Convention Road Part 1

It has been about a week and a half since my declaration and things are moving fast. I contacted the first 6 conventions on my list of 17 to check availability and pricing.  Unfortunately, my two top picks of the 6 were sold out so we will probably only make it to one or two of remainders.  The first convention on my list was Charlotte Mini Con in Charlotte, NC on January 30th and unfortunately it was sold out.

The next up is MGA Con in Macon, GA on Saturday, February 20th to Sunday the 21st. A medium to large-sized 2-day convention with at least a dozen other up and coming artists but no HUGE names in the business.  A perfect start to the season. We won't be eaten alive by the big dogs and we can still talk to some potential talents and make some new fans.  With it being about a month away it gives us time to prepare our booth, our prints, and our comics.

I'm going to keep track of all of my costs, my inventory, and make notes of dos and don'ts at each convention.  So far I have already spent $260.29; certainly more than I was expecting.$88.75 on my first batch of prints. $48.64 on high quality business cards. $21.90 on Plastic Sleeves to display and sell art and $100 on the booth itself. I have about 135 original sketch cards, 15 original 12 X 18 sketch posters on high gloss poster paper, 40 printed sketch cards and 31 11 X 17 prints on cardstock.

Our plan is to have at least 1 five page Mini Comic in printed format available for sale at the convention and I plan to have the first full chapter of Damien's Shadow- The Black Seed Of Vengeance available for free here on the website. Most of the art and all of the writing is complete for the Mini comic, so all I will need to do is letter it and have it printed and bound. As far as the first chapter of our first Interactive Graphic Novel being ready in a month; let's just say there is a lot more to be done...formatting images, creating hyperlinks, creating missing art and a whole bunch of technical headaches, hassles and horse manure.

Stay tuned for progress updates and comic previews...

...it's growing...

Mr. Andy

Declaration of Discontentment

Nobody sane ever said that making something out of yourself was going to be easy. In fact, I'm sure you've been told at least once in your life that you would never be able to do something that you had your mind set on. Some people think that dreams don't ever come true, content with whatever life hands them and some people dig their heels into the mud and chase their dreams down.

I am SICK of watching others live the lives that I constantly dream about. This is my declaration of discontentment. Far too long have I have let my passion be my hobby and a mindless 9-5 job be my life. I think too many people just go through their life saying "...that's life..." as if they have absolutely no control over their circumstances. Now, I understand that the gods have a way of throwing curveballs at all of us. Sometimes those curveballs strike us out. Sometimes they beam us in the side of the head and take us off our feet for a little while. While other times we are able to readjust and swing at that curveball and knock it out of the park. My point is that it is easy to make excuses for why we aren't doing the thing we most want (and need) to be doing in our lives.

If you feel at all like I do (that is, if any other human ever reads this) then feel free to follow my journey to becoming a professional comic book creator. I am planning to record every step I make from this point on. Just so you know, I have been drawing my entire life, mostly as a hobby but I have also done commissions, prints and freelance work. For the past 11 years I have been my own comic entity called Damien's Shadow. It has been an arduous task of epic proportions between the massive amounts of world-building, character development, designing costumes, weaponry and environments. I have told myself that 2016 will be the year that I unleash my madness on the world. Whether my creation flops or flies no longer concerns me. I feel that I have to just release all of these thoughts and ideas that have been marinating in my brain or I may go cuckoo.

I have made a list of all the comic conventions within 6 hours of driving distance and plan to get an artist table at as many as possible. There are 17 cons in total on my list but considering they cost money to attend and so does gasoline and printing prints; I may be able to only hit 5 or 6 throughout the year but they will make good goal-markers for my journey. But who knows, I could make enough off of the ones that I attend to fund extra trips.

I will be posting my list of conventions in the next week as I start to hear back from the promoters. If you have any suggestions, advice or even critiques; feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me directly at atomicrotation@gmail.com

I will also be posting art and story updates as a form of accountability.

Here's to the first step...

-Mr. Andy