MeCAF Report
Originally published at RKdia Comics. You can comment here or there.
The 3rd annual Maine Comics Arts Festival was held yesterday at the Ocean Gateway in Portland, Maine yesterday! This show doubled in size after it’s first year and I’ve been to every single one! This year was my very first year tabling on my own at the event, joined by the very talented Carl Mefferd and Jesse Durona, both recent graduates of the Center for Cartoon Studies class of 2011!
This was my very first profitable convention. The traffic all day was steady and my sales were made via my collection of sketch cards. I started the day with 18 original sketch cards of various characters from pop culture, movies, games, comics etc. and I found myself very quickly taking on commissions for characters I had not drawn. These lead to sales of my Heroes Versus Villains poster print, which was the big earner.
Sadly, I didn’t sell any comics and only traded one away at the very end of the show. Still, I have lots of copies still for sale at my store. Grab one if you didn’t get the chance at the show!
The great thing about MeCAF is the familiarity of it. So many of the people have come back each of the 3 years it’s like a big family reunion for cartoonists! Here’s a look at some of the people I had a chance to talk to again after quite some time away!
My table neighbors (teighbors?) Maris Wicks and Joe Quinones. They’re a great couple of cartoonists and were super awesome to table next to! They both came to CCS a few years ago and did portfolio reviews as well, so it was good to see them at the same time again. Maris has done MeCAF all 3 years now!
CCS was a big part of MeCAF, as it has been since it’s first year. Here we have a look at the CCS fort being held down by recent graduate Kevin Uehlein and Alumni Caitlin Plovnick.
More CCS Alumni love! Here’s Morgan Pielli tabling next to Colleen Frakes and John Chad (behind, talking with Jesse Durona!) Morgan recently moved to NYC so it was good to see him again. Funny how he left Vermont, THEN grew a beard. *shrug*
A string of great Vermont/CCS cartoonists! Jen Vaughn, Nomi Kane and Matt Aucoin on the far right, followed by Penina Gal and Denis St. John with Team Werewolf! Finally, Colin Tedford and Marek Bennett of the Trees and Hills anthology group!
Art School Fraud’s Matt Young and Chris “Radical” Warren! Listen to their podcast!
Cathy Leamy of the Boston Comics Roundtable group, who I last saw at MICE, back in the fall. I hope to see her and her super fun comics again at this years MICE! Behind here are more members of the BCRT.
The always cheery, always amazing Colleen AF Venable. Her children’s comic series, Guinea Pig from Graphic Universe, is great fun and drawn by the stellar Stephanie Yue! Check them out!
All in all, MeCAF was the best show of the year for me and really re-invigorated my comics batteries! I’m super excited now to get back to work. The show kept us all busy, and while I didn’t have much time to meet n’ greet with any new faces, I did get to see a lot of old friends and sell a lot of original sketch cards! I hope all that bough a poster or sketch are happy with their art and will come back for more in the future. I look forward to next year!
-RD