A Lilac City Comicon Debriefing

Over the weekend I attended Lilac City Comicon with my good buddy, illustrator Josh Montreuil. Of the three conventions I’ve attended this spring, this was the shortest, being only a single day. This was also the first solidly comic-focused convention I’ve attended as an exhibitor, SpoCon, Norwescon, and CthulhuCon tended to be more varied. Going in I was unsure what to expect.

Overall, I was stunned by the response. I came in with two-and-a-half boxes of books and only left with one. The crowd was great. The people were friendly and excited. In one day at Lilac City I got to meet more new readers than I did working a table for three days at SpoCon. An incredible and flattering response.

Since the convention lasted only one day things were fairly hectic and harried. So let’s get right to the highlights…

• All. The. Cosplay. Seriously, some really incredible work. It was really difficult to narrow it down for the images with this post and I’m leaving a lot out. I should throw more of my pictures somewhere so you can see everyone’s hard work. It blew me away.
• Having my family come in to hang out. Thanks for the coffee, mom!
• Spending time at the table with my friend Josh Montreuil. I’ve know the guy since college and it’s always a good time hanging out with him. He had a great convention as well. He sold out of a few posters which is always a good thing.
• Selling so many books, obviously.
• Talking about The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath with a fellow Lovecraft fan. Underrated work, I highly recommend it.
• Having a new reader buy The Stars Were Right, and then come back later after he read the first few pages to pick up Old Broken Road. That was a pretty cool moment for me. It’s awesome to see readers enjoy my books so much. Makes me excited to get Red Litten World out there.
• Picking up a signed copy of Vol. 1 of Matt Nelson’s Catbeard the Pirate. Matt’s a great guy and his books are really fun.
• My selfie with Odin.
• Watching Josh create some incredible sketches for his fans. Everything from a smirking Loki, a Black Lantern Batman, to a goalie version of Superman. Fun stuff. (You can see some of his work below.)
• Late night pizza and the Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles movie.
• Did I mention the cosplay? If not… the cosplay.
• Watching a friend of the family experience her first convention. It’s always a bit overwhelming when you first walk in, but everyone remembers their first convention. It’s cool to see.
• Seeing and catching up with some old friends from Spokane.
• I was really impressed with the new addition to the Spokane Convention Center. It’s a lovely building and really perfect for a convention the size of Lilac City Comicon.
• The Z Nation fans. The show is filmed here in the Pacific Northwest and the crew was at the convention so there were a lot of fans among the attendees and they were all great and very excited about Z Nation.
• Seeing some folks from SpoCon! It’s nice to see a little community across conventions. Was great seeing people.
• Me emberassingly being adamant that a bearded individual had changed out of his costume, despite him having never worn a costume. (After going through my photos I realized I was super wrong. Not all white beard-having men look the same, K. M., jeeze.)
• Going to see Mad Max: Fury Road with Josh the night before the convention. Seriously, go see that movie. It’s incredible.
• The decompression dinner with some fantastic Spokanites: Josh, Matt, Lars, Peter, Jen, Kevin, and Curt. Was fun to chat and hangout in old haunts and talk about our Lilac City Comicon experience. Everyone had a great time.

I came away from Lilac City Comicon feeling pretty happy with the result. It was a great weekend and I’ll definately be back next year. Going into this I had expected LCCC to be my last convention for 2015, but I’d wager there might be a few more conventions in my future. More on that later.

DON’T FORGET: The Red Litten World cover reveal happens this Thursday! If you want a sneak peak ahead of everyone else click here to sign up for my newsletter. Subscribers get to be first in line for special events and announcements. I’m looking forward to the big reveal and I hope you are too!