THIS WEEK'S BLOG

I'm only here as a courtesy to Garry

or

Comic-Con International's chickens coming home to roost

 How was the email subject line? click bait-y enough? at least I didn't say-

Comic-international has a problem and no one is talking about it

or ...and it's insane

or ...and we're all about it.

or ...and we're here for it.

or ...and the internet is going crazy.

or...POV you're and comic-con and blah blah blah.

Lord, I hate the f*cking internet.

Yesterday the internet gave me a podcast with some writer talking and "world building" and I'm going to b*tch about it.  If you wanna skip that rant, feel free. That part's here for me. Just go ahead and scroll down to the Comic-Con diagnosis...just scroll till you get to the pic of thier logo/banner

So, I hear's a writer being interviewed and he's talking about how world building is one of the most difficult things in writing.

Ohh...golly, is making the world the characters are in feel real, hard...for a writer? Typing all those extra words? extra keystrokes? I that a tough thing for ya?

You wanna know how long this f*cking panel took to pencil?!

OR THIS ONE

That's what you call an "establishing shot". The point of such a shot being, show where everyone is and where are they in relation to everything and everyone else. You know...what's the environment. That's part of world building, creating the world/the evironment, creating the set.

Three sentences for a writer...for ME, the illustrator, I've gone from drawing a fun scary monster, to having to be a f*cking architect. and/or find city shots of Chicago and arrange all the buildings in ways that work with the visual composition of the establishing shot AND each individual panel after words...

 or at the very least not have a plague of tangent lines. Side note, see in that right bottom panel, where the car is in relation to the diner? See how in that first second I showed you, the car is in the same spot. That's called continuity, that's the kinda thing no one notices unless you f*ck it up. So I'm pointing it out here to pat myslef on the back.

And, in "birds eye view" wide shots, I'm spending entirely too much time trying to figure out how to make sure all these figures are in proper perspective. Just like buildings get smaller the are farther from camera, so too do people. So, I can't just draw a bunch of people sanding around half a block away from each other. They have to get smaller or larger in relation to how close they are to the camera, just like everything else. They gotta adhere to the same vanision points

That up there's how you do it. Well, how you do it ONCE.  In this panel I got a mess of people standing around in no particular pattern. They ain't standing in a line or a row.

Here's how I handle this.  I start with the guy next to the car. Because I know the car is right, and I know the guy is right because he's next to the car. That's my "I know this is right, at least", foundation.  So, I make some perspective lines going from him to the wall...now I know how tall someone on the sidewalk would be.  I use that and kinda make a wall maze, that hieght, and have it snake through all the people...

You're probably thinking "there's gotta be a better way, or some kind of shortcut." Too which I say...I would think so. I mean...that's asinine. That's such a mess I'm genuinely confused just looking at it. and who TF knows if didn't screw something somewhere.  If there is a better way, I don't remember.

ALSO, you're maybe wondering "is all that really necessary? Couldn't you just eyeball it?" ...I don't know, probably. Probably, someone who does crowd shots a lot can just go on instinct. and probably at the size this'll be once printed, no one would notice anyhow. But, and I was thinking about this, I've hardly ever done a panel of a big crowd. So, I'm being overly precise.

I can't actually think of ANY times I had to draw a crowd. That's really bizarre that in over two decades of being a comic book illustrator, it has just somehow never come up. I lucked out until now and I'm paying for it with 9 pages in a row of crowd shots. The law of averages catches up with all of us eventually.

Side note here, cars are one of those things that never seem like they are the right size in relation to a person if you do them right. Cars, motorcycles...they always seem too big, even though they ain't. AND...this is a late 80s Chevy Caprice, which was a big car then and compared to cars now, really big. Considering that most of Gen Z never even saw a 80s Chevy caprice...it might seem ridiculously big. So, I did take slight artistic liberty with the car and made it closer to the size of an average car now.

But if at any point you're reading the story and the car strikes you as seeming too big. It ain't. I got here a 1/64 ratio taxi and a 1/64 ratio figure.

