at the APE again

I put my first mini comics together in 1996 and decided to be an exhibitor at my first con in 1998. I took my little photocopied minis, full of enthusiasm and dreams of making money and gaining readers.

I made $15.

That con was the Alternative Press Expo in San Jose. Though my expectations met the cold, hard wall of reality, I also met people like Jesse Hamm, Lark Pien, Derek Kirk Kim, and Gene Yang. And the APE gave me a deadline to work towards every year, so I attended it regularly (with a few exceptions) until 2013. I saw it move from San Jose to San Francisco and slowly grow in size. But the long weekends of tabling with little reward wore me down and so after doing TCAF in 2014, I decided to take a break from cons. But then I heard the APE was back in San Jose and back in the hands of Slave Labor Graphics. So a little voice started up in the back of my head. And I do have new books to showcase…

So I’ll be tabling there again, back in the place where I started. It feels like coming full circle. I’m not holding my breath that I’ll make significantly more than $15, but I hope to meet new people and connect with old friends.

It will be September 23-24, so if you’re there, say hi. I’ll let you know my table when I get notification.