S.P.A.C.E.d Out: part 1!

Whew! We're back from our first convention as exhibitors... S.P.A.C.E. 2006 in Columbus, Ohio. And it was great! Thirteen hours on the road each way, but well worth it! Many adventures were had on the road. Nathan probably knows more about Elton and I than he ever wanted to...

Anyway, we have so much to tell you about this con. In this first part, I'm just going to show some pictures we took and talk about the people and events of the weekend. We all got a TON of incredible books that we want to tell you about, too, but that will have to wait for another post.

Here is us at our table as everyone was finishing setting up behind us (Left to right: Nathan, me, Elton). You can't really see all of our table in this shot, but we had lots of copies of the newly printed Random Ink #1, some of which we actually sold and many more of which we traded to other creators for their books (one of the coolest things about the con). We also had free postcards advertising the Rook City webcomic and Nathan's upcoming book, Alms Rook (which you will hear more about very soon). I had my portfolio there for people to look through, so they could see some stuff not featured in Random Ink yet.

The day started pretty slow, but there was an hour or two there where we had people talking to us about our book pretty constantly. I did sketches for some people who bought it, which was a lot of fun. We passed out a bunch of the postcards... a lot of people seemed pretty interested in it. The pages from the Blind Willie Johnson story in my portfolio caught a lot of people's attention... one guy even recognized him, which was crazy.

We were right next to all the guys from Kansas City. From right to left here you see Rob Schamberger, Shaun Gray, and Michelle Arcand. Not pictured (or easily seen) are Eve Englezos, Joshua E. Moutray, Kyle Strahm, Duane Cunningham, and Matt Hawkins. Duane was the only one I had actually met in person before, so it was great to finally put faces with so many names! To make their table stand out, Rob and Matt swiped a pillow and bedspread from their hotel and made it look like a bed. They're so indie...

This gentleman is Steve Hamaker, and as you can see he was situated directly behind us. One of the coolest people I got to meet at the con... he's the colorist for the Bone books, he's got a story in the next installment of Flight, and his comics are just amazing! It was really great to talk to him about Flight and his stuff. He offered me some advice on coloring, which I desperately need. Very cool guy... check out his site!

Just a shot of the con floor to give you a feel for what it looked like. It was a bit bigger than it appears here. I got to meet two other people who have been on Indie Spinner Rack. One was J.Chris Campbell, whose stuff is just amazingly original and fun. Very fun to talk to. The other was mini-comic legend Matt Feazell, a very nice guy who has obviously been doing this a long time. He's got it down. I also met Andy Runton, the creator of Owly (which I finally was able to purchase). He drew a cool sketch in it for me. I attended a panel discussion on webcomics. Didn't learn to much new info, but it was nice to talk to some other web guys and see what they're doing.

Overall, the atmosphere of this show was so great. Just so much creativity going around... I wish I could have wandered around even more. As it was, I felt bad leaving our table for more than a few short spurts. There was just a really cool vibe at this con. Someone had the brilliant idea of passing around a sketchbook with a cow theme. I think most of the artists there (including Nathan and I) sketched in it... it was crazy how great some of the stuff in there was! Things like that just added to the fun of the experience. I think we succeeded in our goal of getting our stuff out there and making connections. If anything, S.P.A.C.E. just wet our appetites for going to more cons!

Hopefully...