OKAY...onto Comic-Con International

 I take you back to last year after Comic-Con International (it will be referred to CCI from here on out) when I told you all, including all you comic book you-tubers and bloggers, that there is a story going on with that show that would take very little effort to suss out.  AND I even gave a hint, saying to look at the floor plan of 2025 and look at previous floor plans.

No one took that tip and ran with it. One sorta...kinda...shot around the target. Everyone else just went on about exclusives and what was going on at the panels. I get it, that you have interests and an audience that has interests and blogging/making videos on the exclusive items and whatever movie star was there is fun and perhaps obligatory.

BUT...having something to report that no one else is...is valuable currency.

So,  consider this blog to be what reporters call "a lead", if you so choose to use it.

On we go...

LISTEN TO THE THUNDER

 There are storm clouds forming over this show.

All the why and wherefores will be laid out but, remind yourself that there is the world as the internet shows you...and then there is what is happening in real life, on the ground. Because, if you don't know how the business of comicons work, and there's no reason you would, and you take what you see posted on the internet as the whole of the situation, you're going to think all I say next is just crazy talk.

You'll want to keep in mind I've been an exhibitor at CCI since...2000?. I was there...not at the very beginning, but at the beginning of it's rise to becoming a cultural powerhouse of an event. There's problems on the horizon. This is an assessment of last year primarily but also the trend of the last few years. It COULD be that this has all been solved and this year will it will all have been turned around.

 We'll start with what kind of business this actually IS. Then I'll tell you what was going on with the floor plan and exhibit hall that is a bellwether of disaster.

Under all the movie previews and hype, and cosplayers and exclusive items and celebrity panels from companies and pomp and circumstance that is the spectacle of CCI. CCI itself, makes money TWO ways....selling booth space to exhibitors, and selling tickets to people to come in and see the exhibitors. THAT'S IT. That is the business model.

That is the fundamentals of the whole thing. Sell booth space, sell tickets. If the combined revenue of those two things is higher than the cost of renting the venue and running the show...you have made a profit. If it does not...you did not. And sure they sell t-shirts and whatever but I assure you, that ain't what's keeps the lights on.

Booth sales, ticket sales...that's it. I'm repeating that, because it's important. The Exhibit hall...that is the product, that is how the money is made...that must be equal or greater than the sum of the cost.

The COST of running this convention...which includes renting the entire San Diego Convention center (2.6 million square feet) and staffing and all the miscellaneous involved, is ASTRONOMICAL.  Tens of millions of dollars? more? You got the cost of renting a seven city block long convention center, in a major US city, for an entire week. Now add to that ALL expenses go along with it that ain't included in the rent, that are GIANT expenses when you scale them up to a convention center that size. For instance, how much does 120,000 square feet of carpet cost? Including labor to lay it down and to remove it? Are we at a million dollars for just the carpet?

(floorplan 2024) 

Maybe we should just try to compare apples to apples as best we can. How much does it cost to host the Super Bowl? Multiply that by five days.

Which brings us back to how they make money. Sell booths, sell tickets to see the booths. It is either a perpetual motion machine OR a downward spiral. Exhibitors that are a draw, bring in people who want to come to the show to see them...the more people who come to the show, the more quality exhibitors will want to exhibit, which means more people wanting to go to the show, ect ect. Exhibitors and attendees wanting to be there are connected and imperative. If ether starts to wane ...you have fast downward spiral of being screwed.

Follow me? good.

I just...I'm going to put a finer point on it, because I want to make sure we all understand...as in everyone who may happen to be reading this, what the actual ground game is. Hall H, is the room that holds all the fancy Hollywood type panels that you see shared all around the interwebs. The MCU previews, the celebrities talking movies, that's Hall H. Hall H, holds 6500 people. Those people...if you fill that Hall completely once all five days...gives you a grand total of 26,000 people who paid to go to CCI.  And gee whiz that's a lot, but guess what? You still have 100,000 more tickets to sell. That's a one with five zeros after it. So...you had best have more value for people than Hall H. You had best also have an exhibit hall that blows people's minds. Which...it used to.

