Bill Cable's all-encompassing All-con report!
Posted by: Bill Cable 03.19.08 12:01am

Twelve days ago, I flew to Texas. I was excited. This was my first time visiting Texas. And when I was a kid, Texas was my favorite state. I don't know what it was about Texas... I think a lot of it centered on the fact that Texas was the biggest. I remember crying out "THAT'S NOT TRUE" to the person who informed me Alaska was actually larger than Texas. I was devastated. Plus, I love the flag. Tack another 25 or so years of life on, and I'm not quite as enamored as I once was with Texas. After all, the hated Oilers and Cowboys hail from Texas. But I did still have some residual admiration for the place, and I was happy to finally get there.

My first impression, the hotel was NICE! Even though I had to switch rooms because somebody used the first one I was assigned as an ashtray, the place was extremely comfortable. The beds you just sank in to. Everything was super clean. I give it 5 stars.

Now, I really had two reasons to be at All-con. The first was to give some art to some Star Wars actors. The second was to try to sell some art as an "artist." The former went exceptionally well. The latter... well... let's go into that...

This was my first time ever setting up a table at a convention as an "artist." Usually that's reserved for people who actually get stuff published, or so I thought. Even the small press guys have comic books that are mass-produced to some degree. My stuff is "published" on the web. As such, I never would have dreamed of setting up a table, where 99.99995% of the attendees would say "What the hell is CreatureCantina.com?" as they walked by. It turns out that web strip guys like myself actually DO set up at these conventions. So I had a glimmer of hope.

But the problem I encountered was that Todd Carlton tried to be exceptionally nice to me. Instead of setting me up in the make-shift "artist's alley" outside the dealer hall, he wanted to do me good and set me up inside the dealer hall. This didn't work out like he'd hoped. The people walking around the dealer hall were looking to buy dealer table stuff. The people walking through artist's alley were looking to buy art. As such, the artists I talked to who were in artist's alley did some good business. I didn't. It was pretty much a total bust. I don't blame Todd for this... he had no way of predicting it. And he said he'd be happy to set me up with the artists next year, should I choose to go again. And he did commission $200 worth of art for the Star Wars actors, which is probably way more than any of the other artists made. But the whole table thing... disappointing.

I did sell a few sketches. I photographed them, but only the inked ones turned out well. So check out some of my convention art!

As I said, the other thing I was there for was to give some art to some Star Wars artists, and that went exceptionally well! In attendance were Sean Crawford (Yakface), Tim Dry (J'Quille) and Mike Edmonds (Logray). So I was commissioned to draw each of their characters for them. But there was a problem! I drew Yakface already! Almost 10 years ago! My second Cable Original! And drawing him again would violate my character retirement policy.

So the first thing I tried to do was buy it back. But the owner wouldn't sell it! It's among his most prized possessions. MORON!! ACK!!!

So then I suggested to Todd that I draw Shawn dressed as a Rebel or Imperial or something. He wasn't enthused. Then I was struck by a stroke of genius. Yakface can't be the only Yakface-thingie in the Star Wars universe. So I started looking for others. And I found a guy named "Schurk-Heren" from one of the comics. He has a cool outfit, so I suggested this to Todd and he approved.

The drawings turned out fantastic (as you can see in the Cable Original Art Gallery). Mike Edmonds said it'd be hanging proudly on his wall. But Sean Crawford in particular was just blown away. He immediately ran it to his hotel room so as not to have it damaged. And he stopped by my booth afterwards and looked through my portfolio. He was just amazed by the art. When I told him that his character was actually Schurk-Heren, and why that was, he asked "So how do we get to the bastard who has my art?" I think he was joking. But you'd better watch out, Andrew!

So here are the actors with their art:

Another thing I did while there was sit on a web comics panel. I love doing panels. At Celebration 3 and 4 I was up there in front of 250 people or so, amazing them with my wit and knowledge. It's always a blast. All-con was a somewhat smaller event, so the crowd at this panel was somewhat smaller...

There were actually as many panelists as attendees. But it was fun. I spent most of my time cutting it up with a couple other web comic artists while one web comic writer talked on and on and on...

