Our Experience The First Time Tabeling At Fan Expo Denver!
Lifeline Comics has never been to Fan Expo Denver before. This is their report on the show.
Hello Lifeline Comics Readers!
This week, we’re talking all about our experience tabling at Fan Expo Denver! Travel Cons can be a difficult beast to conquer — with oh, so many expenses attached. We’re excited to share how we did!
We’ll also reveal our Pride Festival Schedule for June, announce some changes to our Kickstarter Solicit Schedule, talk about our experience at a WNBA Dallas Wings Vs. New York Liberty game, and share our thoughts on recent releases like The Mandalorian & Grogu, 24 in 24, and more!
Let’s dive in!
Fan Expo Denver
Phil: Every year, we try to do a handful of in-person events in cities that we’ve never sold our comics at before. It’s important to us that we make a concerted effort every year to make new fans of our comics in different places. We’ve always heard great things about Fan Expo Denver from fellow creators, so we decided to make this our first year tabling at the show.
This was our first show in a while where we didn’t actually know what to expect going in. Costs of travel were pretty high for this one — even for a standard travel con. And unlike our other more recent travel shows (Emerald City Comic Con, Vermont Pride), we had absolutely no barometer for what our sales performance at the show would be.
But as mentioned above, sales aren’t everything at a Con! So we took the plunge and tried to get as much out of Fan Expo Denver as we could.
Seeing Friends and Fans! And NETWORKING!
Phil: Before we get into the numbers, let’s talk about the social value of Fan Expo Denver (and conventions in general).
As was our main goal for this and any travel show, we did make many new fans of our books in Denver. We have dozens of excited buys, many of whom came back later to tell us that they enjoyed their purchases. And several of whom ended up buying even more books from us! That level of excitement for our comics is always what we’re chasing at a convention. It’s the best and most organic advertising you can get for your product — in-person connection and confirmation of continued interest.
In addition to making new fans, we also got to connect with some existing fans for the first time in-person! As we do at every show we go to, we met a handful of Slice of Life and Love at Second Bite Webtoon fans, which is always a treat and a testament to the power and reach of Webcomics.
We also got to connect with some Kickstarter backers — who are the driving force behind making everything we do possible — including Michael Cirrone (below), an aspiring creator himself who brought his copies of Bombshell & Atomica (the comic we write for Bad Bug Media) for us to sign. He was (and all of the backers we got to chat with were) an absolute pleasure to chat with. These kinds of connections and conversations are truly our favorite part of tabling at conventions.
We grabbed breakfast with friend and fellow creator, Fabrice Sapolsky (recently nominated for an Eisner for Noir Is the New Black Season 2). In addition to comparing notes on the show and the comics industry in general, Fabrice did us the huge favor of introducing us to Kevin Andrew Boyd (Fan Expo HQ Comic Relations). It was a great connection to finally make as we had only ever heard lovely things about Kevin, and we always love the shows that he puts on.
Kat: In addition, we got to see Comics Explained. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other in person, and it was great to reconnect as old school comic YouTubers.
In the “connection and networking” departments, we were incredibly pleased with Fan Expo Denver!
Visiting Denver for the First Time
Kat: An intermission from the con to talk about our less work connected endeavors!
Phil and I have visited a lot of places, but I personally have never been to Denver (besides a layover, but that doesn’t count!). It’s one of my favorite cities to convention at to date. There is so much unique artwork - bears climbing builds, red eyed horses as you enter the airport, and people genuinely seem to enjoy living there.
I was blown away by the food. There were so many wonderful options, and different types of cuisine. Only a few blocks away from our hotel was Carrie Baird’s Fox and The Hen, which took a homey vibe to breakfast.
I’m not a huge breakfast person, but I was quickly able to find some favorites. I was especially impressed by their hot sauce station where they highlighted dozens of local companies.
The best part of traveling for work is being able to see sides of America you never dreamed of visiting, and Colorado can now be added to that list.
The Numbers - Was Fan Expo Denver Profitable for us?
Phil: Alright, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty!
As mentioned previously, expenses for Fan Expo Denver were higher-than-average for us for a Convention (even a Travel Con).