VACANCIES AND BLIGHT

I have a little map here of the convention hall floor plan from last year ( that was my hint last year "check the floorplan") of the immediate area I was in. This is...sort of the center of the show, maybe just north of center. I put some X's on it.  The X's represent things I had NEVER seen before in 23 years of attending this show and they are bad things.

The red xs are vacancies...as in tables that were empty or in the case of that upper section, just did not exist. It was on the map, but not on the actual IRL floor. As in, no one bought up that section so just they didn't put out tables.  Perhaps in the hopes that no one would notice there's an entire section missing.

In recent years, the waiting list for a table in this section was over a 100 publishers deep. Last year we got...8 unfilled tables?! In just my section. That ain't good.

That section on the left on my map, there of green Xs, was the Diamond Distribution island/booth. They went bankrupt and got bought out/carved up earlier in the year. This section would have already been paid for in advance, so the company who bought them...not having a plan nor giving a f*ck just...put up some mannequins. ...?

I sh*t you not. That's not a shot of them before the whole thing was set up. That WAS the whole thing. I know it looks like the last two things to unload from a Spirit of Halloween store on Nov.1, but that was their display. I'm guessing they won't be back.

The green Xs are blight. By blight I mean a table that no one actually wants to see. Not just unimpressive...but disappointing, pathetic. Here's an example. It's a big 30 by 20 foot section of tables right near a main entrance. It USED to be New England Comics, the publishers of fan favorite The Tick. Someone who paid for tickets could walk through the door and say "oh wow...it's the people who made The Tick!" or "Oh wow, I didn't know the Tick staerted as a comic book, let's check that out!" and be pleased with their decision to fork out that money because there's something they couldn't see anywhere else.

Last year at that section was...THIS table of 3.00 stickers

Imagine you just paid an ungodly amount of money to go to this show and you walk into the door of the exhibit hall and instead of seeing the actual artist of your favorite character, or some fancy display for some other thing, you see...something you could see at a flea market.

(you just spent 400.00 on a ticket...and you see this. That's problematic)

So that's what I mean by "blight". I didn't chart the entire show because I was hoping someone else would do it, but I walked around and the Exhibit hall. Compared to it's heyday, it was....we'll just call it less than robust...by a lot. Open space in lue of booths, and plenty of blight.

In years past you could spend the entire 5 days just walking that hall and still have things you didn't have time to see. It was booth after booth after booth of things, art, pros that you could only see at this show. This year...we had a corner booth which was (I'm not making this up)...an enrollment booth for medical college...

"That's cat-scan woman, y'know anesthesiologists are the real super heroes! Here's a pamphlet on how you can f*ck yourself in the ass with a student loan".... or whatever their pitch was.

In this university's defense...they put more effort into it than Diamond Comics.

BUT...you pros who have been at this as long as I, know what this booth is. It is one of the four horsemen of a convention apocalypse.

A local college, an army recruiting table, a cell phone company, a credit card company...these are things used as a stopgap when you can't sell tables. If you have an event that will have 20 something's at it...these entities WILL buy a table from you. But they add nothing to the show and they're a bad look. They are the right turn onto the downward spiral.

 One would be far better served just giving the table away to some college kid with a home made book, because that person will bring enthusiasm and passersby might imagine they are the next big thing. Just a "pro tip", that I've seen smart cons do. You're selling tickets to people who want to see new cool stuff. A half assed home made comic is better than a cell phone kiosk. Because, there is a chance they like that kid and his comic, and will want to come back next year to see if he's there and is getting better.

There's a chance. There's zero chance they'll add "I can get a new cell phone plan" to the scales when decided to go back or not.

It may not seem like it, but there is a finite amount of people with the disposable income to go to this show ( if you are from out of town and have a family, this is 10-20 grand vacation after all expenses are paid), and from that amount are less that are interested in doing so, and from that amount are the many that see this as a "bucket list" event...as in do it ONCE. Now, take those people that are left, who spent that money, and you can only have them walk past so many tables of blight before they are regretting their decision and will not come back. AND tell people that.

If word of mouth made you, word of mouth can break you.

