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~SavantGuarde:iconSavantGuarde:

Matthew Bett  

  • Status: Member
  • Comic Artist
  • Male/United Kingdom
  • Offline for 14h 48m 24s
  • Deviant since Nov 28, 2006, 1:21 AM
  • 16 Deviations
  • 13 Deviation Comments
  • 3 Deviant Comments
  • 2,428 Pageviews

UK WEB & MINI COMIX THING! - Post Mortem

Journal Entry: Mon Mar 24, 2008, 10:01 AM
Well i'm not long back from London and I must say that the thing was a roaring success!

First of all a breakdown of the operation. I went down with 30 comics (which were A5 booklets each containing about 30 comics + other stuff), two different free leaflets for people to get a taste of the comic and around 20 prints (of the type now available through Deviantart).

I didnt plan to take so many prints but there was a mistake at the print shop so what the hell!

I also took 4 sketchbooks of the comic so people could peruse them and see how the magic happened. In addition the major eye candy for the stand was an LCD monitor and my laptop/tablet. I figured that this would enable me to show the comic process as well as draw peoples attention to the stand with some moving images.

The most important thing I brought were two helpers in the form of Steve and Dave (Also characters from the comic) Who helped me man the tiny stand and Generally keep me alive with snack foods.

First Impressions arriving and setup was that there seemed to be a real mix of products on offer and comic types. The good thing was that only one other stand had a monitor which made me stand out really well! After setup I sent out my spies to determine whether my products were approprately priced. Before the doors opened I ventured out to explore the other stands. Art from ScaryGoRound (www.scarygoround.com) was more than I could stand so money started to change hands. Initially business was light but it was a special feeling indeed to sell my first book and see the confused punter walk away with this strange collection of non-sensical ideas and humor that I called a comic book.

1 comic sold by 10 oclock and I was beginning to feel aprehensive. Steve and dave went to get coffee while leaving me the challenge to complete a piece of londong centric artwork featuring me and the queen. The finished piece titled "accidental regicide" will no doubt show up here soon. I took a little break and went for a wander leaving the stand in the capable hands of dave and steve.

5 minutes later I returned to find the stand flooded with clients! Showing my salesmanship talents up for what they were, Dave and Steve were charming the pants off everyone that passed by makign sure that all left with a leaflet and more thana few left with a comic!

This stratagem worked out well and soon commerce was frantic. At one point I was signing several books at a time while attempting to demonstrate manga studio to interested parties. We sold out of books before 3pm and after that my minions concentrated on the prints. We sold a good few prints but my main happiness was that our book stock was decimated!

There are really too many moments and fun things to relate in one post but I feel I must take a moment to highlight some of the excelent people I met at the con.

Next to us was the excelent comic LocalGirl(carolineclifford.com) Who's co-exhibitor didnt turn up. But with three men on our stand we gladly provided a stand in to let her eat / Drink.

I also had a long chat with niki ( [link]) Which was excelent as I had already seen a lot of her work on Sudeki. Its always nice to see full art portfolios also since all I had were my crummy sketchbooks.

Many many others also, My mind is still swimming So I have no doubt forgotten to mention many people. In any event, a good time was had by all!

On the monitor, if I wasnt drawing I showed a video of me drawing. In addition to that I stuck the daicon IV video on (which got a lot of interest). Which wasn't entirely without point. An Ambitious project of mine is to enginner the resoration of the Daicon IV music video into glorious high definition. This essentially involves re-animatng the entire video cel by cel. All 6500 odd cells of it. An ardous task for one man, but not perhaps for a few hundred thousand anime fans. More on this project as it (hopefully takes shape in the summer when I have more time)

Anyway. I Have been thouroughly inspired to draw more and hopefully will be dumping far more content into DE in the near future!

