobby and Suzanne Capobianco (who were a source of support and advice during the con, thanks guys!). Once assembled, it worked perfectly all weekend, and came apart and packed up easily at the end.
The regular horizontal banner I actually stuck to the very edge of my table using Scotch Restickable Tabs for Mounting. I've had a lot of problems with paper I put up with tape coming down during conventions, but this worked like a charm, not requiring readjustment all weekend, even on a 6 x 2.5 foot vinyl banner!
The set up with the screen and printer was a lot of trouble and I didn't really get to try it before the con, since I got electricity at the last minute. The screen did attract interest and probably prompted one sale. But mostly it was nice to inspire folks who were thinking of doing art by showing them the process. The printer set up could work if I get normal photo paper. I might try it again if I do a big con again someday.
And I did get to ink a variant cover for Issue 5 on Sunday. More on that later....
