I’m back from the Baltimore Comic Con. It was a fun time, and many thanks go out to Mark Wheatley and the Insight Studios gang for letting me crash their party.

The Harvey Awards were fun, the dinner was fantastic, and the awards ceremony was well organized and moved at a very nice pace. The very worthy Perry Bible Fellowship won the best on-line work, beating out the Chelation Kid. But, y’know what, it really is an honour to be nominated. I got to dress up in my spiffy new suit, have a fantastic meal, hang out with my peers, and received a nice gift bag with some pretty cool swag ( I was especially thrilled about the copy of Two Fisted Tales EC Archives Volume 1 in the bag!).

All in all a good time.

I made a last minute decision to attend the Baltimore Comic Con. What tipped the balance for me was the desire to attend the Harvey Awards, as I’m up for an award for my work on The Chelation Kid.

I’ll be flying to Baltimore early Saturday morning and should be at the con by noon and will be there all day Sunday as well. I will be hanging out at the Insight Studios booth, so if you are attending the show, stop by and say hello. I’ll have some original art on hand, and will be doing the odd commission sketch.

It’s been a few months since Free Comic Book Day, and I thought it was time to do a wrap up.

Going in, my goal for participating was to raise awareness about Wahoo Morris, with the hope that two or three hundred stores who hadn’t tried the book out might get a chance to see it and then bring in a copy of the trade paperback.

Around 10,500 copies of the FCBD book went out to 695 stores to be distributed on Free Comic Book Day. Of those 695 stores, only 29 had previously ordered the Wahoo Morris trade paperback.

Post FCBD I got an order from Diamond for 32 copies.

I don’t have the data for how many of those books went to stores that hadn’t previously ordered, but the results were a little disappointing to say the least. I probably gained no more than a handful of new stores.

I have no way of knowing if the free books were distributed to people who were looking for a freebie and would never be back, or who don’t know you have to special order a book like Wahoo Morris, or if the majority of those stores just aren’t interested in bothering to order a book like Wahoo Morris on the off chance that any of the takers of the FCBD book will be back for more. Maybe offering a FCBD book isn’t enough to overpower Previews overload, and I still got overlooked at the back of Previews. Or maybe the Free comic just didn’t appeal to anyone.

I know the latter isn’t the case as I have made multiple sales at conventions to people who read the FCBD book and loved it.

So, the conclusion is that, according to the goals I set for the promotion, Free Comic Book Day was a resounding flop for me. I might see some long term benefits, as it probably did raise my profile somewhat, even if my book is only available in 29 comic stores worldwide.

Will I do it again? Never say never, but probably not. I think I would rather spend my money targeting my audience directly by giving out free tastes at conventions, and supplying interested retailers with freebies directly instead of the blanket shot that was FCBD.

I still think Free Comic Book Day is a good promotion for the industry as a whole, but for an individual indie publisher trying to get into more stores – not so much.

I have been invited to, and will be attending TCAF: The TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL. The details are below (and have been cut and paste from the TCAF website which is linked in the convention links on the right). I hope to see you all there!

“The Toronto Comic Arts Festival exists to promote the breadth and diversity of comics, and what is considered comics, as legitimate medium of literary and artistic worth. We seek to promote the creators of these works in their broad and diverse voices, for the betterment of the medium of comics and to reach as wide an audience as possible for them.”

The third Toronto Comic Arts Festival will occur on Saturday August 18th and Sunday August 19th, 2007. It will be held in the Old Victoria College building and the Burwash Quad on the University of Toronto Campus.

For the purposes of correspondence, the official address of the Festival is:

Toronto Comic Arts Festival
c/o The Beguiling
601 Markham Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M6G 2L7
Phone: 416-533-9168

For the purposes of hotel searches and/or directions to TCAF events, the address of the Festival is:

Old Victoria College
93 Charles St. West
Toronto, ON, Canada
M5S 2C7

Show Hours:
Saturday, August 18th: 10am-7pm
Sunday, August 19th: 10am-6pm

After many long months of radio silence, new updates of Wahoo Morris (the web comic) began today.

I’ve spent the last few months pencilling ahead, completing close to 40 pages of Wahoo Morris Book 2. I have begun inking them and should have 5 done by the end of this week, with another 3 or 4 per week through the summer. As I’m sticking to a once a week update schedule, it looks like I might actually be able to keep up with regular updates through the remainder of the year.