Comic Con - Day 2

Woke up at six this morning and made the twenty minute drive into San Diego from where I’m staying with family. I wanted to get there early enough to get the good parking under the convention center for $8.00. This is about the lowest price for parking you can find in San Diego during comic con. The only problem is the lot fills up fast.

By the time I find a spot and park the car it’s 6:45. I then walk to the nearest Starbucks (Which is about two blocks away) for my morning dose of caffeine. With coffee in hand I proceed another block over to the Ralph’s supermarket to get a Sandwich and some other snacks for the long day at Comic Con. I order my usual Sandwich from the nice sandwich lady. I guess I’m the only person that orders ham and cheese on wheat with nothing else. Because the lady says she remembers me from last year and gives me a free Bores Head lunch tote to carry my sandwich in. That was a pleasant surprise and possibly a good omen for the day ahead.

Now with coffee, sandwich, an apple and some Advil, I walk across the street to the It’s A Grind Coffee house. They have free Wi-Fi access. I post yesterday’s Comic Con update and then walk back to the convention center.

I get inside the Convention center at around 7:45-8:00. I put my sandwich down at the table and begin walking around the comic con floor. It’s nice to walk around before the Con opens to the public so I can look at stuff without having to wade through a sea of people.

I end up at the Vipor Comics booth discussing the death of the comic strip and the state of comics in general with a few of the guys there. Exciting conversation I know. But you have to remember it is a Comic Convention. So it’s okay to geek out.

At about 8:30 I walk back to the table and begin setting up for the day.

The Convention opens at 9:00 and the masses descend on Comic Con. It’s not long before we are making our first sales. Over all the day was very good. I sold a bunch of books, four purses,some plushes and a handful of buttons.

Day two also had its share or interesting people. The boy (maybe 13 yrs old)who had me draw on the torn piece of cardboard returned and actually bought the book he wanted on Wednesday night. I don’t know where he got the ten dollars but it was nice that he came back. It pays to do free sketches. He returned a couple of times after that to ask questions and to let me know that he was terrified of yard gnomes. He tried to cover the Gnome I had on display with one of the Gator purses.

Later in the day a man came up to the booth and was talking to Kyle and I. Everything seemed fine until he started talking to us about his 90 year old terminally ill mother. Don’t worry he said, “She’s not going to Die or anything.” He was telling us how he had bought her a stuffed Toucan named You-can Toucan. According to him she wouldn’t listen to any of her kids but if he told her that You-can Toucan said it then she would actually leave the house and do whatever it was. Which I think is great. But things got interesting when he started talking about how he’d like to get someone to illustrate some stories with this character.One of his ideas was an illustrated book called, You-can’s Beauty tips. At that point I began to look for my escape plan. I needed someone, anyone to come up to the table before he got around to asking us if we were interested in drawing the book for him. In the end he never actually asked us directly. He just gave Kyle his card and went on his merry way. Hopefully he had better luck finding what he’s looking for at one of the other tables.

The day wasn’t all strange people. I have a lot of people who return from years past to pick up the latest book or product that I’ve created. Those are the people that make me want to keep creating and putting stuff out. They are some of the nicest friendliest people around and I’m honored to have them as fans of my work.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring more of the same.