It's finally happened! A full year of TransCat! Welcome to Issue #4! The issue that PROBABLY took the longest to complete. For some reason, doing the inking on this one just dragged and dragged. A lot of it can be blamed on a mixture of depression and laziness (or laziness brought on by depression?) but the other side of this coin was some technical difficulties I've been battling on this laptop. Without an immediate mode of repair, I had to cut some corners and make do with doing some things analogue. The end results looks amazing, but it took me at least twice as long.
Everything seems to be running okay on the machine end of things now. Issue #5 is already underway (looking at a late June/early July release). Still dealing with the fact that I'm depressed and outrageously lazy, though. My New Years resolution for 2015 was to step up my TransCat game as much as I could and i feel like I've really done the opposite :(
I'll get there though...
On the brighter side of things, I just got back from Big Wow Con in San Jose! Last year at this very convention, TransCat Issue #1 was released to the public, so I got some sentimentality associated with that particular con :)
The show went amazing, by the way. It started out kinda weird because not only did I get there slightly late, but when I first arrived, I had a hell of a time finding my table. The thing that happens when you arrive slightly late is that a lot of the table numbers get covered up by people's stuff, so walking down the aisle, counting down the numbers you CAN see trying to find YOUR number, can be a hassle.
I finally settled down at a table that LOOKED like it should have been mine. It was in the general area at least, but it was actually lacking any number altogether. I asked one of the Big Wow Staff if this was supposed to be me, and she replied, just as confused as me, "I THINK so...".
It was an awkward table to be at, I was at the end (or the beginning, depending on which way you were approaching from) of a row of cosplayers, and directly behind me was the Table Top Gaming area, which in itself was the last row of tables before reaching the wall. This in and of itself discouraged me because the LAST con I went to, I had the bad luck of being set up against a wall. I was really out of the way, and made very few sales. I was worried because I thought this was going to be a repeat of that event.
HOWEVER, less than an hour after set up, a different staff member approached me with a hopeful look in his eye. He said something to the effect of "Okay! So we made a mistake! It turns out THAT guy took your table before you got here", he pointed at a man on the opposite corner with a massive fan art/pin up setup. The staff member continued "...this table is promised to another cosplayer, so we are going to try and find a better place for you, since his setup will take forever to move."
I was immediately reinvigorated, because my setup moved really easy, and if it meant getting a better table, then i was ready and rarin' to go! Before I knew it, the staff member from before came by ans told me that she was gonna help me lift my entire table over to where I'd be for the rest of the con. And by "entire" I do mean the whole damn table. She took one end, I took the other, and we walked it over to a VERY nice place on the aisle, surrounded by other cartoonists. I've never received a finer upgrade. We had lots of traffic. In that first hour, I made zero sales, but after the move, I made my table money back and then some, and then day two was even better.
So yeah, needless to say, Big Wow was very good to me. I want to thank my friends Cameron and JD for coming with me, helping me carry stuff, keeping me company during the slow parts of the day, and providing me with amusing colour commentary all weekend :D
They were actually among my first customers when TransCat debuted last year, and now they're good friends of mine. O, the wonders of being an indie cartoonist.
So that was this weekend. But what does the future hold for TransCat?
Well, there's a small convention being put together by the Anime Club at Foothill College (which is, in a way, my alma mater) so I'll be participating in that.
Then, the end of next month is FANIME! :D So... like... that is also a big deal.
Great news Woohoo!!
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