If phoenix looks a little tired today, it's because...
Hopeless and I rocked the Phoenix Cactus Con. Unfortunately, neither of us are much for taking pictures, so i don't know that we have that many at all... but here's the short recap...
To be honest, we thought we'd be sitting there with our thumbs up our asses for two days and come home going "never again"... well we've got plenty to say never again about, but nothing to do with the con itself. Phoenix kicked our asses.
We rolled in around 10ish friday night, rented a pimped out auto to cruise for phoenix's hottest in, and rolled on over to our penthouse suite at the moderately esteemed La Quinta in Mesa. Fortunately for them, they followed our implicitly explicit instructions and didn't book anyone else on our floor except a roving team of high school girls who play softball when they're not holding dance parties in the street in front of the hotel, or in the hall in front of our room. based on those abilities, i can only assume they are the top in their league. Of softball.
Comment on phoenix at first glance? mmm. bitches.
hehe. nah, like most places not Kansas City, Phoenix kicks ass. The fact that the roads are 6 lanes wide in most places, is enough to make me love it unconditionally. and i don't love anything without some caveats.
Being the rock stars that we are, we rolled in to the con at the fashionably early time of 9 in the AM on Saturday. Check in was made amazing by the fact that no one knew who we were nor had they heard of the publisher we were there to rep. Oh, the joys of being so famous no one cares. After some neck-wringing and calls for the wrath of Odin to rain down, our wonderful guide (who seemed awfully young to be in charge of so much) realized the badass-ness that we represented and put us in our booth so we could begin the weekend of shilling.
We set up our lovely Arcana banner and then set up our "don't get too close, ladies, it'll make ya squirt out babies" GearHead banner. It was, to say the most by saying the least, Impressive. Most Impressive.
I had taken the time to make a startlingly kickass "sketches $10" sign the day before whilst waiting for H-pizzle in the airport. My decision to include everyone's second favourite claw-wielding cannuck was a good bit of foresight and thoughtfulness on my part because within mere minutes of the convention being opened to the some-what washed masses, I was sketching away for pay.
Here's where things get blurry.
From 9 saturday morning till about midnight that night, i sketched. then i woke up on sunday morning and from 9 that day right up till the convention closed at 5, i sketched. all in all i did about or over 30 inked sketches. My eyes still ache. I drew everything from Harley Quinn, to Thanos, to Shelby from our devilishly good book (which will greet the world in January 2007) GearHead, to polaris, to zorro, to many more that i'll have to look at the list i made and see what they were.
It was a whirlwind of sketching and looking up and seeing new faces every few minutes. I gotta hand it to Phoenix, they bring the hottness.
Hopeless, meanwhile, was honing his sales pitch, and was infinitely amusing to listen to a grown man figure out new and exciting ways to say "it's about a girl who beats people up with a wrench".
hehe.
There were very few people who didn't chuckle at that, and stop to hear the pitch on GearHead and for the rest of the Arcana Line. We wager that if we'd had GearHead with us to sell, we probably would have done slightly better than the hotcakes they were selling in the booth across from us. (I"ve got my sites on you, Frank Beddor... goddamn your good salesmanship. you rule).
Speaking of booths next to us, we were across (more diagonal) from Frank Beddor and his booth for his Looking Glass Wars series of books... That man is a selling machine. It's as if he gets up every morning before cons and watches the Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glen Ross and takes it as his personal motto. That and he's so nice it's ridiculous.
next to us, selling his book and his whole online world he's created, was the highly entertaining and just as nice PJ Haarsma. If there was a nicer and cooler guy to be seated next to for two days, i don't wanna meet him. PJ is a good guy, and the world and books he's created are highly entertaining (I'm in the middle of his first novel right now, and had the chance to check his promo video for his online game, Rings Of Orbis, neat stuff).
There are a ton of other people to thank, and i'll make another post with them in it, because there were a lot of great people who were very kind to us, and very supportive of not only us, but GearHead. If the level of excitement that we drummed up in those two days even remotely translates into sales, we'll do okay with the book.
more later...
