Hi people,
So the delightful emmajeans and I have returned from our trip to Melnova 2012 (otherwise known as Supanova Melbourne) !
We had a smooth drive down except for the confusion of navigating Melbourne proper. Dear god how do you manage trams? We were not certain of many of the road markings but somehow made it unharmed, found the show site and our hotel.
This was our first time as exhibitors so everything was new – we bumped in late Friday and tried to make everything as pretty as possible. To our right we had 2 guys calling themselves ‘Disappointing Comics’ and to our left… I’m not really sure but it involved a Wacom tablet and a fairly loud and enthusiastic nerd. Across the way was an awesome pinup artist and novel writer.
It was a fun weird time behind the table, every few hours gathered a new tale of either a crazy/disgruntled attendee or an enthusiastic happy one. We shared table duties across myself Emmajeans, Darren Close , Robert , Alisha , and Ele. This helped enabled us to take breaks and go see things around the con while someone held the fort. Also was the added benefit of having a seat, somewhere to stash your loot and awesome creative people to talk to.
Things I did see which I liked :
- Brain Michael Bendis talk – was great to hear such an enthusiastic writer with an obvious love of comics.
- ‘Who me’ Rob Lloyd comedy show – was awesome and funny ‘preview’ of this themed comedy act. A must for every Dr Who fan I think.
- Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub: Was cool to see them in person and talk about webcomic stuffs. Kris noted that as usual everyone asked money questions instead of craft questions. I guess artists are just more mystified about getting money to keep doing their craft.
The combined Loot: Walking to Japan By Ben Hutchings, The Soldier Legacy Trade by Paul Mason, Decay Magazine, The List, Torn, Chainsaw suit, Troll plushy, Copic markers, a Katana Umbrella, a original Solider sketch by Paul Mason, pretty girl sketch by Alisha .. and more but I have not fully unpacked yet. Much reading to do.
In the end fun was had but selling was harder then expected – probably because its a different environment with many competing types of entertainment trying to get attention. Supanova does not have comics as its focus, but does not ignore them either. There is awesome comic stuff, and it’s great to have international guests – but the majority of attendees are at the event for the TV/Movie stars. Movie stars work really well to get people in and I fully understand that, however comic makers are always going to be the lower tier of the event – the abundance of people who seemed offended that they weren’t looking at something they already knew was just weird. The thing I hated was the people blatantly selling prints of popular characters that they had no rights to. I can see an artist being commissioned to draw a popular character sketch but sticking popular X thing on buttons and posters and selling them a lot of them is just depressing.
What I loved was meeting the other creators and the people who love comics, seeing the crazy cosplayer costumes and most all the smile on someones face who is looking at a comic you have worked on.
PS: There are still a few handfuls of Beginnings Anthology left ! Go get them here!
-hugs!
-Gavin the Thomson