Long-delayed IzumiCon Report
Finally getting around to catching up on con reports for you, the fans/investors...

IZUMICON
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK
November 2-4, 2007


EXPENSES

HOTEL - $228.90
TABLE & BADGES - $100
FOOD (self) - $50.81
GAS - $106.63
SUPPLIES - $41.12
PRINTING - $6.28
ROYALTIES to PRODIGY DUCK - $239.90
ROYALTIES to MATT ZENN - $47.95
TOTAL - $821.59

SALES

FRIDAY * $183.80
SATURDAY $325.95
SUNDAY * $139.55
TOTAL ** $649.30

Ouch, ouch, ouch- a break-even convention if you don't count the royalties I'd promised to the artists who showed.

COMICS SOLD*
Bootleg #10 - 1
Bootleg #12 - 2
Bootleg #14 - 1
Bootleg #17 - 2
Nipple Magician v. 1 #1 - 1

ARTWORK & BADGES SOLD*

Bad Boys badge - 1
Box badge - 2
Chichi-chan: Not Chibi badge - 1
CM: Generic badge - 1
MM: Delusions badge - 1
CM: Epic Pose badge - 1
MM: Got Milkmaid badge - 1
Internet Pr0n badge - 1
CM: Secret Identity badge - 2
WLP Postcard bundles - 2

SHIRTS SOLD*
Anime Hero - 6
Anime Heroine - 4
Catgirls Against Bush - 2
Eyes black T - 1
Fanboys Scare Me - 1
Fangirls Scare Me - 1
Hen-Tie - 1
How to Glomp (black) - 4
How to Glomp (blue) - 2
Natural D20 (babydoll) - 2
Natural D20 (T) - 1
Pledge - 1
Smiley Roger - 1
Splat - 2
Tentacle Monster - 2
Violent E - 1


After a brief and very bad experience at a Conestoga in Tulsa, I'd sworn off doing conventions in Oklahoma... until this one. This was run better than that Conestoga, but it hasn't given me any great reason to revise my general opinion of Oklahoma or events held therein.

The annoyance began shortly after I entered Oklahoma City limits, just at 5 PM. Traffic was thick but moving, requiring frequent tapping of brakes as cars wove in and out... and at one such tap, I heard a horrid metal-on-metal screech. Obviously the rivets in one of my brake pads had worked their way through the pad. It was -just- too late in the afternoon to go by a brake shop and have new pads put on, and I wouldn't have time over the weekend, which meant I'd have to drive home on broken brakes. Fun, fun, fun.

Found the Biltmore about 5:30 PM. From the name and its relative proximity (on a map) to downtown, I'd expected a fairly sizeable hotel- which was the main reason why I'd chosen to do the show, thinking there would be a pretty good crowd to fill such. What I got, instead, was a multi-building, two-floor motel with a very small convention area... and no elevators. To make things even better, they'd put me in the convention area... on the second floor.

Let's clarify; I was working an artists' alley table that weekend. I'd have to pack everything up each night and set up fresh each morning (except for permanent displays). The stock would travel to and from the room on a hand truck- and not the small upright, either, but a flatbed. Repeating: no elevators. I'd have to lug the cart and/or the boxes of stuff up and down stairs. Not acceptable.

I got transferred to a first-floor room halfway across the hotel from the convention area- getting to which, by the way, would involve walking across a section of parking lot. There was one covered walkway, but if it had rained with any wind that would have been useless. Thankfully there wasn't any significant rain the whole weekend- I got more water from the hotel's landscape sprinklers than from the sky.

But anyway, after spending an hour or so getting straight where my table would be, finding out that dealer's tables were only marginally more expensive than artist alley, and getting supper, I settled down to await my guest for the weekend, Matt Zenn.

Since the convention rate for the weekend- $69 per night- seemed quite cheap to me for a downtown(ish) hotel, I'd decided to spend the extra money rather than stay at a Motel 6. (Ironically, I could have saved half the hotel costs at my choice of three motels within walking distance, dammit.) Since I was going to be in the con hotel, I made an effort to talk certain artists into coming. Prodigy Duck, who lives just south of OK City in Norman, was willing to come for a day... but Matt Zenn agreed to stay for the weekend.

