Stan Yan’s Wizard World Chicago 2006 Report BY STAN YAN Traveling as an artist alley exhibitor to my fourth Wizard World Chicago in succession, my travel-weary mind, fresh off my road trip from Denver to Comic-Con in San Diego wondered, “Which Wizard World experience would rear its head this year?” My previous three years had led me to believe that the attendee demographics had steadily begun to suffer from some sort of degenerative illiteracy disorder.
In 2002, I popped my Wizard World cherry with sales of the ashcan previews of my then-new The Wangstories proved to be solid and satisfying, out-pacing my daily average from that year’s Comic-Con! (This convention is also where I came up with the catchphrase, “Have you had a chance to check out my Wang?”) 2003 resulted in slower sales of books, but an interesting upsurge in sales of sketches, as John Peters reeled in giddy fanboys and fangirls with his renditions of Justice League members sticking their tongues out.
In 2004, it felt like complete illiteracy had hit as book sales had all but evaporated, and had it not been for sales of Brendan and Ethan Wenberg’s outrageous and somewhat sacrilegious t-shirt sales and sales of perverse sketches, sales would have been completely laccid.
Happily, this year the readers rematerialized – certainly with the aid of my new graphic novel release, The Wang: Who’s Your Daddy? Of course, the path to redemption didn’t come without its trials.
Rolling in via caravan, our band of drowsy Squid Works cartoonists from Denver, Paul Niemiec, Ozzy Longoria, Brendan Wenberg, Ethan Wenberg, Will Barnes and I came stumbling into the Best Western Midway Airport Thursday at 2 am (Actually, Will’s rental car showed up an hour later).
Weary and grumpy (especially Ozzy who was completely disappointed in Gothenburg Nebraska’s Randazzle Café’s soft and bland interpretation of a flauta, which he ordered for lunch), things went from bad to worse as we all had to be crowded into one room in the sold-out hotel. Fortunately, it was a suite, but short one rollaway bed, I volunteered to sleep on the floor (which actually helped my ailing back quite a bit).
Thursday:
In a move that I’m sure is typical of out-of town MapQuesters, the next morning, we attempted to save a few bucks on tolls by taking I-55 toward downtown before picking up I-90 to towards Rosemont. Heck, MapQuest says it’s only 15 minutes longer!
Two-and-a-half long and frustrating hours later (partially due to the fact that MapQuest told us to turn the wrong way on River Road), we arrive at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center for Preview Night an hour-and-a-half after the public had already let in with dim hopes of making enough sales to cover the costs of parking that night.
Fortunately, some of us had bigger fish to fry. Having recently been signed to illustrate SubCulture by Kevin Freeman for Ape Entertainment, I aimed to meet Kevin and the rest of the Ape crew.
Mission accomplished! I even met Ape Director of Marketing, Brent Erwin that day without realizing it in all of my post traffic jam frustration (he was the cheery fellow who gave me my exhibitor badge).
Ozzy, on the other hand, tried unsuccessfully to find and meet R.T. Both, writer of the mini-series he’s illustrating, The Saved at the Revelations Comics booth. Mission failed!
In a survey of the convention floor, it appeared that artist alley had shrunk considerably as organizers began to enforce the “no porn models in artist alley” rule, probably much to the chagrin of some of the regular attendees. This actually helped traffic flow around the convention hall along with the fact that I didn’t see any giant skateboard half-pipe structure this year either.
For the second year running, and since the advent of Preview Night, few artist alley exhibitors chose to set up, but as it filled up on subsequent days, it appeared that the talent-level of my peers continues to get better every year.
As Preview Night concluded, my fears had been realized: sales failed to cover parking costs. Maybe it was just a bad karma day – my wife claims that it’s further evidence that the shirt I was wearing is cursed (it features an image of Jesus, below which the words “Cock Blocker” read – I threw my back out at MileHiCon last year wearing this shirt. My wife warned me not to wear it on a Sunday).
Granted, organizers only let in “Premier Attendees” on Preview Night, but after two years of the same lackluster sales, I’m beginning to think “Premier Attendee” means “cheapskate.”
Still, after a disappointing Thursday, there was no answer to the burning question, “Which Wizard World will rear its head this year?” Only one thing was certain for me: the convention would be teeming with celebrities, and I would see none of them… as usual.
Well, we learned our lesson and decided it would be prudent to pay tolls to get to the convention before the attendees this time.
