Barb Fisher, Chris Impink, Dan Delby and Garth Graham talk about going solo in the publishing world at last year's Technicon.
By H. Brad Haga
BLACKSBURG – Twenty-nine years is a long time to be doing anything, especially the demanding volunteer work involved in running a small science fiction and fantasy convention. But even though the fans keep changing, the world keeps turning and Technicon lives on.
Technicon is a modestly-sized science fiction and fantasy event put on every year since 1983 by a group of dedicated (some might say obsessive) fans under the auspices of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club at Virginia Tech. (That’s VTSFFC, vits-fic to its friends).
This year’s Technicon is being held March 16-17 at McBryde Hall on the Tech campus.
Over a span of time like that the face of fandom has changed, it has grown and evolved right alongside the genres it so adores, and every year the focus of a place like Technicon is just a little bit different. The theme this year may be “How the World Ends,” but something very different looks to be at the convention’s heart this year.
For those unfamiliar with what goes on at a sci-fi convention, let me take a moment to explain.
A convention such a Technicon is a place for fans of various sorts to gather and share their enthusiasms. At a convention like Technicon, one can enjoy movies, any of a number of popular games (electronic or role-playing), meet an interesting convention guest, or take part in a discussion panel for some favored topic. In these terms, Technicon is bringing the fun for its 29th year.
This year Technicon looks to have all of the usual fare: rooms of role-playing gaming, two rooms and six screens of video gaming, a small costume contest, and plenty of discussion panels. As the convention’s chair, James Dunson, said, “The guests you have dictate the panels.”
This year’s batch of panel discussions highlight something that was a pipe dream for many when Technicon first opened its doors: creating and marketing your own comics independent of a large publisher, printer or distributor. Back in 1983, a person who wanted to write and see his or her work published had to contend with the monolithic publishing houses of New York City who, in turn, dealt with large printing firms and handled distribution.
Thanks to the modern internet, something that was very much in its infancy 29 years ago, anyone can create his or her own content, whether that is line art, paintings or short stories and have those works printed and published on demand through services like Ka-Blam (ka-blam.com) or Café Press (www.cafepress.com). Four of the primary guests at Technicon this year were doing just that.
Dan Delby is just getting into comics and self-publishing. Delby has set up a small enterprise for himself, Dan Delby Comics (www.dandelbycomics.blogspot.com) and has his first comics offering: “Project Interplanetary Unity: The Struggle for Peace”. The project started out as an attempt at a novel and turned into a comic. Delby, originally from New Hampshire, presently resides in Wytheville and, holding Associate degrees in business and accounting, seems to have a firm grasp of what an entrepreneur has to do, from marketing to product price points. Comics are not paying any bills, yet, but Delby says, “When you do what you love, it’s more than a job.”
A step up from Delby is the writer/artist team of Barb Fisher and Chris Impink, both Virginia Tech alumni. As Studio Unseen, Fisher and Impink are on their second web-based comic entitled “Sledgebunny” (http://unseenllc.com/sledgebunny/). Their first comic was simple romp called Fragile Gravity, which enjoyed a seven-year run from 2002 through 2009, but never seemed to have financial success. “Sledgebunny” is something new for the duo, a more complicated story and a more realistic setting, and it is beginning to turn a profit.
Based on the style of Japanese manga, Sledgebunny is a sports comic about a high-school girl’s roller derby dreams in a southwestern desert town. “People will buy the strangest things,” says Fisher. “We were at Otacon (http://www.otakon.com/) and Chris was doodling this little sleeping armadillo that we had in, like, one panel in Sledgebunny. People started coming up and saying how cute it was and asking if he could do one for them. So I said, sure, $.25 a card … and poor Chris didn’t stop drawing all that night, people were snapping them up!”
Finally there is Garth Graham, another Virginia Tech graduate and periodic attendee of Technicon some years previous. An enthusiastic, tabi-wearing fellow, Graham is self-publishing under his own company, GCG Studios (http://www.gcgstudios.com/?p=info), and he is making a living self-publishing his comics and art online and at conventions. Graham is not bringing in lavish paychecks yet, though, “I would say that I’m living paycheck to paycheck, except that there are no paychecks. The money is basically as it comes.”
Most of Graham’s marketing is word of mouth, from either his web site or from his convention appearances. Graham has just released a compilation of his most recent comic “Finders Keepers”, an urban fantasy work that he describes as “Scott Campbell meets Neil Gaiman’s novel, ‘Neverwhere’.”
Graham echoed an idea that Fisher had mentioned earlier in the convention, that people buy the strangest things: Graham’s table is always filled with original art, but what sells the best of all of it? Graham’s ‘twisted fairy tales’ line of prints, ranging from a heavy metal Wizard of Oz scene to a somewhat more sinister Red Riding Hood, have turned out to be big sellers. “There’s something fun about taking something old and making something new out of it.”
The panels last year culminated with a gathering of Delby, Fisher, Impink and Graham to discuss how to make a living as a self-publisher and the group had some good information for anyone interested in going their route.
“Be prepared for the size of the venue and their peculiar space requirements. Absorb what others do with their displays, see what works and what doesn’t,” said Graham who makes his living going from one convention to another, as either guest or art dealer, and having to contend with infinitely variable standards.
“It is a business,” he says, “and numbers are you friend. Keep track of what sells and what doesn’t.”
Very practical, sometimes even serious panel discussions like these are the heart of a fan-run convention.
Topics like “Kirk v. Picard: You Decide” or “Cat-girl Fans: Threat or Menace” are good fun, but they are just fluff. Panels that help you to create for yourself are one of the things that make you a fan.
Technicon 29 — That’s XXIX to its friends.
If you didn’t catch 
