Here it is- THE SAN DIEGO COSMIC CON REPORT!!!!
…two weeks late.
It seems that the aftermath of Cosmic Con was just as busy, stressful and demanding as the weeks leading up to it. Perhaps even MORE SO considering how utterly exhausted I was from being on my feet for 5 days straight. I’ve never worked in retail before, so I had no idea what I was in for– but it sure was worth it!!
So here’s the booth in all it’s colorful glory! I’m proud to say we got many compliments, and in fact, an invite to show at the NY Comic Con next spring. Our aisle was a little dark, so we really popped– a bight, vibrant vision of blue, and I think we looked a little like a candy store.
*of note* —we dropped our shirt prices right away to 20 bucks after we saw what the going rate was around us. Rookie merchandiser mistake.
Also, check out this crazy panaramic shot of the booth taken by shutterbugmom at DeviantArt. Ooooooooooohh…. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh….!
Our bestseller of the trip was the book! Here I’m showing off my dedication to Hannah and Lauren Lantier. Hannah interviewed me for her Grandfather, Ralph Zuranski’s, In Search of Heroes program. Check out the interview here on their blog.
BTW, y’all– the book is now available on Amazon, so if you missed out at the convention, buy it here (pretty please…?) Oh! And if you do, feel free to write up the very first, awsome, overly-complimentary review if you are so inclined. (pretty please…?)
Here are the first ever Galaxy Girl tee shirts! We featured…
…Pluto (check out the foil fading to paint- oooooh!) and Mars. (The SD Mars shirt comes in women’s and men’s sizes.)
Here’s a close up on the graphic for the Venus shirt. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but her ribbons are all shiny with foil.
And here are the Jupiter shirts, with a glimpse of our Milky Way shirt in the back. Milky was the best seller. The Jupiter shirt, I always like to point out, is on 100% undyed, organic cotton because of Jupiter’s environmentalist sympathies. She’s pretty worried about Earth. We tried to incorporate the personalities of the girls not only into the graphics, but in the design and cut of the shirt as well. Jupiter comes in women’s and men’s sizes.
And here are some of the other goodies…
…candy shop-looking display of stickers and buttons….
…postcards. We almost ran out of Pluto and Venus!
…little stickers of the Chibi GGs– everyone thought these were free, but Comic Con had a rule this year forbidding sticker give-aways. I guess they figured that if someone had to pay for a sticker, they’d be less likely to vandalize the convention center with it. I hadn’t realized that was a problem in years past.
Buttons, stickers, patches and complete postcard sets…
a close up of the buttons.
Also, Cosmic Con was the first time I offered my hand-made, plush-art rag dolls for pre-order. 3 people bit! I’m quite pleased, ’cause they are PRICEY, being hand made and all. Lots of people asked but shrunk away when I told them the cost, so I’m quite pleased with 3 orders. That’ll keep me busy for a couple months.
Here they are. This was the first public display for several of the designs.
Milky Way and Pluto.
Jupiter and Uranus.
Saturn and Mars. (Mars got herself 2 of the 3 orders! Go Mars!)
Venus and The Sun.
Besides Galaxy Girls, I had some Foster’s duties. Craig and I spoke on a panel, which we were told went over well, and here we are at our Cartoon Network signing. Lot’s o’ people tell us they be luvin’ Cheese.
On top of the great reception MWGG got and the folks with all sorts of compliments and all the business-types who left me their cards (woo-hoo!) I got to meet some of my cyber buddies.
Her are the Satrun twins, Sarah and Catherine, who have been so kind as to leave comments on this blog regularly. Check out Sarah’s adorable caricature of me and Craig!
Here’s Hannah, who did the interview of me for “In Search of Heroes.” She was quite the professional, I must say!
Other visits cam from some Solar Sisterhood posters such as the guys at Mukpuddy in New Zealand and Roque from Ghostbot who was kind enough to feature me on their blog. I got to meet many of my DeviantArt buds as well. I can’t thank everyone enough for stopping by– and for buying stuff to boot!
And speaking of thanks, my biggest thanks have to go out to my Galactic Team. My design team Jason and Jyl for putting together all the graphics for the booth and merchandise and for making my drawings look amazing in the process. And to my best friend, Kathy, and my brother, Ryan, for completely exhausting themselves helping run the booth and make sales. They prooved to be INCREDIBLE salespeople. And finally to my assistant Terry for taking care of so many of the arrangements up to the event. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome of Cosmic Con, and I expect even greater opportunities to grow from it.
Over and out,
Mother Earth
PS- in the next few weeks we’ll be opening a webstore on my main site with all the goodies you see here available for purchase. So if you see something you want, or if you’ve already got something and want something else, just check back here frequently. I will make an announcement.
