2022 San Diego Comic Con (Pre-Convention Thoughts)
The big Southern California conventions started to return at the end of 2021, with the Special Edition SDCC and Designer Con leading the way. While I appreciated the utility of SDCC SE to transition and test interest for Wondercon 2022, I don’t see a need to continue it in 2022 and would be surprised if it is held again. If Wondercon was any indication, SDCC should be back to near full form this year.
I am really looking forward to saying hi to old and new faces, discovering new books and attending some hopefully refreshed panels. A two year gap should make for some really interesting material. I do have some trepidation about being in an INTERNATIONAL COVID-19 melting pot for 5 days, but I don’t plan to push myself to exhaustion and will have plenty of N95 masks if there is poor airflow/confined spaces.
2018 Wondercon
Part of life is dealing with adversity. As an exhibitor, adversity may arise during a convention as a small inconvenience, such as forgetting price labels, or big inconveniences, such as having your luggage full of product lost by the airlines. For the former, exhibitors often find support from their peers. For the latter, hopefully an empty table is the worst that happens. Fortunately, with the power of the internet, there are a myriad of groups where exhibitors can offer up their table for use at the last minute. This year an exhibitor had difficulty getting staff to exhibit at his booth. As a result, he allowed us (the Sketchy Bug Group) to share the table with him on a day to day basis. If you met me at the table, you have Ollin Press to thank!
If you were one of the 15 or so writers I met at the Creator Connect event on Saturday night I hope you reach out to stay in touch. I am really interested to see where your projects go in the future and perhaps working with you. Speaking with the writers and seeing the other artists, I definitely will be preparing a portfolio with a wider variety of my work for future events. In particular, clean thumbnails, lettering samples, coloring, character design and sequential art for variety of styles (simple, realistic, dark, bright) and themes (sci-fi, horror, humor, children, fantasy, noir, etc…). Perhaps this is my goal for this year!
If you enjoyed the event and you’re in the LA area I strongly suggest you try and attend one of the Sketchy Bug Group events held at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach. We meet on Wed nights and have a really good mix of writers, illustrators, animators and fans hanging out and supporting each other. Once a month we have a special guest come and talk to the group on a Saturday. You can find more info at:
http://www.thecomicbug.com and http://www.sketchybug.com
‘Til we meet again!
2017 SpX
Thanks for dropping by the booth at SpX 2017!