Big Apple Con 2016 Report

Last weekend, StarWarp Concepts put in an appearance at the twenty-first annual Big Apple Con, right in the heart of New York City. So how’d it go for me and The ’Warp at the first NY convention of the year? Read on!

So, the last time I exhibited at this show, in 2012, it was operating under the name New York Comic Book Marketplace, and in my con report I complained about how I wound up being placed in a dark corner of artists alley that fairly killed any business that day. As a comics fan, I’d been to previous editions of this one-day show—both as NYCBM and Big Apple Con (it had switched names for a while before returning to BAC)—and it’s always been a bit disorganized, with no show maps so you can locate guests and exhibitors, and scattershot artist alley placements. So, in 2012, I found myself in a shadowy corner. In 2016…

…I found myself in a shadowy alcove between two support pillars. That tan obstruction you see to the right isn’t where the picture cuts off—it’s a wall.

…Yeah.

Also tucked away in the land of darkness was my next-door neighbor for the show, artist Stephen Najarian, who was selling prints and gaming-mat reproductions of his incredible paintings. Despite our odd location, there was a good amount of traffic passing through the area, and plenty of folks stopped by to check out our respective offerings—in SWC’s case, Richard C. White’s Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination, the graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, and Sunn, my 2004 ibooks, inc. superhero graphic novel, were the most popular items.

As to be expected, there were lulls in the traffic, and that’s when I passed the time by taking out a sketchbook and working on a sketch idea I’ve had for a while that involves my Goth monster hunter Pandora Zwieback and Jason Voorhees, the unstoppable killer of the Friday the 13th movies. I didn’t finish the drawing during the show (I’ll be posting it on the Pandora Zwieback website when it’s done), but my working on it did…er, draw the attention of passersby to the SWC table. And that occasionally led to sales, which is always a good thing.

And The ’Warp got some press coverage! I did interviews with Vince Vlado from the Queens public-access-channel series Sci-Fi Ninja Theater, and Meke Brown from the podcast Pondering Nerds. Vince was interested in Lorelei Presents: House Macabre. Meke wanted to know about my zombie apocalypse short story “Laundry Day,” which appears in Books of the Dead Press’s Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 2.

At the end of the day, it turned out to be an all right experience. SWC made some new fans, there was a good turnout for the show, and despite the gloomy location there was definitive proof that there are plenty of folks out there interested in the books, comics, and graphic novels we publish. And what does that all mean? Well, in all likelihood you’ll find SWC at next year’s show, already announced for March 4, 2017.

Just look for the table with the lantern on it. Otherwise you might miss me in the dark. 😉