We were actually waitlisted for the show and didn’t get officially accepted until April, just over a month before the show. This made finding cheaper flights and accommodations more difficult. In the end, the best we could find with shorter notice was a pricier flight, and a moderately priced hotel that would still require an Uber back-and-forth from the show (the closer options were prohibitively expensive).
Add the table cost on top of that, and our expenses landed in the low-to-mid $3,000 range. And that’s without accounting for meals or entertainment (our hotel did offer free breakfast every morning, which helped).
Making this back as sales revenue wasn’t impossible. We’d made more than this at our last travel show (ReedPop’s Emerald City Comic Con). But we went in prepared for the possibility that this wouldn’t be a profitable show for us. We had never done it before and didn’t have a basis of sales performance aside for word-of-mouth from fellow creators.
At the end of the day, we recouped about 3/4 of our total costs as sales revenue. This was largely do to an unexpectedly great Sunday, because at end-of-day Saturday it didn’t seem likely we’d even get close to covering our expenses.
As we always say, the final profit for a show isn’t the only consideration for whether a show is “worth it”. We did make a lot of new fans. And we had a lot of valuable meetings. But it was disappointing that this was our first unprofitable show in a while.
Several of the creators we talked with who had done Fan Expo Denver in previous years expressed a similar disappointment that they expected higher sales figures. We heard all sorts of theories for the lower sales — that moving the show from July to May had a negative impact, that the show sold too many 4-Day Passes and not enough Day Passes, that it all came down to the state of the economy, etc.
The reality is that it was probably some combination of all of these factors, plus a thousand other facts that we can’t really predict or account for.
Fan Expo put on a good show. Our compliments to the organizers who were honest and engaged with their guests and creators throughout. And we loved the city and met a lot of really great people.
Would we do Fan Expo Denver again? Yes, we’d give it another try. But probably not for a few years. And probably not until we could find a way to bring down costs.
Cosplay Gallery
Kat: Fan Expo Denver had SUCH CREATIVE COSPLAYS! It’s some of the best we’ve seen in YEARS!
Revisions to Solicits
Phil: Back in April, we announced our Solicits for May through August Kickstarter launches from Lifeline Comics.
Since the announcement, we’ve had to make some changes to our schedule to allow more production time for upcoming big projects. We went ahead and edited the original Solicits announcement to reflect the new launch schedule. You can see that updated post here.
Our June Pride Schedule
Kat: It’s June and for this queer owned comic book company. It means it’s our busiest time of the year. Here are the pride events you can find us at this June. And be sure to shout out any pride events you’d like us to show up at!
June 6th - Delaware Pride
June 7th - Jersey Pride (Asbury Park)
June 7th - Philly Pride
June 13th-14th - Baltimore Pride
June 14th - Long Island Pride
June 20th - East Side Mags Witching Season Signing 3PM-6PM (New Jersey)
Tentative to us getting Witching Season in our hands in time (fingers crossed)!
June 21st - Capital Pride (Washington DC)
June 28th - NYC Pride
What Have We Been Up To?
Let’s talk about some of the things we’ve done to keep busy these last couple of weeks!
Trip to Fort Lauderdale!
Phil: Before our trip to Denver, we had a mini-getaway to Florida to visit our friend Rocco for a few days.
It was a mid-week visit (Monday-Thursday), which meant we all co-worked together during the day. It was nice working from a change of scenery (where we can take a break to go to the beach or out to lunch).
While in Fort Lauderdale, we took the opportunity to stop by Eisner-winning comic book store: Tate’s Comics! The two-floor shop was truly one of the coolest comic stores we’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting.
We were part of the crowd grabbing Absolute Green Arrow #1. It was cool seeing all the excitement for the new series!
We’ll definitely be stopping in Tate’s again next time we make our way to Florida!
Dallas Wings Vs. New York Liberty Game
Kat: We’re back at the WNBA, and this time we brought a good chunk of our families. Phil’s mom is a BIG fan of basketball. So it was nice to get her to a game and expose her to more of the WNBA.
Media
Let’s discuss some non-comics media!
Tribeca - Sara Bareilles: Good Grief
Solomon Dorsey: “Is every song going to have a death?”
Sara Bareilles: “…or infertility.”
