Why the Alternative Press Expo?

So why APE? You may remember last year the Alternative Press Expo was the first comic convention that we’ve ever appeared at. It was the first I’d even attended in any capacity. And now a full year later it will be the second con we’ll appear at. So why this particular venue?

Several reasons. Mostly convenience. For one, it is in our backyard of San Francisco. It isn’t the only local con (there is the mighty Wonder-Con, which I’m looking into for next year), but it is one of the cheaper ones. See, we are very poor. As those who know me well like to point out, I am a frugal man (having a kid will do that to you). We lose money when we do this. We don’t make up our appearance cost and we sell our products for under cost. It is an attempt to get our name out there in the hopes that one day we may actually be big enough to turn a profit, or at least break even.

It isn’t the cheapest, but it is a lot bigger than many of the really cheap cons. I think of it it as the biggest of the small, or perhaps the smallest of the big (it is connected with Comic-Con). At a large convention a little webcomic like us would be nothing and get no attention, a little fish in a big pond. Well, we want to be a medium sized fish in a medium sized pond, and that’s how I view us at APE.

We were by no means the most popular comic there last year, but we weren’t the least popular either. Shockingly we had our stuff together better than a lot of people. And we got some attention and a bump up in street cred (I can talk to Larry Marder now, and he knows who I am. People actually want to publish us and work with us).

Beyond all that, I think we fit with the spirit of the show well, the Alternative Press. We are definitely not your mainstream comics, and we seem to blend well with the bizarre crowd. And it’s not just comics there. It’s all kinds of craze creative stuff. Odd toys, weird art, things that I have no idea what they are…it’s all there. It’s the Island of Misfit Toys, and it’s where guys like us belong.

So we’ll see you there!