Monster Commute – a Traffic Novel

Just got back from the 2009 Alternative Press Expo.

We had a pretty great time, as we have lots of friends in San Francisco. They always like to drive us around, show us stuff, and take us to foodie destinations. Great, delicious food in San Fran, buy you probably already knew that.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you; APE is our weakest convention, in terms of sales. We do best when there are thousands upon thousands of visitors, and we’ve got a 10 foot space to show off our stuff.

APE, being an alt press con, features 6 foot booth areas, and since we bordered a corner, we also barely had enough room for our own chairs. It was a little rough. Combined with some local music festival the same very weekend, and the attendance numbers looked a bit thin to me.

We finished Saturday with some pretty bleak numbers.

Yeah, I know, it’s not ALL about sales and numbers and money. If you know me at all, I think you probably know that I’m not a greedy money grubber.

However, I’m not treating Steam Crow as a hobby; I’m building a business here, and I like to face the reality of what is working and what isn’t. And Saturday, it was bleak.

We went out with some friends on Saturday night, and had “adult time” which is something that Dawna and I frankly have very little of. We laughed, had a great meal, acted crazy (me yes; Dawna no), and laughed some more. It was cool.

We came back Sunday, and had a much better day. It was still pretty thin in attendance, but it seemed to pick up in the afternoon, and we did pretty well. (Not Emerald City well, but better.)

Having done conventions for 4 years now, I’m less of a stress-case worrying about how the show is going, and just trying to enjoy the show for what it is. I am possibly beginning to get used to seeing hundreds and thousands of people, so that what used to look insane to me, is now looking like something I’ve seen a few times before.

Big thanks to our friend Deb who kindly put us up all weekend, drove us around, and took us on a foodie adventure. We stayed in her massive manga library where she continued her lessons on Dr. Osamu Tezuka and other manga worth reading. Awesome.

Other thanks go to Mr. Ben Walker, our friend and booth mate for WonderCon, APE, and SDCC this year. His wife was out sick, but I still managed to accidentally punch him in the face (left hook) when I was happy to see him and spazing out. (“You say Ben, I say Walker. BEN! WALKER! BEN WALKER!” as I was swinging my fists through the air.)

I also got to talk to MICHAEL power times two; my palsMichael Slack and Michael Fleming, two of my absolute favorite monster artists in the world.

I got to meet Scott C from DoubleFine who turns out to be a pretty cool and fun guy.

Anyway, thanks for everyone who helped pull this event into the “successful” category in the last minute.

Your support of what we do is why we do it.

- Daniel