How much crap do you need to sell your book at a convention? Lots of crap!
BAMCon aka Berkshire Anime and Manga was my second convention. Photos below:
As usual, I packed up the car and left the house quite early… at 6:30 AM
Proof that I left at either 6:30 AM or 6:30 PM… er… or that I manipulated the clock in the car!
BAMCon took place on May 10-12 in the beautiful town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I had been told that Pittsfield was one of those hard-hit recovering industrial towns (like so many other towns in New England), but I found it to be quite beautiful. It’s surrounded by woods, hiking trails and luxurious golf-courses. The downtown area (I’m sorry I didn’t take pictures) has a retrofitted turn-of-the-century feel with art galleries, shopping and offices in handsome pre-war structures. The place was nice, and the hotel where the convention took place (The Crowne Plaza) was nice as well.
The Crowne Plaza, Pittsfield MA
A beautiful sunny day outside of the Crowne Plaza, Pittsfield MA.
Once I got in, I started setting up in the dealers room.
My vendor-table setup embraced a flea-market sensibility- but they did give me a nice table-cloth.
Other vendors got more fancy… check out the portable accordian-style bookshelves. That guy must have a had a 1,000 books + DVD’s crammed into a very small floor space.
Ta-da!
Of course, the highlight at most “cons” are the people in costumes,which many people now refer to as cosplay… I can only assume that people use the term cosplay because it sounds a bit more cutting edge that “wearing a costume”. (Interestingly, cosplay has also become one of those multi-use words that can be used as a gerund: “I’m cosplaying Darth Vader”; or a noun: “This outfit is my Star Trek cosplay”; or even a straight up action verb: “I always cosplay Mr. T.”)
Below are some of the cosplays that caugth my eye at BAMCon:
Billy Baker- a really nice guy- dressed up as: Choji Akimichi from Naruto Shippuden…. I you have never heard of Choji Akimichi, don’t worry, I had to look him up.
This kid was an “evolved pokemon”- I’m not sure which one.
I love this guy’s pixely visage. He was supposed to be a thing from Minecraft the video game… a creeper I think.
This guy’s costume is a Final Fantasy video game tribute.
I don’t know who this is or who they’re supposed to be, but I love the ninja-assassin-in-pajamas look!
It’s Luigi! The paper he is holding has a picture of Mario and reads: “Have you seen my brother?”
There were two of these pink-hair, tiny-black-hat ladies at BamCon.
I also met some of the people whom I’d interviewed including, professional belly dancer Kiwii:
Cosplayer Kiwii shows of her convention outfit. She was a wind-up dancer. If you look to the left (it’s a little hard to make out) you can see her wind-up key.
and illustrator Paul Hollingsworth!
Illustrator Paul Hollngsworth at work.
I was also joined by Eric Sutton, a good friend and great graphic designer who helped me promote VampCon by photoshopping convention-goers into vampires and adding them to the VampCon cover!
My good friend- and a terrific illustrator- the ever-dapper Eric Sutton.
All in all, I had a good time and even sold some copies of VampCon! My next con will be Granite State Comic Con in September. I’m looking forward!
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