Whew!
Sorry for the lack of updates this past Monday. I had an AMAZING and Super Busy weekend at the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention in downtown Nashville, TN with my wife Betsy of the ever increasingly popular comic FRUIT! and caught the dreaded “Con Crud” after the show so I’ve been pretty doped up on cold medicine for the last few days.

In lieu of a comic, please enjoy this awesome collection of photos from various cosplay dudes and dudettes while I give you a recap of the weekend.

Friday:

I was very nervous about MTAC because I’m obviously not an ANIME comic. For that matter, I can’t draw in an anime style to save my life. Be that as it may, I’m a huge fan of their sister con GMX (The Geek Media Expo) so I wanted to give this one a go. It’s got a huge (10K plus attendees) turnout so I figured we could make a buck or two and pick up some new readers.

We got to the show around 9:30 Friday morning and after playing a little parking lot roulette we got set up in the artist alley on the second floor. We were seated in a pretty good spot next to the fabulous deviantartist Tenor who brought a lot of prints of her amazing works and was taking on site omissions as well. Her and her friends were very cool and helped us fit in and she explained the inner storyline to the Castlevania line of games that I never knew existed.

This year MTAC moved to the Nashville Convention Center and there was definitely a positive feel to all the new space. The Dealer Room and Exhibitor Hall were located on the first floor and they were sharing space with the Full Moon Tattoo and Horror convention which was an odd combination to say the least, but the ability to buy a shared pass to both shows definitely helped sales and floor traffic.

Friday, like any first day of a convention, was pretty horrible for us business wise. No one really buys anything the first day, and since we weren’t anime, we had little more than the occasional table traffic while people waited to get into panels. There was a small handful of interested peoples who came to see our goods and I hoped my famous sales pitch would plant the seeds for future sales over the weekend. We stuck it out until around 7:00 that night and called it a day. Paul from Aradani Studios was nice enough to let us store our stuff in their booth overnight so we wouldn’t have to cart it back with us and set up again Saturday, so a special thanks to them for that serious favor.

Saturday:

Business picked up a little on Saturday. We sold a few Trouble Ticket books and a T-Shirt or two and gave out some buttons to people with exceptional costumes. Later on that afternoon I went downstairs to say high to my friend Scott Sava who does the amazing comic The Dreamland Chronicles. While I was down there, Marcus AKA the Dealer Room God let us move into one of the exhibitor tables that went unclaimed so we packed up shop and headed to the promised land where sales definitely improved. We stuck around after closing to check out the Kaiju wrestling (where dudes wear big monster costumes and battle over a small fake city like in the old movies) and then watched Crossfire Wrestling put on a good exhibition show. By that point we were pretty beat so we loaded up the cart and took the long drive home to get a good nights sleep for the Sunday rush.

Sunday:

Sunday was definitely our biggest day. Even though some people were confused after we moved downstairs, most of them ended up finding us and bought some merchandise. We got to see Jason David Frank (the Green Ranger and guest of honor) do a karate lesson and he seemed like a cool dude. Around 3:00 they started shutting down the show so we said our goodbyes to old friends and left for the house once again. All in all it was a good show.

Pros:

- Great show with a VERY reasonably priced Artist Alley, lots of turnout, good for beginners and experienced dealers, great enthusiastic crowd, a lot of panels and extra activities, good location, LOTS of space to work, and a fantastic staff.

Cons:

- Parking can be a nightmare downtown, the food was ridiculously priced (so bring your own if you want to make money), slight growing pains from moving to a new location.

Anyway, I hope all of you that came out to see us had a fantastic time. We’re off the con schedule for a little while until October so we’ll be focused on the online store and I’ll be focused on a better update schedule. See you next Monday.

~Johnathon (Chuck)

As I am currently in a MAD DASH to get everything ready for MTAC this weekend with Betsy, I decided that instead of the Monday strip I’d share the progress of a painting I’m working on for the charity auction. It’s going to be an apocalyptic theme with aliens blowing up the moon.

It doesn’t look as good as the one Betsy is doing, but for my first attempt at painting, I’m pretty excited at the outcome so far.

Thursday I’ll have either a special strip or some original art that will be for sale at the con.
~Johnathon (Chuck)

Woo! Comic 50 is online!

I’m very happy to wrap up the “date night” storyline because it was one of the longer stories I’ve ever attempted, and honestly I think it went well and ended in place I’m comfortable with. You’ll definitely be seeing more of Josie because I’ve never really developed a female character in one of my strips and I’d like to do more with that.

I try really hard to not have a Mary Sue situation in my comics. I like my guys to lose, and lose often. While all three guys are based on myself and my two best friends, they’re also aspects of me. I felt it would be a good idea to throw a foil into that by introducing a girl that can shake things up, and that’s what Josie is there for.

Moving on, if you check the “upcoming convention” list on the right side of the site, you can see I’ll be at the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention (MTAC) Easter weekend. This is going to be a fantastic show, and the biggest show for Betsy and I of the year. We’ll be on the second floor in the artist alley back by the customer service desk, so come see us and buy some merchandise. We’ll have a few new original pieces for sale, along with the strips, comic books, buttons, and sketch cards.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

~Johnathon (Chuck)

Betsy and I will be selling original art from this point forward, along with prints of your favorite strips. We’re still beta testing the online store, so for now if you’re interested in a Trouble Ticket original strip or a print you can click the “Buy This Strip” button under the comic, which should take you to the original art page where you can place your order. (currently we’re only accepting orders through PayPal)

“Buy This Strip” will be coming to the Fruit store within the next few days, so don’t worry!

In addition, we’ve finally gotten our studio site off the ground as well. For the latest news on FRUIT! and Trouble Ticket, you can check out our label, Pink Pineapple Ink.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be adding a store (proper) to Pink Pineapple Ink where you can pick up buttons, comic books, original art, and some really swanky t-shirts that should be available sometime in February.

Finally, as you can see, I’ve started doing Trouble Ticket strips in SUPERTECHNOMAGICOLOR! I’m using the same markers that Betsy uses for her strip and I’m loving this process. I feel like it makes the original much more impressive and it looks better on the web as well.

So that’s it! Buy some stuff, come see us next weekend and say hi, and keep reading!

~Johnathon (Chuck)