There really aren’t any comic conventions here in town anymore. There was a good show here back in the 80’s and early 90’s, some smaller dealer shows at a couple hotels here, and the local sci-fi con would have an occasional comics guest or two. To go to a comic-con you had to drive a few hours or fly.
Len Wein, me, and the first comic I ever bought.
Luckily the local sci-fi one (MidSouthCon) increased their comics programming the past few years. Steve Rude, John Jackson Miller, Mike Norton, Mark Waid, Len Wein, John Ostrander have all been comic guests there, and Gail Simone is scheduled to be their comics guest of honor this year. But, they aren’t a full blown comic convention, and never will be. They like sci-fi and fantasy literature and art, but some of the powers that be kinda looked down on comics in the past(and what are a lot of comics but sci-fi/fantasy stories and art, right?), and even down more on self-published comics (luckily that has changed a lot recently). I’ve tried to become part of the local comics and con scene, and so have several of my friends, and that seems to have helped increase comics programming and guests.
Me and writer John Ostrander at Midsouthcon
But do you have to just settle for what’s around you and what those cons want to do or be, or can you build your own comic-con?
A few years ago my friend Tim and I were on a message board discussing the lack of comics at the local convention(s). He joked and posted that he could throw a better comic convention in his back yard. All we needed to do was get a few card tables, a port-a-potty, invite the local creators, and offer some free barbecue to get some bigger name comics guests. We joked and jaughed about it being BYOT (bring your own table) and calling it “TIMMYCON!”. It just got silly and crazier from there. What was really crazy is that folks started thinking we were serious! We started thinking about actually doing it- but needed a better location than Tim’s back yard.
That came when our friends Todd and Patrick with the haunt we volunteered at got wind of our crazy scheme and offered us the haunt lobby to use one Saturday. It was about 1500-2000sqft and plenty big for our joke of a free comic show. We put the call out to all our friends, made up some promo postcards and dropped them off to all the local comic shops, put up a few posters at the haunt and around town, and in all spent about $20 or so promoting it (the $20 was for shipping on about 1000-2000 free ClubFlyers.com postcards). Saturday came, and so did the rain. “Great…” I thought. “Nobody’s going to show for this.” I was wrong.
Over the course of the day we had close to 200 people come through our doors! We had about a dozen tables including local comic creators, the local Star Wars Fan Force (Tim was the president of the group then), a toy collector/dealer, and a local comic shop (the owner and his son were both named Tim!). The show was a lot of fun, and we all thought it great to do it again sometime. So we did…
The next year Todd and Patrick asked us if we’d be interested in combining the haunted house’s kids’ day (which benefited Youth Villages), and moving it next door into the recently vacant dollar store.
The space was great (needed a bit of cleaning and decorating- no biggie), and we split it down the middle with Youth Villages.
This time the weather was perfect! We did some more postcards and posters to promote it, added a few more tables and artists, had a couple 501st members in costume, and put up a small art show.
Youth Villages ran an ad in one of the local papers, set up some games for the kids, hosted a costume contest, had a moon-bounce, did some face painting, and had some of their volunteers escort the kids and their parents through the haunted house where the kids got to trick or treat with some costumed characters of a kid friendly version of the haunt.
The haunt had almost 1000 people go through it ($3 ea.), and we had at least a third of that come through our half of the event, which was free again.
Then along came an idea to do a learning con called “Con-Sequential”…I’ll tell that story another time.
Since then I’ve seen more folks start some small shows that have become successful and have quickly grown in attendance, size, and length of show time. Around Comics’ Windy City Comicon in Chicago, IL and Comic Geek Speak’s Super Show in Reading, PA are two that come to mind.
CGS had episode celebrations (ep100,ep200,ep300) that started off being held in a local comic shop, and then expanded to an extra empty shop bay, and then became too big to be held in a comic shop or mall.
So they had to move to an event center. Not a bad problem to have.
CGS and AC started off small with local folks, local creators, and fans of their podcasts. They have grown and are now offering bigger and better guests and events for their fans in just a few short years.
So maybe if you can’t go to the con, the con can come to you.
They have proven it can work, and be fun, too. Just takes some time, effort, help, and planning. The budget part is up to you. Start small, have fun, and grow it is my suggestion. Delegate, do frequent follow ups, and try not to get in over your head or wallet. (That discussion will come up again when we talk about Con-Sequential…)
San Diego, New York, and other big cons have their place and can be fun, but I’ve always tended to enjoy the smaller shows. You get more face time with fans and creators, and they tent not to hit your wallet so hard, especially if you can do a local one or do a short road trip to one. Just make sure you have something new to sell and promote each year you set up.
This year I plan to hit Shadowcon and Midsouthcon in Memphis, CapeComicon in Cape Girardeau, Cactuscon in Phoenix, and the Superman Celebration in Metropolis. Hope to see you there!
Lin
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