I thought about it because we ditched our land line today (we ported it to a cell) and I was cleaning out the old voicemail box. I had been keeping Dad’s last call to us. It was a month or so before he died and we’d taken him to the hospital for overnight observation (this was somewhat common a this point). Even beat up by cancer, he always found humor in things. The message said “This is Mr. Thomas, at the local hospital. Bye-bye.” You had to know him.

So I was recording off the message when Mom mentioned the commercial. While I knew they’d done it, I’d never seen it. And it really is a better way to remember Dad.

But all the same, I’m keeping the voicemail too.

There seems to be a game of chicken going on with the Reed Exhibition folks. Both C2E2 and NYCC had unexplained delays in deciding the lucky recipients of AA space while at the same time sending out leadpipe hints that exhibitor space is available and guaranteed. I think they’d prefer Artist Alley dry up and be exclusively tables for the very famous. They’re sure not trying to strongarm any of the bigs into the upsell.

Cons of all sorts have love-hate relationships with the table section of their events. I can recall wandering into the “Independent Publisher” section of Book Expo America last time it was in Chicago and it was like landing in the book equivalent of a Cairo street market. The whole business was curtained off from the rest of the expo and the shenanigans and hard sells stopped the moment you walked out of it.

From a showrunner point of view, it’s easy to see the appeal of having an Artist Alley. Renting real estate in 4′x4′ squares at 300 or so bucks for three days rent is a no-brainer. It makes money. But Artist Alleys are also declasse. That’s a perception shared from showrunner to showgoer. I’m immediately reminded of a comment I overheard at Megacon “This is Artist Alley. They’re not really selling anything.”

I’m told some folks who were turned down for a table at C2E2 immediately adopted a “We’ll show you” attitude and bought an exhibitor table just to show C2E2…something. I get the distinct feeling that some folks would rather Artist Alleys disappear altogether. Maybe they are portals to smaller cons that don’t give you a piercing headache between rival speaker systems and free energy drink samples. Maybe they’re the husk of a critter that will soon only exist online, an empty shell of a crab long ago inserted into a HyVee packaged salad.

Did we see a sign of this when C2E2 sent the first round of “no thanks” emails out (we were one of those) with the inelegantly-worded suggestion that you could guarantee yourself a spot by giving them more money? They meant that they wanted you to get an exhibitor booth, but to many it read like a flat insult. Suddenly C2E2 had more space to offer in Artist Alley and things quieted down.

They could have had more AA tables at C2E2, so I suspect exhibitor spaces weren’t going too fast. There was a vast gulf between AA and the rest of the floor, filled with tables and chairs for congoers to rest in. This is a sure sign the place is undersold. Wizard World Chicago still hasn’t figured out that making rest spaces inside the exhibitor area instead of at one end looks really bad.

So our year of lots more cons is nearly over (Des Moines in the Fall remains). Our first conclusion was no C2E2 next year. MoCCA will remain our NY con and Megacon stays on the list for sure. The revamped SpringCon was a lot of fun and there’s all sorts of cons to go to.

But this weekend is a CLP Summit, so we may spin some more ideas around about con presence. Stay tuned.

And video:

http://bubble-cast.com

http://bubble-cast.com

http://bubble-cast.com

On Saturday we stopped by THE SOURCE on the way back to the hotel. Source was one of the fine comics establishments that bought a bunch of Indy stuff to sell on Diamond Dead Week last year (when the comics distributor took a week in December and said there will be no new product from its suppliers), so we stopped to pay our respects.

Source is more of a game store by the square foot, and it also has sections for retro candy and regional sodas, models and comics. It does all of these things very well. We even saw one of Will’s Visible Roswell Alien models. They still had a few of our comics out on the shelves as well, but it looks like we mostly sold through. I personally like having a few not sell; it’s free shelf advertising!

Saturday night we also went to the first afterparty I can recall going to at any con. We were staying in the con hotel and you’d have to walk past it to get to the bar, so that pretty much settled it. Two free drink tickets was plenty for me.

Sunday we woke up better than expected, but we got to sleep in a bit. See, on Saturday Carter met with a couple models for the next Nikki Harris, so Will and I had to get up and out a bit early. Sunday we slept in some.

Sunday can be a bit of a death march at cons. This one was pretty okay sales-wise, but retailers I spoke to mostly shrugged when asked how thing were going. Our local store, Daydreams, had a booth and felt that relatively speaking they were having a better show than C2E2. Not so much in raw numbers, but more customers were buying something as opposed to merely looking. Their box of Lantern Rings went fast at a buck each.

