INDIANA COMIC CONVENTION

Convention Tableau

The crowd on Saturday moved with mounting urgency, always looking forward for the next break in the column of people. They had very little time to look to either side and take careful stock of what was on display.

Despite a chronic migraine that’s been hanging around for weeks my wife Kelly was right there with me, smiling and taking it in. On a normal weekend we are not ones to seek out a crowd and her support meant the world as I dealt with long stretches of disinterest punctuated by shots of adrenaline as I pitched my books to strangers. It’s like show and tell, if show and tell was a Master’s level discipline and you had to randomly give your thesis over and over and over.

It’s a three day roller coaster with long stretches of boredom punctuated by spurts of exhilarating terror which you always hope there’ll be more of because that’s what you paid for.

By the end of Sunday I had sold about 22 books, gotten a good chunk of names for my mailing list, met a vibrant community of absurdly talented artists among the other vendors, and seen friends I had not run into in years. 

Occasionally doing events like this makes one the center of gravity for your social universe. This last weekend I had a different best friend show up each day so that along with my wife, I had a parade of wacky funsters from every decade of my life who were looking to just hang around and keep me entertained. 

So even though I failed to earn back my investment on being there, it was a worthwhile ticket price for everything I experienced.

Thanks for Hanging Out Everybody!