(you spent 400.00 on a ticket...and you see this. That's problematic)

THE "WHY"....EXHIBITOR MATH

You need exhibitors that add to the overall quality of the show for the people who paid to be there. And that, if the trend of last few years is any indication, is becoming a problem.  There is also a finite amount of entities with the cash and wherewithal to be an exhibitor at this show, and more and more they are giving it a pass.

 The reasons are the same reasons that affect any business. The cost of your product in relation to it's value and competition.

The quality of competition CCI has, has risen considerably.  This is not 2010 anymore. There are half a dozen other conventions out there that are for all intents and purposes neck and neck with CCI. Who's presitgue/clout is also closing the gap. CCI is still brings in more attendees by a good amount. But something exhibitors/pros learn by their first show is that who the traffic is, is just as important as how much traffic.

...a better or worse show depends on who they are. You're selling comic books, let say. It the crowd hardcore comic books fans, or people looking around to see what's what and find cool new stuff? Or are they....something else entirely.

  That brings us to the matter of- not all attendees are created equal. From an exhibitors perspective (this part is opinion) 20 grown men dressed as Deadpool, is not as good as one guy in a t-shirt who is there to see what there is too see. First off, Deadpool ain't carrying a wallet. Second, I don't want to talk to a grown man dressed as Deadpool even if he did. But third, he represents the breed of cat that this show is now attracting and that is this- people who take all this in to the point it's an ideology, not an interest. A religion even. By that I mean they are not there for love of any medium they are there for their pop culture religion of choice. They are there for Star Wars, or MCU, or whatever.

Tickets to this show. last I checked are in the 400.00 range. and they are hard to get. You have to sign up and wait on some online que/lottery and you have to do that 8 months ahead of time. THAT in and of itself degrades the value of this show for exhibitors BECAUSE...who's gonna do all that more than anyone else? Super nerds. People who are hard down on star wars or MCU or whatever. They are going through that because there is something specific they are into enough to do so.

 For an exhibitor who is not Star Wars, MCU, or whatever other flavor of the year is, paying a sh*t ton of money to set up at that show which is filled with people who already know what they want, and have likely budgeted everything out everything they are going to buy...is putting yourself in a piss poor position.

From the stand point of getting new fans, you would be better off talking to a rando at a flea market, than a guy in a star wars hat, star wars t-shirt, who has star wars tattoos, who signed up 8 months ago to spend 400 on tickets to see star wars stuff. Do I need to explain that further, or are we on the same page here with the type of attendee this show as pigeon holed itself with?

You can convert those people...but, you batting average takes a real drop. These aren't just people who are interested in something else, or don't read comic books. These are people are dead serious about a specific fandom and have been planning for 8 months, a pilgramage to bask in the glow of all things that are...whatever that is.  Which makes them of very little value to the other 999 exhibitors at the show.

Let's talk some actual nuts and bolts here, then I'll get into an opposite wrinkle of the ticket cost and lottery system to get a ticket. An exhibitor booth for a publisher is gonna run you in the ballpark of 4-5 grand. That's Just the table space, not shipping your merch, hotel, and everything else. Now, I'll let you do some math in your head of how many 20.00 graphic novels you have to sell in four days, if you're not perfectly happy taking a giant loss for the glory of being at this show. The clock is your enemy.

BUT, you might say..."you can sell high dollar items...exclusives and such, and not have to try to grind out the money 20.00 at a time."  Yes, yes, of course, you're not going to try to grind it out 20.00 at a time. I was making a point BUT as long as you brought that up...that's the other issue of lottery system. The People who are going to buy high dollar items from you, are generally going to be people who are already fans, not someone who was just introduced to your work. Any creative pro in any field will attest to that. The big spenders are the hard core fans.

With the lottery system in place randomly handing out tickets...the fans you acquired last year and previous years, often times (I'm hearing this more and more) can't get back to the show. So, you have to plan to be starting from almost square one every single year.

That is another effect on exhibitors ,of this lottery system. All the work you put in getting new fans every year, is neutered by many of them not being able to come back.

