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.

Headin' to KC

Well, we will be at Planet Comicon in Kansas City tomorrow and Sunday. If you're anywhere near there, we hope you brave the snow and make it out to it. It's a dang fun show, and we'd love to see you there!

Check back here for con photos in a few days...

Splattering ink with friends

If you haven't checked out Stefan Bucher's The Daily Monster, you need to. It's a creativity exercise where he splatters some ink, blows it around with compressed air, and turns into something interesting. We enjoyed making a mess with this on Saturday's Sketch Night. We had our biggest turnout so far, and everyone cranked out some crazy, fun stuff... check it out.

Hurley Con Wrap-up

Yesterday's Hurley Con was even more fun than last year. And last year was pretty dang fun. This year there was twice as much floor space and more than double the attendees. It's turning into a really great con, especially considering the size of Joplin. All four of us were there. Above you can see (left to right) Matt Meyers, Elton Gahr, Dusty Roberts (in the back), and me.

This was Matt's first ever time selling his stuff at a con, and he did great! His book, Decaying Death, was our best-selling book of the day. Not bad for your first book, huh?

In total, we had three new books to show off. Matt had his Sketchings #2, as well as the previously mentioned book. And all four of us worked on the new Random Ink #2, which was also our very first full-color comic. It sold well, and people really seemed to dig the cover.

We also had four posters to sell and ton of bookmarks that we gave away. Traffic was steady pretty much all day. A big "thank you" to all of you that stopped by! Some of you even mentioned this blog.


We did a ton of sketches all day long, since they were free with any purchase. Below you can see Matt sketching the villain from the upcoming Decaying Death #2. This is one of the best parts of the convention... getting these quick little assignments from people. Everything from our characters to Iron Man to an eyeball to a robotic elephant trapped in a water bottle. One of my students challenged me with that last one, believe it or not.
Overall, it felt like we took some big steps forward this year. More books, more stuff, better presentation, and more creators. We had a blast and the day seemed to fly by. Afterward, we got to hang out with some of the other local comics guys, and we talked about trying to do some more stuff together.

Don't worry... online previews of all these new books I mentioned are on their way. Stay tuned.

Next up... Kansas City Planet Comicon!