It was fun. When the writer said "After the first couple months we were getting 15,000 unique visitors per day" I felt like I should be sitting in the audience rather than on the panel... but what can ya do? I also learned that if you do a web comic with your OWN characters, you can create MERCHANDISE and make MONEY. These were all completely foreign concepts to me! And it made me think, "Do I really love Star Wars that much?" To be continued...

OK, so as I was hanging out in artist's alley with Bobby and Scott in artist's alley (since there was nobody even looking at my table) we were propositioned to attend Friday night's big festivity - The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Los Bastardos. And it was an offer we couldn't refuse. It involved all sorts of hypnotic bouncing... and double entendres. Hell, there were some single entendres thrown in for good measure. Besides, who could say no to these ladies?

Rocky Horror was a blast. But the after-party put it to shame. I saw things there that I didn't even see at Dragon*con, and Dragon*con is practically an orgy! Unfortunately, I left my camera in my room to charge. So no pics for you! And only sweet, sweet memories for me...

I'd talk about it here, but there might be children present.

I'm going all out of order here... the art presentation was actually Saturday after Rocky Horror. And so was the panel. But whatever... you don't know when everything happened so much as what happened. Saturday night I went out to dinner with Bobby, his lovely wife Drusilla, Scott, and a few other people including artists Kit Lively (published in such high-class magazines as Swank), James O'Barr and Jonathan Caustrita who was, quite honestly, cooler than Elvis. I mean, one of the most chill dudes I've ever met. We went to this Mexican place that was AMAZING. They had a live Mariachi band, and the pork I ordered absolutely melted in my mouth. It was the best pork I've ever had.

That night was the Burlesque show. Which was phenomenal. If only they hadn't invented pasties. I didn't take any photos there (not that I'd share them here if I had), but they're out there on the web someplace. There were actually two different burlesque shows performing. Usually you gotta pay $30+ per ticket to see either. They were free at All-con. Todd should be commended for this! So raise a glass to this guy:

And that was pretty much all the All-con I got. I had to leave before they opened Sunday, only to find out at the airport that my flight had been canceled and they booked me for a flight the next morning without telling me. Since I had to be home that day, I waited around and eventually made it back home. But instead of 7 hours at the airports and in the air, I spent 13. It was all sorts of hell.

There was one other thing worth mentioning at All-con... what would a convention write-up be without costume photos?! All-con had a very nice assortment of costumes. That's how I burned up most of my film. Well... it's a digital camera... you know what I'm saying!

Of course the 501st did the big group photo thing. The most disorganized 501st photo I've seen arranged. Does it really take 30 minutes to group everyone by color?

Also well-represented were the Jedi...

There were a good number of Anime folks walking around. Always fun to see, especially when they're cute girls...

ACK! Trekkies! More trouble than Tribbles!!

Believe it our not, there was only one Slave Leia to be seen.

But I did see this super-hot girl dressed as the super-hot girl from Serenity. That more than made up for the lack of Leia flesh.

There were some fairies fluttering around. In the second photo is an artist I talked to a lot. She did Anime-style stuff. Very good stuff.

How the hell did this goofball get in here??

Now this girl was dressed up for Ghost in the Shell. Had a little plush spider robot and everything. After the first photo I took, she was like "Oh no, I had on my glasses!" To which I though "I don't mind taking another photo of this at all..."

When I saw these two walk buy, I just really wanted a photo of the girl. I mean, she was smokin' hot. But then the guy got in there and started strangling her and I was like "Dude, get out of the photo!" Fortunately, he didn't get too much in the way.

And finally, this is me with "Creature" from the Who Wants To Be A Super Hero show. She was super nice. We hung out a bit at one of the Saturday night parties. That one was more of a "stand around and talk" party than a "gawk at what all these girls are doing to each other" party, but it was still a lot of fun.

So that was my All-con experience. I had an absolute blast... so much so that I'm considering going back next year. Hopefully Todd will book a half-dozen new Star Wars actors and commission enough art to cover the cost of my flight *hint* *hint*. Just get Sean Crawford to rave about the free art and those actors will be lined up!