Post-Armageddon 07
It's been just over 2 weeks since the Armageddon 2007 - Melbourne pop culture convention weekend and boy have I been knackered and trying to recuperate ever since. Overall, I had a fantastic weekend, caught up with both new and familiar faces, sold lots of comics and would have to declare it a great success! Big thanks goes out to Bill and everyone who help organised a great show!!
Picked up all the print run of Knight-Edge #4 on Friday morning. I had a bit of anxiety because the first proof copy they showed me had pages all out of order and hadn't seen any more copies until Friday but I'm really happy with the production quality and pretty much exceeded my expectations. Got a couple of safety vest from Bunnings and picked up Felicity next. We headed over to the Melbourne Convention Centre to set up our table in the afternoon and got that over and done with in less than an hour. Our table was positioned right in the middle of the Comics Creator's aisle and we shared the partitioned space with a fellow local comic creator named Jason Franks (Blackglass Press). Right in front, our view faced more dreary blue partition walls. Little did I know that would be the least of my worries come opening the next day...
Saturday morning, we got to the convention centre right on time at quarter to 9am. We met Jason for the first time and had to re-setup our table together since 2 x 1.5m wide tables were obviously not going to fit in a 2.5m wide partitioned space! My first impression of the convention itself was that it wasn't all that big in terms of the space it occupied. Probably 2/3 of the size of Supanova Sydney 06 out in Homebush. Both the stage and theatres were on level 2, separate from the convention floor itself.
Talked with Jason quite a bit, for me Knight-Edge did fairly well for most of the morning and early afternoon. Jason had faired better in the afternoon with his comics than me from memory. What was challenging for us though was that the THQ booth was diagonally opposite us to our right and they had wrestling video game commentaries repeatedly over us all throughout the weekend. I was fascinated watching the Dynasty Warriors: Gundam game from afar at the beginning but I couldn't look over at that direction by the end of the day!
While I wouldn't call it a highlight of the day, former Australian Idol, Bobby Flynn, came by our table at one point. I'm not sure if Jason knew who he was (and I knew Felicity didn't know and quite frankly, didn't care) but we both just asked him how he was and he did the same. He didn't buy anything from us but I think the comic book with the guitar on the cover called Rockstar Pizza that Jason's self-published really caught his eye (as the cover did a lot of others over the weekend).
Was too buggered by the end of Saturday to socialise with any of the comics people. Although no one really said where they were going or didn't tell us (with the exception of Adam Briggs, who I never did end up calling back later either). It was kinda weird to just go home and crash rather than go back to a hotel and crash, which is usually what happens every other comic convention I've been to before.
Sunday, the morning started off really slow and I noticed the crowd was a bit different to Saturday's, as it seemed more family oriented. When a couple of kids came over started asking for sketches, I knew I had to change my game plan and try and sell my comics a bit more today. After having not drawing any sketches the day before, I did about 5 sketch requests on Sunday, two of which were caricatures. The most encouraging moment for me was when a guy who had brought Knight-Edge #1 earlier in the morning came back in the afternoon and told he that he liked it! In fact, a few folks browsed early and made good on their promise to come back and bought a few of my bundle specials!! All these moments really made my weekend. Oh oh and Colin Wilson, one of my local idols, came by and said that he like my Trigger story, too!!
The Swag (Comics I got): Amazing Joy Buzzards #5, Dicks #1-3, Hard Words, Isolation Room, Junk, Rockstar Pizza, Something Weird #3, and Vienna vol. 1-3. And something non-Aussie, I also picked up Adam Warren's Empowered vol. 2 as well as a Gundam X GX-9900 figure!
Things I didn't get: like talking with Bruce Timm, didn't get to meet Billy West, didn't get to talk to a lot of other Aussie creators as much as I'd like to, didn't get to see the new version of The List or pick up anything from the OzSlaught crew.
The numbers: for those interested in figures and such, I sold 74 comic books over the 2 day weekend with the attendance is said to be just over 10,000! My min. hope was to sell around 30 comics or so since this was the first major comic convention here in Melbourne since the last OzCon I think. Comparison-wise, Supanova Brisbane 04 still remains my best convention yet in terms of sales and overall satisfaction (one kid bought the first issue in the morning, told me he read it at lunch and came back to buy the other issues!). Still aiming to sell over 100 comics one of these days.
Next: try to work on new artwork for the upcoming Just Looking group gallery exhibition and artwork & designs for the beat'em up game that I'm making with my mate Josh!!