Phil: As a birthday gift, Kat got us tickets to the world premiere of Sara Bareilles: Good Grief — a Tribeca event premiering the new documentary about the recording of Bareilles’ new album. Following the film premiere, Bareilles and her band (central figures in the documentary) did a live performance of several songs both featured in the documentary and some not featured.
As a big Sara Bareilles fan, the documentary really enforced what I love about the singer. She’s such an authentic and earnest presence. It seems through in every interview, video, and song. Right from the get-go, Bareilles is very transparent about her mental health issues, her grief at the loss of her friends to cancer (a central theme in the making of this album), and her struggles with infertility.
As someone who isn’t a frequent music documentary viewer, I really enjoyed the all-encompassing nature of this documentary — which focuses on the music, of course, but also the soul and experience behind its making. And which gives nearly as much of a spotlight to the individual band members as it does to lead Bareilles.
Even as a big fan of Sara Bareilles, I don’t know if I would have caught this documentary if not for the Tribeca event. But boy, am I glad that I did! Thanks, Kat!
Kat: Sara Bareilles: Good Grief is everything you don’t expect from a music documentary, and that’s a good thing. It’s so rare to be able to see a piece about the creation of music before said music has even been officially released. It’s an intimate story about an industry that sometimes feels mechanical as Sara and her band open themselves wide to tell a universal tale about grief and the ebbs and flows that come along with it.
There is so much influence taken from music films that have come prior, especially classics like The Last Waltz - one of the pioneers to document the creation of a musical moment. And in a generation where bio pics fast forward through prominent touchstones to tell one commercialized vignette. We need more movies like this - studies of the craft itself.
Good Grief is a piece about “listening”, every story told is an inspiration for Sara’s album - her peers, her experiences, even a man she ran into on the street. If you are a fan of Sara Bareilles or the music making in general, you should put this new documentary on your watch list.
24 in 24: Last Chef Standing
Kat: A few newsletters ago I talked about my love for Food Network’s Tournament of Champions. To create their roster, they took a few contestants from 24 in 24, and this is when the show finally went on my radar. I’ve heard of it before, but I’ll be honest, I never took it too seriously. It just felt like one of those shows that would come and go. But when I saw Tournament of Champions putting some weight to it, I decided to check it out.
And damn was I missing out! 24 in 24 is INTENSE. 24 chefs go into a ring and have to stay up for 24 hours and continuously cook throughout those hours to find a champion. This season had a fun mix of new faces and chefs we already know and love from the Food Network and other cooking competitions (even Hell’s Kitchen). And they included some elements from other Food Network shows (like blind judging) to make the results more fair and keep everyone on their toes.
Don’t sleep on this one (literally, the contestants are staying awake, you should too!)
Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu
Phil: The first theatrically-released Star Wars movie in a whopping seven years is unfortunately…just fine.
I had measured-but-positive expectations for this film, having watched and enjoyed the first two seasons of The Mandalorian TV show. I was a little concerned that the trailers for the film didn’t really showcase anything all that impressive or different from what we already got from the Disney+ series. But I assumed that the surprises were being saved from the marketing for the actual movie…incorrectly.
The Mandalorian & Grogu isn’t bad. It’s just very forgettable. Almost nothing happens in the film. None of the new characters are particularly engaging. And there is no meaningful character/relationship growth for our lead father-son duo outside of the built-in relationship that the TV show already did the legwork for.
The most positive compliment I can give the film is that Grogu continues to be the most adorable thing in the galaxy. It’s hard not to smile while he’s doing pretty much anything on screen…even when nothing is actually happening in the plot department.
At the end of the day, The Mandalorian & Grogu feels like a three- or four-episode arc from the series, but not one of their better ones. It’s inoffensive to watch, but a disappointing return to the silver screen for the franchise.
Kat: I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies, but I’ve never watched the Mandalorian TV show. So I came into this one as somewhat of a new viewer.
…not that it mattered.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu is extremely new watcher friendly…because nothing really happens. The only TV to movie jumps that really work are the ones that feel different, feel BIGGER than what you already get at home. Take something like SpongeBob for example. A recognizable property you want to capitalize on in the theater that gives a new animation style and even live action moments to make the budget feel bigger than the cartoon you can see anytime on Nickelodeon.
