Fan Expo '09

So Fan Expo 2009 was an interesting experience. It was my first giant convention and needless to say it was a bit over-whelming at first, especially for a brand new web comic artist who's entering the scene. I've been to conventions before at least once a year for about 3 years now but I still consider myself a newbie in the comic world. Hopefully with a lot of hard work and time that will eventually change.

I got only a few pictures at the Fan Expo of myself and table-mate CK Russell. The pic of the girl in the center is my roommate and model for my Tom Boy Tara photo shoot, Sarah Jay. She played Tara...she looks different without the short, blue wig I know, like a whole different person. I'm standing next to Darren Kelly in the picture of me in my glasses. He was sitting beside us at my very first comic convention and he does sick CGI art. He's such a cool guy! Very sweet and funny, and a tremendous artist and supporter of all things comic related.

I must admit I cried when I got home my first night from the Expo, I thought I was going to have a horrible next couple of days, however Saturday was a whole new day and it turned around for the better, even though it was packed with people who had been waiting ever so patiently to get into to the expensive con and I made less money on Saturday than I did on Friday it was still a fun and interesting experience and I got to see some familiar faces (friends and family attended the event) as well as new faces. I also got to meet the real Tom Boy Tara who was an actual tomboy coincidentally named Tara who found my comic randomly in a search on the computer and saved it under favorites. How nuts is that? Sunday was the day I made the most money and it was fun and chill and I got so in the groove of the con I was actually sad when it came to a halt at the end of the day. I had lots of little merchandise pieces at the table like posters, paper dolls, stickers and buttons and lots of examples of crazy art I've done to show what my website was all about.

I hafta admit my "edible business cards" I created went off without a hitch! I came up with the idea to make fortune cookie business cards randomly and made real fortunes that had to do with situations in my comic in some way or another. It had a teeny tiny logo with my website on it that turned out to be tinier than I had hoped and told people to use a magnifying glass to read it but I told them what it said in case they couldn't read it. My actual business cards were instantly out on Saturday (I should have made more for sure) and I was glad I had back up fortune cookie biz cards at that point in time.

So yeah, the con went well, better than I thought it would for a person without a fan base at the Fan Expo and hopefully I got a few more people reading my stuff...I hope.