Soliciting for me, but not for thee
This is made of odd.
There’s a good deal of bad blood between the New York Comic Con and the Big Apple Comic Con. Even though New York City has more citizens than some states, apparently some people think it can’t accommodate two conventions. I’m not sure it can accommodate two conventions in one weekend.
Big Apple Comic Con shot the first volley by scheduling one show directly against NYCC, then followed up by escorting NYCC employees out of the Big Apple Con, apparently, for “soliciting.”
OK, whatever, but I can’t recall attending a New York Comic Con where people representing Big Apple Con weren’t doing some soliciting themselves. Seriously, for three years in a row.
I remember the first time I was approached by someone from Big Apple. J. Michael Straczynski was doing a signing at my booth.
This guy comes up to me with a flier and a business card and says – I kid you not – “It’s finally happened. You finally made it. We’ve never asked you before, but now that you’re working with big names like J Michael Straczynski, we can finally invite you to be a guest at the Big Apple Comic Con!”
And I’m thinking, who the hell is this wiggler?
It went downhill from there.
It had to be the most ungracious invitation I have ever received in my life.
Needless to say, I did not jump at this golden opportunity. But I won’t soon forget this execution of manners which would have made Edith Wharton weep cool tears.
My friends Jozef Szekeres and Julie Ditrich were there all the way from Australia, and it was good to show them that no matter how well I think my career is going, there’s always someone ready to come up in public, give me a good kick in the teeth, and put me in my place. Keeps me humble.
Even if he thought I was merely an adjunct to more important people, the polite approach might have been to say, “Here is my card, here is information about our show. We’d be delighted to have you.”
Instead, I got rhetoric about how I was being invited because I had finally reached the superior status of a genyooeyene Big Apple guest.
I hang with all the right people.
Well, dang.
The exact same thing happened the following year at New York Comic Con, and if that’s not soliciting, I don’t know what is. Big Apple fliers were everywhere.
So, while I have nothing against the Big Apple show (though whoever it was they had approaching potential guests ought to be gagged, for surely he is one of the worst convention representatives I have ever had the displeasure to encounter,) I’m amused that they would be so disturbed that New York Comic Con employees would attend their show. And “solicit.”
I understand Big Apple is under new management, so let’s hope so.
Regardless, Big Apple Comic Con employees attended New York Comic Con and openly solicited guests and attendees right out in front of God and everybody.
Can’t we all just get along?
c
October 19th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Wow, Colleen! That invite has to be the … well, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s almost as if he was told to invite you and he didn’t want to do it, so he purposefully did it in a way to make sure you would say “No.” There’s just no way I can make that into the opening gambit for a successful invitation.
As for the ConWars…. Weird. I have to say that I think Wizard’s strategy is all wrong, especially dissing the comic fanbase. Really. Sure, fans of other modes of popular entertainment will show up. They may even chatter about it online. But without a core of comics people, it won’t get the same level of chatter.
It’s something I’ve come to realize as I work on my book about adapting screenplays as graphic novels: comic readers are into all aspects of pop culture. It’s not an exclusive body, but their core interest is important. But comic readers are also much more plugged in online than other aspects of pop culture. Gamers PLAY online more than they talk about other stuff online – that’s just one example.
So Wizard giving comics a cold shoulder, at a time where there’s even more crossing between pop culture media forms than ever before, that’s stupid to me.
Heh. I can’t (right now) afford to go to either of the NYC cons, so it’s actually a moot point for me.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Apparently, if you can make it at Big Apple Comic Con, you can make it anywhere! I’m not exaggerating one bit, either. It was far more ridiculous and protracted, and gave every indication that this dude did not have a clue who I was or what I do. It was awesome.
I can’t remember a convention that did not have freebie tables and people from other shows spreading info about their shows. That’s the way it’s always been.
I don’t know what Wizard is thinking, but they can’t be using any grey matter to perform this function.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
They probably won’t get along. I saw this type of stuff happening in Toronto. Basically a con owner assumes ownership of a city. Eg. Wizard and Chicago. Reed moves in starts a con there and Wizard goes ballistic and goes to war. They start soliciting at each other cons (or trying to get around the no soliciting rule, in Toronto it was soliciting via sealed envelopes with the soliciting info inside).
If it’s anything like Toronto there will be “free” shows run the weekend prior to the other convention, accusations of guest ’stealing’ which may or may not involve trying to fool talent into going to the other convention, attempts to hire other other cons key staff people, illegal strong arm tactics to make people choose between one organization and another, people strongly taking one side over another and disparaging remarks about them by the other camp, among other things.
