THANK YOU everyone who stopped by my table and bought my art at the ST. LOUIS COMIC CON (or Mighty Con St. Louis, depending on which confused individual you are talking to.) I am incredibly beat after a packed weekend sitting behind a table doing nothing but talking. You would think that that wouldn’t wear someone out but, here we are…
Here are some highlights of the weekend…
1) It’s impossible to predict what will be the best selling thing on my table from one con to the next, but this weekend the crowd was all over my comics. I probably sold more comics than I have in the past couple of conventions combined. Everything else for sale on my table? Not so much.
2) Although I didn’t sell many “Frik’in Cosplay” drawings this time around, there were no clear favorites because I only sold one of each of the ones that did sell.
3) Along with selling my art, I was also heavily promoting my children’s art classes that I teach in St. Louis. I probably handed out 40 cards to families, so I hope to see some of them in my fall classes! One thing I discovered by passing these cards out is that the Midwest is starving for comic conventions. There were people from all over who came to this thing who didn’t live in Missouri. One family was from Wichita, another from Oklahoma, and several others were just a couple hours away in every direction.
4) One cool thing about the above is that a family approached my table early this morning and I asked how old their kids were and the mom told me they actually came to the convention specifically to talk to me about my classes. Another family I talked to actually lives in the same area I do and had seen me posting about my classes on the community page on Facebook. So it’s nice to see word getting out and people remembering me!
4) Speaking of former students, two kids that I’ve taught many classes to over the past year and a half or more came to my table to say hi. It was great talking to their parents because I don’t get to do much of that while teaching. I think these two kids have taken the most of my classes out of all the kids I’ve taught.
5) Somewhere on the other end of the convention hall a vendor was blasting music the entire weekend. The problem was it wasn’t loud enough for my end of the room to hear it fully. I turned it into a “Name that tune” game based on the only thing I could hear clearly, which was the bass guitar. I figured out a good chunk of the songs. The things we do to amuse our self while sitting behind a table all weekend.
6) I knocked out a few more thumbnail pages for my comic, THE NORMLINGS, issue 3!
7) For the first time that I recall, someone gave me a tip. They bought a $4 item and gave me a $5 and told me to keep the change. I don’t have a tip jar so tipping never happens. I just wanted to let the person know that I used that $1 to buy a gas station hotdog after the con closed on Saturday night. Thanks for the meal!
8) I talked to some teen/early 20s siblings who are growing up in the same small town I grew up in as a kid that’s south of St. Louis. I mentioned how I fled that area the second I turned 18 because my philosophy of life did not gel with everyone else down there. One of the kids looked at the others and said, “See, HE gets us!” So I’m not the only one it seems.
9) Still haven’t managed to sell the other four original hand drawn pieces of art that turned into my Frik Demotivational Posters. The first one sold about 4 years ago but haven’t found people who love these four enough who would want to buy them. The hunt continues.
10) And lastly, unexpected and shocking, I actually ran into one of my best friends from middle school / high school who I haven’t seen in probably 25 years. What is funny about this is her kid came up to my table first, and as I’m talking to him, I hear loudly about 10 feet down the aisle, “Holy sh*t is that you?!” After we gave each other a big hug, I congratulated her on being the first person I’ve heard cussing loudly at a convention in front of children. It was GREAT catching up with her and she was definitely the last person I would expect to run into at a St. Louis based comic convention since she now lives out of town.
Thank you for reading!
T