Conventions | Vinh-Luan Luu: Quatzequatel Tour 2013

Image Comic Expo 2012:

Posted on March 7th, 2012 by vinhluanluu

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So Jake had conned me into going to the Image Comic Expo when it got announced. Granted, maybe “conned” is a harsh word; “coerced” maybe. Honestly all it took was a simple “DUDE! Airline tickets are cheap.” We had talked about expanding our exposure to more out of state conventions; and this turned out to be one of cheapest convention we could do out of state. When Jake ran the numbers to me about tickets, table, and hotel; all i could say was “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve done something stupid.”

The convention itself was fairly small; it felt like some early Dallas Comic Cons. The atmosphere was very nice, it wasn’t crowded, and almost everything was comics related (the biggest media related subject was Walking Dead, which is understandable why it was there.) The Image booth was the largest, and again, that is understandable. I think there were only a handful of retailers; a lot of the floor was dedicated to artist alley, publishers, and the invited creator guests. I personally really like this ratio for a convention; I’m not really a collector so I overlook all the retailer. The only one that caught my eye briefly was a vendor with some original art. There were only a handful of cosplayers, which I think is a great nerd addition to the comic convention. However at the bigger shows it causes a lot of traffic jams due to pictures and some costumes being bulky. The small smattering of cosplay was an oddly welcomed change. Sadly i did not get a picture of the BEST cosplayer evah: Casey Jones. He even made the hockey mask proper as it was not just a store bought hockey mask. It was painted and shaped like the one from the cartoon. And he kind of had that Brooklyn kid look to him too. It was epic.

The show was fairly well attended, nothing massive though. Our approach was if the place is packed, it would give us a good opportunity to make some money. If it was not crowded, then we would have time to talk to the publishers. It’s been a while since I’ve had to approach publisher with a book in hand; so it took some nicotine and a Red Bull to get me kick started. But I was able to hand off out books to a few places and got the online submission information for a publisher as well. All in all, the book was well received; people seem to like the overall package as a leave behind. They seemed impressed that everything was in logical order and written out for them. It gives me hope that we are on the right direction and at the very least we come across as serious creators. It pays to be prepared. Sadly it doesn’t always pay hard cash.

As stated before the show was fairly small yet dedicated comic fans; which gave us a good opportunity to talk to a lot of people for a good length of time. That translated to some sales, but not enough to cover the entire trip. Though one of the cheapest out of state shows we can exhibit at, it was still a fairly steep hill to climb to even break even. So it was a pyrrhic victory, we took some solid steps on getting our stories out there. But it was a pretty costly experience. But when you look at the game that is the comic industry, sometimes you just got to take chances. I found that doing a show outside of our usual stomping grounds was like we were starting over again. We had decent traffic but similar sales from our early local endeavors. I believe that a lot of comic fandom is familiarity and do certain type of trust. There are a lot of creators that pop up then disappear; so I think it takes a few appearances to prove that we are here to stay.

We got to meetup with some fun people over the weekend though. Our semi neighbors at Comic Book Junkies were really nice guys; I even did a sketch card trade with artist Lance Sawyer. I got to briefly meetup with friend Jessie and DJ Kirbride; I’ve communicated with DJ online before but I don’t think I ever got the chance to meet in person. I got to meet Tim Daniel who was at the Shadowline Booth over the weekend; we had a great talk and he was very nice in trying to get me some time with Jim Valentino to show him our pitch book. I got a sketch and an autograph from the Skullkicker guys for the wifey, who is a big fan of the series. I also got a signature from colorist Christina Strain for the wifey. Christina and I chatted for a bit about the industry and why she’s kind of taken a step out of it. Sadly the current business model has no support for the small quirky books that we love so it’s hard for those titles to keep profitable. Though I didn’t bring my copies of Heart, I got a autograph from Blair Butler on the program guide. She was genuinely appreciative of everyone who stopped by and said hi. You can tell she loves what she does. Got to meet Betty Gomez and her husband who were running the CBLDF table; great people and a great cause.

And finally, the one meeting that even my wife got jealous about. It all just happened to chance that the one and only Jiz Lee (NSFW) was going to the expo anyways! I had done an illustration for their 2011 Christmas Card; which got a lot of love from Jiz’s fans. I had tweeted Jiz I was going to be at the convention and turns out they already had plans on attending. One of the best parts when how Jiz found me: They had my Twitter icon loaded on their phone and was just looking for the matching weird little Asian. We had a wonderful chat; though the entire time i was worried that I was just rambling. Before they left, Jiz said they wanted a photo with me. I was like, I want a photo WITH YOU! When I told them my wife was jealous that I got to meet them, Jiz just humbly said “Oh why? I’m just a dork.” That’s why we love you, Jiz!