Personally I’m morbidly interested in how the Shamus show in Toronto turns out.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Morbidly interested? Hell, I’m buying popcorn.
Maybe Shamus just needs some love. Let’s get him a puppy.
I’d like someone to engage in some guest stealing with me. I can be bought. Soliciting in sealed envelope full of cash sounds dandy.
(Um…that was a joke.)
October 20th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
holy crabcakes XD
well on the plus side at least he didn’t say you were JMS’s girlfriend
I’m going to make more popcorn since I’m betting a rep from BACC should be posting here annnnny second to denounce the bad invite and issue you a good one “because we really like, um, whatever it is you do, honest! Including having this big public blog that everyone reads and all” :-/
October 20th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I don’t know Arlnee… is someone really going to be stupid enough to say that when JMS is sitting right there signing the book they did together? I’ve seen him – he’s not someone I’d want to offend! I think he eats idiots for breakfast.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Uh…. not that any straight guy would be offended to have it said that Colleen was his girlfriend!
She’s too… engaging. (Because “cute” is too twee a word for Colleen!) I mean, I’m straight, but I can certainly see what guys would like in her! Heh… okay, now I’m getting silly.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
LOL! All too amusing!
The people at Wizard have always been nice to me, but I don’t think they are doing themselves or pop culture any favors with these tactics. I can handle two conventions in one city, but dang. Not cool, this move.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Hey, at least ya got two cons — we only got one in the whole country. And even that’s been scaled down. Bah…!
October 20th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Yeah, what’s up with that! All those people on that little island, and no one can seem to run a decent series of conventions. Quite sad.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
That was just wrong. You are a vet, and that worm talks to you like you have been making mini-comics for the past few years. Really, the nerve. Reminds me of a robo-call for some reason, or that he is going to ask for some credit card information. Who ever they send out to recruit creators, should be put through some sort of orientation that can keep idiotic things like this from happening again.
I feel that the BAC which is backed by Wizard is trying to ride the coat tails of of the NYCC, like Wizard tried to do in the past by having a Con in the South East a few years back around the same time as Heroes Con. I’d put my money on NYCC.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
Well, actually, NYC has at least three cons: MoCCA, NYCC/NYAF, Big Apple. Then there’s the Kid’s Con, various lit fests which have a strong comics presence, and other stuff.
I spent $35 last Sunday to attend Big Apple. Unbelievable (and I’ve attended many Big Apple shows). Wait for them to move to a hotel (to guarantee carpeting and heating). The Baltimore Comic-Con is what Big Apple should be.
Too bad you didn’t have a supporting role in a Star Wars movie…or were in the WWE… they would have invited you a long time ago!
October 21st, 2009 at 11:28 am
I’ve been to comic conventions where Star trek red shirts got invited.
I remember one of Khan’s minions who did nothing but sit at a console in front of Ricardo Montalban’s chest – she was the guest, not Montalban’s chest. What she had to do with comics, I do not know.
After the initial shock of diss in broad Brooklynese wore off, I howled with laughter. It really is awfully funny.
I was told the dude from Big Apple who treated me to this experience is no longer with Big Apple.
Good riddance. What a maroon.
As I recall, he also told me that Neil Gaiman was another author from whom I had received the fairy dust sprinkle, but I don’t think I’ve worked with him since 1990-something. So, they weren’t, like, real up-to-date on my resume.
The guy just didn’t really know who the heck I was, frankly. I was just next to someone Very Important.
And while JMS is Very Important, that’s a dumb reason to invite me anywhere.
It’s even dumber to tell me that’s the reason you’re doing it.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:36 am
And by the way, by the end of a show, every single pro has an ENTIRE STACK of fliers from God knows how many people engaging in various acts of soliciting. Every morning you get to your booth, and several people have come through and put fliers all over it. I usually end up with an entire box of fliers I have to sort through and toss.
I kinda figure the point of going to a show is to buy and sell things. So, soliciting at a show has never bothered me, and I can’t recall being at a show where people from other shows weren’t soliciting.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I was not prepared for the forest of fliers that we got handed at the studio’s booth. We were swimming in the things! And almost all of them were wildly inappropriate and totally unrelated to what any of us actually did… or they wanted us to work for free.
I especially dug the people handing out flyers and soliciting for artists who claimed to know friends and acquaintances of mine who are Big Names. I would patiently listen to them, all the while thinking, ‘I wonder what would happen if I called [Big Name] right now?’
October 21st, 2009 at 1:02 pm
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