I understand the point of the lotto system to CCI...sort of.  And there may be no good way to dispense 130,000 tickets. Also, this may be a way the try to thwart people buying massive amounts for the sake of scalping. But, everything you do affects everything else. And what the lotto system does is piss people off. By "people" I mean locals and hard core fans, and loyal customers who had previously been in the habit/tradition of going to the con. Now they are in the habit of not going, or being prepared to not go. And ain't going to be around if you need them in the future.

You business owners out there can tell me if you think having a policy that has lifelong customers who helped build your business, loosing out on attendance to newbies, is a fantastic idea. Before you answer, keep in mind that this event is a one time "bucket list" thing for...oh let's say 20% of attendees (I think that's conservative). How many times can you aquire 26,000 new customers (flip 20% of your 130,000 person attendance.)?

Like I said...maybe this is the best way to handle the ticket sales, but it's still bad.

I mentioned the competition of other comic book conventions. They have gotten big, they are well run, they are fun, their names/brands are starting to mean something to the average fan AND they are all a lot less expensive than CCI. Which makes CCI objectively, via the market, priced far higher than it's value. CCI's peak heyday of it's value in relation to the market was...2012-ish. The cost to exhibit has gone up every year, now roughly 1500.00 higher since 2012, despite it's prominence and value to exhibitors going down every year, and it's competition getting better and more numerous.

It's a "is the squeeze worth the juice?" situation to borrow a phrase from Justin Taylor. We'll do some simple math using small numbers. There's a handful of shows that cost you 2.00 but you make 7.00. Then there is one where you make 10.00!... but it costs you 9.00. You're only able to do a certain number of shows every year, and math/logic has now dictated that this one drop low on the list of choices.

Exibitors and pros are simply using the same logic as anyone else...including CCI. Charge as much as you are able, don't pay more than you have to.

All these things I'm saying here...I'm giving you the exhibitor and pros perspective. When I say that, know this- I like complaining, and when you like complaining, people feel very free to complain to you about what they want to complain about. Almost none of this is just my take...it's coming right from the horses' mouths. I am the oracle that people come to, to vent/rant. And in this case, they are legion.

BUT, you may be thinking " but CCI still is considered to be THE show", and  "having a presence" there helps get your name out there and you can network" yes...BUT/AND...I'll start with "get your name out there". My booth is 10x10 feet, the banner is 15ft high and 8ft across with a giant cartoon fetus on it and says Arsenic Lullaby in 2 foot tall letters, and I'm facing a main entrance......and even people looking specifically for me, have trouble spotting me in that giant, visually chaotic hall. It is seven city blocks long, after all.

  You're one violin looking to be heard in an 800 piece orchestra. It's not exactly the "get your name out there" situation people think it is.

As far as networking, just like with the super nerds, anyone there for business has their week already planned out and things they specifically need to make sure they do. I'm not saying things never fall in your lap, but I'm saying making that reason is a roll of the dice, not a business strategy.  And much of the networking goes on after and outside of the show, anyway.

There are still, and may be for some time, publishers and pros who will exhibit at this show, knowing they will take a loss (...not me) for the sake of clout, or "getting the name out there", or networking. Who are stoked enough about being able to post/declare "gee whiz look at me I'm at Comic-Con International" to fork out 10grand in expenses for the honor. To be less of a smart ass about it, that's a decision not based on cunning or strategy or logic but on having a "punchers chance" . It's "swing hard in case you hit it". Generally that type is one and done, and generally ( I said "generally", there is once in a blue moon a wunderkin) aren't very good, don't know what they are doing, nor how to make themselves worth seeing in a show that size. And I'm not sure a parade of that is going to produce an exhibit hall that thrills attendees.

I'll give you an archetype of what these people are...this is not meant to be anyone specifically, but it's probably going to 100% be someone out there. Some cardiologist who makes 6 figures a year and once upon a time wanted to be a comic book maker, so at age 50 something he decides to finally give his dream a whirl and dolls out the cash so the world can finally see..."vigilante man!" I was trying to come up with a lamer idea, but each one a came up with was something I had actually already seen from one of these type people. Maybe...you didn't "give up" on your dream, maybe your sub concious looked over what you had and said..."yeah, we're gonna go ahead and go to medical school."

Anyhoo...a glut of that doesn't make for an impressive show.

