New York Comic Con!

Last week I had my first Comic Con experience!


I shared a table at New York Comic Con with my good friends Noah Bradley (left) and Marc Scheff (top) from Awesome Horse Studios. Photo courtesy of Irene Gallo.

I was going to write out a huge list of tips like I usually do, but our friend and left-hand booth neighbor Kiri Ø. Leonard beat me to it! And she did a great recap, with good advice for first-time exhibitors. Read about her 10 Things She Learned at NYCC.

Instead, I'm going to sum up the 4 day art extravaganza and share some personal experiences through the majesty of captioned photographs.


Every convention starts weeks or months in advance with good decent planning.
We discussed what we were going to bring and drew up a little table plan before the con... of course, we thought the tables were going to be 2 feet wider than they actually were, so our setup ended up being quite different.


Wednesday Night: I measure some foam core board in Marc's studio while Tim Paul makes custom wallets.
After arriving in NYC, we got straight to work making tiered foam board stands for our prints. Thanks for the idea, Tim!


Thursday Morning: We arrived at Javits Center, along with Marc's assistant Alex, and set up our display.


All done with setup! Posing at our table just before the doors opened on Thursday.
Sharing a 6-foot table among three people meant we needed to maximize our vertical space. We were guilty of a bit of "visual vomit" (too much disorganized clutter), but since we were treating the Con as a fun learning experience, we rolled with it.


Me and Noah looking suave and/or cheeky...


Sushi dinner with artist Kiri Ø. Leonard and art director Lauren Panepinto
Work hard, play hard. Just like any convention, evenings are for hanging out with friends and colleagues. Not pictured here: the alcohol.


Friday Morning: I pose next to Marc's banner with Kiri. The banners, much like the rest of our setup, were fastened together with duct tape and wishes.
I decided Friday was going to be dress-up day. Coincidentally I also had my best sales day... ha! Anyway, things got so hectic starting right after this photo was taken that we barely have any photo record of the next 48 hours. To paint a very small picture: Javits Center was PACKED wall-to-wall with attendees for the remainder of the con. The recorded numbers topped 116,000 for the whole weekend. WOW.


Saturday Afternoon: Posing with Dan Warren (center) and Dave Rapoza (far right) from Crimson Daggers.


Sunday, at last! And coffee. Delicious, delicious coffee.

All told, we had lots of fun and did well with sales. I'm really looking forward to the possibility of doing NYCC again next year!