  • Mood: Amazed
  • Listening to: ELO - Twilight
  • Reading: Memoirs of a Giesha.
  • Watching: My Nieghbor Totoro
  • Playing: Warcraft
  • Eating: Air
  • Drinking: water

Devious Information

  • Current Age: 27
  • Current Residence: Dundee
  • Interests: Art, Prop making, Games etc
  • Favourite movie: 300, 2001, Various studio ghibli efforts.
  • Favourite band or musician: Daft Punk, Chromeo, ELO, Justice
  • Favourite genre of music: Rock, electronica, retro 80's stuff.
  • Favourite artist: Mucha, Haruhiko Mikimoto, Ken akamatsu
  • Operating System: Win xp
  • MP3 player of choice: Ipod Nano
  • Favourite game: World of Warcraft, Portal, TF2, Half Life
  • Favourite gaming platform: PC, Xbox360
  • Personal Quote: Pudding doesn't jiggle in the fridge, it only jiggles if you look at it.
  • Tools of the Trade: Pencil, sketchbook and photoshop.

deviantART Notice

Devious Comments

*Blondeyetti:iconBlondeyetti: Mar 25, 2008, 11:00:10 AM
Was great to meet you at the thing! :D Thanks for the watch!

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:star: [link] :star:
Two Sides Wide, new comicary thrice weekly!
Co-created with *davesideswide
~EmranIsDead:iconEmranIsDead: Mar 5, 2008, 12:24:13 PM
been a fan of your web comic from the start.
~xotics:iconxotics: Mar 1, 2008, 2:46:57 PM Mood: Joy
I have read ur webcomic. It's VERY GOOD.
P.S.:Marriage is the part of life after living and before death.

--
I belive in faith, I belive in justice, I belive in light,
Come join us in our journey, come join us in our fight
~Jaffacakey:iconJaffacakey: Jan 5, 2008, 5:22:06 AM Mood: Joy
bonne année
Happy New Year :party:

Hope 2008 is a creative year for all of us :hug:

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Toast of DOOM o.O :toast:
=Tri-M:iconTri-M: Nov 5, 2007, 4:49:13 AM
Big fan of the comic.

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Phew, for a minute there...

...I lost myself.
~NocheLupis:iconNocheLupis: Sep 20, 2007, 7:46:13 PM
I read your webcomic, and just found your Deviantart. Great art! Your WoW drawings are awesome.

--
-You Can't Outrun a bear!!
-I dont have to outrun it, i just have to outrun you! :sprint:
~NikiPaprika:iconNikiPaprika: Sep 6, 2007, 8:14:29 AM
no problem! I'm a huge fan of your webcomic!!! n_n

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Have you tried turning it off and on again?
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~l3xilos:iconl3xilos: Jul 30, 2007, 1:06:19 AM
awesome DA page dude. i followed your comics from 2004. i like your commission work. people have a certain pride and relation to their mmo characters that you capture for them. i also did a few "comics" of my characters experiences. they never amounted to anything though.


cool stuff!!!
~JoeDillon:iconJoeDillon: Jul 26, 2007, 8:24:34 AM
thank you for the favorite.. =]
~DerangedPuppet:iconDerangedPuppet: Jul 12, 2007, 4:58:58 AM Mood: Love
teehee your gallery makes me want to run home and play....

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~Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. :)
~DerangedPuppet:iconDerangedPuppet: Jul 12, 2007, 4:35:48 AM Mood: Love
Thanks for the :+fav:

--
~Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. :)
~Jaffacakey:iconJaffacakey: Jun 7, 2007, 4:34:50 AM
Heyho
Great to see you've finally started putting work up here, looking forward to seeing more of you pin-ups :w00t:

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Toast of DOOM o.O :toast:
~Buttersheep:iconButtersheep: Jun 6, 2007, 11:35:30 AM
You have very nice work here! I shall watch you. Hey, you play WoW too. Heh, cool, cool.

Welcome to DA. :3

--
I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see.

Sentence first -- verdict afterwards.