Finally putting my two cents in since the comic book convention circuit is seemingly becoming a bigger part of my career and schedule recently. I dont think the phenomenon of cosplay and professional cosplayers are solely responsible for taking away from artists and exhibitors like myself who rely on sales to fans at these shows. If anything the attention cosplay and geek pop culture in general (Marvel movies, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc.) is getting are bringing in more and people to these shows who arent even hardcore comic books fans, but people like families and fans of cosplayers, TV shows and movies. We could blame cosplayers and even the TV and movie studios for taking away the spotlight and even the income from us as industry creators at events (looking at you SDCC) but we have to accept the fact that the industry is evolving, the general comic book convention scene is a pop culture convention scene now and comic books and their creators are now a facet of that, an important and very key facet nonetheless. There are plenty of shows, mostly Wizard World ones, that I avoid because the table fees are too costly and their promotion and treatment of any artist below the top ten names in the industry is terrible. They choose to shine the majority of the spotlight on cosplayers over creators and thats fine. I dont attend those shows as a guest artist anymore unless they invite me and cover my expenses. But Id also argue we as creators and as artists are as relevant as the work we are putting out there. We do the run the risk of oversaturating ourselves and our work with fans by hitting the same shows and cities year after year but thats when we should take time to reevaluate our approach to these events, our booth set up, out destinations, even the finished product of our work in general. As creators and artists we have to change it up sometimes, we have to evolve (I learned this from my friends Tom Mandrake and Jan Duursema) and we always have to have a Plan B (I learned that from my pal Justin Chung). Which basically means as much as I love Illustrating Star Wars, I dont put all of my eggs in the Star Wars basket all of the time. For example, I did Wizard World Chicago for about ten years in a row when I finally got tired of their poor treatment of creators and rising prices. Artist Alley there had become an afterthought for them I realized so I stopped going to Chicago for about seven years until I finally went back this year and did my first C2E2. It was one of my best shows of the year financially, but I think a big part of that reason besides C2E2 being a much more creator friendly show was the fact that I hadnt been back to Chicago in so long. Sometimes just changing up the appearance schedule can make a big difference. To sum up, the typical convention scene (besides creator driven shows like Heroes and Cincy Comic Con for example) are no longer straight up comic book events focused on the art and the artists themselves. They are pop culture events now for better or for worse (in some cases) but we have to learn to evolve with the scene to make the most of it if we are going to survive with all the cosplayers and the movie studios too. I think theres enough room for everybody and these events can still be fruitful and successful for all of us if we can adapt.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 21:05:58 +0000