Capes & Babes, a webcomic by Chris Flick

For the record, this is ROY’S warped sense of logic. Not mine.

I’m currently standing at 262 lbs. and trying my hardest to get down to 250 by the end of November. And I DON’T draw sexy pin-ups. I draw CARTOON pin-ups.

BALTIMORE COMICON 2009 RECAP:

I’m going to write a lot more about this tomorrow but for now, I will share some of my favorite photos from the little time I actually got to walk the convention floor on Sunday – plus some commissions I did:

Powerman Commission:
This was the first commission of the weekend. A very large dude who was obviously a big Powerman fan liked the stuff in my book and decided to get a commission. I was a little worried about the dialog – sometimes, you just never know how people are going to react to humor – especially humor about how a black character was always woefully written during the 70’s. But he seemed to get a kick out of it so that took a huge relief off of my shoulders.

Transmetropolitan:
Powerman was my first commission of the weekend and Transmetropolitan was my last. I asked the lovely person in the picture below if she was “local” as I had a joke in my head dealing with the Washington DC Metro subway system, but alas, she was from Philly. So, I immediately went inot “Plan B” mode and decided to do some word play with Transexual and Transmetropolitan. It was there that I immediately came up with the idea of him appearing on a TLC program. I also decided to write “B@#~!!” instead of “Bitch” because I didn’t want to write something vulgar like that in the lady’s sketch book.

And here she is holding up the commission of Transmetropolitan. She also took advantage of my Sunday special I was offering: a book and a commissioned sketch for $30 (a $12 savings). She seemed to enjoy both.

Scott Kurtz holding my book:
Okay, here’s the deal… I’ve told the story to a lot of people about Baltimore Comicon 2007 being the catalyst for starting Capes & Babes. Danielle Corsetto and Brad Guigar had a big part in kicking me in the butt and making sure I got off the bench and into the game. But during that same Con, so did Scott.

Basically, after a few Baltimore appearances, i finally had a chance to introduce myself back in 2007 and told him about CMX Suite. After a bit of the longest conversation i’ve ever had with Scott, he basically said what I already knew… that I needed to get away from drawing a strip based on real people and start developing a strip with my own, fictional characters. I was already leaning towards that already but everything really came together on that one particular Con that made me go home that evening and start Capes & Babes.

As I told Scott on Sunday, I didn’t give him the book with any kind of strings attached. I didn’t want to come across as someone who was looking for something in return. As I told him, the book was a by-product of some advice he gave me and I thought he might get a kick out of some of the strips. Besides, I was doing well enough during the weekend to afford to give away at least ONE book! 

Joel from HiJinks Ensues:
I only had a little bit of time to walk the Con floor on Sunday and, during my little romp, I came across Joel’s table. Truthfully, I had seen him outside the Convention Center Saturday night as we were both waiting for our respective parties to show up for dinner. I wasn’t absolutely 100% sure it was him though and didn;t want to make an ass out of myself with my daughter and her friend nearby (in case it actually wasn’t him) so I waited until Sunday to make an ass out of myself instead. 

To recap:
Thus far, I’ve enjoyed every single Con I’ve gone to so far and I’ve been telling many people I think I started Capes just so I would have an excuse to get a table at conventions. And, really, I’m still pretty new when it comes to the “Con circuit” but I’m learning fast things that work and things that don’t.

Added to that, each con I return to, I do better than I did the year before. I doubled my sales this year at Heroes as compared to my first appearance and I did the same this year at Baltimore as well. Last year was my first time attending Baltimore Comicon as an artist and I thought I did very well then but this weekend, I was able to exceed the success I’ve had at any other previous Con I’ve been to so far – and I think that’s the biggest sign of success one could have.

I am a HUGE believer that going to various Cons will help grow Capes & Babes – maybe not as quickly as I would like but the evidence in my stat numbers is there after every Con… for those of you who came to Baltimore this past weekend and took one of my now infamous postcards, I hope you had a great time talking to me, have gone to the site and have enjoyed reading the strips.

I know I couldn’t have asked for a better time and I hope that’s only a sign of better things to come with the gang from Capes & Babes.

I thank you for that!

Sincerely,

Chris Flick