SPX

The two panels I went to were "Life, Death and Comics" and one about building webcomics. The "Life, Death and Comics" panel was about writing and drawing memoir comics! They had three authors to talk about their most recent memoirs. Some advice I thought was funny but helpful was to portray yourself truthfully, even if you were in an asshole in the situation! Readers will be able to tell if you're being genuine or not. Similar advice was to draw yourself worse than you draw the other characters! Readers won't like it if you draw yourself really beautifully- it feels shallow. My favorite advice from this panel was about why these authors liked using comics as a medium (as opposed to just writing their life-stories) and that was because they said comics are very accessible and immediate- and memoirs work the best when they're immediate. The other panel was also very helpful. They had three "P's" to remember when making webcomics: people, persistence and pennies! They also had advice on what websites to host your comics on, how to make money off those websites and readers, and how to publish your webcomics in print. My favorite tip from here was about networking- you should link to your friend's comics, you should meet other artists- anything to put yourself out there and make readers feel like they're in a cool "club" by reading your work! Ultimately SPX was really helpful, and all the art being sold at the tables was really amazing and unique- I can't believe how packed the room was and still, every piece of art was a completely different style. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to go; I've heard about SPX before and now I finally went!