Over breakfast, I printed up a bunch more cards to hand out. On Friday, I got some excellent heavyweight business-card stock for ink-jet printers. I’d passed on the thinner ones that advertised matte finish on both sides earlier, but regretted it. The ink on the reverse of the heavy ones blurred mightily (I’ve never had that problem with other business-card stock). Live and learn.
I spent five hours at the Convention Center, mostly wandering from table to table, talking with artists, writers, vendors and distributors. This time I took photos of people, so I could (I hope) put faces to names. Highlights were:
Giving my card to one artist at a table and having three others lean over to check it out and giggle at the picture on it. They all got cards, of course.
Seeing The Librarian there! As a fan who approached me, she earned a button.
Talking to Paul Guinan, who invited me to his Halloween Party that night.
Alexis E. Fajardo (writer/artist) is creating a graphic-novel cycle of twelve books where the premise is that Beowulf and Grendel were twins. That was the most interesting story idea I heard, and I was tempted to buy book #1.
It was also fun to chat with exhibitors I spoke with on Friday, and have them remember talking with me. They probably have hundreds of people go by their tables, but it’s nice to know I made an impression.
On one hand, I think it’s great that anyone with a pen and access to Kinko’s can self-publish a budget staple-fold comic. However, I’m not a big fan of the style. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen a few too many where I didn’t like the artwork and the lettering was hand-done in a tightly-packed scrawl that is almost never worth the effort to decode. I freely admit my prejudice; there may be wonderful ones out there that I’d love, but I tend to flip through, glance at a couple pages, and set it down again. If anyone has any examples that they think might raise my consciousness, I’d be happy to see them.
All in all, I had a great time, and look forward to attending more comic/webcomic shows and conventions! I'll post some more on that, later...
creative