TCAF's Digital Marketplace is in full swing! Here's a smattering of what you can find in my shop! Be sure to check out the greater marketplace for combined shipping across the whole convention!

My work ranges from official Dungeons and Dragons dice bags and plushies to zines and comics, and keychains and stickers!

Guess what’s coming back in time for TCAF next month!

I'm exhibiting at the digital TCAF for the next two weeks! You can get my latest books, including my new EXPERTISE (vol 2 of my DnD art book series) and STRAY AND FOUND, the zine about a very familiar character of mine!

You can also get a limited number of my dice bags and plushies this way too!

Exhibiting in artist alleys while disabled and chronically ill

Hey all! I thought I'd get some thoughts out in regards to conventions and what I personally have gone through to continue exhibiting at conventions after becoming chronically ill and disabled. Obviously, it's a personal perspective, and not by any means a one size fits all summary. This topic has been weighing on me of late, through a combination of wistfully wishing I could attend the conventions I can see via social media my friends are all at, interacting and selling and making connections and most of all having fun, and a sullen realization that I may not be physically able to continue selling at the convention I've had a table at for six years.

My personal condition mixes heavy dietary restrictions (celiac disease, intolerances like egg, nut, dairy, plus low FODMAP diet) with a chronic illness called POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), which causes me to suffer from heat intolerance (hugely problematic since cons tend to be in the summer, and regardless of air conditioning, once those bodies fill the place up, it's very hot), dizziness, lightheadedness, blurry vision, not able to walk far unassisted (I use a rollator, which I'll come back to in a later section), blood pooling in my legs, brain fog, fainting on standing, insomnia (which worsens symptoms, and I ALWAYS get pre-con jitters leading to insomnia), and several medications every four hours. So basically... really fun times! At Fan Expo Canada, my biggest and most profitable convention which I've exhibited at, as mentioned, for the last six years, I am situated on an endcap table. It was at first a strategic move - my first year was down an aisle, and while it was a great start to be artist alley career, the end cap proved to receive far more foot traffic. So I partnered up with friends of mine and split the end cap tables. The end cap is essentially two tables, and similarly priced to the regular aisle tables, but with the bonus of FAR more foot traffic and visibility. The extra bonus, which later proved to be a downfall in terms of sales, was that we were the last aisle and very close to the bathrooms. Once I became too sick (still yet undiagnosed at this point) to make it far on my own, the nearby bathrooms were a godsend, and the “extra space” the endcap provided was the only way I could actually get my rollator/wheelchair to fit behind the tables. (Sidenote here: Fan Expo is actually terrible about giving you room behind the tables. For the artists down the aisles, they're told they have 3 feet of space behind their tables. That 3 feet includes chairs and sometimes banners... and bumps right up against the other person facing out the other way. People clamber down, knocking banners, bonking chairs, tripping over merch, just to make it down to where I am and guiltily ask me to move my seat, my wheelchair, so they can get by and go to the bathroom or get food. And I have MORE space than them and they still can't get by!!) The end row... not so much, as buyers rarely made it all the way down there, considering there are about 500 tables before ours to wear out their patience and wallets before making it there.

So, while the positioning is ideal for me with my physical condition, it became clear in the last two years that sales were plummeting. The toll it took on my health in order to get to the convention at all, nevermind make it through the day, became very clear in 2017. My dear mother, who has been ridiculously accommodating and abundantly helpful as my table helper, gently suggested that maybe I can't do this anymore. What was once my nerdy four day Christmas had become an incredibly stressful, time consuming, health destroying money pit.

I used to cosplay. That joy was taken from me by my chronic illness, as was any chance I could walk around the convention I loved so much since first going to it in my college years.

Pre-illness, cosplaying Arya Stark.

To give you a rough idea of what it's now like for me to set up and vend at Fan Expo:

Set Up:

The Convention:

My view for most of the convention.

Takedown:

Riding home with this very heavy spinner rack on my lap.

What was my point in writing all this? Well, there are several, and... sort of... none. I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to vent, even if no one may read this and give me feedback on what I should do. But most of all, I want to give feedback to the convention world on what THEY should do.

Make conventions shorter.

Make artist alleys more user friendly.

Make online conventions.

Thanks for reading!

You can find my work in the following places: