Street Cat Zine Fest report

Street Cat Zine Fest 7 has come and gone, and I have a few photos, so let’s share and kibbitz.

First off, it was GREAT to get back to tabling. There’s a certain energy that happens when you’re showing off your wares to the masses.

As you can see, I shared my table not only with another vendor but also with my SPACE junior award-winning daughter. This is part of the joy of tabling; I really enjoy hanging out with her, talking comics, selling comics and watching people have a positive reaction to what she does.

I’ve only tabled twice since coming back into small press comics – this, and SPACE 2022. This was a much smaller event, perhaps a quarter of the size of SPACE, but that has its own positives. Sure, you didn’t have the traffic and the sales were nowhere near what we experienced at SPACE. That said, I loved the rehabbed trainside warehouse space that is the Scioto Township Hall in Chillicothe.

Also, the lighter traffic flow allowed us to chat a little longer with other creators, draw a little (including contributing to a collaborative zine) and, overall, just enjoy a more relaxed pace in a very pleasant atmosphere.

Chillicothe, at just over 22,000 people, is a much smaller community than the 1.6+ million people in Metro Columbus. So foot traffic expectations were adjusted accordingly. Still, there were a few impressions worth discussing.

• Hardware helps sell comics. My daughter nearly sold out of her SPACE award book. I’m sure there was a goodwill factor in supporting a young cartoonist, but there’s no denying that the plaque was an attention getter.
• Sequential storytelling is not a thing for most of our reading public. Not just super-heroes (of which I literally was the only vendor with such work) but all multi-issue serial storytelling. The people wanted “one and dones” – minicomics, magazines, full size comics, graphic novels, whatever. My Strange Times anthologies were the biggest sellers. I even sold more copies of a photo zine I made using hiking photos than of my hero comics.
• The only sequential storytelling generating interest was the new Something in the Water miniseries, of which I had the first two issues on sale (and will post for view/sale soon on this site and perhaps elsewhere). I attribute it to the fact that the story is placed in Southeast Ohio and has a cultural/environmental bent that spoke to the attendees. At $1 for the pair, I suppose the value equation was worth the risk.
• Speaking of $1, this stuff has become expensive! I saw an 8-page cardstock paper minicomic for $4, and a small size minicomic for $2.
• The adage that small press zines and comics are funded by the same recirculating money was on point. Vendors were buying from each other. Outside foot traffic wasn’t as big as the number of people in the room. It’s not a bad thing, as the feel was much more of a Meetup, but worth mentioning.

• I also tried out some 5×7 matted images from my Heroes Now series…glad I didn’t invest much in it, because they didn’t sell at all. Alas.

Overall, a good experience and one I probably will try again in future years.