Every year now, several pros declare to me they are not coming back and why. And last year one mentioned something I honestly had not considered. Her point was, that in years past, if you stopped going people/fans would assume you, yourself are loosing steam, loosing momentum. BUT since DC Comics stopped going a couple years ago, that stigma is dead and buried. She can stop going to CCI and not one person will assume that her career or popularity is in decline. CCI is no longer the show you NEED to be an exhibitor/pro at. It's one show of many that all work just fine.

Hell, I see as many pros making hay as being "outsiders" because they're NOT going to CCI as one's puffin their chest out because they are going.

I've covered the value thing with all I've talked about so far, and the value of having quality exhibitors, and not all attendees being equal, but I'll put a finer point on all that it by demostrating it with my specific case.  Which is the same situation for everyone, minus the specifics. For me, aside from the massive attendance, was who I was near was the value. For example, the first few years I was right across from Too Much Coffee Man, Fantagraphics, and Slave Labor Graphics. A murders row of great weird indy comics. I was more than happy to pay a premium to be in the same section as them, because anyone who liked their books would certainly like Arsenic Lullaby. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Things come full circle, these days people benefit from being next to Arsenic Lullaby and trying to cull my fans. It's the natural order of things, a cycle that keeps everything going. We all feed off each other, the fans all find cool new stuff, everyone benefits.

Until it don't. Last year I stared across the isle at a f*cking booth for a medical college. That doesn't benefit anyone and it's part of a cycle you don't want to be on.

There's some decent sized indy publishers out there with a sizable following and great work, they just ain't going to this show anymore, or never started. It has been an entire year, it could be that CCI remedied this. Or maybe they didn't.

So, that's all of that.

Stalin once said "quantity has a quality all it's own." Surely CCI filling the convention hall with 130,000 people tips the law of averages in favor of the exhibitors no matter what. It used to...when them selling 130,000 tickets meant 130,000 people in the convention hall.

CARNIVAL OF DOOM

I spoke about the competition of other shows across the US. There's an even larger competition problem for CCI for their actual paid attendees then and there. While the exhibit hall was of less value for everyone than years past, there was a lot to see and do OUTSIDE of the convention hall.

Several entities, have set up stuff across the street, and in the general area. Who, no doubt looked over how much CCI charges to be in the hall and looked at how much it would cost to rent a parking lot and choose the latter. There was an entire mf-ing carnival going on in downtown San Diego and no one had to pay CCI a single dime to go to it.

And I don't mean "cosplay night" at the local bar or the guy with the churro cart dressing up like Batman...I mean a F*CKING CARNIVAL. In the form of various househoild name media companies with street fair esq events scattered around a few block radious of the convention.

"Comic-Con" is quickly becoming a week in July when there's all sorts of pop culture stuff going on in downtown San Diego and less the Convention itself. The start small a few years ago and I said  "This is the preverbal Camel's nose under the tent." and nobody listened to me...and here we are.

The next step, is not needing the convention at all. Think that's absurd? We got Hulu, Peacock, Adult Swim, and others getting a lot of mileage without being in the actual con...and more companies watching this happen. Make NO mistake, these are set up with ONE purpose, and that is to get people who would be in the exhibit hall, to be at their event instead.

Truth be told, If they stay in agreement on when...they don't need CCl at all. CCI has used the threat of moving to Las Vegas at times when negotiating with the city...well, guess what? Reed Pop or some other savvy comicon operator will happily take it's place, and even if they can only manage to operate half the convention center...that's enough to keep the city happy, because of all the revenue all these goings on are generating.

A side note on that...which maybe one of you actual reporters could suss out. I don't know who owns that giant parking lot that the majority of this stuff is set up on (very first pic of this I showed). If the convention center owns it, then it's possible CCI is actually charging these companies to set up (thereby consciously screwing exhibitors and ultimately themselves), BUT it would be unorthodox if it wasn't Pepco park (MLB) or the city owns it.

My guess would be that MLB owns it. Which would be very bad for CCI. Because MLB is well versed in having non baseball related events go on in their stadiums if the cash is there...IN FACT THEY ARE EXPERT AT IT. They would happily fill their venue with nerds on a week the stadium would be vacant anyhow, if someone came to them with something to host.

