{"id":1336,"date":"2014-03-27T15:12:21","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T20:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2014-11-16T23:13:29","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T05:13:29","slug":"1336","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/?p=1336","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Comic Con and kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana Comic Con 2014<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Too much and too many<\/span><\/p>\n

Or<\/span><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t see the forest because the trees are in the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I have been to a lot of poorly run comic book conventions in my day, and I have done as much complaining about them as humanly possible.\u00a0\u00a0 Let me tell you something about the past comic con in Indiana.\u00a0 You may have already heard rumblings of it being too crowded to move and many people being turned away at the door.\u00a0 I am going to say something right now as a professional who has attended well over a hundred different comic book conventions\u2026this show and the operators deserve a round of applause.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s start with what their job is.\u00a0 They have about 300 or more different artists , exhibitors, and stores to check in, get to their proper locations and have up and running before the show starts.\u00a0 After that they have to check in attendees through the entire three days, while running discussion panels, contests and just in general keeping the peace. \u00a0\u00a0In \u201ckeeping\u00a0 the peace\u201d I mean dealing with the complaints. \u00a0I\u2019ll be honest , Artists are a pain in the ass. Everyone of them thinks they should be treated like they just cured cancer instead of just drew a stupid comic book.\u00a0 Store owners are usually worse as none of them are every happy with their placement ,the amount of attendees, the demographic of attendees and how much they are spending.\u00a0 Exhibitors\/Publishers\u2026they are usually pretty easy to please, they are running a business of their own and have too many of their own problems to deal with to notice if they didn\u2019t get enough chairs or how far away the garbage cans are.\u00a0 Attendees usually aren\u2019t big on complaining but they do come up and waste time with every stupid question imaginable\u2026here\u2019s a recent example \u201c is the guy who drew superman here? \u201d here\u2019s a better one \u201cwhere is the bathroom?\u201d\u00a0 an ADULT asked that. \u00a0\u00a0These seem like silly yet stupid questions, and not that stressful to dealt with\u2026but multiply that by 30 an hour for three days.\u00a0 So\u2026it is a tough job even though I bust the balls of operators a lot, they do have a tough job.<\/span><\/p>\n

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However, it is a job they not only volunteered for but fought for.\u00a0 So 9 times out of 10 I have no pity.\u00a0 This would be the 1 time out of 10 I do have pity and here is why.\u00a0 They set up the show expecting 4-5 thousand attendees.\u00a0 This was the first comic book convention in Indianapolis in many years.\u00a0 It is tough to predict how many people are going to show up and you can usually take the number that the con operators tell you they expect and cut it in half.\u00a0 Judging by the website, ( which I often do even though I often say not to, for example Wizard World shows have fancy websites and suck, MCBA Spring Comic Con has a sucky web site and is great) I figured about 3-4 thousand people.\u00a0 This show however got well over DOUBLE the attendees they were expecting. \u00a0That\u2019s over ten thousand people.\u00a0 TEN THOUSAND.\u00a0 So was it crowded, hell yes.\u00a0 Did people get turned away\u2026yep. \u00a0\u00a0In this instance though, my lack of pity is for the complainers.\u00a0 Oh, they ran out of tickets?\u00a0 Bitch to the fire marshal, because you are only allowed, by law, to have a certain amount of people in a building.\u00a0 Bitch to yourself for not ordering the tickets in advance, or getting their earlier.\u00a0 The fact that they sold out before YOU got there is proof of a whole lot of people being smarter than you and planning better.\u00a0 The same people complaining are the same people who make fun of folks who camp out early.\u00a0 Well guess what, the laugh is on you this time, you got sent home.\u00a0 Indianapolis is a big city, and it is in driving distance of some other big cities, and it has been a long winter with not much to do, AND this is the first comic book convention they have had in years\u2026and you roll up at noon on a Saturday and expect to walk right in? HA!<\/span><\/p>\n

