Greetings,
After a false start with FanExpo: New Orleans (I had to cancel my appearance there), this past weekend was our first show of the new year - The Central Florida Comic Con in Lakeland, Florida. This was my 5th appearance at this show and thus far every year (for me) had been better than the previous. First off this was a spectacular event … the perfect two day show, with what I still feel is one of the best crews in the business. As a comic book guest I have attended many shows where we are treated as somewhat substandard to the media guests … but that’s not the case with the Central Florida Comic Con, we all shared the same green room and were treated with the same respect by the show staff.
The guests at this show were not really on my radar outside of maybe Casper Van Dien … many were voice actors and a wrestler mixed in with some cosplayers. But as I’ve said before “celebrity” really doesn’t move my needle so I’m not the best one to judge such things. The guest I was mostly surprised about was Tom Kenny … the voice of SpongeBob, he had a massive line from the moment the doors opened until he left. I was talking to show runner Ben Penrod about what an anomaly I thought it was … he straightened me out to say that SpongeBob was one of the most popular animated characters in the world … a fact that I guess I’m just too old to realize.
The cosplay at this show was as always - awesome, I saw plenty of incredible young people with some amazing costumes. The amount of Star Wars costumes was very impressive and some downright original. I think my favorite was Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet … a HIGHLY underrated Disney animated film (and one of the inspirations for our series The Good, The Bad, and The Prehistoric).
After kicking around the convention scene for the last 15 years I have met a lot of awesome folks. When I do a convention it’s a chance for me to catch up with friends new and old … and the Central Florida Comic Con was no exception. I’m sure I’ll forget a couple but, I was able to catch up and talk Patreon with my doppelgänger (inside joke) Steve Conley … who also provided the artwork for the guest lanyards. I reconnected with old friends Kate and Josh Dykstra, who were at the very first PalmCon I hosted in 2011. Saw old buddies Graven & Monica RavenWolf, authors Heidi Hess, Steve Altier, & Monica DeVivo, friendly rival Marcus Roberts from Second Sight publishing, and artist Sammy Castillo. Of course no convention would be complete without stopping by to visit the Con Father himself Tom Raupp!
Another highlight of this already incredible show, was the surprise appearance of TWO of my favorite internet personalities. First, I heard a familiar voice coming from the table next to me, it was the one-and-only Adam The Woo chatting with my neighbor Jackie Sonnenberg, so we had to get a picture. Later in the day, I look across and who do I see waiting in line to have a copy of Titanic on VHS signed by Paul Rugg … none other than TikTok sensation TitanicFan97 … so naturally I HAD to get a photo.
Everything about this convention was turned up to 11 … the show was firing on all cylinders … a great time was had by all! But how were my sales? Well … very briefly I will talk about the business of the show … feel free to skip ahead if you find this stuff boring. There were a few factors working against me … that were slightly out of my control, the main struggle I faced was my placement. While I had a real nice spot … I was close to the SpongeBob line and that was sucking a bit of the air out of the room, however the hardest obstacle was my neighbor (not Jackie) the dude on my other side. He was a nice enough guy … however he was a hustler (which means he was a good salesman) and he was selling “NSFW” prints and covers (that he commissioned, he’s not an artist) and unfortunately he used some slight “off-color” terms to sell those items and did so in his “outside voice”. This saw a few families and other folks walk away from the area … so selling my all-ages books were a challenge to say the least.
These are not complaints … but obstacles … I was able to overcome them and still make sales, so I’m NOT complaining just using that to illustrate that situations do come up and you need to learn how to pivot … and frankly I could have pivoted better. I did make decent sales but my totals were down from years past, at least 50%. I don’t think that had much to do with the show and had more to do with the economy. People who would normally buy 5 comics were just picking up one or two. Upselling was a challenge to say the least. Also as my friend Kevin from Flatline Comics recently pointed out, there has been a shift in the con-going audience … not as many attendees were looking for that NEW indie-comic to check out.
Will a slump in sales deter me from attending comic conventions? Nope.
Will it deter me from returning to the Central Florida Comic Con next year? No way!
I don’t know for sure if they announced their 2025 dates yet … but once they do, I plan on being there and so should you. If you like comics, collectibles, anime, manga or anything that is cool … the Central Florida Comic Con should be a yearly event for you!
Now onto some more Cosmic stuff …
The Books are HERE!
After returning home form the Central Florida Comic Con, I found a large box waiting for me … it was from the printer and I can now officially say that fulfillment on our last Kickstarter for The Good, The Bad, and The Prehistoric issue two has begun! The books look amazing especially the foil cover. If you backed the Kickstarter - look for your copy arriving soon.
The Countdown to Launch
Now that The Good, The Bad, and The Prehistoric is on track to being fulfilled … it’s not to get ready to launch our NEXT project - Void of Heroes: Decent of Despair. If everything goes according to plan that project will launch on January 30th!
Head over to the prelaunch page and signup to be notified with the project goes LIVE.
Thanks for checking out this long winded Cosmic Update and as always …
Stay Cosmic,
Martin