Crypticon Wrap-up

Well, that’s another Crypticon in the rear view, and like last year, I had more fun than I would have expected, and managed to sell a few books to boot, so I’m calling it a win. I split a table with Sean Demory, Marshall Edwards, and the fine folks from the KC Conjure Shop, who brought along a bowl of chicken feet that got a surprisingly strong reaction from a lot of the people wandering the vendor room. We were part of a “writers alley” taking up the back corner of the room, where we had a nice amount of space, even if it got pretty darn hot before the weekend was out.

Friday night we did a reading followed by a demonstration from the KC Conjure folks. It didn’t have a huge turn out, but seemed to go over well, and afterward someone came by and bought one of everything at our table, which was pretty cool. I finally snagged a Critters t-shirt from the folks at Atomic Cotton, and I saw someone wandering around wearing the Creepshow shirt that Trevor Henderson designed for them!

The costumes this year were less things-that-could-only-be-described-with-elevator-pitches (e.g. Stargate Wolverine, tiny Freddy Krueger) and more clearly characters from things that I just didn’t recognize (probably a lot of Walking Dead, a few videogames). I saw a girl dressed as–apparently–a “Clicker” from The Last of Us, which I’d never played but which is, apparently, a fungus zombie. So that was awesome. I think Sean captured the photo that defined the con when he snapped a picture of an ax-murdering panda hanging out with two demons, one with no skin. 

There was one distinctive elevator pitch costume, though. Almost certainly just a character from something–probably an anime–that I didn’t recognize, I could only describe him as “Matador Cop,” which led us all to the conclusion that Matador Cop is a show that desperately needs to exist.

I did get to meet all the Monster Squad folks who were there, including almost literally running into Stephen Macht. But probably the coolest thing I did was meeting and giving a copy of my book to Charles Band. He was incredibly friendly and seemed genuinely touched to receive the book, and because they were running a special on it anyway, I ended up walking away from their table signed up for the Full Moon Streaming service and with an armload of free merch. It was a blast, even if some technical difficulties meant that the signup took a lot longer than expected. I think me and the girl doing the signups bonded over our shared trauma.

I ended up selling through enough of my stock that I decided not to go back on Sunday, which is probably good because I got hit with a bad case of post-con crash and pretty much spent the entire day resting. I’m feeling a bit on the mend today, though I’m trying hard to avoid catching any con crud. 

All in all, it was a great con and I had a lot of fun. I don’t know if I’ll have a table next year or not, but I’ll probably be around, and if you’re in the neighborhood and think you might dig a cool horror convention, you should definitely stop on by!