Friday, January 31, 2014

The Con Calendar is up!


And that means the store banner gets replaced on the front page, so I'll put it here instead! The banner above links to the comic collections page, but you can find art cards, merchandise and original art on there too! (There's nothing on the comic originals page as I wrote this post, since we may implement another system for purchasing those, but you can contact me if you want to purchase a strip.)

Anyway, here is the current master list of conventions I will be attending this year, along with my con wishlist and other comments. Once this blog post goes up, I will link the con calendar banner on the front page to it, so people can get more information long after this news post has scrolled off the front page.

The current convention calendar (updated as needed, and when I remember to do so)!

Fur The 'More - March 14-16 - Baltimore, MD
This is a second-year con that was a blast to show at last year! If you are in the area, I highly encourage you to come check it out. I've been looking for a solid local-ish furry con I can make my home, and this one has an amazing staff and a wonderful vibe to it. (And it's 20 minutes from one of my best friends' apartment, so I get a cherished visit in as long as I keep attending!)

Furry Weekend Atlanta - March 20-23 - Atlanta, GA
The birthday con! I'm introducing Becca of Nattosoup to the furry con scene, and we both have birthdays that week. (She's the 19th and I'm the 24th, so we *just* miss out on exact days.) This means you must be EXTRA NICE to us! This is also my return to the first con I ever tabled at. I don't live in Georgia anymore, so FWA is usually too out of my way to attend, but this year we're making it an event!  Treat us well, however, and you might lock me in for the future!

Awesome Con DC - April 18-20 - Washington, DC
Look, another "home" con for me! This is my first year showing at Awesome Con. People who attended it last year had nothing but good stuff to say, so I'm really excited about it! If my hometown peeps don't show up to cheer me on, I'll be so distressed! (It also looks like a fairly powerful con for fandoms - what a guest list! - so there's lots to amuse you when you aren't fawning over me.)

Anthrocon - July 3-6 - Pittsburgh, PA
This is the big special furry con, and also marks the estimated debut of Precocious' third book! This is always a super-fun even for me. I cherish my time with my cartoonist buddies - our hotel room alone will have the combined powers of me, Mat of Badly Drawn Kitties and the Bittersweet Candy Bowl team - and I love checking in with all my con regulars. Even if I keep getting sick and die before this, my stuffed corpse will attend and be propped up at the table. IT WILL BE MY FINAL WISH!

Mechacon - August 1-3 - New Orleans, LA
After I drag Becca to a furry con, she's taking me to her hometown con, along with lots of my SCAD buddies. I'm really looking forward to this one. I've heard nothing but glowing things about the con itself, and it is only enhanced by it being New Orleans once I walk out the doors!

I ended up missing out with lottery for Small Press Expo (SPX), AND the SpiderForest crew I'd be with for SPX needs to murder 28 people for any of us to get it, so I expect to miss it this year. (Hey, I won every other con lottery I've tried, so I can't really cry about bad luck.)  FurFright, the Halloween con in Connecticut, has closed its doors - but there's a chance something new may rise from its ashes. It was such a positive con, I'll check out the new version too. (Wishing the best to the FurFright founders, by the way! Thank you for everything!)  I adore Midwest FurFest, in Chicago, too, but it's very hard to justify the travel costs unless I have lots of buddies there to make it worthwhile. I wish I was more popular, guys! It would make these trips so much easier! One of these days I'll be powerful enough to justify a west coast con! I don't expect to be at any shows mentioned in this paragraph, but they remain on my radar for future years.

I don't have an interest in returning to ConnectiCon or InterventionCon this year. As much as I enjoyed the attendees I met, both those cons have awful staff and I don't wish to deal with them again. I don't appreciate people refusing to reply to me and never paying back money I'm owed (ConnectiCon, which did this to SEVERAL of its guests) and a shyster outright lying to people to get their money when they fully know it's a ripoff (InterventionCon).  I made profits at both last year, but the people behind the cons DO NOT deserve support. I don't like being negative, but artists have to pay and put in lots of work/travel hours to make these trips. Ripoffs are devastating, especially to those with less-known names, and thus a smaller margin of error.

Back to the happy, I really hope to see a lot of you around the shows!

1 comment:

DRB_II said...

Need to work harder in Chicago. Gotcha.