The Hitchhiker's Guide To Conventions

Film awards, dirty Pokemon jokes, and vampire snake strippers... it was a weird month.

October was a month of conventions. It was both super cool and very tiring. I’m writing this from my cramped Lynx air seat, flying from Toronto to Calgary, and I can assure you that if these little planes had TVs on them I would be watching that instead of writing.

Despite tiredness, I am excited to share these experiences with you. I’ve met amazing people, seen weird stuff, and have a lot of cool projects brewing…

But before we get into that, a few creative updates!

MADE ANYTHING COOL LATELY?

Heck yeah. I re-designed my website, which now showcases the cool stuff I’ve made lately. Pretend you’ve just met me and check it out!

Gus & Copernicus — I’m actively looking for an artist to illustrate the book. I’ve spoken to a few and it’s really cool to see how people are reacting to the idea. I’m also playing with changing the name:

Cool, right? Hopefully publishers agree! If you know any artists looking to get into preteen graphic novels with a similar style, let me know!

Pokemon Animation — While in Vancouver, my buddy and I sat down and improvised a scene about my Pokemon stickers. That evening I animated it… and this is what was born. WARNING — If you don’t like Pokemon-themed dirty jokes, skip this one!

---

THE CONVENTIONS & FILM FESTIVALS

Early last month I printed off a batch of business cards, bought a bunch of plane tickets, and set out with no expectations! Here’s what happened:

VANCOUVER HORROR SHOW (VHS) FILM FESTIVAL

(Vancouver)

All I knew about VHS was that it screened horror and we had a short film in it. On the way to the festival I got nervous about having to watch horror, which I don’t really enjoy that much (though that is changing as I write them). However, the films were all spectacular — funny, interesting, and usually concerning some aspect of society that we tend to look away from. Horror seems to be able to explore things like climate change, cancel culture, and racism in a way that blows other genres out of the water.

Then you’ve got our film, AI Artist, which I helped story edit. It’s about a guy using AI art to MURDER!

AI Artist also won an award for being the best low-budget production (the Blair Witch Award). It’s amazing to see my friends improving and being recognized for all this work — I’m very lucky to have such great people in my life!

Click here if you want to watch AI Artist here!

BADASS FILM FESTIVAL

(Vancouver)

Our little production company had a few films show here. This festival was a blast. People dressed up in costume, there were acts in-between the showings, and the films were all amazing.

The most memorable moment was from an in-between show — they had a magician, a fire dancer, and vampire snake strippers (women dressed as vampires dancing with huge snakes around their necks). Which was… weird.

Under their masks were big vampire teeth. Under the snakes were… lots of tattoos.

But most memorable came next.

A burlesque dancer came out and was dancing with an inflated balloon — one of the long balloon animal ones. She then swallowed it… and pulled it out, still inflated, from her butt.

Believe me, there was nowhere she could have been hiding it. To quote Jessey Nelson directly after, “My glasses are all steamed up!”

VANCOUVER COMIC AND TOY FAIR

(Vancouver)

We were greeted at the door as “Special Guests” and told to set up right in the middle of the convention hall, in a row of professional comic creators. To our right was the illustrator for Transformers, and to the left was a famous cover artist and artist for huge TV shows. And then there were us, with our first comic book!

In addition to Crumbs Issue #1, we were selling stickers and art prints. Next to me is Madison, our artist, who flew up from California. We were a great team, though we had different expectations. Madison (this was also her first convention) later told me she had expected to sell zero comics. I, on the other hand, had expected to sell all 200 we had printed. Neither expectation turned out to be true (we sold 20 comics and a TON of stickers), but we learned a lot and are excited for the next one.

Highlight / lowlight:

Lowlight — The convention was heavily focused on toys and collecting. People were there to uncover old comics, not discover new ones, which made it hard to sell to them.

Highlight — Talking to the people! We met art students, kids who shared their drawings, and a lot of passionate horror fans. We also got to talk to the professionals around us a ton, which is probably worth more than selling a few extra comics.

We both left the convention on top of the world and immediately signed up for more next year.

TORONTO ANIMATION ARTS FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL (TAAFI)

(Toronto)

This festival was about meeting people and fact finding. I don’t do much animation, but I want to, and this was my first step.

I flew out to Toronto and spent the weekend meeting as many people as possible. I was one of the few professional writers there, which helped me stand out. I learned a lot, got some emails, and then, on the last evening, one of those magically unlikely moments happened.

Instead of films, we watched powerpoint presentations.

Through a series of coincidences and following people, I ended up at a restaurant with the heads of multiple animation studios and a professional writer. They had all gone to animation school together and were catching up, which made me the odd one out, but I still got to meet all of them — and they weren’t stuffy old guys, these were hip older millennials working my dream job.

The best part is that I can now reach out and ask them questions. Though I may need to remind them I was the random guy who tagged along to their “old friends” meetup, but at least that’s sort of memorable, right?

So What’s The Big Takeaway?

People dream of going to these and being “discovered”, but I find it’s more subtle than that. It’s all about learning, meeting people, and slowly getting a clearer view of the road ahead.

I’m not sure what’ll come of these — I’m literally on the flight home from Toronto and need a good night sleep. However, I’m very glad I went. There were a lot of seeds planted. All you can do is show up, say Yes, and continue making cool stuff.

And I’ll be saying Yes again in two weeks when I go back to Toronto for another horror convention… yeesh.

FUN STUFF & RECOMMENDATIONS

I’ll keep this short. Here’s what I’ve been loving lately:

GAME CHANGERS — IMPRESSIONS BATTLE

Do you like impressions? How about improv? Battles? This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while! Feels like the start of a new golden improv age!

SCAVENGERS REIGN

A crew of people are stranded and must survive on an alien planet. This show is blowing my mind — it’s beautiful, tense, and everyone feels real. It’s on HBO Max, but if you don’t have access you can watch the original short film for a taste of the glory.

GOODBYEBYEBYE

I’m going to have a big long nap now… and then I’m going to start working on more cool stuff for the next convention! 

Until next time, thanks for being here, and please comment and let me know how you’re doing and what you thought of all this!

Love,

Kyle