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AnimeFEST 2011: You’re Only Ruining it for Yourself

Posted on September 14th, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Conventions, Life, Photography

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For nearly a decade, Labor Day weekend meant one thing for me: AnimeFEST. I’ve been to this con as an attendee, an artist, and a dealer; so I’ve seen a lot of sides of the convention. This past event was a good weekend though mired by selfish and horrible behavior. Maybe i’m finally showing my age, quite frankly I’m getting too old for this shit. Pulling fire alarms every night in the AM is not funny, no matter who you think you are. Pushing all the buttons on the elevator is not a fun prank. Talking about spiking the water stations is not funny; actually doing it is a federal crime. Making fake badges is pathetic and will only get you chased down by the cops. In the end, all you are doing is making it worse for yourself and everyone else in the following years.

The biggest complaint this year was the wristband requirement for the elevator usage. I will say that the hotel (and to a certain degree the convention staff) could have been more polite in enforcing these new rules. I was not aware of the wristbands until Friday evening; we had checked in Thursday night. Though kind of a pain, I can understand the hotel’s concern and security measures. Previous years has massive noise complaints, people partying in the elevators, rampant thefts, and vandalism. This is their response to those incidents. Other headaches include pulled fire alarms and rumors of spiked water stations. Legally, the hotel is required to investigate all these incidents, leading to wasted work hours and efforts. Hence it was obvious this year that the hotel was holding the convention on a short leash. Which in turns leads to bad attitudes from hotel staff, convention staff, and even convention attendees. Understandably when given a bad attitude from a staff member, it ruins your moment and you want to give it back. However, we need to look past the immediate and look where this attitude is coming from.

Anime cons are unique little pockets of time and space where the freaks and geeks get together to bond over mutual interests (anime, manga, art, panels, etc). The convention kind of creates of pocket universe, functioning in its own displaced reality bubble. People are dressed up, they dance, they perform, they build crazy contraptions. It’s like Burning Man without the sand (though sadly with the smell). For some of us, conventions are the only times we get to hang with certain people. It’s a place to get your geek on and no one will judge; it’s a wonderful environment to express yourself and be around like minded people. However, though cons are little bubble realities, we must understand for cons to run smoothly, especially ones with +5k attendees, we are at the mercy of the hotel and convention center. Some staff I’ve talked to love the weekend, it’s busy, it’s freaky, it’s fun to watch. That all changes when someone wants to be an asshole and pull the fire alarm every night. Or start rumors of spiking the water stations. Or be a general douche to other convention goers and thus security has to step in. Or don’t understand why lines are taking so long. This sours their attitudes and that is passed on from person to person like a virus. In the end, it gives the hotel a bad name among attendees and it gives the attendees a bad name among the hotel.

The convention and the hotel/convention center have a symbiotic relationship. Each can not exist without the other. The hotel staff have a hierarchy in place to deal with insubordinate behavior. However, attendees do not; hence why bad behavior goes unchecked for the most part. If we want to continue to have fun, safe conventions, we NEED to start policing ourselves. And i point to this year as a reality check: increased hooligan behavior led to tighter security and horrible attitudes. For those of us who are responsible convention attendees, we have to step up and make a stand against these disruptive behaviors. They serve no purpose other than cause headaches, inconvenience others, and cause financial setbacks. We can not allow our fun weekend to be mired by these incidents. If we don’t clamp down and stop these incidents, someone from the outside will step in and do it for us. More than likely, their rules will be stricter with zero tolerance.

Also, from the convention standpoint, I think the staff should be more transparent abou the complaints they get from the venue. Allowing this sort of behavior to pass without even verbal criticism only encourages people to do it again. If we educate ourselves as to what behavior is getting us in trouble with the venue, we can be on the lookout for it in the future. We are living in a social media environment, we might as well use it.

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A-Kon 2011

Posted on June 21st, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Conventions, Photography

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Wow, totally forgot to post here.

Another A-Kon in the banks. And this year i spent a lot of time in the “rave”, which was fun. A lot of really strange on-goings; if i was in my teens or early 20s, it would have been really strange times. Sadly, i am slowly becoming “that guy” at the con. But whatevers, it’s like being a nature photographer roaming into the wild. The con itself was fun; it was an A-Kon where we didn’t work anything. We tried to get an artist alley table but their online system fucked us pretty hard. Though i will give them they did get back to us and tried to make things right. However it was one week before the con and they only responded to Ruby’s mother who emailed the con chair directly. One step forward, two steps back.

Anyways, the above photo is what i will send to people now when they ask “What is A-Kon like?”. Cause that right there is A-Kon in a nutshell.

More photos can be found on our flickr account.

