Getting back from FanX; a quick look back!

by Matthew Russell - Posted 5 years ago

My Fellow Vigilantes, we just got home. We went to FanX Fall 2019 in Salt Lake City, UT. We got to hang with over a hundred thousand fellow comic enthusiasts. It is both pure joy and painful experience. I love it.

 

Our Booth

We had a double booth in 1006 & 1008. It was a great location. Sitting just outside the artist alley, we had a primo spot. In the 1006 side of the booth, we had a few tables set up. On the first table, a bunch of computers and tablets to show off all our hard work on the system. The tablets were open to a variety of comic books already on the Crypto Comic Marketplace. We let people check out all that our comic reader allows (more on that in my next blog). We also had a laptop set up to allow other comic addicts to sign up for a personal invite into the system. In this table we had a little game going. Several sets of dice, you just grabbed 2 and rolled. Either 6, 7, or 8 was a winner. What did you win, you ask. Good question.

Prizes



One of our brilliant creators GypsyLeif had several paintings of space. She was kind enough to add our mascot; Bob to her paintings. She gave us thousands of various prints and signed them all. We also had bookmarks from David Lillie and his Dreamkeeper Comic. Jemma Young chipped in and gave us some amazing intros for her new comic Temerity. I have to say, I’ve read both the Temerity and all the Dreamkeepers, and I love them both. Both the art and writing styles of both series are above reproach and something to emulate. Astonishing isn’t a strong enough word. Moving back to the prizes, we had shirts galore. The art of Chad Hardin, Jemma Young, David Lillie, Jonathan Hewlett, Star Cross Comics, Relics Comics, last but not least one of the OG comic creators Ken landau. More t-shirts than we could shake a stick at. (Yes, I kept 2 for myself!)

Artist Alley

Digital Dwight and I walked through Artist Alley (a section of the convention dedicated to creators) so many times and talked with almost everyone. It was great to get out of our booth and say hi to our neighbors. A bunch of them are in the process of signing up with us. I love it when we can explain what we do in a way that creators can see the benefits of our system. More than anything, I loved talking shop with creators. Being able to discuss art techniques, pros, and cons of digital lettering, writing styles, it is such a blast! I got to talk about the struggles of breaking into the industry, as well as the pains of having a major contract.

Throughout the Convention

I got to meet so many fans. Like-minded people who are just as much of a fanatic as me. I would walk through the crowd in my Crypto Comics shirt and someone would inevitably stop me and point out that they have a Crypto Comics sticker on a mug of theirs, or show me their print from GypsyLeif. I got to see all the merch available. Holy Crap there are some cool things! I want one of those bad @$$ looking lightsabers so bad. I tried to find a Green Lantern ring but no one had my size. I need to come down with something like 10 Grand in order to get even close to all the things I wanted. My wife would kill me but it would be worth it.

Getting Home

I had to leave before my crew took down the booth. I felt so lazy but an emergency pulled me away. Sorry guys. By the time I got home and dealt with the emergency, I crashed. That was so strange because I was still excited and on an adrenaline rush from FanX but I could barely keep my eyes open. I took a day to recover, mostly just lying in bed snoring, and then it was back to the grind. Just because I was at the convention doesn’t mean that work stops. I have so much stuff to do and that is why this blog post was so delayed. I promise it won’t happen again.

Overall Opinion

FanX is a unique and wonderful experience that I recommend EVERYONE attend. Even if you are just going to network, buy some cool merchandise that you can’t get anywhere else, or you want another excuse to break out that Halloween costume of yours, GO! You won’t be disappointed. We will be going back next year so come and see us at our booth. We never try to sell you anything at the conventions but you can walk away with handfuls of cool stuff.