Heroes Con 2010 – Day 2

Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.  Friday was a bit slow at Heroes Con ’10, but Saturday morning was busy, busy, busy.  I still feel like I’m not selling as much stuff, but I think a lot of that has to do with my not having minis this year.  Instead of people buying a two or three dollar mini every 15 minutes, I’m selling a ten or fifteen dollar graphic novel every hour… and that ain’t bad.

As per usual at Heroes, original art is selling well.  In fact, if I’d known I’d be getting a full six foot table, I’d have brought some original pages.  I thought I was really getting ahead of the game yesterday by using some Friday down time to do some quick five dollar superhero sketches, but I sold all but one buy the end of the day Friday, and first thing today, I sold the final drawing (Deadman).  It was doing sketchbooks, sketchbooks, sketchbooks throughout the morning (rock on, Heroes Con!) and didn’t get a break until almost one in the afternoon.

Here’s a Multiple Man commission:

…and a Dr. Strange commission (the sketchbook theme was People Eating/Preparing to Eat Stuff):

I did eventually start some non-commissioned superhero sketches and will hopefully have a few of them available and inked tomorrow morning.

The Dollar Bin jam page was looking awesome. The art auction is going on now as I type this.  I hope this thing fetched a decent chunk of change:

Our “Defective Comics” panel was a big success I think.  We had a great turn-out and I was impressed by how many people stuck around for the presentations after the “celebrity panel” was over.  If you left early, you missed Craig’s snippet of Rat Fink a Boo Boo.  Your loss, my friend.  Evan Dorkin was in a particularly prickly humor for the panel… but since there was audio recorded that will likely surface shortly, I’ll say no more about that.

The comics press was out in force, which is great.  I semi-drunkenly spoke with “Mr.Phil” from Indie Spinner Rack last night at the Westin bar and ran into Heidi MacDonald, Tim O’Shea and Johanna Draper Carlson today on the floor.  Tom Spurgeon is apparently here as well, although I’d not recognize him by site.

After the show I went to some of my old Charlotte friends’ house for a great home cooked/grilled meal.  Fantastic!  The only walking distance quick food near the con is Fuel Pizza and as much as I do really like Fuel pizza, after three days I’m usually ready to cut out my tongue with a white hot butter knife.

By the time I got back to the Westin, the bar was mobbed and the art auction over.  I wound up drinkin’ the evening away with folks like Richard Thompson, Mike Rhode, Van Jensen, Andy Runton, David Duncan, and lots and lots of other comics folks yucking it up.  Generally it seemed like folks I talked to (although not necessarily the folks I just mentioned) thought the con was a bit slow sales-wise.  I heard, for example, that one publisher who was set up there had, as of the end of Saturday, just hit sales levels equivalent to what they’d taken in at the previous year’s Friday.

When I found myself trying to have a coherent conversation about Chuck Close and Sol LeWit at one-something A.M. I knew it was time to hit the sack.  Sunday wrap-up to come….