I think I am finally used to being on a con floor for the whole day. My spirits were high and I bought very little. Well, I didn’t spend much, let’s say. The most dangerous booth in the building was Half Price Books. They loaded up their GN, gaming and software sections and hauled them right over. I mooned over a pile of early to mid 80s DRAGON magazines (The Newsweek of the D&D Set, dontchaknow) and bought four for fifty cents each. After a while I wander back around and the guys in the booth catch me looking at the pile again. “We have a hard time selling those, so we’d make you a deal like ten for a dollar.” Cut to me with a completely full eco-bag of magazines shuffling back to the table. Ten bucks for the lot. This is my current childhood memory weak point, the magazines I pored over as a youth (or intensely coveted). DRAGON was three bucks an issue in the 80s, it wasn’t cheap.

Also got an orange plastic Baragon and something called a Geronimon for Lonnie. Grabbed a couple minis, more on those later.

Of all things, Sunday brought back something I haven’t seen since the 90s: Comics Booth Babes. Early Sunday we notice two young ladies, one in a legless red sparkle onesie and another in a dress-blues military jumpsuit with epaulets. Yes there are pictures; no I haven’t uploaded them yet. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen women hired to pull people in to a comics table. Hell we even tried it ourselves at a Wizard World many moons ago.

By the end of the day the two bright smiles of the booth babes were dampened considerably. They sat glumly behind the table, proving that not even cute girls can overcome an economy in recovery.

Across from our table was a booth that could have made a mint if they were selling anything. They were an outfit called the Propotorium and they make movie prop replicas for a museum. They had a Commando Cody jacket and blaster that made my heart beat thumpa thumpa whenever I looked at it.

Didn’t find out the identity of the weird MCBA email writer, but one of these days I’m sure it will magically come up in some conversation.

We lit out at 5, drove to Des Moines to pick up Will’s car and Will and I got back to Coralville before midnight. We’re of a mind to go to the one day Fallcon later in the year, but it’s the same weekend as New York Comicon. We still haven’t heard from NYCC if we’re worthy of Artist Alley space, so it may get tense in the next couple weeks.

More pics and analysis as soon as I find my transfer cable.

So Will and I did what any two fellows pottering around DM on a workday would do…we went to Office Max to cut, fold, and staple some comics to sell. Everybody does that, right?

At OM we found some spiff literature racks that hold our bigger comics nicely and invested in them on the spot. Now SYPHILITIC COWBOYS weirds out way more people by giving passerby about double the chance to spot the logo.

On the way up to the Twin Cities we stopped at Owatonna, MN to the Cabela’s store there. If you’ve read BEAN AND NOTHINGNESS you know that Charon the boatman to Hades loves this place, and he’s right. I came looking to acquire a fisherman’s rain hat, the vinyl droopy kind you can shape. Hey, I just want one, is all. Turns out, they’re out of style. The replacement is a cross between a foreign legionaire’s cap and those ridiculous flap-backed caps that bedeviled 1985 so.

At Cabela’s I also sought out the new Targus pistol. I just wanted to see a revolver that could shoot both .45 caliber bullets and .410 shotgun shells. Holy goodbye sucker, what a thing it is to see. (Pic will be here when I get home)

We ate at the Cabela’s cafe (I had a bison burger) and pressed on. In the hotel bar Carter thinks he saw guest of honor Sarah Douglas (one of the three Kryptonians from Superman II) in the bar but I must have missed her.

So then, next day Saturday show day. Setup was easy enough; our badges were there, all was in order, smiling faces. I even felt a twinge about making that THEY REFUSED TO TELL US COMIC for a second. But interestingly throughout the day we kept hearing from various volunteers that certain people not to be named in the organization can be a bit bossy and capricious here and there. So then I started to wonder if I could pick out the author of the email that inspired our minicomic about them. I’ll let you know if I figure it out, but there have been a couple leads.

Our table neighbor is Daniel Mohr, and excellent fellow and top-hat enthusiast. He’s the the right of me. Carter, Will and I each got adjoining half-tables; Will’s in the middle, Carter is next to a support pillar. I got to evangelize about Lightning Source, our printer, a bit; one thing we small press folks will sit and go on like old hens about is printers. They’re like girl/boyfriends in high school; you want a good one, but are secretly looking for a better one all the time.

Sales have been good. Will and I decided to stick decorative price tags on our new spiff lit racks and now people are making decisions to buy at a distance, which is fabulous. Selling a little bit of everything.

Haven’t bought too much, but Half-Price Books has a booth here and there is an amazing pile of old DRAGON magazines there for five dimes each. I got four and am fighting that old devil inside over the rest.

Carter and I went to the SpringCon party at our hotel last night. I arrived first and sat with a group of retailers and just listened to their tales of adventure and avarice. If a group like that will let you listen, it’s a pretty good time. Carter later arrived, and so did Daniel and we ended up talking TV for a couple hours. It was pretty serious Nerding. Two drink tickets were plenty for me, though, and I trundled off to the room to watch SNL.

Today my goal is to figure out who wrote the email declaring my output to be THEY REFUSED TO TELL US. I’ll keep you posted.

For the curious, I have over 51,000 tracks, not including old radio shows.