Last week was fuckin crazy.
Wednesday
we did our usuall book signing at Steve’s Comic Releief and as usual nobody showed up and we ended up getting drunk in the store with Ray (the store guy) and a few other people.
Thursday
we went to NYC to set up our Booth at the NYC Comicon . When we got there we brought our stuff in and found out that even though we supposedly got the same small press package as last year, this year the table and chairs weren’t included.
And for only 85 more dollars we could get a table ($230 for one with a skirt) and if we needed chairs to sit in, all we would have to pay was a mere $65 a piece for them.
It was such agreat deal that I decided to go to the head office and thank them personally for giving it to me.
For some reason they avoided me.
So we went back to NJ on the way back I finally got in touch with one of the convention people, explained to them that The contract I signed (which I still had) stated that each small press booth came with a table and two chairs. They informed me that that was the old contract and that they changed the contract since then and that they wouldn’t honor the old one any more. Since I didn’t have a copy of the “signed” contract (the one I mailed to them) and they couldn’t find a copy of the signed contract (of course), I would just have to deal with it.
So we went to a bar, got drunk went to Walmart and bought a table and chairs ($40 for the table and $20 for four chairs) and went to bed.
Friday came we got to the Comicon around 9am, brought in our own table and chairs. Set it all up, handed a copy of the contract out to all the other small press booths. It was a good thin I accidentally made 100 copies of it because some of the small press companies weren’t as happy as we were that they had to spend an extra couple hundred dollars at the last minute for a table and chairs.
Friday
Friday at the Comicon in called Professional Day, what that means is that on Friday before the con starts they let in only Professional People (media, book store owners, distributors) people who can generally come by your table and help you get your product out.
But usually all that comes in are shitty (teachers, librarians, website owners)
And these people generally come by your table hoping to get free stuff by making you think they can help you get your product out. And while they are grubbing stuff from you they are blocking the table so the important people who can help you can’t see you.
I hate them.
Then at 4pm the con starts, fans come in and shit goes crazy. At our table Sergio Zuniga (Undercore Comics), Ryan Jones (Counter Culture Comics) and Mike , Kim, Jeff and I drank some beer and sold some stuff. It was fun.
Saturday
Nobody really got any sleep Friday night. So we were all pretty cranky. We got to the con, set up the table. They wouldn’t let Mike, Kim or Jeff in until 10 am because the Comicon idiots fucked up the badges and wrote Professional on them instead of exhibitor. Luckily Sergio was there and he set the table up.
We ate some Hero sandwiches and drank some strong ass coffee and got the day goin a little better.
Mike Dianna came in with a bunch of his new comics and a bunch of his old stuff. It is amazing the amount of shit this guy had to go through just because some closed minded uptight cunts thought his comic was offensive. He is one of the nicest guys I have ever met and his comics are some of the funniest I have read in my life.
He sold a good amount of books and had a good time, we drank some more beer and then Smokey (Undercore Comics) and his friends arrived. We sold many books, met a lot of cool people and had a great day.
Later we all went to a bar called ( I forgot) it was an empty Irish bar. We were joined by a few other creators and Damien from the Living Dead Dolls. We found some old Slayer on the juke box and got wasted.
Sunday
We were all hungover, we sold a bunch of crap. I got interviewed for some animation TV show, I met with the Village Voice and they want me to come back to New York in a few weeks so they can do a story on Angry Drunk Graphics and how we are helping artists whose stuff is more offensive than the normal cookie cutter offensive stuff that you can buy at Hot Topic sell their books.
All in all it was a pretty good weekend.
But the NYC comicon is really more about toys and video games than comics, so if you are into comics, especially odd ones you should stay away.
