nongravity:

Just home from my first LICAF in Kendal! I’d unsuccessfully applied on my own last year, so this year I applied with Stray Lines and we got a table! There was supposed to be a group of us going but circumstances got in the way and in the end I was the only one left! So this was my first time representing Stray Lines solo.

This is my 7th post mortem convention write up! You can find the rest on the Events page on my website or the post mortem tag here on my tumblr.

LICAF was my most successful UK show, both individually and as a group!

My total outgoing costs for the convention in order of leaving my house to the start of the show: 276£

• Roundtrip flight from Dublin to Manchester w/luggage - 92£
  
• Roundtrip train from Manchester to Kendal - 28£
  
• Hostel bunk bed in Kendal for 4 nights - 84£
  
• LICAF Full table - 95£ (divided by 8 artists): 12£
• Food for 4 days - 60£

What I brought with me:

• 25 copies of We Can’t Afford This
  
• 10 Copies of Hats
  
• 10 Copies of Strong
  
• 10 Copies of Odd Reels
  
• Stack of business cards

What I sold:

• 5 copies of We Can’t Afford This for 4£
  
• 4 copies of Hats for 7£
  
• 5 copies of Strong for 5£
  
• 1 copy of Odd Reels for 3£
  

For a total incoming of: 76£

So this is still a loss (individually) of 200£ but that’s not really the whole picture. As I’ll get to further down, we came out on top as a group! 

I also moved 15 books! To put that in perspective, that’s the same as all my previous UK shows for the last three years COMBINED.

It’s possible the original plan for LICAF would have been cheaper. Going solo isn’t cheap. Splitting rooms with Stray Lines members would have helped as would a group car/ferry over from Ireland instead of an individual plane/train. I also padded this trip across 5 days, for my sanity and also because I could only afford the Thursday-Monday flights. 

Despite saving money, I wouldn’t do a hostel dorm room again while exhibiting. A bit too much unnecessary anxiety knowing I had a backpack full of other people’s money in a dorm where we weren’t even locking the door because some bunkmates didn’t have keys. Also I got the bunk with no power plug. I spent the weekend looking for power for my phone.

Being in Kendal put me right next to Ulverston where the main temple of my Buddhist meditation tradition is located! So it was really nice to hop the bus over there and enjoy a tranquil Friday before the convention. I tend to have anxiety around comic conventions so having some meditation the day before did a lot to help me calm down.

Brexit

Brexit both helped me and hurt me this convention. First, I’d paid for my LICAF table when the pound was actually worth something in April! So in today’s money, that 95£ felt more like 140€. But post-Brexit, the euro and pound are basically 1:1, which helped out with all the other travel related costs for the trip! The 1:1 deal coming home Monday also made dividing up Stray Lines earnings easy peasy with no conversions. 

What’s horrible for the UK and the global economy temporarily works out in favor of some broke joke cartoonists.

We Can’t Afford This

In a mad rush, and inspired by Alan’s lovely comics, I printed a concertina comic of my Nib comic, We Can’t Afford This so I would have something new to debut at LICAF. I made a typo during the rush, but it looks great and a huge thanks to PlusPrint in Dublin for making it happen with such short notice. 

Overall people were divided on the concertina printing. Some people enjoy all the different formats, others turned into infomercial actors when handling a comic without staples. I still liked it! Though I learned why Alan bought plastic sleeves for his concertinas, because mine were unfolding everywhere. 

Similar to She Always Looked Good in Hats, people loved the We Can’t Afford This title since it works as a go-to slogan for anyone attending a comic convention.

Our Table and Me

I was on my own this weekend so I got to design our table however I liked! I went over the top during the Friday night set-up and probably spent hours longer than I needed to making sure everything was just so before going to bed.

Putting the empty boxes under the table cloth to create some tiered surfaces is something I learned from people setting up shrines at meditation centers. It was a good solution to not having anything with me to prop up the books with.

We had a corner stall like at ELCAF so the music stand came in handy, giving us another display while totally getting in the way of the other exhibitors who needed to use our corner to get in/out of their booths. Sorry neighbors! At least one of them complimented the music stand idea as they awkwardly maneuvered around it.

Based on Sarah’s success with Primark in ELCAF I made some “LICAF Debut” signs for the 2nd Stray Lines anthology and my We Can’t Afford This concertina. I… don’t think it made a lick of difference.

