Looking back in retrospect, I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember something about this convention. All the other cons, I can usually remember what work I had done at that time, and that sparks who I showed that particular work to, and reminds me of some experiences or incidents or something. But this con, I’ve drawn an absolute blank.
I just realized, I think I do remember this con. I went down with a friend, and wasn’t really expecting anything this year. Even though I brought some samples, I kind of knew I wouldn’t show anything to anyone, because I knew by now I was going to self-publish. I just wandered around, and I didn’t really feel like looking at anything. I wasn’t really interested in any of the work or artists. I found myself just observing the scene of this particular con. I just spent the day thinking, I don’t really belong here. The work is too indie for me. It made me realize, I don’t know where my work belongs.
I saw some art that I liked, but the artists there weren’t getting any attention. I was afraid to go up to them as well, because you can just feel how badly they want you to come up to them and buy their books, and I knew I wasn’t planning to do that, and if I went over, I might get pressured to feel like I had to buy something. It’s so awkward and uncomfortable. And you think, these poor people spent a lot of money to get a table here, and they spent a lot of money to publish their books, and they just want to break even, and how few of them are able to do that? How is it, year after year, that these cons are able to get a roomful of people who think they have a product that could actually get them their money back? Because each time, a bunch of the previous year’s people learned their lesson and got so humiliated you know they gave up on their comic book dream and didn’t come back again. But the next year all the tables have been sold and filled again, with rows full of new hopefuls. How can this industry generate so much hope every year, with such crushing defeat and financial ruin each year before?
This was my negative attitude that year. Was I dreading joining the legion of hopefuls, and feeling insecure about my upcoming attempts on the battlefield?
I don’t belong in the mainstream superhero realm of comics, obviously. I’m not drawing superheroes, and my stories are strange. But I don’t belong in the hip, photo-copies and hand-made and hand-stapled, or sewn and bound with thread, or beautifully and creatively one-of-a-kind manufactured, or purposely crazy-shitty-out-of-control-drugs induced-looking products of the indie conventions either.
There’s always a ton of gorgeous, hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind types of artworks at APE. A huge variety of amazing, strange, funny, sweet, personal, intimate, sad, beautiful works of art. And a lot of talented comics artists. Like every con, there are some great artists, and there are some so-so ones, and of course it all just depends on your tastes. And they’re all just trying to do their thing and putting themselves out there, and they all took the time to do their best and make a product they believed in. But this year, I was in a bad mood, and so I didn’t appreciate all the amazing, creative artwork going on.
I felt like I would fit in DC’s Vertigo line, maybe, but I’ve sent them packages, and they haven’t even bothered to send a form letter back to me. I felt like I could fit in the Darkhorse realm, but editors looked at my stuff, and even if they were kind enough in person, and gave me their cards, they didn’t write back, and seemed overall maybe interested in being polite to me, but not in pursuing possibilities for work.
So if I self-publish, how do I market myself? I could get a table at this con, and maybe people would think the quality of my art and packaging would look much better (or at least more streamlined/professional) than everyone else’s stuff here, but couldn’t that just work against me? Might people come to this convention because they don’t want stuff that looks polished and factory-printed? For my own product, I would WANT to have professionally made comics by a professional printer. I would WANT glossy covers with slick images. My artwork may not be good enough to be mainstream, and my subject matter may not be, and I may still be learning and improving, but I do decent work, don’t I? I didn’t feel like anyone at APE would be interested in my stories about mad scientists and private detectives. That’s too mainstream too.
So I’m not mainstream enough to get into the mainstream, and I’m not indie enough to feel like I belong at the indies. So how am I going to market my product? That’s a question I still haven’t solved.
So I just kind of wandered around this con and felt pessimistic, like I just didn’t really know of a place I belonged. And feeling like here, I definitely didn’t belong.