I went to Genghis Con last weekend. It's a small press comics fair/zinefest. I actually set up at the first one, which was cofounded by my buddy Scott. Back then, each tabler had to have a freebie comic/zine to give away and mine was a Thirsty Bear & Hungry Snake comic. Since then, I've updated that comic periodically when a new president is elected. Since Trump pulled a Grover Cleveland, I get to recycle the 2018 version, which I suppose would win him the lazy cartoonist vote, but judging from the wokeness exuding at the latest Genghis Con (for example, if you're female and always wanted to use a urinal, then this is your opportunity), the average indie cartoonist will still vote Democratic. The con is at a really nice arts venue in Cleveland, Ohio USA. The funniest thing at the con was that the venue had set up a metal detector at the gallery entrance inside. Now you could take in the entire convention without passing through the metal detector, but if you wanted to check out the art in the gallery portion you had to pass through a half-assed security gate. I found this amusing because if someone wanted to commit mayhem, he or she (or the singular they, considering the demographic at the con) could have slaughtered all the artists in the house, but, you know, the art was secure and apparently that's what's important.
Sigh. Cleveland.
The con itself was fun, but there seemed to be a plethora of it's $20 for my trade paperback which you've never heard of and $10 for my photocopied comic book, which isn't quite the zine world I remember, where people cranked out stuff as cheaply as possible. There has been a significant Etsyification of the zine world (artist books and magazines were always part of it but getting the word out as cheaply as possible was a larger part of it). Not much struck me as interesting enough to shell out that amount of money for, so I mainly stuck to the old-timers. I bought a bunch of comics from Joe Zabel because whenever I stumbled across his comics in a dollar bin or wherever, they were always really good (note to other cartoonists, Joe was selling his comics for $2.50 to $5, so maybe y'all should look into mass printing to lower the price you have to charge for a single copy). The Apama guy was there also, but he still didn't have a new issue of Apama out and tried to sell me copies of the spinoffs about the villains, which, for whatever reason, don't interest me. I don't know if there's a legal complication that explains why he doesn't do more Apama (the character came from a movie), or if he's just more interested in the villains, but the Apama series is really fun with a 1970s Marvel feel to it, and I wish he'd do more of it. I did buy something from Derf, but not one of his own comics--which are good by the way, but I've read them all before--some weird French Batman comic instead. I joked my son wanted it, and Derf took me seriously and warned us it was for mature readers only, and my son got embarrassed. I guess 10-year-olds are too cool for Batman these days. Anyway, I guess the point of this rambling if there is one is that the con could be even more fun if people still gave away free minicomics or whatnot like we did in the beginning. Then if people like your stuff they might be more inclined to shell out $20 for your trade paperback (but it's nyet forever for the $5 four-page zine and $10 comic book). And your first one's free but the next one will cost you effort need not take a great deal of thought. For example, look below . . .
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