A few people referenced the iPad slideshow but we had no takers on the PDFs. But at least one person saw a page on the slideshow and said “who’s art is that” and I was able to steer him to Paddy’s books. In other gadget news, had a few more credit card sales, slowly making my card reader worthwhile. One thing that occurred to me as a representative of the group is that a designated Stray Lines Instagram/Twitter would come in handy for weekends like this. Facebook/Tumblr doesn’t quite cut it.

Having two Stray Lines anthologies really solidified us as a group to people. Previously the single Stray Lines anthology went mostly unnoticed, even after explaining to people that we were a collective. People recognized us from other shows or from our presence in some UK comic shops. That was cool. Nice to know we’re getting out there. Other artists were really impressed with Stray Lines’ level of organization and activity. I’ve heard other artists talk before about how hard it is to keep momentum going in their comic groups and socializing, so it was nice to hear I’ve landed in one of the rare lively groups!

This was also the first show in which people approached our table with propositions? Like pop up shops, teaching gigs, magazine apps and micro-publishing. That was different! 

What I brought for the group:

• 24 different books by 9 different artists!
  

What the group sold:

• 79 books! 
  

Compared to our last group show at ELCAF where we moved 33 books! As a group we cleared the cost of the weekend. 

When I flew over, my suitcase was almost 26 kilos! When I left, it was 20 kilos! That’s even with me buying some things to bring home! So that felt good, especially on my aching neck. And thanks to Aer Lingus for letting our overages slide. 

Winner

Stray Lines! The anthologies were the best sellers of the day in both volume and money. Yay! Everyone’s a winner! Made me wish I’d had a comic in the anthology! Next one I guess.

Lakes International Comic Art Festival

Taking a cue from older comic festivals like Angoulême and Lucca, LICAF takes over the entire town of Kendal and tries to break away from the stale and sterile convention-center/hotel-ballroom format of comic shows. 

But while it spreads all over town, the heart of the festival is set up in the town hall, a beautiful old clock tower on the main drag. Manning the table alone means I didn’t really get to explore the other events at the library, cinema, courtyard, theatre and elsewhere. I still got a sense of the whole town as a host from the banners and flags and store front decorations. 

The red shirt volunteers were top notch. Constantly roaming with tea, fruit and biscuits for the exhibitors and kindly taking a photo of me behind the table since I couldn’t find anyone else to do it for me. I even roped one into watching my table for an hour while I attended a panel on Sunday but I found out when I got back that they weren’t supposed to do that! Sorry! 

The wifi in the clock tower worked better than any other comic show I’ve exhibited at. There were some outages but it always came back and it allowed me to promote our comics without drowning in roaming-data fees.

My only minor complaint was that the schedule didn’t really allow exhibitors to attend anything! At least not without sacrificing table time. Dan Berry was there making his lovely handmade brass dip pens, but it was 10-12 on Saturday, the opening of the festival for exhibitors. Then Bryan Lee O’Malley was there introducing Scott Pilgrim vs The World at the cinema, but it started at 5pm, where as comic convention went on until 6pm. Again, minor, but it would have been fun to see and do some more beyond selling books. 

Not the fault of LICAF but this show more than others kinda turned me off on those pop-up vinyl standees that everyone uses. The comics clock tower had massive ceilings, but those standees all around me made it feel claustrophobic. They also cut up the room unnecessarily, which was a shame since it would have been nice to see everything all at once. And while they do a good job promoting the artist in front of them, they’re not much to look at from behind. I’ve said before that Stray Lines needs a sign, but I think now for sure an A3 print in a frame standing on the table or the music stand would be nicer.

You Ask, We Tell! Helping Creators Pitch to Publishers, the Press and Comic Shops 

I did attend one panel though! Which is a breakthrough for me, as in my three years of exhibiting at comic conventions I’ve never left my table for more than a quick bite to eat or bathroom break.

Ricky Miller of Avery Hill Publishing, artist Katriona Chapman, Andy Oliver from Broken Frontier and Stephen L Holland of Page 45 and LICAF were there to talk about publishing and reviews and stocking stores.

I managed to take a few notes on my phone, some stuff I’d heard before but still good to be reminded:

• Stephen and Ricky talked about sales numbers which helped put some things in perspective in what kind of small press volume moves through shops like Page45 and Gosh! using Tillie Walden’s books for example.
  
• Stephen emphasized film sale vs sale & return and how sale & return gives a shop no real incentive to move your books. This came up again later but it almost sounded like Stephen was saying that things that I thought were non-negotiable for shops were actually on the table to negotiate if you tried.
  
• “First print run is usually promotional” vs profit.
  
