Long Beach isn't the biggest con of the year, but it still manages to do a lot of things that the big cons do. Such as having panels and special guest oh and of course the Zombie Walk. What's a Zombie Walk you ask? What am I the internet? At any rate I was drove down to Long Beach yesterday for the Saturday show and this was the first convention I attended that I actually had to pay, I'll be honest I've been getting a press pass every chance I can get. So it was a new experience for me to shell out hard earned cash for a con I was unsure about and I have to say the $25 bucks was a bit too steep for what they delivered. Sure there were actual company booths such as Boom! and Aspen and it was great to see that most of the floor was artist alley, but I think Tom Hutchison from Big Dog Ink said it best, "People come here with blinders on, they know what they want and that's about it." Really I could describe it any better.
It was a treat from me for a couple of reasons though and I'm glad I went even if it was just for a couple of publishers. The first was the creator of Zombie Tramp which was a book I had picked up from the Long Beach Comic Expo earlier in the year. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had a new issue out after such a short time. If you missed a chance to pick up the first trade of the new issue then you're in luck because he will be at this Saturday's Comikaze Expo. I'm not going to go into a lot about the book since I think it deserves a full review so look for that very soon.
Next I popped over to Triptych Book's booth and chat with the creators about Trigger Men and they kicked me the the third issue to read. We had a great chat about indie publishing and they filled me in about their panel they were hosting at the end of the day. Other than talking about their book and next projects that they're working on we had a good talk about my article "Comics Should Be Less Mainstream" which lead to many other things. If you want the full scoop check out Episode 3 of the podcast and again look for a review of Trigger Men #3. If you need a refresh on Trigger Men then you can check out my video review for the second issue here.
The last publisher I chatted with was Big Dog Ink. Again I cover a lot of what we talked about on the podcast, but let me say that this is the second con I've met them at and they have really grown as a company. Talking to Tom (Writer/Publisher) he said that they've found their fan base and know what they're looking to do now and I think that's important for any publisher. I saw a couple of people stop by the booth while we were talking and this one guy in particular had a "who farted" look on his face. I wanted to shake him and tell him to pick up Critter (I picked up issue 3 and 4 for review by the way),Wicked West or something and he just ended up touching everything and leaving. I guess you can't win them all, but I will say that when someone is at a booth talking to the creators people or more likely to come up and check it out so who knows... maybe he went back and bought something later.
As for the rest of the con I saw some amateur wrestling from NWA, I couldn't stay for all of it since I didn't want to miss Triptych's panel. It was strange at first to see it there, but the crowd really responded and that was cool to see. There wasn't a lot of people, but they got into it and supported it which had to be really good for those guys. Some other tid bits was a book I reviewed after Wonder Con was there, but unfortunately still only had the first issue. I hope by the next con circuit they'll at least have the second issue out since I'm still very interested in the series, it's called Holli Hoxxx if you're interested and you should check it out so they'll keep moving on the next issue.
Well Kevin and I might hit the last con of the year next week and if we do then... we'll talk about it. Otherwise it was an interesting con, not the best I've been too, but it was interesting.