FallCon 2008 – Biggest FallCon EVER

FallCon, annually held on the first weekend of October at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, celebrated its 20th anniversary with its biggest convention ever.

For the first time, it was held in the grandstand facility, which was not only bigger but more comfortable than past conventions. (We were freezing in 2006 and drenched in sweat in 2007, though admittedly the reasonably crisp weather this year may have had more to do with it than the building.) I don’t know whether this was a special case for the 20th convention or if they can get this hall next year, but I hope they try.

Attendance was amazing. I arrived 40 minutes late and the line STILL extended out the door and to the end of the block.

The big thing this year was the sketch cards. All artists attending, and many professionals friendly to the Midwest Comic Book Association (MCBA), were asked to do several sketches on trading card-sized cards. One batch of cards was given away to the attendees on a first-come first-served basis, with all of the cards flipped over so that you don’t know if you’re getting a card from a struggling artist or Adam Hughes. The next batch was, I believe, distributed by raffle on Sunday. And finally, a third complete set of cards from all participating artists was auctioned off as a single lot for the charity auction. (Winner was Nick Post of the MCBA with a bid of Five Thousand Dollars!)

As always, the convention guys knocked themselves out putting the show together and attending to everyone with refreshments. There were more costumes than ever before…including TWO Mrs. Incredibles! The special guests included some first-time attendees including John Ostrander (whom I never did find when wandering around) and Peter Tomasi (whom I teased for his recent GL Corps issue where Green Lantern rings now store retinal ID information on every person in the universe — I mean, come onnnn!).

I attended as an invited guest, which was as always a great honor. For the first time, I had a lovely backdrop promoting Metro Med, my attractive collapsible display stand for the books, as well as a brand new comic book trailer playing on a monitor screen, all to draw the attentions of anyone passing by. I did another print run of 100 issues of Metro Med. I purchased some new sign-making software and created a better handout promoting TooManyLongboxes.com and Metro Med. Also, I took three days off from work and spent the entire time updating the catalog for Too Many Longboxes so that it was ready to be visited by all the newcomers. This is probably the most prepared and professional I’ve ever been for a convention.

I sold one comic.

ONE. COMIC.

I know, I know. Unless you can draw and thus sell sketches, you never make a profit on a convention appearance. Really, the cost of gas and such can’t be offset by selling comic books. It’s about promotion. Still…

One comic. That’s, like, the least possible amount of money TO make.

Erik Burnham, who shared my table, also had a rougher time selling sketches than he has had in a while. At WizardWorld this summer (which was pretty poor overall), Erik was cranking out the sketches for $10 each and people were snapping them up. Here, $5 was the asking price and sales were still limping. (Oddly enough, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sketches were hot. Don’t ask me why!) Numerous vendors expressed concerns about making enough sales to warrant the trip, too. Thus, I’m inclined to not take it personally, as though I was the only one having a hard time making a buck.

I don’t blame the convention. It was well-attended. We may have not had the best location in the hall, but most attendees get around the whole convention floor anyway.

I think it is partly the overall economy. Independent creators have a rough time convincing people to try their books even in the best of financial times, so when money is tight it is mainly used to buy collectibles, art from big name professionals or back-issues at discount rates.

I can’t control the economy. However, one thing I should have thought of is that by printing the new Metro Med Special Edition #1 with the same cover artwork as my 2005 ashcan edition it looks like I’m displaying the same comic I’ve had for the last few years. Sure, there are many modifications to that cover piece, and inside it’s not only got new content but the original content has its first quality printing, but from far away no one can tell. So I think I need to approach some of my artist friends and see if I can create some variant covers.

Pity I won’t have another convention to sell at until Micro-Con (and that’s assuming that a guy who sells one book gets invited back)! I suspect that promoting my book online may be my main source of sales for the foreseeable future.

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