Another HeroesCon down in the books!
 |
| Little Asian Sweatshop, Maria Danalakis Art, and myself in Artist Alley! |
 |
| After show drinks on Saturday! |
Let it be known that this and Baltimore Comic Con are my two favorite shows of the year. HeroesCon is a fantastic show that is comic and artist focused and always has a fantastic guest list with amazingly friendly fans and attendees and a supportive staff who are ready and able to help you out with whatever it is you need. Heroes is the one show I will go out of my way to attend and is my main 'away' show where I stay at a hotel and actually socialize with fellow con folks after hours.
 |
| OMG it's "Pee-Wee"! |
 |
| My harlequin-print Jenny dress from Pinup Girl clothing! |
Not that there isn't some criticism. This year seemed a transitional one for the show, after the insanity of last year's 30th anniversary show plus having Stan Lee as a guest it seemed the showrunners assumed that the enormous crowds of last year would carry through and had an even BIGGER floorplan than any year previous. What resulted was a GINORMOUS show floor with GIANT aisles that spread out the attendees so thin that it gave the illusion that the show was kinda dead all weekend. Which from the opinions I heard around resulted in a lack of enthusiasm from the fans and exhibitors and a lack of money being made at Artist Alley tables. I know there were large swaths of time where practically no one came by my table and I actually ::gasp:: SAT DOWN. I know, I know- I'm just as disappointed in myself. :\
ALSO- and by no fault of Heroes, traveling down this year was a NIGHTMARE. My husband and I will usually make a 2 day journey down to NC from NYC due to the sheer volume of merch I bring with me requiring us to drive. We'll take a Megabus down from NYC to Baltimore and borrow my parent's van, then we pick up Fenny in DC and drive the (what's supposed to be 7 hours) to Charlotte. Which we usually have done on Thursday, but figured we'd do it this year on Friday as that's a dead day anyways for most, and we assumed we'd get there at at 2ish since we were on the road at 7am. Ugh, but constant torrential downpours and traffic jams destroyed any hope for smooth sailing and setup on Friday was left for a hectic final hour of the show that day. And I must admit I got really snippy with people who stopped to talk to me while I was trying to setup.
 |
| "Little Stepford Sweatshop" |
 |
| My husband Phil "Ballsy" Balsman and I! |
All was not lost at Heroes however. While I did financially take a hit this year (hopefully the rest of this year's shows will fare better on my wallet), one of the things that makes the show really worth it at the end is the Dead Dog party for all the professionals/workers/volunteers on Sunday night after the show at the comic shop that throws it, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find. The after party has an awesome spread of tacos, beer and I got some discounted comics- though as always when I actually go into a brick-and-mortar comic shop I get a case of buyer's amnesia and forget EVERYTHING I want to buy. What's super-duper awesome about the afterparty is also that it gives me a chance to mingle and catch up with my contemporaries and I even got some hugs *initiated* by some longtime artistic heroes, which put me on cloud 9. Especially since I'm chained to my table during con hours and rarely get a break to pee let alone go around and talk to people. I also for the third year in a row donated art to the Heroescon Saturday art auction, this year it being the original to my chibi Poison Ivy pinup, which went to a huge fan of the character. Which I'm aways glad to see.
 |
| So very, very tired. |
 |
| Me and my FAVE cosplayer DJ Spider as golden age Batwoman! |
Something I did notice however with Heroes regarding my own work is that this being my 6th year tabling I feel like I'm starting to get pigeonholed as the 'pin-up girl'. Which is awesome thing to be known for and I love the genre, but my true passion has always been comics and I feel like there's so much more artistically I can offer. Like drawing guys. And ugly people. And having characters act in a way other than 'Were you just looking at my bum, naughty boy?' So I'm trying to really focus on actually putting out my magnum opus comic Pearly Whites in the next 5 years, which is honestly a VERY generous time frame and it will hopefully be in even less time then that. I already started my final character designs and I've been writing and outlining like crazy trying to streamline 15 years worth of story notes into a cohesive narrative that doesn't suck. Thankfully my BFF Fenny of Little Asian Sweatshop was an English Lit major in college and is helping me out with all the fine tuning and is an AMAZING sounding board for ideas. Look for future blog entries where I'll share some tidbits on the craziness that is Pearly Whites.
