SDCC 2006
I am still a bit exhausted from the weekend, but I wanted to write some things up before they lost freshness in my mind. This post covers three different topics: the conversational awesomeness of Stephen Notley, the advicey awesomeness of Bill Barnes, and the tolerant awesomeness of the Blank Label gents.
I'd first like to say that Stephen Notley, of Bob, The Angry Flower was a lot of fun to meet and talk to. I had read a few Bob the Angry Flower strips before the con, and Ben had told me several times that I should read more. The reason I hadn't picked up reading it, though, is that the archives weren't conducive to my reading through sequentially. This makes sense given that the comic is a print comic that happens to be up on the web, and the archives are organized by where in print various strips are. That's all an aside, though, because what I really want to talk about is how Stephen Notley won my business.
I bought "Dog Killer" (Notley's new book), primarily because he is a Buffy fan. "Dog Killer" as far as I know, has nothing to do with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. But, I had a good ten/fifteen minute conversation with Notley about Buffy, and not once during it did he swing the conversation around to his book. I didn't feel like he was viewing me just as a wallet, and as a result, I wound up swinging by his booth more. Every time I went past his booth, I saw the book, and consequently each time I went, I considered purchasing the book. I should make it clear, none of the people whose booths I went to made me feel like just a wallet, but I certainly felt like there was pressure to purchase at some tables. And I can understand and appreciate that, because people who give me free online entertainment still have to eat. However, when I'm thinking about which booth to wander by when I've got some down time between panels, and thus, where I am more likely to be when my money does burn a whole in my pocket, I'm more likely to hit up the ones where I talked with an awesome guy about a tv show we both love than one where the main focus was how much of my money might change hands.
One thing I'd like to make clear is that I don't mean that as advice about how to run booths. I know nothing about that, and wouldn't pretend to. This is a lesson about how you might be able to, specifically, get more of my money. It is, more importantly, also a lesson about how Stephen Notley is an awesome human being.
Next, I'm addressing the awesomeness of Bill Barnes, but I'd like to start by giving apologies to Gene Ambaum. That is because, while I got the impression that he was comparably awesome to Barnes, I had a lot less interaction with him, and so, won't be talking about his awesomeness.
Prior to the con, I had never heard of "Unshelved". I walked away from the con with a book. That is part one of the awesome, and it actually goes to both Barnes and Ambaum, as I decided to buy the book from reading a bit of their archives one night after Ben and I went back to the hotel. And, while its impressive that they progressed from being outside my radar to inside my wallet in under a couple of days, that is not, primarily, what this post is about.
Ben and I make a webcomic. It has thus far gotten a good reception among our friends, and judging from google analytics, we have at least some readers who don't know either of us personally. We brought some sample strips with us to the Con, and showed them around to other attendees, and also to some of the exhibitors. Bill Barnes was one of those. He gave us some very thoughtful feedback, and was tolerant of our frequent visits to his booth (either to talk more about the advice he had given, or just to chat). Now, there are two types of advice we got at the Con. At panels and such, there were some good pieces of general advice, (1) update regularly, and when you say you will, and (2) do what you want/like/care about (call that the "follow your heart" advice). You can also get specific advice, if you ask the right people for it at the right time. Now, sometimes, the specific advice will clash with the "follow your heart" advice. What people really need is a good way to tell when they should follow advice that they may be initially resistant too, but that's a whole other topic. Luckily, the advice we got from Barnes, on the whole, made sense to me. And not just where I could see how what he was saying was reasonable, but where he was articulating things that sounded right to me, even though I hadn't thought of them before. So, that's the awesomeness of Bill Barnes that I wanted to write about. He took the time to give us some advice, and did so in a way that had me nodding alogn the whole time. Also, if you don't, you should read "Unshelved", because its good.
Lastly, and because I am somewhat tired, more briefly, the folks at Blank Label (BLC homepage) are awesome fellows because they were tolerant of my spending more time at their booth than just about anywhere else. I mean, I guess their tolerance paid off; I bought a few books, and I'm planning to start reading most of the series that I didn't read before, but I have to imagine that if one worked out the amount of time they spent talking to me, I'd have to have bought quite a few more books in order for it to have been literally worth their time.
I have more to say about Comic-Con, probably a post or more about the panels I attended, but this one post has gone on long enough.
No comments:
No trackbacks: