The Flea Market Model

[grubcubman]

As a reader of small-press and self-published comics, shows are a real joy. When I lived in Chicago, I went to CAKE; in New York, CAB; now in D.C., SPX. They're some of my favorite things I ever do, probably!

With that said, I also know that small-press comic shows are not without their critics. Adam Buttrick has historically been vocal about various critiques of these shows, both general and specific, and Frank Santoro periodically writes about the "flea market" model, though I also saw him at the Pittsburgh show PIX several years back (which he might've had a hand in organizing?) and of course he and his bins have been a staple at SPX and the Brooklyn shows over the years. (Am I doing am "yet you participate in it" thing here? Not trying to.)

More concretely, the numbies don't always quite add up -- I've read about plenty of cartoonists going to shows and basically breaking even or losing money, accounting for travel, lodging, and table fees. But then: There's a distinct community-building component for both makers and readers.

Anyway, look: I grew up on flea markets, as a reader I have almost no meaningful stake in the prevalence of small-press shows (other than that I like them), and I don't have experience on the other side of the table. (Not counting EagleCon in February, at which I think my store made $1 after table fees; I'm a pro.)

What do you all think? Permanent fixture of the scene? Any obvious or non-obvious improvements to make? Is there a better model?

As I'm typing this, I'm pretty intrigued by the TCAF online shop, which has surely been done elsewhere (like the New York Art Book Fair or, on a smaller scale, the Shortbox virtual shows) but could be more sustainable if somewhat less fun (for me).

[awfulquiet]

I think it all probably varies based on how dependent you are on comics to make a living. For me, it's a hobby that mostly pays for itself and no more and it's not my day job. I enjoy going to shows as a vendor to hopefully at least break even and to meet people...both other creators and potential readers.

The TCAF online storefront model is cool and I have nothing against it in principle but it is entirely unappealing to me as a creator and consumer. But if I needed to take advantage of every potential outlet to sell some comics...I'd probably be all over it as a creator. But it wrings the already minuscule personal piece out of of online sales. And as a consumer, I've heard it takes months for stuff to get fulfilled from the TCAF online shop. Hopefully they've worked stuff out better this year. But I'd rather wait and buy from the creators when they post stuff after TCAF if it's something debuting there.

[mikesheawright]

I love the flea market shows on both sides of the table. I'm in a fortunate position where I don't rely on selling comics/art for a living so any profit that comes from it is a bonus (I wrote more about that in the money thread). It's entirely a community building and networking opportunity for me and I just love talking to people: other artists and attendees and everyone. And I usually get a lot of books out into the wild, profit notwithstanding. Trading books with nearby artists is also fun, and I always discover new artwork that I might not ever come across by scrolling instagram.

I do sometimes try to think of alternate ways to do this though. Desert Island had a show many years ago that I think about all the time where each artist constructed like an actual BOOTH and sort of sat behind/inside of it. Attendees would walk around to each booth and collect something from each artist and assemble a unique book of sorts with each "page" coming from a different artist. It was really really cool and something that could never be replicated online, some of the art being made on the spot. If anyone has photos from that I'd love to see them.

[dominocorp]

people who make interesting comics are not always the one who a) have the time/money to go to a bunch of shows or b) comfortable being at them. Older people who make self published comics, however brilliant, often don't fit in at those things. But the shows dominate aspects of what publishers see/discuss/put in anthologies, etc. I, personally, enjoy shows for what they are and love seeing friends at them, discovering new art, etc. But overall it seems like our small corner of comics painting itself further and further into a corner as long as shows are (more or less) the main way to distribute your comic.

[arecomicsevengood]

Just want to clarify that I'm pretty sure Adam Buttrick bemoaned that presented-by-Desert-Island show where cartoonists did installations as a retailer asking for free labor and that Frank Santoro has described social media as feeling like a flea market.

There obviously is this tension (which I think is pretty much always going to exist) between this sort of neoliberal, make everyone their own boss/best promoter model where one has to be constantly hustling in order to get the work out there, at the expense of having the time to make the work itself, and the fact that some people will also always essentially deride publishers, distributors, retailers, and critics as middlemen angling for a cut. The less there is a media in place to publicize work, the greater the pressure is on artists to get their work out there.

