HARR! I HAVE SURVIVED MY FIRST CON APPEARANCE. A two day marathon sharing a table in artist's alley with a certain other consortium, sometimes referred to as Clucting at Straws by the incompetant badge printers, but more correctly known as Clutching at Straws. All stories contained within this here comic are true, including Paul's inhumanly fast drawing of Pikachu, considering he was like the slowest artist in artist's alley the entire rest of the con. Big thanks to cheesites who made an effort to come around and say hi, sorry I forgot your names but I was doing a lot of drawing and writing and meth. Special shoutouts to the guys who came back to buy just about every single thing I had on sale except the french book, and even bought a sketch to insult their friend who couldn't make it. You guys rock, and I dedicate the third panel to you. If you're a new reader who was pulled in by the business cards, free booklets and free candy or a comination of all three, I promise not all of the comics are in black and white and really rushed, but I'm making sure I get one out now before all the free nescafe coffees I took wear off. Quick con report while this stuff is all in my head. If you don't care, just skip to the bottom for some bizarre linkage:

Day 1:

Paul and Aaron arrive late, just as the con is starting and the public is allowed through. We hastily disassemble the setup I'd done two hours earlier and cram everything together.

FIRST SALE! Don't have enough change to split money between BTC and Clutching at Straws. Aaron goes to get food to break the bill

Free lollipops are offered to lure people to the table. Immediately some kids exploit this by grabbing two big fistfuls. Each

Decide against charging for sketches when I realise I haven't drawn with paper and pencil for over three years, and that I can't keep my own characters on model

Free sketches are offered instead. After a few requests of "surprise me", one kid asks for hentai. When told no, he walks away and returns later that afternoon for a Dragonball Z sketch. Asks for Goku and Gohan together, but I'm not really sure if he was still hinting at hentai

Someone vomited behind the dalek

A kid of about 7 asks for a drawing of Predator because he is his most favourite character in the whole world. As neither of us can remember what he looks like, we ask him if he's got any pictures of him. He says no, but shows up later that afternoon with a freshly bought action figure and is so totally excited about getting his free Predator sketch that I gave him some free buttons and a print. He picks the one with boobs

Paul and Aaron both fawn over Jewel Staite

Score sweet (enormous) free iron man print from Tim

Paul disappears for long periods from the desk, and I end up selling his products more than my own

Day 2:

Paul brings in candy to top up the free candy bowl and Aaron nearly breaks tooth on rock hard milk chew. Have to warn people about deadly candy when they walk by

Spot awesome Portal, Scout and Engineer cosplayers from the Orange Box. Was totally excited and nobody else on the table was, but it still counts damnit

Get interviewed and insult both the Jewish and Muslim people in about 15 seconds. On camera

Work out that a large proportion of the crowd is actually parents toting their small children around and stick warnings on free booklet and screen displaying BTC strips with "Contains swears" and "Contains swears and boobs", respectively, since a lot of the kids are probably learning some fun new words

Spot girl Vader, girl Sonic and girl Edward Scissorhands

Some teenagers come around for a free sketch and basically tell us that they're not going to buy anything. Paul draws two of them about to kiss for their sketch, then calls them fags

Flipped off batman

Worked out that when invited to take a card, people will only take one half the time, whereas when handed a card and told "take a card", they will actually take one

Paul does awesome commission sketch for a couple in medieval chainmail garb. At the same time, a group of cheesites comes by and buys up a whole bunch of stock and requests a whole bunch of sketches at the same time. I complete all the sketches and the guys leave and come back for another sketch all the while Paul continues to work.

Entirely forget what goes on Jesusman's chest midway through a sketch. Hint: big letter J

People ask for sketches of a lot of anime things I don't know

Girl asks for a pikachu sketch, and when I ask Paul what pikachu looks like, he has one ready within like 5 seconds. This is even more amazing by the fact that Paul's sketches easily take three times longer than mine. Usually because he actually puts care and stuff into them

Fat supergirl spotted. Dialogue is word for word as in comic

Work out that people are more likely to buy a button and a print than just a button or print seperately

For some reason, buttons of just the logo on its own outsold Nat and Thanatos buttons by a wide margin

Girl tries to pick up Paul. Some uncertaintly lingers around her actual age, as her friends' answer of "20....21...this...year" wasn't quite convincing

Paedophile jokes abound

Actually sell out of two stocks of prints! Have hundreds of buttons left, however

That's basically it! Had a blast sitting on the table next to Grug, but after lunchtime on the second day things really hit their stride and we were pumping out sketches and selling stuff like crazy. We learned a lot in the second day and refined our game, so the next one should be totally awesome. Thanks once again to everyone who came around! Bizarre linkage for the week: talking Jesus dolls! What's even better is Jesus' totally wholesome whitebread voice