This was our first time going to Manga Next and it was great. The artist alley staff was very helpful and pleasant and so were the people sitting next to/around us. Usually we get 6 foot tables, but this time we got a three foot because unfortunately we were a little late on the whole letter of intent. Even though it was half of what we usually have, we made it work really well.
To the right of us sat Dave Roman, he was really friendly and we loved his work with Astronaut Academy and several Avatar comic books. We had a good time chatting with him about many things from comics to other cons to musical tastes.
To the left of us was Gary, a.k.a. Bubba, who had a great set of prints and 2 volumes of his Demon Fist series. Across from both of us were the awesome Samantha and her boyfriend, who are a great duo running Cyber-Scribe-Screens making a great assortment of character squids and T-shirts. I got a zombie squid myself and I was very satisfied with it. It apparently was so satisfied with me that it stuck to the top of my hat for the rest of the day without falling off, I should probably check if it was sucking my brains out. We all chatted about many things under the sun, including the idea of squid-chucks, which I hope will see the light of day.
Last but not least on the awesome people we met at Manga Next has to be Jen Lee Quick, the writer and artist of the popular Off Beat OEL graphic novel series. We made quick friends and gained a lot of knowledge about the publishing world. I myself had never read Off Beat before the convention, but after a straight reading of the two available volumes while she chatted with Kate Rhodes, I instantly became a fan and I’m craving more of that gripping story. We commissioned Jen Lee Quick and she drew us Oliver and Thelm and they came out insanely awesome, emphasis on the insane, since Kate and I seem to have a knack for creating mentally unstable characters. We loved how they came out.
Our chibis sold very well at Manga Next, I’m happy that our old school anime chibis sold better at this con than at NYAF, just goes to show you have to know your audience. Commissions went well as well, everyone loved their chibi portraits. Two of our favorite cosplayers that crossed our table was one lady dressed as Katara from Avatar the Last Airbender, with an amazing water bending effect with the use of a silk scarf, and the other was a person cosplaying Wander from Shadow of the Collosus, who purchased a little Valus from us and also took a picture with one of our colossal sized Valus chibis with a fearsome gleam.
All in all, the convention was amazing and we had a really good time. We hope to share the con experience with more people, and to meet up with some of the people we met at Manga Next at future cons as well. Our next con on our schedule is going to be Anime Boston, and we are going to be at table S47, so go check us out there! We’ll be promoting our Kickstarter for Ponzi Volume One, which we are going to launch very soon! We hope our readers will like the animated video we worked on, it’s going to take them back all the way to the beginning of chapter 1.
Picture provided by the great Dave Roman.
Kate Rhodes was in the same room at the time of the photo, she was hanging out with Jen Lee Quick.
Jennifer Xu is out of the country at the moment!