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As for it being too crowded,\u00a0 first\u2026which do you want to complain about, them not letting MORE people in or it being TOO CROWDED? Because, you can\u2019t complain about both without being an idiot.\u00a0 It was crowded to be sure, but the times people were shoulder to shoulder and unable to move\u2026that\u2019s not the conventions fault\u2026that is the fault of your fellow man.\u00a0 Giant mouth breathers oblivious to the fact that they are not the only human on earth, drifting along at an uneven pace like a man slowly dying of thirst in the desert, and cos players who feel like they have the right to just stop dead in a crowded isle and block traffic to pose like the incredible hulk.\u00a0 Some time they didn\u2019t feel like they annoyed enough people blocking just part of the isle so they would band together in bunches for poses and block whole sections for their little photo ops.\u00a0 Hey, dumbasses, there are TEN THOUSAND people here trying to walk around.\u00a0 How about you use your brain and go pose in the back or ends of the isle so you are not making the lives of everyone else miserable so you can get tagged on Facebook looking like the Flash? Hmm? How about that maybe?\u00a0 Same goes for the people taking the pictures\u2026trust me, that person spent three hours putting on make up to dress up as the red skull\u2026he\u2019ll be there all day, wait until he\u2019s in a open area.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I watched the convention operators and volunteers try to manage all this, it was like herding cats.\u00a0 And trust me on this, they were busting their ass.\u00a0 Absolutely busting their ass to make sure it went off as well as possible.\u00a0 Imagine going to work and finding out you would have twice as much work to do that day.\u00a0 You\u2019d complain, I would complain, THEY didn\u2019t complain.\u00a0 The few times I spoke to any of them they were constantly on the way to somewhere to try to adjust something to deal with the massive, unexpected crowd.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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Now then\u2026what should you really be taking away from all of this?\u00a0 Indianapolis went from having NO comic book convention to having one that had TEN THOUSAND attendees.\u00a0 That is a good thing.\u00a0 Next year there will be more, next year there will be more space, and judging by the metal of the people running it, next year they won\u2019t be caught flat footed.\u00a0\u00a0 This means next year Indiana Comic con will be the place to be.\u00a0 Actually, it was the place to be THIS year\u2026lost in all this is what should be obvious this was a great show, with a great guest list and a lot to see and do.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On a side note\u2026I have been noticing in recent conventions\u2026more and more kids are hanging around at my booth.\u00a0 Like little kids 4-9 and just basically hanging out, like..we\u2019re old pals.\u00a0 Now the obvious attraction would be that my drawing style is very cartoony and they like that, which bodes well for 2d animation\u2026Kids like cartoons because they are simple and they can visually grasp it quicker AND they feel they can draw just as well so they are comfortable with it. Simple 2d drawing \u2026lines on paper..they can do that, they know mine\u2019s better but they as steeped in imagination and so they don\u2019t see a wide gap in the results.\u00a0 3d animation is a foreign world to them, it\u2019s complicated visually, and it is a different world from them or anything they can create on their own.\u00a0 You show a kid a 3d animation type image and a 2d and they will be more interested in the 2d.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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BUT, that doesn\u2019t quite explain why they are coming up to the guy at the booth who looks like THIS (see below) and hanging out to joke around.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Like..I\u2019m not just talking about walking up and looking through my books.\u00a0 I mean like, one kid came up and told me all sorts of mean \/ funny tricks he did to his brother.\u00a0 Another kid came up and pointed out a fat girl in a princess Lea costume and laughed\u2026somehow knowing I would also laugh and not scold him. They just sort come up and hang out\u2026? Which is all fine I guess until they start thumbing through Arsenic Lullaby, which is NOT for kids.\u00a0 One conversation went like this-<\/span><\/p>\n

kid- (pointing to zombie fetus) what\u2019s that? I like \u2018em, they look funny!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Me- uhm\u2026those are\u2026meatball monsters<\/span><\/p>\n

Kid- hahaha! that\u2019s funny, I want to buy one<\/span><\/p>\n

Me- you can\u2019t <\/span><\/p>\n

Kid- why?<\/span><\/p>\n

Me-\u2026the meatballs are made with booze and booze is for grown ups.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kid- oh, okay.<\/span><\/p>\n

crisis averted.\u00a0 Kid logic\u2026I speak it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I would like to think I am young at heart and they sense this, or would be a good dad and they sense this, or am safer and more reasonable than the social clusterf*cks they are surrounded by at a comic book show and they sense this.\u00a0 I would like to think that.\u00a0 But a more likely possibility is they see that I have struggled to dress myself properly ( note in this picture my shirt is on inside out\u2026I would like to thank everyone a the MCBA spring con for NOT telling me i was wearing my f\u2019n shirt inside out) and missed a belt loop here and there and so\u2026I am one of them.If this trend continues, I may have to just do a kids book so there is SOMETHING at the table I won\u2019t get yelled at for them reading<\/span><\/p>\n

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Indiana Comic Con 2014 \u00a0 Too much and too many Or You can\u2019t see the forest because the trees are in the way. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I have been to a lot of poorly run comic book conventions in my day, and I have done as much complaining about them\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}