We're Back from Heroes Con!
Alrighty! We are back from Heroes Convention in fabulous Charlotte, NC! Before I recount my travels, allow me to take a moment to give out a big old bag of thank yous. First off, we here at TORC Press would like to thank each and every person who took a second to stop by our booth and give us a shot. It doesn't matter whether you picked up a book or just grabbed a business card, and it doesn't matter whether or not you dug the books or not (although, I hope you did). What matters is that in a busy ass convention full of great comics that you took a couple of seconds to check out a book by some guy you've never heard of, and it's that support that keeps me going. Thanks, big time.
Also, I'd like to thank all of my assorted neighbors. I've gotten pretty lucky when it comes to Comic Book Conventions, cause I always seem to end up next to really cool people. All the various folks around me were great, and I hope that me and Brother Buzz's antics weren't too annoying. Thanks again!
And lastly, before I get started, I picked up a TON of Indy books at the Con, and I will review and give info on all of them in my next post, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Whoo!
THE TRIP THERE
It was a LOOONG drive. The scenery was nice, though. We ate at Big Boy for lunch. They've got a burger that's like a Big Mac if a Big Mac was made using real ingrediants and prepared in a conventional way. Not bad. Oh, and they had a killer Hot Fudge Brownie Supreme. Entered the mountains. Tried very hard not to die. Hate the mountains, no matter how pretty they are. We went to the show first, where it took us two tries to find the Hall and three tries to get out badges. Needless to say, I was a little flustered at this stage. We decided not to bother setting up until Friday, so it was off to our hotel. Now, our hotel was... um... well, it's not the worst place I've ever stayed, but it definately was one of the worst. Bah. Ate Waffle House, watched TV, crashed. Slept poorly due to low flying airplanes, cars peeling out, and a drippy air conditioner.
FRIDAY
Get there. Set up. It's funny, but there's lots of empy slots in Artist's Alley. Are these people too good to show up? Wha? Introduce ourselves to our neighbors to the left (more on them tomorrow), and not to our neighbors on the right, cause they never showed. A quick description of the Con. It's like a third of Chicago with all of the Dealer Booths and Artist's Alley crammed into one hall. And I mean that in a good way. No big fat booths for the Big Guns dominating the entranceway. And most of the dealers sell primarily comics. Sure there's a few Video, Action Figure, and Weapon booths, but in general, COMICS are the focus of Heroes Con. Hell, the only Real Celebrity who was there was Rosario Dawson (more on her on Sunday). Anyway, things look promising. There's a HUGE line of people waiting to get in to see the show. I'm excited. The Doors open. Nothing. People whiz by my table at the speed of light every so often, and that's it. Uh-Oh. An hour goes by with no sales and barely anyone stops at the table to even browse. Big Uh-Oh. Eventually, we decide to take matters into our own hands, and start throwing out the sales pitch to anyone and everyone unlucky enough to get near our table. We finally start making some sales, and I feel a little less like a schmuck. Foot traffic is still pretty poor though, so it's hard to get people to check us out. On the bright side, no one is rude to us, and of the people who don't buy a book, most are still fairly complementary, which is good enough for my ego. I take one quick trip around the floor later in the day to scope the terrain and buy some stuff (the latest issue of Love and Rockets, Ofelia and the Little Ones, and a bunch of 70s Kirby (the original Eternals series freaking ruled!!!!). The day wraps up, and I try to hide from Bro my overall disappointment at our sales. We go to a swanky place called Latorres for supper, which is a Latin American restaraunt. I had a really great chicken dish and then followed it with Flan. Hurray for Flan! Returned to the hotel, watched TV and read comics. Crashed.
SATURDAY
It's a brand new day, and the line outside is even bigger. It's time to hit these people with a double barrel of TORC Press Mayhem! Foot traffic improves, and we unleash our sales pitch on anything and everything that gets withing rage. I say the words, "Hey, got a second to check out a comic?" so many times they lose all meaning. We get enough sales to warrant coming back next year, which is pretty kick ass. I finally ran out of pre-made sketches, and am forced to draw more. My only activity of the day is to get Gilbert "Beto" Hernandez's autograph on the latest issue of Love and Rockets. And yes, despite my better instincts, I become a slavering, monosyllabic goober in the prescence of my favorite Hernandez Bro. Oy. The day wraps up, and I is happy. We go to the far edge of town, where we eat at an Awesome Mexican Restaraunt called On the Border, and then we go to Dave and Busters, which is like a Chuck E. Cheez for Adults. Bro drinks a couple of beers, we shoot some zombies, race some cars, play some Skeeball, and earn enough tickets for a stuffed Seal and two mini yo-yos. I proudly display the seal on my car's dashboard. Back to the hotel to crash.
