MoCCA, New York: April 10-11th

So what were Brandon and I doing in New York City - MoCCA Festival! No, it is not one of the neighborhoods that you have never heard of but an event. MoCCA stands for Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art which is an organization that hosts a big two day convention for artists and comic book writers to sell their stuff.

I posted last year that Brandon had finished his first comic book and he has been selling it (as well as other art and prints) at conventions and expos all over the country to promote it (and hopefully land a publisher for the next one). Green Monk was self published (with my help, might I add, in scouring local printers for the best price and of course, taking care of our daughter at night so he could work).

We flew out on a Saturday morning on a quick one hour flight from Buffalo to New York City. Of course, one of our bags was lost on JetBlue (don't ask me how - it was a direct flight with no layovers) but fortunately, it was not the bag that had all of our inventory and booth display stuff because that would have been disastrous and made the trip pretty pointless. Unfortunately, the bag that was lost had my breast pump in it. So imagine going from 4 nursings a day to nada. Yeah - you breastfeeding moms can feel me on that. Halfway through the day, I had to go to the bathroom and bend over the toilet and try to hand express for relief so you can imagine how fun that was. There was this cute little couple a few tables down from us exhibiting where the girl was half-Japanese and her husband was white and they had a darling little baby who I was pretty tempted to nurse. They let me hold him but I don't think they would have dug me nursing him...

But anyway, because of the whole luggage issue, we were late for the show. And the subway line that we needed to take to get to where the show was was not running for some reason so we had to take a long way there. It was also freezing that morning. But I got to experience my first geeky comic-y show. I don't think it could compare to something like San Diego Comic-Con (which I have never been to but hear is the ultimate geek-fest where people totally dress up like Star Wars and everything in between) but it was fun.

I have been to New York City several times before but this was such a whirlwind that I didn't really get to enjoy it. I may have hastily judged it because of this in thinking that although I wasn't very intimidated by it, NYC is kinda overwhelming and a little dirty. Maybe because Salt Lake City is such a small, clean city. But it certainly is interesting - just walking down the streets and seeing the variety of people there and different fashions (not all high fashion either like portrayed on television or movies) and different languages and every restaurant imaginable. It's not quite as glamorous as Sex and the City would have you believe, but still fun.

The second day we were there (after having our lost luggage with all our clothes and toiletries delivered at 3 am at our hotel) was the most gorgeous weather ever! The show was right down the street from this park that we walked by and there were these beautiful trees in bloom. My camera doesn't do it much justice but it literally took my breath away in person.
And this time, I even managed to take some pictures from the show.

Here is Brandon at our tiny little table. To save on exhibitor costs, we signed up for only half a table so that gave us a whopping 3 feet to display our wares and one chair to share.

And here I am, giving Brandon a break so he could go to the bathroom or check out other tables and booths. I was glad to be there to help and Brandon hoped that the presence of a pretty girl might help out with the sales to the geeky boys but we really had no way to measure the effectiveness of that.

Here is a picture of our table mate, Thomas Baehr, who is originally from Germany but lives in New York. Really nice guy, but really depressing book. You might guess what it is about by its title, The End is Here. Not exactly my cup of tea but there seemed like there were plenty of people there who really dug it. But his next work sounds really interesting, a collaboration about a Jew that is hiding during the Nazi occupation.

I actually spent way more time browsing around the show to check out all the other stuff than really helping Brandon. I was surprised at how many crappy artists there were there trying to disguise and sell their bad art with what I assumed they hoped was some clever story or humor. Not sure how those people did in terms of revenue but I tell you, even with a husband who is a legitimate artist, it is hard to be profitable at these things. I met some really good artists who just do their art at night while they have some whatever day job to make money and support themselves and families. Those people are passionate. Not that Brandon is not passionate - I think that sometimes he forgets how lucky he is to have a job where he actually gets to do art and improve his artistic skill even though he doesn't have full autonomy since he works for a company. But I know that some of those artists were pretty envious of his position.

I stopped by one table that caught my eye, mostly because the subject matter was Japanese in nature (and Brandon accuses me of being a Japanophile but my defense is that I am allowed because it is my culture). The artist was David Mack and his comic is called Kabuki which has a pretty big following. I guess he is kinda a big deal and has won all sorts of awards including the Eisner Award which is equivalent to the Academy or Grammy Award for comics. I had no idea at the time when I was just perusing all his books at his table and a total fanboy was talking his ear off. But I got pretty embarrassed when this fanboy pointed out that I totally looked like I could be one of his characters in his comic and that I should model and started asking me to take my hair down! It was pretty awkward and I just blushed, not really sure what I should do because my vanity was telling me that this might be my chance to be some awesome comic book heroine (or villain, whatever)! But Mr. Mack was pretty gracious even though that fanboy seemed pretty obnoxious to me and then gave me a bunch of his books for free. So I brought him a copy of Green Monk as a thank you (it's pretty common for artists to just trade work at these shows instead of buying each other's stuff) and then he gave me a bunch more of his books for free! It wasn't until I got home and googled him that I realized he was kinda a big deal. I'm mostly glad that I got one of Brandon's books into his hands (in case it gets passes on to some publisher) but I guess it was cool to get some of his books for free (cause everyone knows that I like free!).

But pretty much, these shows are a tiny bit boring. I'm mostly glad to spend time with my husband but it's pretty exhausting. And when you are trying to be profitable by keeping your expenses low, it doesn't give you a ton of freedom to do the touristy things and eat at yummy restaurants (I will admit to eating at McDonalds but only because we were so hungry and on a budget and too tired to think of another place to eat).

The timing of our flight home required us to leave the show a little bit early but packing up everything from our table took more time than anticipated. And trying to be as frugal as possible, we took the subway instead of a taxi but that same stupid line that was not running from the day before to and from the airport still wasn't running. So we got off at some random stop and this really nice Puerto Rican guy called a cab for us so we wouldn't be late for our flight. I just forget that when you are asking for directions to the airport in NYC, you can't just say, "How do I get to the airport?" because they immediately question back, "Which one?" So weird being in a city with two airports. But we made it to the right airport, on time and made our way back to Buffalo.

But it would be just a few short weeks until I was back in the Big Apple...