My first New England comic convention was pretty great this past weekend!
MICE was held on the second floor of a building at Lesley University and had an Asian mall underneath so I felt right at home. If only there was a portal directly from Flushing to all the other China/Korea towns!
The mall was convenient to grab sushi for lunch, bubble tea for a snack and late night mochi ice cream. There was also a Japanese store with a lineup of Totoros. A perfect location for a comic convention.
The convention floor was spread through several hallways and in two classrooms. It took me a while to figure out the maze to the bathroom from the Bechdel room where my table was, but I found a shortcut by the end of the weekend. It also gave me an excuse to check out some of the other exhibitor areas while I was getting lost!
The signage and badges for MICE were super cute. Here is my Debut Cheese for Urban Nomad #4!
MICE had less exhibitors than SPX a few weeks ago, but I imagine it was much like SPX was in its' early days. I liked the intimate feeling and although I didn't have time to leisurely walk around, I felt like I got to say hi to everyone I wanted to see and pick up a few books on my way to and from my table in the Bechdel room. It was also pretty packed most of the weekend! The convention was supposed to end at 4pm on Sunday, but there were still people walking around and I made my last sale around 4:30 pm.
There was a lot of Adventure Time love at the convention including this grown man dressed as Finn. I had nice conversations with Adventure Time artists Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline who was one of the conventions' organizers.
My table block was pretty awesome. I was near Kenan Rubenstein, Cara Bean, Jason Viola, Michael Rapa, and Beth Hetland with Carey Pietsch, Kelly Phillips and the other ladies from Dirty Diamonds behind me.
Jason Viola and Cara Bean's tables had some cool props.
I also met a dog named Raisin who camped out behind our block of tables for a while. How cute is this dog?!
A bunch of us had some food and hung out for the after party on Saturday night. I never understand why cartoonist events are at sports bars, but at least the back was cordoned off so all us weirdos had some space. I had a salad to make up for all the fried food I'd been eating and a delicious pumpkin ale with a sugar rim. Here are Carol and Colleen who were awesome road trip buddies and roommates for the weekend.
As always, it was so nice to meet some of my Twitter friends and Cooking Up Comics readers in real life! I even met one of my old LJ friends! Thanks for stopping by everyone! It was pretty cool to see people buy issue 1 of Urban Nomad and then come back on Sunday to buy the rest. This was also the first convention that I've made more sales on Sunday than I did on Saturday!
Ellen Crenshaw with a hedgehog friend
Zack Giallongo
Alison Wilgus
The staff and volunteers of MICE were all so nice and helpful. I've never been to a convention where they actively try to feed you! There were bottles of water, coffee, bagels, carrots and pita chips with individual packets of hummus and of course individually wrapped cheeses available for the exhibitors. Can't have MICE without cheese, right? The staff were also assigned to each area, introduced themselves and asked if we needed anything throughout the day. If we needed to step away from the table, they were happy to sit there until you came back.
I also got to spend some more time with Boston area cartoonists that I've met online or briefly at conventions. We had some delicious vegetarian diner food at
Veggie Galaxy before heading back to New York that night. This place had AMAZING coconut based frappes (which I learned was the New England version of a milkshake) so I was able to have one without the instant regret.
Carol, Holly and Steph
Cara and Colleen
The drive from New York wasn't bad and our stay at the Holiday Inn was only disappointing because the pool was closed. The houses in the Cambridge area were all so cute. I got to see some of them on our failed attempt at getting brunch on Sunday morning. Who knew people started lining up at 10 am at the area diners? Luckily we were saved by a cute cafe with delicious breakfast sandwiches and French ambiance near the convention.
There were also some great murals throughout the Cambridge area.
I got some really sweet trades and spent a few bucks on some books I missed at SPX.
MICE was awesome and I'm looking forward to applying for a table again next year!
