Come Sunday morning we were at the San Jose McEnry Convention Center not so bright, but early. Sunday was a much slower day overall, and we didn’t get a lot of attention during the morning and early afternoon. During one of the slower periods, James wandered the floor and wound up meeting a blast from the past. Don Rosa is best known for illustrating Disney comics about Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck. But James remembers reading Don’s Captain Kentucky comic strip in the Louisville Courier-Journal as a kid. They talked about that strip and reminisced about Kentucky, and Don was nice enough to give James the collected adventures of Captain Kentucky.
Around 2:00 p.m. attendance increased. We started getting some comic book connoisseurs at the booth that gave us very specific feedback about all matters strange. We got several comments on the art of both books. The average comic book fan liked the art in both books, but seemed to prefer Zeu’s work in Project ElOhIm. The professionals that examined both books liked Zeu’s art, but complimented Fed’s style for being unique. He was even compared to Charles Vess. It was nice to see that we appeal to both fans and professionals.
I got a compliment on my writing from tall, thin Terran. Sorry, I have to call him that because he’s tall, he’s thin, he’s named Terran, and I love alliteration a lot. He actually took the time to read some of the dialog in Project ElOhIm, instead of doing the typical con-goer look at art, talk with very cool and sexy people behind table, listen to their pitch, then buy book thing. Terran said my dialog was witty and bought issues 1 and 2. Terran became my favorite person. Then he complimented James’s hair and became James’s favorite person too.
Our marketing got a nice compliment from Ruben, creator of Penny Comics. Ruben said he had wanted to stop by our booth since the beginning of Super-Con because he noticed our banner right away. He said the black and white art actually stood out amongst all the “in-your-face color” that populated the small press area. Ruben was great to talk to, and I headed over to his booth to check out his work after he bought some of our goods. After seeing a few of his comic strips, I signed a petition to help him get the strip into newspapers.
Things started winding down, but we were lucky enough to run into Martin from Bioroid Studios before it was time to leave. Martin is going to be our booth neighbor at San Diego Comic-Con in July. He had a proposal for what we think would be a great video game, but the project fell through. He’s developing his idea as a comic book instead. He was fun to talk to, and he and James found that they had similar tastes as gamers. James decided that he would need to brush up on his Nintendo DS game skills before seeing Martin again in July. Research is vital in this business.
We were also lucky enough to share more love with our Emonic buds. I drew them a Little Vampire sketch, and Emo drew me a gorgeous black and gray sketch of one of their creatures. To top that off, Emo promised to do a sketch of one of the Project ElOhIm characters in exchange for some promotion of his work. I’m most definitely down with that.
And then it was over. We were back in the clean airport full of nice airport people, then back on a plane, then back in San Diego. Then, unfortunately, we were back at work. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep this double life going, but we love it so far.
