Selling Spandex

I thought I’d do a little con report – following Sunday’s Comiket small press con at the ICA.
It was the first show I’d done in a couple of years. I used to really enjoy them when I was doing The O Men, but after 10 years, and 35 issues, it was getting hard to keep everything in print, plus people are less likely to 'get on board' as the numbers increase (however much I try to make O Men accessible), so I ‘retired’!
I’d been going to shows in the meantime as a punter, and was getting really inspired each time, so I’m glad I finally got back into the ‘scene’ to launch Spandex.
I was actually only there on Sunday for a couple of hours, due to a clash, but it was really worth going. I met some really nice people, and shared a table with Mr Paul Rainey, who is very entertaining company. Spandex seemed to go down well, and I was happy to sell some copies – and actually gave some freebies away to people who had no money on them. Bad ‘business sense’, I guess, but I’d rather someone actually read it than leave it to fester unread on a coffee table (or bin). I was a little embarrassed when some kids started to come up and look thru my stuff – it’s very adult!!
On a whim, I also took a few O Men copies, and they went down well too – and it was nice to meet people who had really been into O Men (and I mean really into it!!!). It actually made me want to do some more O Men comics sooner than I’d planned... I’ve actually kind of shelved O Men away in a part of my brain, to an extent where I can’t remember much about it! A guy at the con was talking about an old storyline, and I actually couldn’t rememeber it! That’s quite sad...
My favourite moment though was when I was leaving (ha ha carry on reading) and I put some Spandex fliers on the table near the entrance – and while I was packing my bag, a lady went straight up to the table and grabbed one straight away – it seems to be attracting people at least!
I bought some nice wares too. I was very pleased to get my hands on the final two parts of Necessary Monsters, and I checked out Howard Hardiman’s comics (very intense, but impressive), plus I got my hands on Solistic Pop, which is a gorgeous collection. Shame I wasn’t there longer so I could have met more people and bought more stuff.
The only downside was the venue – dark, windowless, hot, crowded – I felt like we’d all been rounded up and were about to be exterminated or something... Death to the small press!!
But anyway, thanks to Paul Gravett for organising this show, and also for adding ‘the launch of Spandex’ as one of the highlights on the program flier – what an honour!!