The only problem was that I had a brain fart and confused Nebraska (where Zenn lives) with Kansas. He left his day job at his usual quitting time- 6 PM or thereabouts. He made excellent time coming south, but the fact remains that there's a lot of distance between eastern Nebraska and central Oklahoma- seven hours' distance, the last two hours of which I spent in the lobby while multiple college athletic teams of some sort or other checked in for a local tournament. Once he arrived, there was nothing to be done except get him into the room and into bed.

His bed, mind you, was a fold-out bed... with NO SHEETS ON IT when I first arrived. And with a badly worn-out mattress, which meant that an average weight person went right through to the springs and frame. Zenn didn't complain, but he's eight inches taller than I am and weighs slightly more, so I know he felt a lot of metal all weekend.

Anyway, we got set up Friday morning bright and early (the sun was bright and it was early- I make no comment on our state). Sales all weekend, as you can see by the numbers above, were a bit on the slow side. That wouldn't have been so bad, except it was -quiet-. I amused myself through some preparation I'd made; Thursday I'd had to make a detour to Houston to pick up shirts, so I'd stopped by a Target and picked up a bunch of discount Halloween candy. (Note: I can do without the orange-colored white-chocolate Kit Kats, but they really ought to make the Triple Chocolate Kit Kats with the chocolate wafers a regular product.) Any cosplayer who said "Trick or Treat" got some candy. (I still ended up taking home loads, though.)

Zenn spent most of his time in a tiny, tiny sliver of space reserved for him, sketching stuff. He -might- have got a commission all weekend, but he sold about a dozen little buttons he'd designed- "My dice are trying to KILL me!" He also handed over a big wad of shirts he'd had printed at his own expense- "GAZONGA STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC DEPT. XXXL." We've used them since as giveaways- still have about half a dozen left.

The most interesting thing about Zenn is that, given free time, he sketches -constantly-. He even sketched stuff I had mentioned while in my usual stream-of-consciousness, soon-forgotten conversation mode. (I don't recall exactly what he drew, though; been too many months.)

The second most interesting thing arose when Prodigy Duck arrived. For some strange reason (and not to give things away about two men who remain behind their aliases), I'd envisioned Zenn with one body type and the Duck with another. It turned out that Zenn had the body shape I'd imagined the Duck as having, and the Duck had the one I'd pictured for Zenn.

I don't remember too much else from the convention, to be honest. I got twenty-one responses to the WLP Female Fan Survey... but eighteen at least, I suspect, were and are junk, because they were taken on Friday, during the period that a group of high school girls were attending the convention as part of a school club event. (I didn't know they were high schoolers until they were getting lined up to leave. Half of them were in costume. Swear to god of your choice.) The girls kept dragging their classmates over to take the survey and get a free shirt (which was the giveaway incentive). What's more, the responses quickly led me to understand that a second page of the survey- and a requirement that participants be over 18- would be in order for the future.

The one truly outstanding moment that sticks in my mind is this: Vic M., a popular voice actor, was walking around the artist's alley during a crowded period on Saturday. (The fact that he was there helped make it crowded.) As word of mouth travelled back up the alley towards the end I'd chosen to set up on, one girl caught word that Vic was at the far end of the hallway. Shouting, "VIC! VIC! VIC!" she ran, nay skipped, down the hallway, through the crowd...

... blindly passing Vic himself by, as he'd been working his way back towards me on the other row of tables. She didn't even notice as she plowed right on by him.

It's embarrassing, I'm sure, to have fangirls who have no idea whatever what you look like.

Anyway, ate far too many Circle-K (convenience store) hot dogs over the weekend, spent a bit of time trying and failing to write, trying and failing after shutting down Friday and Saturday night to game- got one game going Friday, I forget what, and on Saturday the game room was locked when Zenn and I returned from food. On Sunday I shut down about 2-3 PM, before anyone else and while there was still a little bit of traffic in the hallway... because I wanted as much daylight as possible for my trip home on malfunctioning brakes. I thanked Zenn again for his help and for the shirts, got the truck loaded, and headed home, careful to leave a LOT of open space in front of me as much as possible. The only time I had to use the brakes regularly was going through Dallas, thanks to the perpetually horrible traffic beginning at the I-35 E-W split at Denton. Got home about 11 PM, pretty glad that it was over, all things considered.


I'm thinking about going again this year, if they have it... but if I go, I definitely won't be in the con hotel, and I probably will shoot to be in the dealer's room. The show's too borderline to splurge on...