As you know, I went to the Staple! Independent Media Expo this past Saturday. It was awesome!

With a box of comics to sell and an over-flowing container of assorted accessories (markers, table cloth, standees, etc.), my lovely sidekick Susan Kath and I entered the Monarch Event Center soon after 10:00am. Exhibitors were still setting up, and we began to do the same.

We had an awesome corner table, the sort of placement that would go to a bigger-spender in a larger convention. Sharing our table was Cranium Comics, delightfully represented at the convention by Anthony Rezendez and his wife Heidi. Anthony is one of the creators of Brawn, and we got into a lot of shoptalk in that regard throughout the convention. Anthony had a lot of great ideas about marketing—note to self: no one can resist examining a cookie with a skull on it! Anthony was also kind enough to add a doodle into my new convention sketchbook.

The convention had a little bit of a slow start. Sometime within the first hour I sold one Local Heroes #1 and half-joked, "It's all downhill from here!" Happily, I was wrong. Soon after, I was interviewed by one of the guys from Half Hour Wasted, "A weekly podcast about comics, movies, television and more!" I was told after editing and such, it may be a couple of weeks before the final podcast was posted. I'm looking forward to hearing about whatever it was I rambled on about!

Then I sold a few comics and realized the show was already exceeding my expectations. A gentleman came over and asked for a sketch, one drawn as a Polaroid shot showing something related to my comic or characters. I whipped out a sketch of Squire falling off a building that I'm pretty proud of, and he's posted that sketch in his DeviantArt gallery for all to see. He's got a handful of other faux-Polaroids from other Staple attendees that you should also take a look at. Go now, I'll wait until you get back before continuing.

After selling some more comics, I scooted into a webcomic panel discussion with Kris Straub (of Starslip Crisis), Scott Kurtz (of PvP), David Malki (of Wondermark), and Danielle Corsetto (of Girls with Slingshots). I had to leave early, but later on got to chat with Kris and Scott while they were at their tables (located in the other hall). Both were gracious to draw some doodles in my convention sketchbook. I also revealed to Scott a long-kept secret...before PvP, while he was still a dedicated Ultima Online player, there were a couple of times when I played UO on his shard with some of his friends, and I also participated on his "Sword of Tao" message board. File that under "small world"...or stalking, I guess. Whatever the filing category, Scott's mind was blown, and I got out of there fast before anyone asked me to clean it up.

Back at the table, I sold a couple more comics and then was interviewed by a News 8 Austin team! Video and everything! They quoted me in a small blurb they ran about Staple. The text version is up on the News 8 Austin site, but so far I have only seen the video version on TV—if anyone gets or finds the video version, please let me know!

After the convention ended, I immediately considered it a nice little success. I even went to Red's Scoot Inn for the after party for a little while, which also doubled as a benefit for a local radio station, KOOP, that had burned down and was getting back on it's feet.

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