This past weekend, I was attending SC Comic Con at the TD Convention Center in Greenville, South Carolina. I’d never been to a comic convention in this state before, so I was curious to see how this went.
It turned out to be a fun time! I was so glad to be there! Of course, I was there with folks from Scout Comics, including Richard Rivera from Stabbity Bunny. It went well, with comics selling well from many franchises.
IS IT BETTER TO GO TO A LARGE CONVENTION OR A SMALL ONE?
Granted, I’ve been to many different cons of many different sizes… from a one-day convention to four-day ones. New York and San Diego are still the biggest I’ve gone to, and I won’t name a smaller event. I wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone!
Now, just FYI, this was the first South Carolina con I’ve been to, even though it’s the fifth year SC Comic Con has been held. It was a great one, with all kinds of things done differently than other cons I’ve been to.
For instance, SC Comic Con had local food companies provide pizza, subs, and other kinds of eats around. In fact, my roommate Richard pretty much lives on Coca-Cola, which they provided free all Saturday and Sunday, both days of the con. We saved a lot of money that way!
As I checked out the schedule, there were several panel discussions going on both days. Because I was so busy helping at the booth, I never go to any of them. But they did seem interesting even though there was only one going one at one time.
Of course, the bigger cons have multiple panels going on at the same time, usually run by media and comics guests. And they have many more rooms available as well! But you do the best with what you have!
WHAT ABOUT THE GUESTS?
Granted, bigger cons have bigger budgets so they can schedule better-known guests. But sometimes you just don’t need a “big” name to get people there.
At SC Comic Con, there were a few good media guests, including Cary Elwes, Maggie Geha, Neil Kaplan, James Mathis III, and Adrian Paul.
As far as comic guests, they had Jim Steranko, Greg Land, Michael Golden and Joe Staton, among others.
As far as comics companies, you could visit AfterShock, Ominous Press, Scout Comics and Valiant. There were several great guests with each company, so you had good folks to meet.
About 1 p.m., I saw him come back and start to set up again at one of the two booths across from us. I was glad to see that, and promised I would talk with him later in the day.
WHEN MAKING MONEY IS IMPORTANT
SC Comic Con was a good one for the folks of Scout Comics. Everyone there sold a good number of products, so it’s likely we’ll be back again next year.
Now, not everyone did that. There were several groups that didn’t have new things to sell, so they didn’t make a lot of money. Hopefully, that will change for next year. I’ve often found that people who don’t have new product struggle to make money.
New dealers and vendors did make more money than repeat folks. I guess that if you’ve put out your wares before — maybe a few years in a row — you might not take in much money.
Still, it was a good time, and we met a lot of new fans, many of them readers rather than collectors. And that’s a good thing! We want people reading our stories, after all! Yes, there were several collectors there, and we did sell to several of them, but most of the folks there wanted to buy copies to read! Again, that’s something we LIKE to see!
As I was writing this column, the con’s website has already been updated to next year’s information! That’s working well ahead of other cons’ schedules! Will we go back next year? Time will tell, but Richard pinky-swore he would be back to a customer, so I’m looking forward to going back there.
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Wayne Hall creates the Wayne's Comics Podcast. He’s interviewed Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, John Layman, Kyle Higgins, Phil Hester, Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, David Petersen, Christos Gage, Mike Grell, and Matt Kindt. On this site each week, he writes his "Comics Portal" column (general comics comments and previews) and reviews comics.