American Family Field (Brewers stadium in Milwaukee) has hosted all manner of events. MLB staff can turn their stadiums into whatever TF you need them to be, and MLB love love LOVES...filling vacant dates. It is free money to them. They have everything and everyone they need, just sitting doing nuthin in between home games. You want them to host an event...rock concert, wrestling match, trade show, gradation ceremony large OR small. They will happily do it.

I guarantee...someone at MLB is thinking about this, whether they run that parking lot or not. And if they do run that parking lot...this may be inevitable. That'd be a camel's nose under the tent, that has more pull with the city than anyone else.

Back to the previous point, all THAT STUFF TO DO OUTSIDE equals less traffic in the exhibit hall which equal less value for the people who paid to exhibit.

 Less value to the attendees equals less of them coming back and less traffic, which equals less value to exhibitors and less of them coming back, which equals to see in the exhibit hall next year, which equals less value for the people who paid to go, which equals them not coming back and less traffic, repeat, repeat, repeat...aaaaaand the show goes tits up.

I'll show you how much of an effect that carnival outside had on floor traffic. THIS...was Saturday at around noon in front of my booth. Which is in front of a main center entrance. Prime location, optimal time and day, largest comicon in the US.

...that's bad. 

It wasn't like that the whole day, but it was like that long enough for me to be annoyed for long enough to decide to take a picture. A couple hours.   And even at it's busiest (any day of the con...not just saturday), it was about the same foot traffic of an average Saturday at C2E2 in Chicago. The foot traffic of a show that sold over 130,000 tickets being less than a show that sold around 50,000...that's a problem.

NOW, understand, that and the following are anecdotal. Traffic does have a rhythm sometimes and it could be that while I was dead some other section was packed. BUT...that's NEVER been a problem at this show. It was always packed, everywhere, always. 

I asked around a bit, of people in different areas and got the same answer every time "huh...yeah, now that you mention it, foot traffic kinda sucked". I didn't ask everyone in the entire hall, so....again, anecdotal.

But...what is fact, is that Saturday USED to be THIS, the entire day.

Maybe they've solved the empty table/blight issue already...for this year. But that's going to be a tough trick to keep puling off, because they haven't managed to stop the outside carnival problem. I can tell you that, because all the online chatter I see is excitement about what's going on OUTSIDE.

Here is one of several such groups...all new, all growing...

and that ain't all...

and a whole lot off this going on from people who paid for tickets

They ain't thrilled. Slim chance CCI can do anything at about that.

So, there's all that, on top of that..

CHANGING HORSES MID STREAM

The larger the entity the faster it can collapse under it's own weight. We've all seen that happen to many companies, usually because they grew too fast and expanded what they are across too many avenues...in fancy business terms that's called "not properly adhering the value chain to the focus of your service". Yeah...I know stuff. I know it seems like I don't, but I'm still in business for a reason, beyond just being pretty.

What that value chain jargon means is basically this- You decide what you are, and you stick to that, you make everything you do and how you do it about that, and you do not drift. That builds your brand, it builds trust in your brand, it builds loyalty and most importantly in this case...it is a sword and shield against competition. The more competition there is, the more you want to be known for a specific thing.

This show USED to live and die, like I mentioned, based on being THE place that had every comic pro there was all at once, and all the big publishers and things you could only see there.  A bit of a nitch, perhaps, but it was THE place for that nitch. And people went there and got excited and got other people interested in that nitch.  "This place has all the best there is of XYZ in the whole world" is a pretty easy sell even if someone only has a vague interest in XYZ.  If you were exhibiting there it meant something. And thus it meant something for to see the people exhibiting there.

That up there's a flyer I saw Jackie Estrada (newly retired from running the Eisner Awards) post from I am guessing the mid 80s? What one would call humble beginnings. If it's of interest to you, you can right click on that to open it large enough to read and rabbit hole some names. Almost everyone on that list is a legend and about a dozen of them created work that is still shaping our pop culture. As quant as that looks, that brought in a whole lot of attendees.

