Anyway, this weekend was my last big show of the year, and my last "BIG" show for the foreseeable future. Make no mistake, I had a lovely weekend. I got to hang out with my cousins (What up Rachel and Katieeeeeeee!!!!!) and my nephew Jack (Jackie-Boyee!), which was awesome. They fed me Tacos, which was Awesome. And on Sunday, at the show, I got to sit around and talk comics and movies and everything else with my good friend Mark Griffin of the illustrious "Quake" Zine. So, in that respect, it was a nice weekend.
But man oh man I am done with these big shows. There was a time when the Table Prices were manageable and there were enough people that liked Indy comics that you could afford to go to these big shows, lose some money on expenses, but still feel like it was worthwhile. Nowadays, the prices are too dang high, and no one wants Indy comics anymore. And this isn't sour grapes or anything. If you were to walk the Con floor, in Artists Alley, you would find very, very few people making Independent Comics. The few that are Hide their books behind stacks and stacks of "Prints" and Artwork and trinkets. Why? Because everyone else knows that Indy Comics don't sell anymore. I did a head count, and I only found about 5 other Indy Comics at the whole show. It's a bad scene, man, and I just don't wanna be a part of it. If people want to shell out $10 for a Xeroxed piece of paper that cost $1.50 (or less) to produce, and pass up a 16 page full color comic for $3.50 (you can literally buy 3 TORC Press comix for almost the same price as one "Print", which is 48 Pages of Full Color Material, instead of ONE PIECE OF PAPER), then more power to them. You can't hang a comic on the wall, I guess.
People just don't wanna read comics unless they got Spiderman in em, even if Spiderman isn't even Spiderman anymore.
And it's not just Wizard, for the record. C2E2 was just as bad, and as much as I hate to say it, I got stuck next to a "Print Guy" at APE in San Diego last year and watched as he sold stacks and stacks of "Prints" ripping off Pulp Fiction and Iron Man and every other recognizable property under the sun. Meanwhile, some kid read an entire issue of "Clown & Penguin", cover-to-cover, right in front of me, seemed to enjoy the experience, and then walked away without even spending a buck fifty on an issue of "Pulp Horrorshow" as compensation. That was a pretty low moment for me.
And I gotta say I'm tired of the low moments. I'm tired of the whole scene. So, I'm gonna do my little thing here on my little website. I'm gonna make all the comics I wanna make, the way I wanna make em. And I'm just gonna work 2 or 3 smaller shows a year. I'm gonna be at Halloweenfest at Comic Quest in Evansville, IN this weekend, and then my calender is clean until my favorite Convention, SPACE in Columbus, OH.
And that is that.
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