To me, shows seem more genuine and real in their community than the online ecosystem but I'm fairly extroverted and socially adept. Still, a comics event only attracts a specific kind of person (which, in short, is someone who looks and thinks exactly like me) and not all artists make work with that audience in mind, and the further afield an artist's work is from that, the less likely they are to find that community, and more likely they are to lose money. Which, if they're part of a marginalized community to begin with, is an even greater blow.

EDIT: Also anything done with an intention of making money will create a pressure that one should be making more money. Subsequently, this can breed a resentment about people perceived as being more successful. While it's totally reasonable that someone who has been spending time and money to make comics should want to see some sort of return on their investment, the more one is a capitalist, the less they are connected to the idea of community.

Making any kind of show that's like "a celebration of the art form" and "not about making money" will likely become prohibitively expensive for anyone that sees themselves primarily as "a working artist" to participate in. We'd all love to fly to Angouleme but most people who do so I think go with some degree of institutional support.

[whitecomics]

I wonder what has changed about cons in post-but-of-course-not-really-post pandemic period. Not as much as we might hope, as in many areas of life. Virtual events have I think to some degree stuck around, that's good! Like many of us on here I'm a huge fan of the NY Comics Symposium talks, and very thankful they're all recorded. Some of those speakers fall into the category Austin mentioned, where they might not appear at SPX or TCAF due to age, geography, interest in attending those shows, etc.

The informal cartoonist retreats that a few people have organized seem like another good and maybe pandemic influenced trend. Though that doesn't help from a reader/buyer's perspective!

We talk about Angouleme a lot in North America, and European festivals in general. Maybe idolize them a bit too much, though there's certainly a lot to be said for that marginally less flea market focused approach. CXC has described itself as aiming for something closer to that model, maybe folks who have attended can chime in on whether that feels true in practice.

There's always improvements to make at the margins. Partners & Son is preparing for the third year of PCX, where they'll continue to offer free table space to exhibitors and continue to make me worry if they're exhausting themselves. Let's please all work towards the end of panels with 4+ speakers and only the loosest of organizing themes. I'd rather see two cartoonists in conversation or a presentation by a single person even if that means not all guests get to be on a panel. 

[jporcellino]

This is no disrespect to those busting their asses putting on shows (I know what it's like, I've organized a few myself) but even before COVID I had reached the point of burnout. As many say, I still loved the social aspect of seeing friends, hanging out, meeting readers etc, talking to publishers and artists, but standing behind a table for two eight-hour days was becoming too much.

On the one hand, organizers need to provide value to tablers, so two days of potential earnings make sense, but so many shows could easily and maybe more sensibly be compacted into one day events. This is nothing you all don't know from experience, but a two day show is really: One day preparing (loading stuff into boxes, packing up a car etc), one day traveling, two days of exhausting tabling with aching feet, low blood sugar, noise, sensory overload, one day of traveling back, several frantic days of catching up on missed work at home, and then a week of trying to recover from con crud. It got to be too much for me.

I'm lucky in that I have a well-established online sales presence, and a super-supportive Patreon, so not going to shows doesn't hurt me as much financially as some.

whitecomics -- you asked about CXC. It's a great show, and there is about a week or so of outside events -- artist talks, gallery shows, etc leading up to the weekend sales days. But you have to either already be in Columbus to take advantage of that, or be willing/able to take a week off from your everyday schedule to attend. It's awesome for sure, but the economics of life as an American cartoonist make it hard to fully enjoy.

[BubblesZine]

I come from zine fests, I've been co-organizing Richmond Zine Fest since 2012. I'd go to SPX back then and thought it was the most amazing thing ever, but never thought about the tabling side. Starting Bubbles and starting the tabling at comic shows, it's definitely tough as far as paying for a table. I'm also lucky a lot of people order my zine, but I do think tabling has helped me make friends and grow the zine that way. And just make some real connections and meet people who I'm so lucky to know. I love tabling, it's a lot of fun for me, but hundreds of dollars is hard to make back at $8/zine.

With Richmond Zine Fest we never paid ourselves, like any punk show I ever booked and organized, it was just about throwing the party I want to be at. We have a free space at the public library, tables costed like $20/ea to rent so we charged $15/per half table. We used the little money we made on that and shirts to make posters and provide stipends of like $75 to zine makers who needed some backing to participate. People we thought would make the fest better. We always had a lot of transparency with our funds and how things worked, we never wanted any mystery. I think that's something most events like this could benefit from. We once did a workshop (always the friday before the tabling day on saturday) in like 2018 where we talked about how we organized, and let anyone ask us questions.

