SWC at 30: Convention Memories: Small Press Expo 1995

In 1994, I’d missed the launch of the Small Press Expo—a convention dedicated to promoting alternative press and small-press comics creators—due to a scheduling conflict, but was determined to make the trip to its location in Bethesda, Maryland, this time. So in June I packed up a box full of Lorelei and Heartstopper copies and hopped an Amtrak train down to Washington, D.C., accompanied by Heartstopper artist Holly Golightly, who was working on a bad-girl comic concept of her own (if I remember correctly, it involved an angel-type femme fatale).

The trip down could have been better: the train was so overpacked with passengers that I wound up sitting in that area you’re not supposed to be—between cars, by the exit doors—then in DC we had to run to catch the connecting Metro train that would take us out to Bethesda, and then the luggage carrier I was using to transport the box of comics came undone on the Journey-to-the-Center-of-the-Earth-tall escalator up to the street, and I had to chase the box as it tumbled down the steps. By the time we finally reached the Ramada Inn where the con was being held, I was exhausted.

The one-day show the next day was enjoyable but fairly low-key, as I expected—this wasn’t some NY mega-convention with thousands of attendees—and a good deal of it was spent chatting with other creators in the immediate area, among them my buddy Richard C. White, who had self-published a new version of his Troubleshooters, Incorporated comic as a full-size, three-issue miniseries (which you can still order in its SWC graphic novel form, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings); his pencil artist, Reggie Golden, who was sharing a table with Rich that was next to mine; Martin Wagner, writer/artist of the anthropomorphic drama series Hepcats; and Vampirella’s Louis Small, Jr., who for me had drawn the covers for Lorelei #0 and #1 and penciled the first version of Heartstopper. 

Most of the attention from attendees, though, was focused on the bigger names from independent comics, which included Dave Sim and Gerhard (Cerebus), Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil), Evan Dorkin (Milk and Cheese), and some struggling writer/artist named Brian Michael Bendis (wonder what became of him…?).

I don’t remember doing much in the way of sales, given the environment: in an event dedicated to alternate and non-mainstream comics, I was promoting what were essentially T&A comics in the middle of the Bad-Girl Era, and Holly was cosplaying as her angel character to try and generate interest in her project, in a place where nobody was cosplaying. It was a “fish out of water” situation for both of us, but I sold a few comics and sketches, and overall I enjoyed myself enough to decide that I wanted to come back the next year.

I do remember a couple of retailers who carried Lorelei in their shops stopping by the table and being surprised by the Heartstopper comics. They’d no idea I had another series—this one in color!—from another publisher. So…good promoting job there, Millennium Comics…

Come Sunday, Holly and I packed up and headed back to New York. I managed to make it all the way home before the luggage carrier came apart like the Bluesmobile at the end of The Blues Brothers car chase, so I guess that made for a decent trip.

Stay tuned for further Convention Memories!