"This is in accordance to the discussions that happened between Crayoncat, Bhashki, Diechief, Rahul Narayanan, Manish D3mon Art, @shadowofsin and myself, along with a few other independent artists.
I wanted to wait till I calmed down a little so that I don't simply talk out of rage about this year’s Comic Con Bangalore, but there are issues that definitely need to be addressed before they are forgotten-
1) The stalls: I had the opportunity to share a stall with 4 brilliant artists, and we had opted for a stall from the lowest price range because as independent artists that’s all we could afford, and even with splitting it, it didn't come cheap. This was a tiny 2x2 stall that we had to split even for displays. Yes, this is not comic cons fault particularly, but the costing is hurtful. Every year the stall space seems to stay the same while the costs keep rising, and because of which 1st time artists and artists who can't afford your whole price HAVE to share, all because we want to showcase our art in a venue where we know it will be appreciated! Comic con had a solution for this…. It was the Artist Alley, which was cheaper with only a small table and 2 chairs with one back wall. Why has that been removed as an option!? So many artists would kill for a cheaper option and be so grateful for the opportunity you give them! Artist Alleys are an integral part of Comic Cons in foreign countries, allowing small-time artists to sell their art and meet other fans and artists without emptying their wallets.
The art vetting: When we were in the process of booking the stall, we were constantly questioned on what type of artwork we were going to have. Comic con kept telling us that we could only have original fanarts, that any fanart we make of licensed characters (like marvel dc or anime) has to be original stuff we come up with, in our style and we couldn't put any logos.. and they also had 'strict' policies about merchandising too. What do we find when we actually go to the con? Booths upon booths which have posters of images ripped right from a Google search and fanarts with logos. Keychains, badges, tees with fanart and logos. What kind of vetting process goes on, we really would like to know. There was art theft, pure and simple and those are the stalls that needed to be given a warning atleast. It really devalues any and all hardwork that we have poured on our fanarts (if you don't understand the difference between original fanart and stolen art, I'm sorry but an artist in the field of comics needs to be employed by comic con to have a better system. I got more emails about the GST certification than about verifying artwork)
The volunteers: This part is from pure personal experience, I am in no way saying that this happened to all stalls. As stall owners, we did not see one volunteer come up to us and offer any sort of help. Not a single one. We put up the stall by ourselves and took down our posters by ourselves as well. But then at the end of the con, what right do they have to come ask free art from us!? If you were a volunteer and had helped out an artist in any way, then you had the right to ask (or the artists would have given it you themselves as a token of gratitude) but if you have done nothing for me, I am not obligated to give you works that I've spent sleepless nights over. It's just that simple. We were even delayed in our packing because volunteers kept on coming to ask for free stuff. While the volunteers were atleast civil in our stall, there was a stall in which a volunteer mob 'play acted’ like a bunch of zombies just because the artists had already packed and wouldn't give away art. It might seem like a silly thing reading about it, but imagine yourself in a situation where you facing a bunch of strangers demanding you give them free stuff while blocking the exits…. It's up to the comic con management to give volunteers free stuff,not us, especially not after the amount of money we put in. We aren’t even asking much. Just a bottle of water twice a day? Or someone at least asking if we need help with anything?
The water: One bottle of water from that overpriced food court is 50/-, and how do we know that? It's because we had to buy water(as we kept running out from the water we got from home), not even one customary bottle was provided to stalls, why? So apart from spending money on stalls and printing and travel, we have to spend extra money on food and drink. I understand having to buy food but c’mon, give us a few bottles of water for the day. Or a water fountain to use.
Terrible networks/ lack of ATMs: I realise that comic con cannot control the network and bad signals, especially with so much traffic, but they can provide WiFi hotspots or have SOME sort of facility knowing that online payment transactions are a thing. We lost quite a bit of business because we couldn't get a good connection for online payments, which was a customer's go to solution if they didn't have cash (which they couldn't get because of lack of ATMs) . We were advised to get a card machine, but that wasn't a feasible option for us as comic con is the only major event we would need it at , and as stated before, we are a collective of independent artists that really can't afford it, the bigger merch stalls can, but not us.
Comic con's management needs to step up, (especially after the 'saga’ fiasco) we appreciate the artists you get as guests, we truly do. But in that process, you start alienating local artists that are just trying to get their art noticed…. Comic Con has become more about advertising, merchandise and cosplay (all great things, not condemning them at all) and it used to be about the local comic artist encouragement, and sadly that part is dying…. We have 0 promotion from Comic Con, no contests or anything that brings local artists into spotlight. So many people turning away from our stalls because it’s cheaper to buy from the stalls selling ripped off images. If you truly wish to stand on par with the global Comic Cons, you have to start treating its exhibitors and participants better, be it cosplayers or artists.
Thank you to all the artists and cosplayers who supported us and helped us in getting the bigger picture of what was going on at the venue...."
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