Unfortunately, we failed to look on the other side of our badges, which told exhibitors that they’d be letting Premier Attendees in an hour earlier than what was on the website! Gah!
No matter, sales were brisk for both of my graphic novels and Ozzy finally found his booth. Brendan found that the “Cock Blocker” shirt was a popular seller again this year, and sales of their new “Bastards of the Universe” shirt were outstanding.
Ethan continued to primarily work on putting together submissions packages to drop off with publishers, and Will had his first real chance to cut his virgin teeth at a real day at this convention.
Paul spent his day making impulse purchases of screen tone and original art. I had the proud privilege to do a couple of hours of free sketches at the Ape booth and sign 8-page preview copies of SubCulture for curious visitors.
After a hard day of work eating only Pop Tarts and Oatmeal Crème Pies, most of our group departed for Wicker Park for pizza.
Ozzy and I went to the Knuckes Sports Bar and Restaurant at the Hyatt Regency and waited around to join the Ape folks for a podcast interview with AroundComics.com.
This lively, fun interview proved to be a great way to get to know more about Ape as a company and about the creators and their various titles.
Ozzy and I got to meet and get to know not only Kevin, Brent and David Hedgecock (Director of Finance), but Brandon Terrell and Brent Schoonover (HorrorWood); Steve Bryant (Athena Voltaire); Ben Lichius (The Black Coat), and Greg Woller (Magnitude). I liken the meeting of the Squid Works and Ape Entertainment to the meeting of King Kong and the Kraken! Okay, maybe I’m getting carried away.
Saturday:
Okay, we’re on time today!
Another two hour stint at the Ape booth, but I actually spend more time at my own booth today than yesterday, and the sales definitely reflect this. T-shirt sales continue strong and Will finds that it’s easier to sell his “Pop Art” (Drawings on Pop Tarts) than his books.
After consulting with a friendly security employee, we head over to Maria’s for some Mexican food, where lo-and-behold! Guess who is also eating here? Kevin Freeman! Well, this is probably not really notable to anyone but me, so I’ll shut up.
With the best of intentions of finding a party, we decide simply to drive back to the hotel and sit in a relaxing hot tub – too bad it’s filled with noisy kids. No matter, they scatter as we infuse the bubbly waters with our convention stank.
Sunday:
Okay – last opportunity for us to squeeze out the last few dollars of profit for the convention, although this day means much more than that to me: it’s my last opportunity to give away the rest of the box of Potlatch #1 books (free with any purchase), as a part of my basement reclamation project. The good thing is that recipients are less suspicious about it than they were last year (see Potlatch Infestation). So, although my personal sales tally for the day is miserable, by virtue of the fact that only onePotlatch remains by the end of the convention, this has been a success for me. Further, success can be measured by the fact that neither my booth mates nor our booth neighbors beat the snot out of me for asking, “Have you had a chance to check out my Wang?” for the three hundredth time.
Well, I hope you found this informative.
I don’t know if it really told you much about the convention, but this certainly qualifies for an exhibitor’s perspective on this year’s event.
Hey, it could have been worse. I had considered detailing the play-by-play on Ozzy’s bowel movements.
Apparently, he’s not shy about testifying about that kind of thing(well, nor is anyone else -- that’s the brutal reality of traveling with six guys).
For now, it’s time to relax until SPX in October.
Who am I kidding?
Time to get back to work!
I’ve got illustrations to finish!
Stan Yan is a freelance cartoonist who grew up in Denver,Colorado and went to school at the University of Colorado in Boulder where he got his bachelor’s degree in accounting. Due to the lack of sex-for-recruiting for accounting students, Yan’s life took the tragic turn into sales for the securities industry, where he has wallowed in ethical poverty on-and-off for the last thirteen years.
Yan takes his frustrations out by penning graphic novels such as The Wang as well as a daily financial webcomic called, The Tickle Tape . Among many other things Yan is currently illustrating a four-issue mini-series for Ape Entertainment called, SubCulture;writing and coloring an action-adventure webcomic illustrated by Jolyon Yates called, REVVVelations(End of August 2006 release); and acting as the iron fist that reigns supreme over the Squid Works comic creator cooperative.
Posts: 20777 | From: PA | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Nice Con report, Stan. Since most of us already know what it's like to be a fan walking artist's alley, it's always more interesting to find out what it's like being a creator on the inside of the fishbowl, looking out at the fans tapping on the glass.
For the record, I've seen Stan's Wang and I laughed out loud.
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