I am a lucky person in many ways. I can jump on a train and get directly to New York Penn Station in less than two hours. As I drag my giant, heavy suitcase onto the NJ Transit train at 8:09 that morning, I tell myself that at least I don’t have to pay for a hotel in Manhattan. I end up falling asleep minutes after the conductor collects my ticket. Another reason I’m lucky: I don’t need to worry about sleeping through my stop on the way to the city, because it’s the last one.
By the time I get off the train, though, I’m hungry. I powerwalk the 20 blocks down Seventh to the Sheraton Times Square, deciding I’d rather make sure I have enough time to get set up than risk getting crumbs or sauce on my ironed button-down shirt. I had the foresight to stock up on snacks the day before, anyway. When I get to my half-table, the person due to be on my left has yet to arrive, but the person on my right is in the middle of setting up his own displays. I ask him if he has a tape measure or something I can use to make sure I’m not taking up more than exactly my allotted half of the table. He says he just eyeballed it. His name is Xavier and he seems friendly, which is a relief. Everyone is required to wear masks indoors and everyone I see is following the protocol.
Set-up goes pretty smoothly until I sit down behind my table and realize I am entirely hidden from view by my comic display shelf. I stand back up and move things around until my face is visible to the right of it. My tablemate shows up just past 11 due to a delay with their own train from the Jersey Shore, reminding me again of how lucky I am. They introduce themself as Liu and set up their wire grids with blue painter’s tape holding them together instead of the plastic connectors I use. I watch in mute horror before offering them some of my wire book stands to help display the zines they brought. The zines look really cool.
The music playing faintly overhead during set-up is a hilarious mix of Iconic Pieces of Gay Culture (Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, etc, etc) and anime openings, most of which I recognized or Shazamed to find out were from anime associated with Gay Culture as well (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Land of the Lustrous, yaoi anime Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and more). Generally thematically appropriate for Flamecon. My tablemates and I enjoy figuring out where we know songs from. I also hear the theme songs from recent anime films Belle and Bubble, which are less thematically appropriate but I like them so it’s fine. The playlist also contains a lot of the Persona 4 soundtrack and Yuri!!! on Ice. Very fun.
Before the con opens, I make a few laps around the show floor to find out where all my friends are and say hi. My friend Imas Esther comes over to my table and we catch up for a bit which is nice. At 11:30 the doors open for members of the press, and at noon they open to the public. I eat some of the snacks I brought with me and wait. My internet friend I’ve never met before shows up almost immediately after the doors open and I give her a drawing I did of one of her favorite characters. She gives me a chocolate croissant from the stand outside. I would die for her.
I have a lot of friends in the NYC metropolitan area, and some of them stop by my table on Saturday. My friend from high school even offers to watch my table for a few minutes while I try to buy something for myself. She ends up getting along well with Liu, so I’m glad. I run over to Imas’s table and demand her new Everything Everywhere All At Once prints and her award-winning minicomic about post-soviet intergenerational trauma. She says it hasn’t been selling well. I am appalled. “How many Russians do you think there are here?” She asks, rhetorically.
My tablemates are nice and fun to talk to in between greeting potential customers. I share my snacks with them. Saturday is a long day, from noon to 8 PM, and I can’t bring myself to abandon my table long enough to buy and eat an actual lunch. Liu goes on a coffee run around 2, though, and takes mine and Xavier’s orders as well.
There are a lot of people in elaborate, well-crafted cosplay and cute outfits. I try to summon the really cool Chainsaw Man cosplay group to my table with the power of my mind. I should’ve gotten some prints of my Makima fanart made so they’d have a reason to come over here. I made a new Hatsune Miku sticker and a Spy x Family sticker sheet, but all my prints and buttons are leftovers from the 2019 convention season. I’ve got a Scoops Troop design from Stranger Things season 3, for example. Still, a few buttons and two entire prints do manage to sell this weekend, somehow.
I get a message on Twitter from someone I knew in high school informing me that another person we both knew in high school is also tabling at Flamecon. This information is deeply shocking considering I haven’t spoken to the person in question in nearly a decade, but I go find his table and buy the TTRPG manual he made. He promises to check out my table later.
If you're at #FlameCon please god buy my games please pic.twitter.com/4xGFONFZKP
— Viditya 🛹 Voleti (@vidityavoleti) August 20, 2022
I’m doing better than I did at Flamecon in 2019, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s not just because I know people here now. A lot of the people who bought my most recent mini-comic also read it on Twitter when I posted it there a few weeks ago. How am I going to do at SPX in Bethesda next month?
After the show floor closes at 8, I shove my buttons and stickers under my half of the table, throw my tablecloth over my display and get sandwiches at The Melt Shop with my friend Kaylee and their roommate before taking the train home. I collapse on my couch before 11:30, and then chug three cups of water before crashing for the night.
Sunday morning feels worse than Saturday because now my arms and legs hurt from lugging my luggage halfway across Midtown the day before. I refill my bag with snacks and hop on the train again. Since I didn’t break everything down the night before, setting everything back up again takes less than half an hour, and I use the extra time before the show floor opens again to go to Bibble and Sip a few blocks away and get my favorite seasonal drink of all time, the Roseberry. That plus some cookies makes me feel a lot less hungry when the show floor opens on Sunday. I share more of my snacks with my tablemates.
The same playlist as Saturday plays overhead and some fellow artists come by to buy stuff before the crowds rush in. Someone I hadn’t met before asks me for a sketch commission of Ogata from Golden Kamuy, which I hadn’t drawn since I made my two Golden Kamuy prints in 2019 but still love very much. My friend N. Lightning Bugs buys some comics from me and I buy some prints and stickers from them, including the funniest print of all time (if you’ve read all of Haikyuu!!).
Obsessed with this print I got from @enlightningbugs
It's just perfect #Flamecon2022 pic.twitter.com/7jBa2OavuJ— Masha @ SPX B105! (@mashazart) August 21, 2022
A friend of mine brings me bubble tea when they stop by my table. I am eternally grateful.
A friend of my agent comes by to pick up some of the comics I am selling that I hadn’t yet had a chance to send to my agent directly. I am slightly bewildered but also grateful.
“A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” starts playing overhead and when I start singing along like a nerd some random people come over to ask me what the song is from, this one guy explaining that he only knows the name of the show in Chinese, so I type “Neon Genesis Evangelion” into his phone for him.
Someone collecting autobiographical comics by women and nonbinary creators comes by to add some of mine and my tablemate’s zines to their collection, and we have an interesting conversation about travelogues as they buy my travelogue comic.
I’m surprised I don’t sell any copies of ELF GF, my comic about a lesbian relationship, at the LGBT comics convention. I also only sell 2 prints, although a lot of people compliment them and take my business cards. My “Legoshi from BEASTARS drinking Respect Women Juice” print gets a lot of people stopping to look at it and laugh, but only one sale. So it goes.
The last time I tabled at Flamecon, I did not make back the cost of my table, earning about 100 dollars to the 150 I’d put in. This year, I make back the cost of my table, and the train tickets, and even some profit on top of that! Yay!
My friend from summer camp helps me break down my table at 6 on Sunday, and my tablemates and my friend and I all get Jollibee in Times Square for dinner. It’s tasty and filling! I am home by 9:30, very tired but very relieved my weekend went better than I’d expected it to go.