SUNDAY
We have ZERO expectations for Sunday. Sunday, is traditionally not a good day for Con Business. So, it's time to act silly. We prominently display our Seal on the front of the table, and dub it "The TORC Press Seal of Aprooval (dear lord, I can't think of how to spell approaval...)". Ryan spends most of the day playing with his new mini Yo-Yo. We don't bother harrassing too many people because we know we've harrassed just about everybody. We sing a lot. We dance a lot. We swap jokes with our various neighbors. We get ahold of these little finger puppets and put on a puppet show. I take time to walk the floor and buy/trade for a bunch of Indy books, and Bro goes out and buys a bunch of Punisher and Preacher trades.
Doesn't sound like we were trying very hard, right? Well, here's the wierd thing. Sales DIDN"T SUCK on SUNDAY. Hell, we made about as much on Sunday as we did on Friday. We were actually get RETURN SALES. People that dug the book but didn't have money to buy earlier were actually coming back and buying stuff. HOLY CRAP! Oh, and the sale of the convention came when:
So, Bro's playing with his little yo-yo, right? Anyway, some fella stops and says, "I'm digging the yo-yo." Then, he whips out a Pro style yo-yo and starts doing all of these kick ass tricks and stuff. And Bro tries to yo-yo along but he screws up. Anyway, turns out the dude demonstrates yo-yos for Duncan. Cripes! Then, he buys a book!!! So, we got a sale by using a yo-yo that we got for Ten tickets at Dave and Busters! How the Hell does that happen?!?!
Oh, and then, somehow, Rosario Dawson was standing behind us. Huh? She was right there, and for the life of us, me and Bro couldn't think of anything to say. She's really short. What was she doing out in Artist's Alley, behind the tables no less? Anyone?
Oh, we also saw Warren Ellis pass by our table, and Joe Queseda when we stepped out of the elevator. And no, we didn't try to sell them any books.
Pretty much crashed Sunday night.
THE DRIVE HOME
Sucked.
Anyway, that's the be all end all. All in all, after a rocky start, I had an awesome show, and I'll probably do it again next year.
Also, I'd like to thank all of my assorted neighbors. I've gotten pretty lucky when it comes to Comic Book Conventions, cause I always seem to end up next to really cool people. All the various folks around me were great, and I hope that me and Brother Buzz's antics weren't too annoying. Thanks again!
And lastly, before I get started, I picked up a TON of Indy books at the Con, and I will review and give info on all of them in my next post, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Whoo!
THE TRIP THERE
It was a LOOONG drive. The scenery was nice, though. We ate at Big Boy for lunch. They've got a burger that's like a Big Mac if a Big Mac was made using real ingrediants and prepared in a conventional way. Not bad. Oh, and they had a killer Hot Fudge Brownie Supreme. Entered the mountains. Tried very hard not to die. Hate the mountains, no matter how pretty they are. We went to the show first, where it took us two tries to find the Hall and three tries to get out badges. Needless to say, I was a little flustered at this stage. We decided not to bother setting up until Friday, so it was off to our hotel. Now, our hotel was... um... well, it's not the worst place I've ever stayed, but it definately was one of the worst. Bah. Ate Waffle House, watched TV, crashed. Slept poorly due to low flying airplanes, cars peeling out, and a drippy air conditioner.
