JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I have exhibited at a few Comic Conventions in the past decade but most have been in San Francisco, where I live, and all have been in California. When exhibiting out of town (so far, only at COMIC CON) there has always been a VAN to load my stuff into (driven by Rhode). But this weekend, for the first time, I will be exhibiting out of state, at EMERALD CITY CON in Seattle, so I had to pack my books for a FLIGHT, which I have never done before. My thinking was that making the kit as portable as possible would be the way to go, as the easier it is to take the show on the road, the more likely I will be to do it again in future… and I like that idea.

I recently bought a rolling trunk for away-teams to long shows out of town (such as Comic Con) but I don’t really sell much in two-day shows so, while I was tempted to use my new trunk for this trip, I opted for a roll-aboard carry-on bag stuffed full of my wares. This thing is designed to carry about 8 pounds of socks and undies but at the moment it is jammed with about 55 pounds of books and is definitely the heaviest carry-on bag of all time.

Other than the rolling brick, I have a small duffel bag and a folio-case containing my new vinyl BANNERS. It is strange that I have never made these before. Rhode and I usually hand-make the booth-decorations for each show, but having a more portable and durable display will be key from now on.. To make my kit complete, I still need to buy some lightweight banner-STANDS for those shows that do not provide a backboard. In the past, I have used an EASEL for this purpose but they are bulky and have a huge footprint that is inconvenient in cramped booth spaces.

If you are in Seattle this weekend (March 13/14) come by the EMERALD CITY con where I will be sharing a booth with TED MATHOT and DEREK THOMPSON. It would be nice to find out that I needed to pack more stuff to sell. Selling out would be a GOOD problem to have.

Here is an old drawing of SEPHILINA that I recently made a new Background for, to sell it as an 11X14 print at comic conventions. I’m still fiddling with it, but here is what I have so far.

You are welcome to download this mini for free.

Over the past few months, I have formulated a bunch of ideas for mini-comics and longer stories, all in various stages of completion. Just last week it occurred to me that I needed to get something in production for APE. Here is the KAT & TELLY mini comic I made for this Year’s Alternative Press Expo, which happened this past weekend.

After a few days of wondering which idea to actually do (a common problem for me) I started drawing KAT & TELLY in earnest on Tuesday morning (based on some drawings and ideas that had been frying in the brain-pan for sometime) and finally finished the last drawing in the wee small hours of Saturday morning. I had intended to print the books myself at home but, as the sun rose on Saturday morning, that plan was aborted due to yet another bout of printer trouble (the combination of a prima donna printer and a procrastinating cartoonist has been fatal for many CON projects in the past).

Thankfully, I was able to run down to the copy place a few blocks away, and get this mini printed out in a matter of minutes (on my own paper) and then hop a cab to the con, where folding and stapling completed the package in time for the minis to go on sale at 11 am.

This year, Rhode was unable to be a part of the show as he is out of town. However, he had already left a stash of his product at my place here in SF and I was able to load a stripped down inventory of both his and my stuff onto ONE luggage dolly and get it all to the show myself. Rhode’s pal Paul was able to help out with manning the booth.

UPDATE:
the book itself is online HERE:

This was probably my best show ever, largely due to the intense socialising I did this year, in what was certainly the most tiring show I have ever done. I am still dealing with the cumulative sleep deprivation of a week of fun.

And yet, there is a strange love/hate aspect of going to Comic Con that is hard to pin down. Each time I go, I have so much fun, and yet it can be an overwhelming and even frustrating experience as well. I think that no matter where you are on the nerd-spectrum, from super-nerd to barely-nerd, there will be moments of joy and pleasure at Comic Con and moments where you have reached your threshold and want out, ASAP…

In the years I have been going, first as an attendee and more recently as an exhibitor, COMIC CON INTERNATIONAL has grown exponentially into a huge media event, and lately it seems that the hokey and home made quality that I used to love about it is being crowded out by the huge, the corporate and the slick.

While on the one hand it is wonderful to see nerd culture being embraced by the mainstream and even Hollywood, it also makes the event so huge that it becomes a chore to attend. Simply finding the booths that you want to see, even those that you have known about in advance, is so very hard that it sucks all the fun out of the room sometimes.

