By Shaenon K. Garrity
This weekend I'll be tabling at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco for the eighth time. APE was the first convention I ever attended as a creator, way back in 2001. I split the cost of that first half-table ($75; it's up to $110 now, still cheaper than most cons) with my friend Andrew, who became my boyfriend Andrew three days before the con and is my husband Andrew now. I sold my first minicomic, a painstakingly cut-and-pasted collection of
Narbonic strips. He sold previews of a comic he was drawing for a woman he'd met on Craigslist. We had big dreams.
APE was held then in a leaky building in the Fort Mason district. It rained. Terry Moore was the guest of honor and told me my comic reminded him of
Trots and Bonnie, still one of the most flattering and least deserved compliments I've ever received. (I recently got the same comment again, this time from an editor at
MAD magazine. Still flattering, still undeserved.) This year's APE is at the rickety but far more comfortable Concourse Exhibition Center, although I don't think it'll be much longer before a) the con outgrows this venue or b) the venue gets torn down to build a convention hall that doesn't look like it was made from corrogated cardboard and craft glue.
I've skipped a lot of Comic-Cons, but I always do APE. It's a lot less exhausting, and not just because it's right down the street. I like the less overwhelming, more familial, more comics-oriented feel of the small-press cons. MoCCA was ten tons of fun this year too. Besides, at this point APE has become part of the calendar year, like Thanksgiving and the one day in San Francisco the sun comes out. (This year it was October 24.) Like the Stations of the Cross, Andrew and I go through all the formal stages of APE tabling:
1. Staying up until five AM the morning of the con stapling minicomics and screaming at each other about how next year we're totally going to do this ahead of time.
2. Rushing to our table five minutes before the doors open to the public, which, as it turns out, puts us ahead of all the friends tabling with us, who wander in around noon smelling of cigarettes and convenience-store wine.
3. Trying to cram all of our comics onto one table. Failing. Shooting poisonous glances at Jason Thompson for putting his rack of minicomics on top of my stack of books. Realizing Jason Thompson is shooting poisonous glances at me for piling my plush gerbils on top of his H.P. Lovecraft DVDs and "Cthulhu in 2000" T-shirts. Realizing that our tie-in merchandise is kind of weird, and also that Jason needs to make some new T-shirts.
4. Accidentally wandering into the section of the con where they keep all the zombie erotica. Feeling confused.
5. Watching Keith Knight sell $500 worth of
K Chronicles books and reusable canvas grocery bags in a ten-minute period. How does he do that?
6. Ordering a grilled cheese sandwich at the greasy spoon across the street and getting into an hour-long conversation about right-wing government conspiracies with an inker.
7. Growing despondent over disappointing sales, than embittered, then stabby. Developing cynical plan to create super-cute manga-style Photoshop-colored goth lesbian autobio hacker gaming comic that will sell like gangbusters to hipster nerds, a comic we will totally, totally have ready in time for the next APE, we swear.
8. Playing Facial Hair Bingo.
9. Going to the wrong party.
10. On Monday morning, signing for the UPS delivery of those three boxes of books I really, really needed for the con.
There's one APE tradition I'll miss this year, and that's the presence of Rory Root of Comic Relief. I'm sure Comic Relief will have another fantastic booth, but we won't see Rory making his slow, majestic circuit of the convention hall like a proud galleon, stopping to chat with cartoonists and mark certain books for his purchase. No matter how poorly I did at APE, I could always could on a few sales to Comic Relief; Rory was an avid patron of small-press folks, local creators, and newbies flogging their first minicomic. I'll miss watching his progress around the hall. He loved comics so much it made us hipster nerds forget, for a couple of minutes, to be cynical.
But I'll be there anyway, again. If you're going to APE, look me up at the Couscous Collective table. Sorry, no plush gerbils this year. They'll show up on Monday.
Shaenon K. Garrity is a manga editor at Viz Media and is best known for her webcomics Narbonic and Skin Horse.
All the Comics in the World is © Shaenon K. Garrity, 2008