A "nitch" seems like small potatoes, until you're getting EVERYONE who's into that nitch. Then it's a massive thing. CCI absolutely owned a nitch. Remember that business jargon I talked about? They forfeited that nitch and now have no sword and shield. When the topic of a comicon comes up, what I hear fans say is "Baltimore is the real show, or Heroes con!". I haven't been to either in awhile, so I'm not shilling for the house. That's what the word is.

People think CCI grew because the MCU movies started promoting there, but (and I was there for it's rise) it was the other way around. The MCU started promoting there because it HAD grown.  It is currently living on hype. Hype of the super hero movies, a deluge of pics of cosplayers, the panels of movie stars talking about how much make up they had to wear to play a star trek alien, sneak previews of movies, "exclusive" items, and just the hype of it being (for now) THE show of all shows. 

Let's fast forward five years. It's 2031, you have 10,000 to spend on a vacation...what's the reason to go to this show? Are people still going to gaf about taking a pic of cosplayers? is the MCU still going to matter to anyone? The last round of movies didn't exactly set the world on fire. What about star wars? That's on the wane, as well. Will the studios have moved on from super hero movies altogether? There'll be a comicon in your very state that has an impressible amount of legit big name comic book professionals, and the tickets are a fraction of the price. If you're a San Diego local...will there be a reason to buy a 400.00 ticket when there's all manner of things to do outside of the show?

  Am I painting too bleak a picture? Maybe? Probably? Maybe not? The people who built this thing are not stupid, by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't know how much those people are in control or are being listened to now that it's grown to the size it is.

When I first started going, CCI was just one of several decent sized comicons in the U.S. About the same size as Chicago and Orlando. It didn't even take up the whole convention center. If I recall correclty there was some kind of medical equipment convention going in the other half the same weekend. A likely scenario  is CCI levels off back to where it started.

It's ALSO POSSIBLE everything I mentioned about last year has been solved, between then and now, and they have a remedy for the carnival, and a plan that puts CCI right back to being the world wide spectacle it was a decade ago. And I'll look like a big idiot for saying all this.  But, I can't envision a scenario that makes that happen. Fortunately, that's not my job.

Anyways, I've given you the situation on the ground.  I have no control over anything CCI does, of course, and me myself personally...my job and my m.o. is to put myself in the best position for success whatever and wherever that is.

If there is one thing you all know I am good at, it's seeing the locomotive coming way ahead of time and getting the f8ck off the railroad tracks. That's how I've lasted this long...spotting trouble ahead of time, and getting out of it's way. With that in mind, after last years show ended and I assessed the situation, and I was 100% NOT going to go back to CCI this year.

Then guys at 1First Comics Publishing said "oooh yes you are."

and I said "oooh no I'm not".

and I laid out, just like I did for you, the reasons why going to this show would be counter productive, financially, strategically, and mental health-ily. And that we could do four other shows for the same amount effort and expense of just doing CCI, and accomplish more.

and they said "yeah, but come on."

..."yeah but come on" that was their rebut. So, I said "nah"

and they said "come oooonnnn."

Which...was a fair point.

The "come ooonnn" where you draw out the "on" as a persuasive argument, I think it goes back to the caveman days. There's a scary cave, or some fruit they never tried that might be good or might be poison. One caveman wants to give it a go, the other don't. The first one goes "gruuuuuunt" which is cave man for "come oooon" and then they go in. It's poison or not, there's a bear in the cave or there ain't. Risky, but if it pans out you now have new food and shelter. Nothing can be advanced if someone doesn't throw caution to the wind and find out, once in awhile.

So, the cavemen who did not respond to "come on" never ate the food or got shelter and their dna died off. And the ones who did respond and got eaten by a bear or poisoned also died off. So the only men who's dna has continued to present day are those who respond to "come on", and lived.

That's why "come oonnn". works. It's hard wired into us.

 So...thanks to 1First comics that I'll be at booth2200! And...they want me to tell ya -come by and say hello!!

 BUT KNOW THIS- if it looks likes it's gonna be the same fiasco as last year, I am not above buying a one way ticket home on Friday morning.

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