• Avery Hill doesn’t really accept finished books for publishing. Small publishers and editors want to steer the ship and put their stamp on a story, so a completed book doesn’t really give them anything to do besides distribute a book which isn’t as much fun for them.
  
• Momentum and back catalogue is key. 
  
• Publisher that won’t be named won’t accept any creators who have less than a certain threshold of Twitter followers! 
  
• Research whoever you approach, whether a reviewer or publisher. Know who you’re talking to ahead of time.
  
• Link and promote all of your retailers. Don’t undersell them on your website or pit them against each other in price.
  
• Stephen said the firm sale split/wholesale discount is up to you, not the shops? Page 45 does 60/40 as a default but you tell them. This was news to me and so surprising that I had to ask a question to confirm it. I’m still a bit confused as to how it might work in practice. Stephen also said don’t give different stores different splits, but I never really considered that up to me before so all my books are sold at whatever split the store offered me or declared on their website.
  
• 100-200 is grand for a first print run.
  
• During the off-season, Page 45 will get back to you about buying a book within a week. During the festival/x-mas season, expect a few months.
  
• Be brief and considerate in person and over email.
  
• Do anthologies.
• Other review sites besides Broken Frontier: Down the Tubes and John Freeman, Pipe Dreams, Dirty Rotten Comics, Rob Clof (sp? turned up nothing on Google) and Daniel Elkin.
  
• Page 45 only does LICAF, he thinks there are too many UK comic shows.
  
• Both Ricky and Stephen strongly recommend TCAF, so I guess it’s a good thing I already put in an application for Stray Lines to attend in 2017!
  

Near the end I had an Issa Rae moment and asked one more question that unintentionally brought the room down and made an ass of myself. I don’t know why it popped into my head. I guess because some of the talk was familiar, and the comic convention was bringing my anxiety to the surface. Whatever it was, I asked: “Do you have any advice for those long stretches, whether they’re months or years, where you just feel like you’re sending comics out into the void?”

Had I given the question a moment’s more thought, I would have changed it. I had Stephen from Page 45 there! I could have asked him how to get a small press shop started in Dublin! Or how to encourage cape & cowl comic shops to embrace small press! I could have asked Avery Hill what the process of buying a book pitch is like? I know little about advances and residuals. I could have asked anything else really. The question was a bit depressing, and contrasted too much with the encouraging vibe of the panel. It would have been better suited for a panel of self-deprecating artists. 

Anyway, I melted into my chair at the look of everyone’s faces and all I could really gather from the answers was to keep chugging along and trying new things until you’re not throwing comics into the void anymore. 

Still enjoyed myself despite the embarrassment. 

Highlights

Got to meet Dan Berry! And buy one of his handmade pens! I’ve listened to Make It Then Tell Everybody for years so it was nice to finally say hi to him. Dan also had a hand in LICAF’s annual 24-hour comic that I picked up from my table neighbor Dan Watters. 

Remedied my ELCAF mistake and picked up Mountains by Katriona Chapman. 

Bought a Tillie Walden book from her while she was there. Both Dan and Tillie did these lovely freehand drawings in my books that my hands are too shaky to even offer people when they buy comics from me.

Jaqueline Huskisson was walking around doing swaps, her Alabaster Trees comic is really lovely. 

Swapped books with Aimee Lockwood of the Edinburgh League of Comics. We didn’t know each other but I think we’d chatted over email at some point before when I was asking random comic folk in Edinburgh if there were any small press shows there I should be attending. 

Had a fun chat with another American expat, Kathryn Briggs, about our adoptive accents (hers Scottish, mine Irish).

Chatted with Andy P and Aneurin Wright who were seated behind me, always grateful to meet easy-going conversational people in a field rife with social anxiety.

And since I always seem to miss out on a book, James Chapman’s Soundimals stood out because learning the different sounds animals make in Spanish was a highlight of living in Spain. Will definitely look for this again next time I’m in the UK.

Conclusion

I’m definitely recommending to Stray Lines that we do LICAF again. I also want to get in touch with LICAF early to see if we can expand our presence there, maybe with a panel or a Comics Lab or a live reading or something. 

Looking at the space available, I’d even say Stray Lines could handle two tables there! Just looking at what I’ve seen from our group, I know there are books that the gang didn’t give me to carry over for whatever reason. Next time I wouldn’t hesitate in bringing more books. The variety on display at our table seemed to be what people liked the most!

Epilogue

I thought I’d never been to Kendal before but on the morning I was leaving I stepped into The Chocolate House and realized I had been there before on a Lake District tour in 2009 after one of my meditation retreats in Ulverston. 

(via stray-lines)