Moreover, The focus has shifted away from the comics and the artists themselves to media promotion, movies, games, celebrity panels, and limited edition collectibles. A better name for the show that Comic Con has become would be MEDIA CON. Comics seem to be the last thing on people’s minds these days.

But I love going there. I enjoy seeing certain friends who I only ever see at these events. I enjoy wandering around the hall and seeing the beautifully made figurines, the original artwork, the prints the life sized maquettes… I love all of it even though I am not a collector (I got more than my fair share of nerd genes but I did not get the COLLECTOR gene).

Even though I do not collect toys or artwork, I enjoy seeing them. Being able to go to a dealer booth and see original artwork, drawn by my art-heroes, and hold it in my own hands and see the brush strokes is a real charge for a comics dork such as myself. One of my favourite things in the world is to see the work of human hands, and for that reason, I love Comic Con. It also explains why I get a kick out of all the fans in costume, both the shoddy home-made and dorky outfits and the beautifully hand-crafted ones are both a testament to the fan-love that drove the event in the first place.

Some people I know have always expressed embarrassment at the fans in costume, as if they lower the tone, but for me that has always been the heart and soul of the event. Without them it is just a huge room full of people buying stuff. With them in attendance there is some sense of fun and pageantry and, more importantly, an expression of the joy of being there not for profit but just for fun.

This year Rhode and I tipped our hats to the home-made and hokey quality of con-culture when we adorned our booth with a giant home-made tin-foil robot and dressed ourselves in cheesy outfits with tin-foil trim and retro/future shades. It was very much the “plan 9 from outer space” aesthetic at our booth this time around.

Our concept was that we had brought the robot back from a future time where human beings no longer make comics, instead Robots do all the work and the handmade artwork is a thing of the past. We had no idea if this facetious and silly concept would work, or if we would just make idjits of ourselves, but we were gratified to see that many people actually got a kick out of the home-made and cheesy quality of our booth.

Rhode deserves ALL the credit for constructing the robot. Although we both hatched the concept on the drive home from the 2006 show (the show where we dressed up as sleazy salesmen) I was not able to participate in the construction of the robot. That was all done in Stockton by Rhode, while I was at my apartment in San Francisco, locked in a epic clash of wills with my stubborn printer, in an attempt to crank out prints to sell.

For all the reasons listed above, plus the escalation in costs of being an exhibitor (I have never even come close to making back my costs at Comic Con) Rhode and I are not sure whether we will continue to do the show in future… or perhaps we will opt for a smaller cheaper exhibition space next time.

Last weekend I flew from Portland to Seattle for the Emerald City Comic Con. It was the first time since around 2002 that I have gone to a comic Convention as an attendee rather than an exhibitor and I had a lovely time. The inspiration for the trip was to see my pals Ted and Derek, (exhibiting at this particular show for the first time) but I was also keen to meet up with my old pal Brian who lives in Seattle and whom I had not seen in many years.

Everyone agreed that this was wonderful show. Bay Area exhibitors claimed that their sales were much more than they were expecting and that they all preferred this con over recent experiences at Wondercon… Apart from that, it was just pleasant to attend; lots of great costumes (Hellboy Jr, and Kid Abe Sapien were highlights) and a fun, cheerful atmosphere.

Cons are a great chance to catch up with people, even those whom I see often. I regret not being able to spend more time with everyone but you can only fit so much socialising into a weekend… In fact, we were already talking abut the logistics of socialising at COMIC CON which is only a few months away… Chris Turnham (a co-worker at LAIKA) was also exhibiting with his friend Kevin Dart and their booth was right next door to Ted & Derek’s. It was great to see their work. There were some also some OTHER familiar faces on deck:

Like all my exhibitor pals, Ted & Derek were pretty much chair-bound at the con. I saw them for Breakfast and dinner each day but in between times I wandered about the city, SOLO. The weather was so unbelievably pretty that I simply HAD to get outside (working in Portland has taught me to make the most of sunshine when it comes my way). A highlight of these explorations was the Science Fiction Museum, which houses the impressive memorabilia stash of Paul Allen (of Microsoft). The collection includes Captain Kirk’s chair, A full size Spinner (from Blade Runner) and blasters, phasers, and laser pistols from every Sci-Fi movie and TV show you could name. Luckily for me, Every nerd for a 500 mile radius was at the Emerald City Comic Con, so I more or less had the museum to myself and was able to take my time perusing a Billionaire’s geek-stash at my leisure..

