It was the inaugural show for the
Michigan Comic Con. Joe and I are definitely con pros but we really didn't know what to expect this time. I am happy to say we were PLEASANTLY SURPRISED! Held over the gorgeous weekend of August 17-19th (the same weekend as
Dream Cruise, The Muscle Car Festival and the African World Festival) one would not think that so many people would venture down to Cobo Hall to come to the show Maybe thinking isn't my forte'.
From the minute we walked into the convention center to set up our table this con felt far different than what were used to locally ie The Motor City Comic Con. We easily found our tables and the con staff was very friendly. This was the general gist among all the exhibitors we talked to. The people working concessions at the center were also really good to us. It was probably all they could do in lieu of the high priced con food, Prices aside we did very well sales wise. We actually sold out of everything we brought to sell. I even managed to do a few convention sketches
It helped that we went guerrilla with our marketing just like the old days. Instead of pricey business cards we opted to print pocket size flyers talking about who we are and what we do. What was also a convention hit was our Comic book Manga Workshop initiative. This is a Saturday class we do in Pontiac in partnership with the nonprofit Better Pontiac. The culmination of this class is our yearly free comic book day addition of our popular anthology IMAGINOS PLUS. People also loved that we give back to the community.
We got to see a lot of people we hadn't seen in a while. The highlight was seeing
Desmond Jones, brother of comic great
Arvell Jones. Desmond has always supported me and I thank him very much for it. We also got a chance to hang out with our buddy
Ervin Johnson our homie from the fledgling manga company
SHINING OTAKU and the rest of
Detroit Tradecraft. There were so many cool people there it was hard to count. What was the coolest is our studio mates
Shyla Crump and
Trey Ragatz came out to help man the table.
Parking was more expensive than the last time we set up at a show down there. With Downtown Detroit jumping like it is I can see why prices have gone up. I am kinda bummed that I missed
CHARIVARI, the house music festival put on annually by Todd Johnson (co-creator of TRIBE,the best selling black comic book of a all time). Oh well maybe next year.
