Last year’s Philadelphia Wizard World Comic Con was my most successful convention thus far. Excited to say, I managed to beat my old record this year! While the crowds, especially Saturday, weren’t quite as vast, the people who were there seemed more interested in new comics and more willing to purchase something from me. I saw equal amounts of old faces and new intrigued probable readers… and the familiar faces were back to buy my new book, Zorphbert and Fred Volume 2 after buying the first collection last year! If that’s not a good sign, I don’t know what is. Here’s some feel-good stories from the 3-day con, in bullet-point-form:
- A father and young boy, Joe, whom I met at Free Comic Book Day near Philly came to see me again here, and I got a piece of fanart for Z&F from him! Joe picked up a bookmark prior to FCBD at the comic shop and LOVED the comic on the back enough to come to FCBD and buy my book. Sometimes those bookmarks (with a comic on the back) work wonders.
- On Sunday, a father came to my table and shook my hand.. said his 12-year-old daughter bought a Z&F book on Saturday and instead of watching some Tyra Banks show on TV like she does typically, she spent the entire evening reading my book! He wanted to thank me for getting her to READ, and was especially happy I was a female role model for her. Getting kids to read, at all, can make quite a mark on parents and the community.
- Wizard World conventions are now doing “kids days” on Sunday too it seems, and had a fun scavenger hunt game set up for them. On Saturday volunteers went around asking kid-friendly creators to be apart of this, and gave each of us a different colored stamp pad and stamp. The kids got blank passports, and a map with table numbers and names… and they had to collect all the stamps in order to win a prize (books). BUT, they had to wait until 4pm to pick up that prize… which meant a longer period spent at those tables browsing. I’d say half of those families that stopped by my table bought something! My kids book series does surprisingly well at comic cons, and on “Kids Days”, I do especially well… so just because it’s not a comic doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a demographic at a comic con!
- I got to meet a twitter follower (both of us are Phillies fans), Billy Wichterman, who I actually managed to talk into coming to the convention! And he really seemed to enjoy it– chatting up creators in Artist Alley, the replica cars (like form Dukes of Hazzard) on the floor, the costumes, the whole experience! He requested a commission, so I had that ready for him, but he also bought both Z&F books! Definitely a tale of twitter bringing together folk who probably would have never met without it. He obliged to do an interview for the Webcomic Alliance, so keep an eye for that to post in 2 weeks.
So, thanks to everyone who came out and stopped by to say hello! Hope you had a great time, I sure did!
That said, enjoy some pics!
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Discussion (2) ¬
Looks like another great show. Wish I could have gone this year but prior obligations (family stuff) kept me from attending this year. Perhaps next year. Glad you had a great show again this year.