From: Mike Meyer <[m--y--r] at [usanimation.com]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 15:10:46 -0700
To: [comics pro] at [netcom.com]
Subject: COMICS-PRO: San Diego Report (part 1, probably...)

I'm still sorting out everything from San Diego, and back in the
maw of the Work Deadline Monster, so I'll try to keep this short,
but I wanted to say at least something about the Con and also to
welcome the new subscribers who have signed on after talking to
me at the Con.

This Con was Rich's and my first, either as exhibitor or attendee.
It was also Rich's first visit to the States, and a hectic one at
that.  

The San Diego Comics Expo on Tuesday and Wednesday worked out really
well for us.  We got to talk to quite a lot of retailers.  Quite a
few of them were aware of Dirtbag, and nearly all of them had carried
X-Flies Special #1.  Many of the retailers carrying X-Flies Special
#1 had simply not seen our Diamond solicitation for X-Flies Conspiracy,
due to its placement in the unlamented "Select" section of the catalog.

We proudly displayed our current listing for Dirtbag #7 in the Capital 
catalog, too.  Just before leaving for San Diego, I found out that we 
had gotten a "Hot Flash," a "Certified Cool," and a nice writeup with color 
graphic in Advance Focus.  Mucho thanks to James Eislie at Capital, who
I found out was a fan of Rich's work.   

We took this opportunity to pass out free copies of Dirtbag #6 to 
retailers, handed out a little newsletter which included information
about Dirtbag, X-Flies, our upcoming projects, and ordering numbers
for all of our back list items. We also got business cards and took down 
names.  I'll make these available to the list as soon as I get them typed in.

The Gathering of Tribes handout went over very well.  Chad will be mailing
out the copies which go to the publishers this Saturday.  We handed out
a lot of them to retailers and fans alike.  The books arrived Tuesday 
afternoon via 2-day UPS, which delivered them right to the booth.  I was
also able to get Diamond and Capital to hand these out at their booths.
Both Diamond and Capital were intrigued with the idea, and I plan to talk
to their marketing folks about getting them to subsidize a second printing
for retailer distribution.  

We'll be doing the retailer mailing fairly soon as well.  I'll get
back to everyone with more details as soon as I talk to Chad again.

Our sales during the Con were somewhat slower than I had hoped, but
the point of these shows is to establish a presence rather than to make
money.  While we didn't recoup our expenses, we certainly met a lot of
people and made a lot of new contacts.  My thanks to Randy Reynaldo for
sharing a booth.  Randy has done a lot of these shows, and it was very
telling that people were seeking him out for the issues they'd missed 
since last Con.

I said I'd keep this short, and am already well beyond that, so I think
I'll stop for now.  More later, soon as I catch my breath...

Mike