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Dallas Comic Con 2011

Posted on May 24th, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Conventions

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Another year and another Dallas Comic Con in the bag. After a few years of jam packing the Richardson Civic Center, Dallas Comic-Con was held in the spacious convention center over in Irving. The new place is massive and honestly looks like a sandcrawler from Star Wars. I kept expecting little Jawas to come out and sell me some droids; and with DCC, it’s a possibility. And quite frankly, this new venue is amazing: spacious, clean, and very well lit. My only compliant would be that the parking was terrible; however i was informed that there is a parking garage missing. With the recent weather issues, the ground is too muddy to begin construction. It should be done by the October show. What was truly amazing was how agile the staff was; any issue on day one was soundly addressed on day two. The AC was pumped up overnight, volunteers were corralling the lines to the proper places, and the convention center staff was one of the best I’ve ever encountered. With plans on expansions and the DART rail having a stop there, things look great for the future.

As for the con itself, it was great. We had a minor hiccup with the tables but Space-Gun Studios was able to prevail! I sold a bunch of prints, did a few little sketches for people, and even sold my Weeping Angel painting! Which is great, but now i have to hustle a few more things out for A-Kon in June. I love how Texas seems to be about the art; there are so many con-goers in the artist alley looking for originals, commissions, and prints. That was the problem with the Wizard World Texas/Dallas; they came down with their media and Hollywood glitz and no one cared. So many thanks to Ben and Mark for making Dallas Comic Con about COMICS!

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The Booth Babe

Posted on April 23rd, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Conventions

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I have been doing conventions for a very long time now; starting with A-Kon I believe in 2000. I started retailing at shows in 2001 and doing the artist alley since 2003; there were some years where I was doing 6 conventions a year. So when I make this next statement, understand it comes with a lot of first hand experience:

I. Hate. Booth. Babes.

This must be a very odd statement from a person who draws almost exclusively women. But it is true. I believe booth babes are detrimental to one’s longevity, they bring in the wrong audience, and they actually turn customers away. Though let me clarify that there is a major difference between a cute/hot sales rep and a hired model. And honestly that difference is knowledge. It may be due to my age, but just having good looks is not attractive to me. Being able to hold a conversation will definitely hold my attention longer and will stick in my memory. And actually geeking out about the product you are selling/promoting will get me MORE exciting about what are you promoting. Give me an actual geek girl and leave the hired model to the photo studio.

Booth babes attract a very specific audience which in my opinion actually hurts you in the long run. How many times have you had to ask someone what the booth babe is selling? How many times did you actually care? The take away from most booth babes is not the product, but a picture of the girl (not holding or displaying the product). Though i will give the Gator Gum girls the fact that i do remember the gum; mainly because it was awful. And the people who do actually come to the table are usually the type who just want to talk to the pretty girl, or at least attempt to. If you are selling a pinup book or a book where SEX SELLS not the story, maybe a booth babe is right for you. If not, you may be actually turning away customers who may give your book a chance. A booth babes says you are selling an image, not a comic.

This article on Bleeding Cool by Kat Engh makes a very good point in that the hired models with no geek knowledge will actively turn away the women audience. The booth babes are there to attract and market towards men; however, by doing so, they will ignore any female fan who happes to walk bay. It is actually a reflection of what the company thinks of its female audience; who they put on the convention floor is a representation of themselves.

I will point out that at one point I had a designated girl as a booth babe back in the old Space-Gun Webcomic days. It was then that I discovers these pitfalls: those that came up to her had no interest in our product. Even though she was one of our biggest fans, i really don’t recall her many any sort of sale and didn’t seem to pull the guys’ attention away from her boobs at all. All we really got were a few more creepy guys stopping by the table.

Understandable, in today’s market and culture, some products need the booth babe to promote. Large corporations use them to add to their product image on the floor. Some are not even presented as product reps but just models for photo opportunities (most of BlizzCon from what i can tell). Understanding the strategy and liking it are two different things; and i will continue to stand by my opinion. And hopefully with the growth of the geek girl demographic, we’ll be able to replace “booth babes” with “geeky sales rep” of both genders.

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The Look at My Life

Posted on April 11th, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Comics, Conventions, Illustration, Life

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This is the wonderful Adele; we met and became friends during my college years in Denton. We had known each other in passing as she was the clerk at the art store across the street from the art building. We got to know each other more during her stint as a member of Minx Burlesque. Due to a web of mutual friends, I ended up becoming their unofficial photographer during these early years. These experiences added to my running list of odd interests and hobbies. Running around finding hammers and nails for a make-shift changing room, a living room full of drunken ladies for a photo shoot, crashing someone’s living room for a performance because the bar lost it liquor license; those were really the days.

