I wanted to share my favorite memory from this year’s Heroes Con:
It was early Sunday afternoon and, although sales were a bit up from the previous year, it was mostly due to sketches and original art more so than book sales. I was a little bummed about not selling as many Cleopatra in Space books as I had hoped but still pretty content that there were people who enjoyed my art enough to pay me money to see their favorite superheroes drawn in my style.
I was buried in one of those sketches (a Catwoman I believe) when I looked up to see–and I apologize if I should have known or remembered who this was but my mind had become the consistency of tapioca pudding by that day–a fairly large* man standing at my table holding a Cleo book wanting to buy it. Not for himself, which I immediately found out, but for his daughter too shy (or scared) to purchase it from me herself and who was currently hiding behind this fairly large man’s frame. She was maybe five? Six? Seven years old? I’m terrible at identifying age. She was young for certain. At any rate, this man asked if I would sign the Cleo book which of course I did and he handed me a five and I handed him back the book and then he handed the book to the little person standing behind him who MADE THE LOUDEST MOST EXCITING SCREAM OF GLEE revealing herself from behind her body guard clutching at what you would think was the greatest ice cream cone in the history of ice cream cones (sorry, when my mind goes to something really great all I can think of is ice cream). With a giant grin plastered to her face, staring at the cover, she ran down the aisle with another girl who magically appeared out of nowhere or who I simply didn’t notice (most likely the former). Then the fairly large man quickly thanked me and made his way down the aisle in the direction his daughter had ran off to.
Fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes later that same girl came running down the aisle still clutching and smiling at that holy grail of a book her dad had given her. My first thought probably should have been, “Where the heck is her father?” but instead it was, “Wow. This five or six or seven-year-old girl REALLY loves that comic!” I mean, it was awesome that it was my comic, but it really could have been any comic. The fact that this five or six or seven-year-old girl was THAT excited about a comic–and that her dad was there to make that happen–was pretty much the best thing I witnessed from behind my table. THAT RIGHT THERE is why I love Heroes Con so much and why you’ll see me back there every year.
*This man was most likely not that large but that is how every one looks to me at first glance from behind my table. I am a smallish human. Any man over 5″5 looks like Hagrid to me. Regardless of beard.