SPX 2008

Me and J. Chris Campbell of Wide Awake Press drove up to Richmond, where we stayed with our very hospitalitatious chum Rob Ullman for the night. Then the three of us drove up to the wild metropolis of Bethesda, Maryland!

I had with me my first minicomic (DHARBIN #1) and a print of the much-viewd (thank you!) "26 Cartoonists" strip I did a few months ago.

Lessons I learned:

1) Don't make a minicomic with a giant oval on the front which you MUST draw on for each copy. This slowed me down like crazy, as I had to stop and sketch on every single one. Not to mention that, sans sketch, it's a pretty dull cover, which means that people aren't really likely to pick the book up and discover the more interesting interior. Plus if you sell some to a store, you have to draw on ALL of them, which is also hard.

2) Price everything higher, so that you can wholesale it to dealers and still make a profit. I priced my mini at $2.25, forgetting (despite long experience as a retailer) the wholesale market. Future iterations will be an even $5.

3) Prepare better, as in making signs, being ready for stuff, pre-sketching on stuff, having little things to sell cheap for impulse buys.

4) Thank Chris Pitzer more profusely for being such an excellent host, tablemate, and not the least publisher. You can thank him in my stead by going to the AdHouse Books site and buying SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST before the first print sells out. I finished it last week, and it was AWESOME.

All in all it was a great show, and I'm excited about all the on-the-job training i got as a young cartoonist. I will be beginning tomorrow on new stuff for DHARBIN #2!

45 photos | 508 views

items are from between 03 Oct 2008 & 07 Oct 2008.