Finding dinner without walking all over the place is hard at cons, and Saturday was no exception to that rule. I take some of the blame for it his time, as the first place we entered was wall-to-wall punch-able faces and I decreed that we would have to eat elsewhere… Thanks to Brian & Heather’s local knowledge, we were taken to a very cosy pub with great food. We all agreed that the long walk to SMITH was well worth it. The quality of the appetisers (Deep fried pork shoulder with chimichurri and a serving of Sweet potato fries) hinted that we’d be in for a treat when the main courses showed up… and indeed we were.

Seattle reminds me of other Bayside cities that I love; San Francisco, Vancouver, Sydney, Hong Kong, Macau… there is just something about Harbour Cities… Perhaps the rhythms of the tidal water gives these places a special vitality… When on the ferry to Bainbridge Island I had a visceral memory-flash of riding the Manly Ferry across Sydney Harbour… a journey I often made when I first moved to Sydney from my home town. But while the journey from Sydney’s Circlular Quay to the Northern suburb of Manly takes the passenger towards sandy white beaches, the Bainbridge Ferry is headed for snow capped mountains…

It also occurred to me, while wandering around Pioneer Square on Sunday, that it is EXACTLY 20 years since I was last in Seattle. March/April 1989… when I first came to the USA as a back-packing traveler. I hadn’t thought of the time-line until seeing some buildings brought some memories back to me. After tracking down one or two familiar places, I headed back to the CON to reconnoiter with my cronies. Selling out of their stock allowed Ted & Derek the luxury of an early departure from the CON and made it possible for us to have a leisurely FEAST OF CON-OVER with Brian and Heather at The Alibi Room down by the Pike Place market, before our respective flights left that evening. The delicious pizzas (Grape & Blue Cheese, and Chicken Sausage & Basil) were a very tasty end to a satisfying weekend.

This year, I didn’t have a new book, despite my best efforts. That is two shows in a row I’ve exhibited at with no new product, so that trend has to STOP. A for my booth-partner Rhode, he’d planned to have some new sculpts for sale and got the sculpt and castings done, but technical difficulties (with the paint) made that product a non-starter too, though he had a great “coming soon” prototype to show off (Comic Con 2009, will hopefully be where the real thing will go on sale). This year Wondercon was fun, as it always is, and much better attended than expected, given the economy being in tough shape, but this time around the show was all about the food.

Thursday, just after setting up our booth and collecting our booth-badges, a group of us old con-cronies head off to Mi Lindo Peru in the Mission district for some tasty Peruvian food, chased down with a visit to the crowd-pleasing Mitchell’s Ice cream.

Friday, both attendance and sales were slow, but that was more than made up for by a meal at Henry’s Hunan and then a visit to the Cartoon Art Museum. I was geeking out hard on all the fantastic artwork on display; Gene Colan’s pencils, inked pages by Will Eisner and George Herriman… and then I walked around the corner and found the WATCHMEN display. Page after page of fantastic artwork from the comic book including some fantastic thumbnails that Dave Gibbons used to plan his black spottings PLUS some artwork, props and costumes from the upcoming film.

Saturday attendance was crazy; just like Comic-Con. Sales were good and we celebrated by going to Zante’s for some Indian Pizza. That place is great, but for the first time ever the restaurant was insanely crowded, due to there being a large group already there for a birthday party. The food was worth the wait, however, and we then went to Mitchell’s a second time. Later, in my stomach, the ice cream took on the role of Cobra and the Indian food became Mongoose, and they battled it out through the night.

Sunday was a pretty typical day of moderate sales, leaving me time to up some purchases of my own, including the new book from GHOSTBOT (first time exhibitors!)and CORA by Ted Mathot (both of which are great books). Rhode and I managed to pack down the booth and make our getaway in record time and a large part of our motivation was to be on time for a rendezvous at the Schnitzel Haus. What followed was a meal so hearty, fun and filling, that it became dubbed the inaugural Feast Of CONover. I look forward to the next!

This is a sketch I did during this year’s APE show. Rafael Navarro has been keeping a CAPTAIN AMERICA sketchbook where he asks other people to draw his favourite super-hero, and this was my contribution. In retrospect, I should have drawn Captain America with Barack Obama’s face!