ALA Post Game

I spent the last five days in Washington DC for the American Library Association's annual conference. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a chance to explore the city as I had hoped, but it was neat knowing the White House was just a five minute walk away from the hotel.

ALA is a different show from other conventions. First, it isn't a comics crowd, but rather a gathering of, you guessed it, librarians and educators all searching for books and ways of getting those books into students' hands.

Second, it's traditionally not a heavy selling show. Most attendees are scouting for materials on which to spend their (often extremely limited) budget. However, many convention-goers came to the booth looking to expand on their personal collections (I will say, however, that nearly 50% of people that purchased books said they were buying them as gifts. But the high volume of "gift buying" made me curious: Is there a sense of shame in proudly reading comics among academics?)

All of that being said, I sold out of everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I have never done that at a show before. I've sold out of specific titles and books (28 Days Later, HEXED, and Fall of Cthulhu: The Fugue often sell out at shows), but never have I sold out of everything so quickly. 28 Days Later was gone by the second afternoon. HEXED, the morning after. All six volumes of Fall of Cthulhu sold out by the third day. Also Zombie Tales and X Isle were gone by day three. It was surreal.

But the biggest benefit of the show is connecting with educators and exposing them to our books. There's a tremendous demand for reading material for Jr. High and High School students and educators are looking to graphic novels to meet that demand. For most, it's the graphic novel section of their libraries that is growing the most (and in several cases, seeing the most activity among readers). And I'm thrilled to be a part of that.