{"id":510,"date":"2011-04-13T00:56:52","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T04:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/?p=510"},"modified":"2012-06-22T11:06:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T15:06:21","slug":"mocca-2011-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/?p=510","title":{"rendered":"MoCCA 2011 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry, I’m not going to draw a five-part extravaganza like I did last year<\/a>.
\nInstead, here’s a basic rundown on the MoCCA Art Festival, 2011 edition:<\/p>\n

I had a great show.<\/p>\n

My sales were great, I saw a ton of people I like, I met some new people, and I bought some great books.
\nThe crowds never reached the ridiculous crush of last year, but it seemed plenty busy. I certainly had a steady stream of browsers all weekend.<\/p>\n

Most years, I’ve shared a block of tables with a group of other gay cartoonists, but they all skipped MoCCA this year for various reasons, so I was by myself. I missed hanging out with my friends behind the table, but that was the only down note.<\/p>\n

What I was selling<\/strong>
\nHere’s my table on Day 1:
\n\"001.JPG\"<\/p>\n

I had three new books for sale \u2013 a new journal comic collection:
\n\"cover13.gif\"<\/p>\n

A collection of the first 15 Bar Scrawl<\/a> strips:<\/p>\n

\"barscrawl-cover00001.jpg\"<\/p>\n

And A to Z in the Monster Manual<\/strong> (which debuted at SPX in 2010, but was new to MoCCA):
\n\"dnd-cover-color.jpg\"
\nI also had a painting for sale, which I’ve never done before. Behold, The Manatee with the Golden Gun<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"001.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Books that I bought:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m moving to a new apartment in a few days, so I restrained myself mightily in my purchases this year:
\njust a handful of mini-comics and Liz Baillie’s new Freewheel<\/a> collection (it’s about runaway kids and magic hoboes \u2013 how can I resist?<\/p>\n

I haven’t read all my minis yet, but so far the standouts are:<\/p>\n

Smbitten: A Lady-Romance with Teeth<\/a>, by Melanie Gillman
\n\"003.JPG\"
(that is one handsome mini-comic! Check out those pearls threaded in the binding! And the full-color art is super-pretty).<\/p>\n

And:
\n\"005.JPG\"
\nChickenbot’s Odd Jobs #1<\/a>, by Eric H., which is really charming and funny, and if I had read it before the end of the convention I would have come back to buy numbers 2, 3, 4.<\/p>\n

Also, I scored an Advance Reader’s Copy of Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy<\/em><\/a>, which rocks so hard I can hardly believe it.
\nI’ve been reading mini-comics about these space-kid adventures for a couple of years now, but this volume is gorgeous and jammed with almost 200+ pages of awesome.
\nYou can buy it starting in June, and you should do so.
\nThat’s nice. But how were your sales?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I spent some time<\/a> last year breaking down my convention sales, and a couple of people have asked me to update those numbers. So:<\/p>\n

In terms of sales, MoCCA 2011 was my best show ever.\u00a0 Here’s a photo of my sales tracker:
\n\"008.JPG\"
\nI sold 102 mini-comics in two days ($3 each, or 2 for $5), plus two t-shirts ($15 each) and one painting ($40).
\nTotal cash at the end of the weekend: $385.
\n(Note: those numbers don’t add up, so I think I forgot to record some sales.)<\/p>\n

I didn’t sell any copies of my giant $25 book, or any copies of the ‘Zinesters Travel Guide to NYC (a $10 book I did some illustrations for)<\/p>\n

My half-table cost $200 (I’m a member of MoCCA, so I get a discounted rate), and I spent about $70 at the print shop, so I still came out ahead for the weekend.
\nI’m splitting a table with a friend next year, so my share will be just $177.50. All three of my new books sold well, but “Bar Scrawl” was the clear winner, with a whopping 28 copies sold (the only comic that’s ever sold better for me was “Brood” at last year’s MoCCA, with 29 copies). And I definitely want to create and sell more original art.
\nThat painting of the sinister manatee drew a lot of attention to my table, some of which I converted into sales of “A to Z in the Monster Manual”, which has a similarly cute style. And the guy who bought it\u2026.
\n\"005.JPG\"
\n\u2026was so happy that it was totally adorable.
\nHim:<\/strong> Forty dollars? Man, I want it so much \u2026\u00a0 it’s such a gorgeous print\u2026
\nMe:<\/strong> Actually, it’s not a print. That’s the original artwork.”
\nHim:<\/strong> “SOLD!”<\/p>\n

Several of my friends told me that I under-priced that painting. I have no idea how to determine that sort of thing.
\nMaybe I’ll raise prices until nothing sells, then bring them back down again?
\nI know that I’ve bought better artwork for less money, but what do I know?<\/p>\n

And here’s the current chart on comic sales:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

And the income chart:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Yeah, I’m pretty happy with how things are going.<\/p>\n

What did you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry, I’m not going to draw a five-part extravaganza like I did last year. Instead, here’s a basic rundown on the MoCCA Art Festival, 2011 edition: I had a great show. My sales were great, I saw a ton of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}