The Mandalorian already looks like a movie! Great for the TV show, but not so great for the big screen. How do you improve on something that already has a big budget for the small screen? The story! You can do something grander with your script, which The Mandalorian & Grogu decides to gloss over. It’s merely an action film with nothing too impressive visually to only rely on that side of movie making as a storytelling device.
Even as a casual Star Wars fan, it’s sad to see the franchise lose its shine. The Mandalorian came onto the scene with massive appeal, but leaves with a whimper.
Comics
Let’s discuss some comics we’ve enjoyed recently!
As usual, we’ll spotlight an Indie Book, a DC/Marvel book, a Webcomic, and a Live Kickstarter book!
Indie Comic: Corpse Knight (Image Comics)
Kat: Comics are a visual medium. and stories like Corpse Knight remind you why comics are so special. Matthew Roberts’ pencils are drop dead gorgeous and really sets the tone for this world. Michael Chaves scripts a simple story that is still able to deliver a powerful message.
A girl must deal with the ramifications of her father’s “death”. He’s not so living, but also not fully dead. They go on a mission to find Joan of Arc, which brilliantly mixes action with biblical allusions. Corpse Knight is thoughtful, but also not afraid to lean into action - and isn’t that what comics are all about?!
DC Comics: Deathstroke: The Terminator
Kat: Tony Fleecs can do no wrong!! This time around he teams up with Carmine Di Giandomenico to tell an action-packed tale that takes a deep drive into what makes Slade emotionally tick. The creative team perfectly lays the groundwork for this as he opens the story with Wintergreen’s death. Who killed him? Slade is ready to plow through anyone who gets in his way to find out! Deathstroke: The Terminator is perfectly paced as the mystery quickly unravels with every passing issue as the book digs deep into Slade’s psyche and history in this love letter to the character.
Webcomic: Crow Time
“Short silly comics about a shameless murder of crows and the other creatures lucky enough to roam the nearby lands.”
Phil: Do the comedic adventures of a quirky murder of crows sound like fun times to you? If so, you should definitely check out Crow Time!
A collection of silly shorts about crows just trying to exist in the world with all of its dark (…and less dark) pleasures. It’s hard not to smile reading Crow Time. Sometimes, the simplest webcomics are the best. Crow Time is the kind of comic that really only exists as a webcomic. Short, funny, and feel-good. I never thought I’d call silly crows relatable…but here we are!
Kickstarter: Zombies We’re Human Too
“Stranger Things actor Austin Janowsky produces a 24 page one shot of zombie stories written by Jonathan Hedrick, creator of the Recount”
Phil: A Stranger Things actor meets comic writer Jonathan Hedrick for a zombie story? Now that’s a recipe for success!
Zombies We’re Human Too takes a unique approach of telling stories about zombies both before and after they become undead.
This is an installment of an anthology series for which each installment will be helmed by a different artist and writer, telling a single unique story about an individual’s journey to becoming undead.
Exploring the humanity into a zombie’s origin was an instant backing from me!
Back “Zombies We’re Human Too” here!
In Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our breakdown of our Fan Expo Denver experience! We always love hearing creators specifically talk about their performance at shows. Let us know if that’s something you’d like to see more of from Lifeline in the future.
If you’re attending any of the Pride Festivals we’ll be vending at throughout June, we hope you’ll stop by our table to say hello!
If you haven’t already, definitely check out our live Kickstarter for Bi Visibility: Bi Bi Bi! And stay tuned for a new Pre-Launch announcement on Monday!
Subscribe above for biweekly updates on our future projects!
Buy Lifeline Comics on our Website!
Current Kickstarter: Bi Visibility: Bi Bi Bi (Ends 7/02)
Next Conventions/Prides:
Delaware Pride (Dover, DE) (6/06)
Asbury Park Pride (Asbury Park, NJ) (6/07)
Philly Pride (Philadelphia, PA) (6/07)
Baltimore Pride (Baltimore, MD) (6/13-14)
Long Island Pride (Long Island, NY) (6/14)
Read our Webtoons for FREE:
Slice of Life [GL] (Anime Character x Closeted Cheerleader High School Romance)
Love at Second Bite [BL] (Vampire College Adventure/Romance)