fason's imagicon report

[as seen on my deviantart and facebook pages - this is a show we should really get behind and support. there is definitely a 2010 imagicon in the works and i think there's a very good shot at having a "cartooneestas island" or "alley" next year at a reasonable price per cartooneesta if enough of us are interested]

Okay, Imagicon is over and done with but things look promising for Version 2 in 2010... To start, a tiny bit of history... Last year, Birmingham hosted an event called Omegacon. While successful in terms of buzz and volume, Omegacon was a colossal flop in terms of general organization and management. In fact, if not for Omegacon's loyal volunteer base, the con could have easily folded w/in hours of opening to the public. Celebrities were mis-managed, funds were not used intelligently, and chaos was the rule of the day. However, those amazingly loyal and hardworking volunteers decided that there had to be a better way to do this. And this year with Imagicon, they did it. While probably not as well attended as Omegacon, Imagicon was a full success in achieving a relaxed and well-organized convention. I had initially intended not to attend this show. However, my friends at Kingdom Comics [http://kingdomcomics.comicnet.net/] (who are a sponsor and most likely future partner to Imagicon) invited me in as a guest. I trust Kingdom, so I figured "why not?" and accepted their invitation...

That out of the way, here's how things went for me. :D

Friday - I missed most of Friday because I decided not to take time off of work. I arrived a bit after 5:00 and set up shop at Kingdom Comics' booth. I did a couple character drawings just to see if anyone would bite. Knowing that Friday wouldn't be a giant sales day, I wandered the con checking out the dealers and looking for friends. I found The Wandering Men [http://www.wanderingmen.com/], who are friends of mine, and sat in in on a "Developing Your Art Style" panel that one of The Wandering men, Brannon Hall was on along with Billy Tackett [http://www.billytackett.com/], Bryan King [http://www.neo-earth.com/], James Hill [http://www.darkdaysartist.deviantart.com/], and Nigel Sade [http://www.nigelsade.com/]. It wasn't a heavily attended panel (a Friday thing) but it was fun to watch and interact with these guys.

Saturday - Emergency Alarm Day. TWICE, the fire alarm / emergency alarm system was activated, resulting in one full exodus of the civic center. Thank you, Idiot-Who-Thought-Smoking-In-The-Bathroom-Would-Be-A-Good-Idea-Lad. Otherwise, Saturday was a very productive day. There was plenty of traffic and I did a good number of commissions and sold copies of "Hero Happy Hour" and raffle tickets (for a set of HHHs). At 6:00, I had a "Selling Your Soul To Satan is Easier than Breaking into Comics" panel with the aforementioned Bryan King and James Hill as well as Sarah White [http://www.shira-chan.deviantart.com/], Jamie Cottle [http://www.comicspace.com/jamie_cottle/] (I'm sure there's a better site for Jamie, but I don't know it), Bobby Nash [http://www.bobbynash.com/], and Sean Taylor [http://taylorverse.com]. It was an extraordinarily fun panel with creators with varying levels of experience in the comics industry. We quite possibly changed the world that day... (sniff)

Sunday - I didn't STOP drawing all day. I even had to skip a contest I was considering entering in lieu of the list of commissions I had lined up. A very good day. And the raffle was fun too. I should have made a big deal out of it and a fool out of myself and had more fun with it but I was soooo tired by then.

Anyways, overall, I had an excellent time of myself and met lots of great people and maybe even made a few new fans of my work. Mucho props and thanks to the organizers, staff, volunteers, and sponsors who made this a very fun and exhausting (in a good way) event. Rawk.