Planet Comicon 2009

Whew... another great con. "We'll never forget this one." That's what I said many times this weekend. Matt, Laura, and I drove up in the rain Saturday morning, despite the predictions that KC was in for a snowstorm later that day. We got setup, and things were pretty slow for the first hour. But after that we were plenty busy talking to people, selling books and prints, giving away bookmarks, and doing sketches for everyone who bought something. Everyone was worried about the turnout, but the con was pretty full most of the day, even as the snow started to fall outside.

We were lucky enough to get to sit by Matt Hawkins and Kyle Strahm, two local comics guys I knew from the Comic Creators Network. Below you can see Matt, along with a sketch of him that someone requested I draw when they bought a book.


Matt was there selling a new book collection of paper toys that he and others designed called Urban Paper. You should give it a look. Check out the awesomeness below (the close-up shows the one he designed)!


Kyle Strahm was cool enough to do a Rebuker sketch for me in his style. Definitely the freakiest version of any of my characters anyone has done. I love it!

And our buddy (and fellow Joplin Sketcher) Randy Rustin was there kickin' out some crazy watercolors...

Of course, there were a ton of great costumes there. I think Laura's favorite part of the con is getting pictures of all of them.




The snow starting falling really hard. Apparently even Cobra Commander had to call and get a ride...

The craziest part of the trip for us was leaving the con and trying to find a gas station, some food, and our hotel. Even though we were on a main road, the snow was still piled up about 6-8 inches. We eventually got to our hotel, only to be thwarted by the tiny hill of the parking lot. Much pushing and shoveling ensued, and we were rescued by a well-timed snowplow. We collapsed and dried out in our hotel room, and Matt and I finished up some sketches that people were coming back for the next day.
Sunday was warmer and sunny... the roads were no problem. We arrived back at the con well rested, only to find it was even busier! This was weird since usually Sunday is dead compared to Saturday. A very good kind of weird.

I think our favorite part of the whole con was meeting so many of you there. The response to our books was really great... everyone seemed to find something that appealed to them. Here's some of the awesome people who bought our stuff...

This lady teaches teaches middle school Social Studies, and her favorite character is Wonder Woman. So of course she requested a sketch of Wonder Woman teaching Social Studies. I think she liked it.





And hey, even Ash likes our books! How cool is that?

Here's a closer of view of some sketches we did...

By Seth:













By Matt:


























So, once again this was a great con. We sold way more books than we had at any other event. We took 300 bookmarks with us and came back with none. This will definitely be a yearly tradition for us.

If you were there and stopped by... we really appreciate your support and encouragement. And we hope you stick around!

P.S. A few of you never came back for your requested sketch. If you can email me your name and what you requested, I'll snail mail those to you.