A month ago during my trip to Austin, TX for the STAPLE! convention, I came to a very odd realization. Sitting in the hotel room with my friends, slightly inebriated, I realized what i was doing is very odd for the everyday person. Very few if any of my co-workers will ever experience something like this: the hustle of selling your art to strangers, sharing hotel rooms to cut down convention costs, driving hours home after a long weekend only to go back to work on monday. It is something that sets me apart from my co-workers. Sure, we all get along just fine, but I always feel slightly disconnected with them because the major part of my life is something they cannot relate to. It would be a lonely existence but thanks to various social media, i can connect to those with similar experiences as me and it makes these long days at the office bearable.

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Jinkies!

Posted on April 7th, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Comics, Conventions, Illustration

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Doing something to expand my scope a bit. I’ve been into the anime/manga scene for a while, technically into it before i knew what it was (growing up on a lot of badly subtitled anime from the Vietnamese markets). I remember somehow knowing in a pre-internet age that Dragon Ball was making it’s US premiere one Saturday. My friend and i caught it; finally able to see the anime for all the cool wallscrolls and posters we had. And now anime/manga is part of the nerd culture. One of the things that have been immediately adopted is cosplay*.

I remember thinking someone should do some fine art photography of cosplayers; and someone did. And i remember thinking someone should make a risque cosplay pinup site, and someone did. So here i am thinking, I should start rotoscoping cosplayers, and here i am. I hope to build a nice portfolio of various cosplayers and offer it as a service later. Here is my thinking: this would be a unique and almost meta approach. Cosplayers take an animated/illustrated character and brings the to life. And here I am, taking their interpretation BACK to its 2D source. Most, if not all, cosplayers can not be 100% accurate, because they are taking from a fantasy source. So each cosplayer has a certain personality and style to them that is unique to them. It’s a combination of various things: costume construction, physical features, posture, etc. I thought it would be a cool, unique service /product to sell.

WARNING: The following links can be NSFW. The model for this is Nikki, she goes by FatBottomedGirl on DeviantArt. She also runs a webcomic about her life as a professional dominatrix. I haven’t had a lot of interactions with her, but she seems nice so far. We did a quick pass on trying to work together; unfortunately she is over in LA and i’m here in DFW. Neither one of us seem to have reasons to go to the other city, so alas, no collabs. Howerver, i contacted her about using her existing photography and she gave permission. Which is how it should be done. More on that later hopefully.

*NOTE: It’s pronounced KOS-PLAY, not KOZ-PLAY. It’s a amalgam of Costume and Play, hence cosplay. I hate you.

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STAPLE! 2011 Recap

Posted on March 8th, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Comics, Conventions

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Another STAPLE! has gone passed us and it’s time to reflect. STAPLE! has always been a good show and this year was no different. The kru did fairly well overall; selling mostly sketchbooks and prints from what i can gather. I did not do very well this year, only making a handful of sales on Sunday. Some shows are hits, some are misses; and sometimes there is just something amiss. The vibe was weird for me coming in; i realized that i have not done a convention since the last STAPLE! in 2010. So maybe i am just out of practice. I can say that the second day is warranted; there was a steady crowd most of Sunday. Though Sunday ran a bit long for us out of towners; leaving Austin for DFW at closing (6PM) would have put us back home pretty late. STAPLE! is a hard convention to pin down, the audience’s buying habits are all over the board across the years. And I would have to voice that I am not a big fan of the venue; I believe the two rooms are not conducive to traffic. Also the lighting is horrible, which I think is bad for a visual heavy convention.

Overall though, a good convention, I feel on par with previous STAPLE! events for me personally. Photos are on our flickr account.

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STAPLE! 2011

Posted on February 28th, 2011 by vinhluanluu

Comics, Conventions

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March is just around the conner and that means it’s time for STAPLE! Independent Media Expo in Austin, TX. And this time it’s a two day show! The Space-Gun Studios kru and I look forward to this show every year. STAPLE! is one of the great indie comic shows out there; no dealers or retailers, just creators and publishers. The show is about our love for comics. Space-Gun Studios will be joined by the lovely Ruby Boiko at tables 5-7 in the Hall. Note, there are TWO separate rooms for the con, so be sure to come find us in the HALL not the ANNEX. And though it is at the same venues as the years previous, just under a new name/management. I’ll have new copies of Gun Gals | Blade Babes: Vol 3 on hand as well as some new prints.

This year’s live art show will be at Club Deville on 900 Red River, Austin TX with all the proceeds going to a local community radio station called KOOP! Radio. Looking at the map, it seems like Club Deville is right in the thick of bars and clubs. We’ll see if parking wil be available at all on a Saturday night.

You can check out my photos from our previous trips: 2010 | 2009

STAPLE! Facebook Page
STAPLE! 2010 Facebook Event

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