Conventional Wisdom: the Pre-Con Process

Man, I've severely neglected the Two Dollar crowd, haven't I?  Sorry, but with all the Christmas comics, I just haven't had time to write out any blog posts.  To be honest, I STILL don't have time, but I'm gonna write a quick one anyway, just to make it up to you guys.

I occasionally get asked what my Convention Preparation looks like, and I always chuckle sadly at the thought of me being organized enough to have any kind of a "process", let alone that knowing it would benefit anyone else.  The truth is, the 72 hour or so before any convention are always absolute chaos, and I almost never manage to get things done in an organized manner.  Still, there's usually the same list of things that need to get done at SOME point, so let's run through that nice and quick.

The first priority is usually getting an extra week's worth of comics done.  That's the one thing that I absolutely can't take care of on the way or at the hotel.  I'm not about to start lugging my computer and scanner around to every hotel, after all.  At the very least, I have to get enough comic stuff done to cover the time I'm away from home.  In the old days, that just meant a Conventional Wisdom cover page and a single Far Out There comic.  Over the years, though, my output has increased quite a bit and that absence require a lot more preparation.  There's Voting Incentives and Patreon comics and Holiday stuff and all kinds of other stuff that has to be ready to do online automatically, and it all has to be done before I hit the road Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  It... takes a lot of time.

But that's just stuff I'd be doing anyway, what about convention specific chores?  Well, I pretty much always have to print out some stuff the week or so before a con.  At the very least, I'll crank out a stack of comic flyers to just leave around the con, and that usually takes at least a few hours.  The REALLY fun stuff comes when I'm going to be selling at a con, and have to replenish my stock of merchandise.  Books I can put together myself, though it's pretty tedious.  But prints?  For that I run off to the local office supply emporium and get them made there.  Make no mistake, I WILL forget to do this until the last possible moment, resulting in a morning that's both highly stressful and very expensive.  Just between us, that's one of the reasons I hope this Patreon thing takes off.  I just REALLY don't like selling at cons, in any way.

But whether I'm selling or not, there's still one thing I almost always have to do: PACK.  In some ways, I pack pretty lightly for a con goer.  I don't do much in the way of elaborate cosplay, so not only do I usually avoid the whole "frantic late night costume sewing" experience that many endure, but the act of packing itself is pretty simple.  Just grab clothes out of the closet, double check to make sure I'm not missing anything, and done!  Aside from my Servo puppet, I almost never have props that can't just be shoved in the suitcase, so that helps.  And then there's the basic common sense packing tips: bring at least one extra pair of everything, bring your own towel/toiletries, bring some trash bags, check the weather and make sure you have appropriate clothes, and so forth.  Also, I pretty much always bring a sleeping bag & pillow.  It's a personal preference, but I prefer just camping out in the corner over sharing a bed in the middle of the room.  ESPECIALLY since I tend to go to sleep pretty early, to make up for all the pre-con scrambling earlier in the week.

And then there's food.  Even if a con is small enough/close enough that I don't even get a hotel room (which is rare) I'll still bring my own food.  Look, convention center food is ALWAYS too expensive, and usually not very good either.  And while local restaurants may be pretty good, they'll usually be even MORE expensive (unless they're McDonald's in which case I retract the "pretty good" part).  It just makes way more sense to bring your own food and drinks.  If your hotel room has a minifridge, USE that sucker.  And if it doesn't, just bring a cooler and stuff it full of ice.  Either way, you can keep a weekend's worth of food in your room easy, and getting it will almost always cost less and buying it there, especially if you work some supermarket magic and grab stuff that's on sale.  Personally, I go the sandwich route.  Some basic meat and cheese will last just about anyone three or four days.  Also, I like to bring a few ramen bowls, which can, in fact, be cooked in any hotel room coffee maker (just make sure there's no coffee already IN the thing).  The usual 50 for A Dime or whatever noodle cups work fine, though I'd recommend finding a good asian market and buying the fancier stuff they sell there.  It's "more expensive" in the sense that it sometime costs as much as a whopping TWO DOLLARS, but that's still cheaper than any meal you'd get at the hotel, and it actually tastes like real food!

So that's what my pre-con process looks like: lots of drawing, lots of printing, some last minute shopping, and very VERY last minute packing.  However, there's also one other thing I like to do.  I don't often have enough time for it, but when possible, I try to watch Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas the night before a con.  Technically, it has nothing to do with geek culture, but there's still something about that whole hallucinogenic Stranger In A Strange Land narrative that perfectly sets the mood for an anime con.  Plus, it's a good motivator for Conventional Wisdom.  If I can make my inane gibberish sound at least half as profound as Hunter S. Thompson made HIS inane gibberish sound, I'll be set for life.

Wow, that turned out longer than I expected.  Well, the next blog post should roll around a lot quicker than this one, and will probably be the promised "Hey, isn't Digimon cool?" rant I promised earlier.

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