22 - Convention Prep!

20 August, 2022

Hi-diddly-ho neighborino!

So, both of my last two cons of the year are coming up pretty quickly! Tucson Comic-Con is my next one! You can find me and Becca sharing a table at AA033 (Artist's Alley)! I'll have a bunch of stuff I've worked on as a writer and editor. Becca will have cool art, merch, comics, and more! So if you're anywhere in the area, come see us!

You can find out more about the show here. Their program book just went live with all sorts of info! And a ton of my friends are there as well! Shannon Denton! Jay Fotos! John Layman! Henry Barajas! James Owen! My dad, Jeff Mariotte! My step-mom, Marcy Rockwell! And more! It's going to be a really great time, but since we're just a couple weeks out (the show is Sept 2-4!), it means today's one of my last prep days!

So, let's talk about some of the stuff I have to do to get ready and you'd probably have to do if you're going a convention too!

My To-Do list:

Write this blog
Order a table banner
Order a new card reader
Check out Arizona tax paperwork
Price and inventory check
Check on anything that still needs to get made

What it means:

Obviously, you're here reading the blog, so that's pretty self-explanatory, but I wanted to briefly walk through the rest and what exactly I'm doing.

Table banner - Tucson Comic-Con was the first like full-size show I exhibited as (or was a Special Guest at) after I started working at IDW. My first booth went fine, but was a little lackluster. Now that Becca and I are going and exhibiting together, we wanna make our space pretty and informative! We've spent the last few smaller shows getting our shared space together and what we want to highlight and how. The next step is making a little investment in a table banner that we can use at this show and future ones. I've even got a sneak peek of the design as our pic of the week! This is a way for us to be easily identifiable and very quickly share info about who we are and what we do. A lot of booths use standing banners and that's something we're certainly thinking about for the future, but for now, this seems like a really good way of upping our recognizability on the con floor.

New card reader/bank info - Another thing Becca and I have learned from tabling together is it's actually really hard sharing a single card reader when you've got two separate registers. So I'm getting a second one (which also should be generally nicer for working with my phone). Both of us will have card transaction abilities at the show and we'll even be able to run them at the same time!

Tax paperwork - When you're selling things, often you've gotta do tax paperwork, even if it's a show that's out of state! I was going over all the tax stuff I'll need to do for this show today, but there are a few things I have questions on, so I've gotta wait for Monday to follow up with the state tax office and have them help walk me through the troubleshooting stuff I need done.

Price & Inventory Check - This is a big one. I'm going to have a bunch of stuff to sell - cool! But it's important to see if there's anything I'm bringing that'll require special pricing, making sure I've got prices down for anything new since the last show, and generally seeing what all I have to bring. Often, one of the unfortunate realities of bringing published work is you only have so many copies and as the years go by, those numbers decrease. So! For example, unless something changes pretty dramatically in the next two weeks, I will NOT have any copies of the Beast Wars Annual available at TCC! If you want them signed, please bring them because I will not have them, I'm sorry! I also may or may not have copies of the Hanazuki HC and the full Continental Cryptid Anthology (doing inventory after posting...). But I will have copies of all my TF writing work besides the BW Annual, Hanazuki single issues, a wide swath of things I edited, and probably some other goodies.

Checking on anything that needs to get made - Much like needing to have a table banner made in time for the show (which I think I'm just sneaking under the wire on), I need to check if there's anything else I need to get made before the show. This includes everything from signage advertising prices clearly to going through with Becca any prints they need done or comics we need printed or whatever! This also includes me looking and seeing if there are places where I can maybe pick up some stock to fill the holes in what I'm bringing and that sort of thing.

So, yeah, that's pretty much been my day as I've been getting ready for the show.

Speaking of TCC

PORTFOLIO REVIEW - Hey, I'm some limited portfolio reviews at the show. If you'd like to have one, follow the link! I'm only doing reviews of comic art and not writing, lettering, or non-comics samples. More details on the form.

I hope that was kinda educational and looking forward to seeing you in person in a couple weeks and back here next week!

Things I've been enjoying this week:

Blank Check (Podcast), Smallville (TV show), Special by Lizzo (Album), Bar Rescue (TV show), Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), Honkai Impact (Video game), The Flop House (Podcast), The Bachelorette (TV show -- I'm only half paying attention this season, TBH), Kaguya-Sama: Love is War (Manga -- the latest volume just got added to the Shonen Jump app), prolly other stuff!

New Releases this week (8/17/2022):
Sonic the Hedgehog Annual 2022 (Editor, lots of super fun Sonic stories!)

New releases next week (8/24/2022):
Sonic the Hedgehog #52 (Editor)

Final order cut-off (8/22/2022):
Sonic the Hedgehog #53 (Editor)
Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase 3, Vol. 3 (Assistant editor)
Transformers: Shattered Glass II #2 (Supervising Editor)

Announcements

One more time, just plugging that I'm on Instagram now!

Tucson Comic-Con! This whole blog was about TCC, but seriously, check it out and see you there!

Secret show! Should be announced soon! Will let you know more as soon as I can!

Pic of the Week:
Becca illustrated our banner and it'll look an awful lot like this, but y'know, a physical object!

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