Convention Stories
This thread is for funny, interesting, bizarre and off the wall experiences you've had exhibiting at a comics convention.
I have several myself which I will post in a bit!
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@SteveHorton and I are exhibiting side by side, and two young women who appear to be in their mid-20s walk up to us. One is cosplaying as Robin, the other as Supergirl. They look fantastic, and we thank them for cosplaying as DC heroes despite it being an anime con. We chit chat a bit, and it's a con so I'm flirting more than a little, too.
Later, as we're walking in the hotel to the elevator, we bump into the women again. I suggest that, after everyone changes, they join us in the green room for drinks and conversation. The women look at each other furtively.
"Uh, do they card up there?" one asks.
I look at Steve. I speak.
"Exactly how underage are you?"
"Nineteen," one says. "Eighteen," the other says.
I politely say the green room isn't a good idea and we part.
Steve looks at me, reminding me that we're both married and that it's not like we were gonna sleep with them.
"Sure," I say. "But do you want to be the guy who raises his hand when someone asks "Who gave the underage girls booze before they fell down the elevator shaft?"
The end.
Sigh.
who was wandering through the aisles on Sunday. It turned out she had
been dragged along to the show by her boyfriend, and was pretty
disdainful of the whole "nerdy" enterprise. I pointed out that there
were much worse things that her boyfriend could be into. "Heroin,
maybe," she said with a smirk. "There you go," I responded, "that's my
new motto: 'Comics - They're Cheaper Than Heroin'." That got a laugh,
and she started looking through the newest Fantasy Theater. After
flipping through a couple of pages, she suddenly got this look on her
face that was a mix of utter bafflement with a hint of disgust. I
couldn't see which page she was looking at (the Capella story with the
cactus monster, maybe?), but her reaction was so strong it cracked me
up, and I told her to keep the book. "You know, just like heroin...the
first hit's free." She replied, "If I turn into a nerd, I'm totally
blaming you". She wished me luck, and I told her she was doing a good
deed by supporting her boyfriend's interests. Writing this out, I know
I'm making her sound like kind of a jerk, but we were both smiling and
laughing the whole time, and it was probably the most entertaining
conversation I had all weekend. And I like to think we both benefited
from the chance to see the show through the other person's eyes.
At two Chicago-area cons, I have seen a guy (the same guy) standing IN FRONT OF his table rather than behind it, trying to sell books. He has bookmarks in his hand and whirls them like one of the pimps/touts on Las Vegas Blvd., trying to get customers for his hookers. He gets people to stop, but I don't see many sales happening. And it drives people away from the booth, turning people off in such a way that they don't stop at the next booths in the row (which at C2E2 included mine). People also avoid him if they see him ahead by walking away from the table -- again, costing his neighbors customers. I'm told this is his regular schtick. If I'm ever near him again, I'm reporting it to the con manager.
I say, "OK. See ya."
Finally on his third or fourth go around, he says "I like your art." I say thanks. He says, "I think you'd have a great style for drawing a comic where Hitler comes back and starts up a new Reich and it's just filled with dead bodies and high tech concentration camps and stuff like that". I can't tell if he's joking, but he's not smiling and he seems pretty serious. I just say "That's not something I'd ever have any interest in." He wanders off again.
Later, he returns. "I have another idea. About a space station where the security guards go space crazy and start murdering everyone". Again, "That's not something I have any interest in doing."
I spent much of the rest of the day looking at my portfolio and the most recent comic strips I was working on, all of which involve faeries and elves and that sort of thing, trying to figure out what this guy is seeing in my artwork that clearly I am not.