FRIDAY
Get there. Set up. It's funny, but there's lots of empy slots in Artist's Alley. Are these people too good to show up? Wha? Introduce ourselves to our neighbors to the left (more on them tomorrow), and not to our neighbors on the right, cause they never showed. A quick description of the Con. It's like a third of Chicago with all of the Dealer Booths and Artist's Alley crammed into one hall. And I mean that in a good way. No big fat booths for the Big Guns dominating the entranceway. And most of the dealers sell primarily comics. Sure there's a few Video, Action Figure, and Weapon booths, but in general, COMICS are the focus of Heroes Con. Hell, the only Real Celebrity who was there was Rosario Dawson (more on her on Sunday). Anyway, things look promising. There's a HUGE line of people waiting to get in to see the show. I'm excited. The Doors open. Nothing. People whiz by my table at the speed of light every so often, and that's it. Uh-Oh. An hour goes by with no sales and barely anyone stops at the table to even browse. Big Uh-Oh. Eventually, we decide to take matters into our own hands, and start throwing out the sales pitch to anyone and everyone unlucky enough to get near our table. We finally start making some sales, and I feel a little less like a schmuck. Foot traffic is still pretty poor though, so it's hard to get people to check us out. On the bright side, no one is rude to us, and of the people who don't buy a book, most are still fairly complementary, which is good enough for my ego. I take one quick trip around the floor later in the day to scope the terrain and buy some stuff (the latest issue of Love and Rockets, Ofelia and the Little Ones, and a bunch of 70s Kirby (the original Eternals series freaking ruled!!!!). The day wraps up, and I try to hide from Bro my overall disappointment at our sales. We go to a swanky place called Latorres for supper, which is a Latin American restaraunt. I had a really great chicken dish and then followed it with Flan. Hurray for Flan! Returned to the hotel, watched TV and read comics. Crashed.
SATURDAY
It's a brand new day, and the line outside is even bigger. It's time to hit these people with a double barrel of TORC Press Mayhem! Foot traffic improves, and we unleash our sales pitch on anything and everything that gets withing rage. I say the words, "Hey, got a second to check out a comic?" so many times they lose all meaning. We get enough sales to warrant coming back next year, which is pretty kick ass. I finally ran out of pre-made sketches, and am forced to draw more. My only activity of the day is to get Gilbert "Beto" Hernandez's autograph on the latest issue of Love and Rockets. And yes, despite my better instincts, I become a slavering, monosyllabic goober in the prescence of my favorite Hernandez Bro. Oy. The day wraps up, and I is happy. We go to the far edge of town, where we eat at an Awesome Mexican Restaraunt called On the Border, and then we go to Dave and Busters, which is like a Chuck E. Cheez for Adults. Bro drinks a couple of beers, we shoot some zombies, race some cars, play some Skeeball, and earn enough tickets for a stuffed Seal and two mini yo-yos. I proudly display the seal on my car's dashboard. Back to the hotel to crash.
SUNDAY
We have ZERO expectations for Sunday. Sunday, is traditionally not a good day for Con Business. So, it's time to act silly. We prominently display our Seal on the front of the table, and dub it "The TORC Press Seal of Aprooval (dear lord, I can't think of how to spell approaval...)". Ryan spends most of the day playing with his new mini Yo-Yo. We don't bother harrassing too many people because we know we've harrassed just about everybody. We sing a lot. We dance a lot. We swap jokes with our various neighbors. We get ahold of these little finger puppets and put on a puppet show. I take time to walk the floor and buy/trade for a bunch of Indy books, and Bro goes out and buys a bunch of Punisher and Preacher trades.
Doesn't sound like we were trying very hard, right? Well, here's the wierd thing. Sales DIDN"T SUCK on SUNDAY. Hell, we made about as much on Sunday as we did on Friday. We were actually get RETURN SALES. People that dug the book but didn't have money to buy earlier were actually coming back and buying stuff. HOLY CRAP! Oh, and the sale of the convention came when:
So, Bro's playing with his little yo-yo, right? Anyway, some fella stops and says, "I'm digging the yo-yo." Then, he whips out a Pro style yo-yo and starts doing all of these kick ass tricks and stuff. And Bro tries to yo-yo along but he screws up. Anyway, turns out the dude demonstrates yo-yos for Duncan. Cripes! Then, he buys a book!!! So, we got a sale by using a yo-yo that we got for Ten tickets at Dave and Busters! How the Hell does that happen?!?!
Oh, and then, somehow, Rosario Dawson was standing behind us. Huh? She was right there, and for the life of us, me and Bro couldn't think of anything to say. She's really short. What was she doing out in Artist's Alley, behind the tables no less? Anyone?
Oh, we also saw Warren Ellis pass by our table, and Joe Queseda when we stepped out of the elevator. And no, we didn't try to sell them any books.
Pretty much crashed Sunday night.
THE DRIVE HOME
Sucked.
Anyway, that's the be all end all. All in all, after a rocky start, I had an awesome show, and I'll probably do it again next year.
1 Comments:
You should of totally traded her comics for tits. Or elaborated on the benelovence of flan. Or espoused the popular pasttime of women's college softball, and than said, "Fifth Inning! Time to douche." I'm glad you had fun. The mountains are crazy to drive. Did you go through tunnels or did you end up going around those?
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