Richmond Zine Fest is returning this year, it'll be Oct 6&7 (workshops friday/tabling saturday). Follow @richmondzinefest on IG for updates. (pardon my commercial)

All this said I have some real sympathy for people organizing a fest. I also worked at The Greater Richmond Convention Center for six years, and renting an actual convention space is EXPENSIVE. For just a space like CAB/SPX sized at our building, easily 15k before you pay for any table/chair rentals for the day, probably another 5-10k for those. Just one extension cord with power at a booth is $120. I don't know specifics on organizing those comic fests, but it does seem tough to me to try and do something in a city like NYC.

I think zine fests are important though. I made life long friends at them, the tabling scene is important to the culture. The internet will never replace it. At richmond zine fest I always imagined it as a world outside of the normal capitalism, no taxes, trading allowed, cash only (before venmo...). But I know this mindset isn't always there with people when it comes to these comic fests. Some tablers are there running real businesses there.

Anyways I always talk myself in circles about this stuff, but I am looking forward to whenever I can table next but not have to travel that far.

[eheitner]

That's it right there tho, when space is cheap and therefore tables can be cheap, when its focused mostly on local folk who aren't traveling far/paying for hotels, the stakes are lowered for everyone involved.

I mean, a flea market is supposed to be someplace cheap and easy and local, not something you fly across the country for and expect to make hundreds of dollars at selling in one or two days.

I wonder why more high-end comix festivals don't separate the two. If you are an artist flying across the country, you don't really need to also be standing behind a table for 8 hours-- maybe the festival could have a store for the work of all participants, so the participants can spend their time at workshops etc., and someone who is paid an hourly wage can be in charge of selling the books, y'know?

[mikesheawright]

May 1, 2023 13:29:57 GMT eheitner said:

That's it right there tho, when space is cheap and therefore tables can be cheap, when its focused mostly on local folk who aren't traveling far/paying for hotels, the stakes are lowered for everyone involved.

I mean, a flea market is supposed to be someplace cheap and easy and local, not something you fly across the country for and expect to make hundreds of dollars at selling in one or two days.

I wonder why more high-end comix festivals don't separate the two. If you are an artist flying across the country, you don't really need to also be standing behind a table for 8 hours-- maybe the festival could have a store for the work of all participants, so the participants can spend their time at workshops etc., and someone who is paid an hourly wage can be in charge of selling the books, y'know?

I was talking with a bunch of folks at TCAF about how no one wanted to step away from their table to go see any of the (amazing-looking) panels that were going on all weekend. Some way to get away from the table fear-free would be huge for a lot of people. Otherwise TCAF was amazing though, still a huge fan of fests and that model in general.

I'm curious to hear how Angloueme is a different model somehow?

I hadn't heard that criticism of the Desert Island show, didn't get that vibe personally but I could see that. I think what I liked about it was that it was more of a unique experience with the artists instead of going to a marketplace. It was further removed from taking an online store and putting it on a table.

[kevinh]

good thread

[kevinh]

I think the distinction between small local “flea market" or even farmers market versus big city convention model is a good one to make. There’s a spectrum, and each one is kind of a gamble…I’ve always wanted to get my comics in the hands of the right people, heroes and people I respect, and a lot of the right people come to the big shows.

the math might not work as far as expenses and sales, but the friends you can make and keep and the kind of readers/collectors at those things are good connections, hard to calculate about

[kevinh]

You can sell 10 books but 2 of those people might be influential people who lead to something, and it’s unpredictable. It might even be years later that a short conversation “pays off” into a project or relationship, friends, whatever, a place to visit. Or you give away copies but get lucky and put your book in the hands of the right person at the right time, etc. It's efficient when they are gathered in the same room.

The young brighteyed newcomers making new friends and getting their first sense of the scope of the field and being able to approach their heroes and say something, give them their work, they draw a lot of energy from the shows, it's cool. I sometimes feel like it’s all really for them…

and there’s hardened veterans complaining about too many changes, they can’t keep up, or there’s not enough excitement anymore and they’re bored and tired, it feels like cycles of nature.