Sharing My Story

The 2010 Phoenix Comic Con was simply amazing.

The crowds were like San Diego. Wall-to-wall people. An early estimate was
10,000 to 12,000. I believe it easily exceeded those numbers. The Phoenix Con has graduated from a dealers convention to a full fledged Con with many panels and other events. It reminded me of San Diego maybe 20 years ago when it was a the old S.D. Convention Center. The Convention administration was very gracious, coming around every day to find out how we were doing and offering us cold water and so on.

We were able to pay (and then some) for the cost of the small press table
through sales of comics and graphic novels.

We met many, many Christian Convention goers who were very pleased to
see us there. This was a very unexpected, but pleasant and blessed surprise. We met a number of young Christian creatives who expressed interest in networking. There was one couple that are leaders in their church who volunteered to host a local Phoenix CCAS meeting. We did get their contact information. This opens up the possibility of having a local CCAS group do the convention. Lots of opportunities for ministry.

We handed out a lot of the comic tracts as well a good sales for the comics. We had dinner Friday night with Brent a professional level Christian artist who was very eager for fellowship. There were at least three of other Christian comics vendors there. One was Bryan Kilgore who had done Logo doing some comic adaptations of parts of the life of Christ and educational comics. Also was Pepe Melon who is the artist on Tales of Watchman. We also met Joey Lee Cabral the writer/artist of Kause of Death. Tom Hall and Daniel Bradford of Blacklist Studios also had a booth selling their R13 and The King comics. Tom Hall really wants us to do a Spiritual Themes panel at the New York Comic Con.

The Spiritual Themes panel when well. We had Joe King, Tom Hall and Daniel Bradford on the panel that was moderated by Ralph and myself. We had an audience of around 20-25 who were very interested in what we were talking about. After intros and general discussion we had audience questions which went up to the end of the hour and we had to cut the discussion off. I spoke with an LDS man who attended. I offered to have an Mormon rep be on the panel next year. He said he would contact some of his artists friends. Also the next day I started chatting with a Star Wars devotee who was very knowledgeable about the Buddhist roots of Star Wars. She is a book reviewer. I gave her my e-mail address for having her on the panel next year.

Overall the Phoenix Comic Con was a very positive experience. Lots of prayers answered. Also lots of sharing opportunities with the people who came to the table.