-Kevin
To be honest, we thought we'd be sitting there with our thumbs up our asses for two days and come home going "never again"... well we've got plenty to say never again about, but nothing to do with the con itself. Phoenix kicked our asses.
We rolled in around 10ish friday night, rented a pimped out auto to cruise for phoenix's hottest in, and rolled on over to our penthouse suite at the moderately esteemed La Quinta in Mesa. Fortunately for them, they followed our implicitly explicit instructions and didn't book anyone else on our floor except a roving team of high school girls who play softball when they're not holding dance parties in the street in front of the hotel, or in the hall in front of our room. based on those abilities, i can only assume they are the top in their league. Of softball.
Comment on phoenix at first glance? mmm. bitches.
hehe. nah, like most places not Kansas City, Phoenix kicks ass. The fact that the roads are 6 lanes wide in most places, is enough to make me love it unconditionally. and i don't love anything without some caveats.
Being the rock stars that we are, we rolled in to the con at the fashionably early time of 9 in the AM on Saturday. Check in was made amazing by the fact that no one knew who we were nor had they heard of the publisher we were there to rep. Oh, the joys of being so famous no one cares. After some neck-wringing and calls for the wrath of Odin to rain down, our wonderful guide (who seemed awfully young to be in charge of so much) realized the badass-ness that we represented and put us in our booth so we could begin the weekend of shilling.
We set up our lovely Arcana banner and then set up our "don't get too close, ladies, it'll make ya squirt out babies" GearHead banner. It was, to say the most by saying the least, Impressive. Most Impressive.
I had taken the time to make a startlingly kickass "sketches $10" sign the day before whilst waiting for H-pizzle in the airport. My decision to include everyone's second favourite claw-wielding cannuck was a good bit of foresight and thoughtfulness on my part because within mere minutes of the convention being opened to the some-what washed masses, I was sketching away for pay.
Here's where things get blurry.
From 9 saturday morning till about midnight that night, i sketched. then i woke up on sunday morning and from 9 that day right up till the convention closed at 5, i sketched. all in all i did about or over 30 inked sketches. My eyes still ache. I drew everything from Harley Quinn, to Thanos, to Shelby from our devilishly good book (which will greet the world in January 2007) GearHead, to polaris, to zorro, to many more that i'll have to look at the list i made and see what they were.
It was a whirlwind of sketching and looking up and seeing new faces every few minutes. I gotta hand it to Phoenix, they bring the hottness.
Hopeless, meanwhile, was honing his sales pitch, and was infinitely amusing to listen to a grown man figure out new and exciting ways to say "it's about a girl who beats people up with a wrench".
hehe.
There were very few people who didn't chuckle at that, and stop to hear the pitch on GearHead and for the rest of the Arcana Line. We wager that if we'd had GearHead with us to sell, we probably would have done slightly better than the hotcakes they were selling in the booth across from us. (I"ve got my sites on you, Frank Beddor... goddamn your good salesmanship. you rule).
Speaking of booths next to us, we were across (more diagonal) from Frank Beddor and his booth for his Looking Glass Wars series of books... That man is a selling machine. It's as if he gets up every morning before cons and watches the Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glen Ross and takes it as his personal motto. That and he's so nice it's ridiculous.
next to us, selling his book and his whole online world he's created, was the highly entertaining and just as nice PJ Haarsma. If there was a nicer and cooler guy to be seated next to for two days, i don't wanna meet him. PJ is a good guy, and the world and books he's created are highly entertaining (I'm in the middle of his first novel right now, and had the chance to check his promo video for his online game, Rings Of Orbis, neat stuff).
There are a ton of other people to thank, and i'll make another post with them in it, because there were a lot of great people who were very kind to us, and very supportive of not only us, but GearHead. If the level of excitement that we drummed up in those two days even remotely translates into sales, we'll do okay with the book.
more later...
-Kevin
posted by mellon at 6:44 PM
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