BAD Showcase and Smash 2011

Well the last week was fairly busy on the promoting front. I had a space in the Brisbane Art Directors illustration showcase on the Wednesday night- then off to Sydney on Friday- partly  to catch up with Scholastic and meet with Jon Appleton at Hachette, but mainly because I was on the Art panel and had a table at Smash 2011.
In between all that I was trying to do more little mates stuff and work for 3blokes.
Its a shame I can't show any of the 3blokes stuff (yet?).
The BAD illustration showcase was very well attended I thought- I was relieved. Also relieved that there weren't many other illustrators showing their stuff. Also annoyed that there  weren't more illustrators showing their work- what is it with Brisbane area illustrators? They are such slackarses, but yet there must be a myriad of them out there- think of all those guys working in games alone in the Brisbane area- where are they?
. That said it felt a bit odd showing my stuff to an advertising audience because my work isn't exactly advertising fare- I mean if you look at whats top of the listings on "The Loop" you will understand the difference. But then I figure they're always looking for something different- so I guess that's me in this context.
Visiting Scholastic I noticed there was a veterinary hospital next door to a specialty butcher- a little too convenient don't you think?  ie
"I'm sorry Miss Peabody but your Basset's nice plump leg will just have to come off" or
"I'm sorry sir, I'm afraid there's nothing we could do, however chef could do quite a bit so here is a soup , a pate, and some sausages"
The news from Scholastic was that they would be selling bundles of Little Mates and that they'd scored a deal with Woolworths(could be wrong but one of those big guys) to take on a large quantity of them- so while I don't win book awards, hopefully in time their accountant will buy me a beer.
I then visited Hachette in the city. Its odd- Scholastic is out in the suburbs but appears quite corporate inside- whereas Hachette is in this very corporate looking building in the city but is nicely Terry Gilliam looking inside(which I love) when you are past the front counter.
Hopefully the result will be the long awaited dinosaur book(s) by me,- but if it doesn't happen with Hachette  I'll use the time I'd mentally allocated to doing them for Hachette  in the coming months to work on them myself. Actually int he squiggles below you can see I was doing ideas for my book of fantastic australian creatures- so some dragons that are camouflages like fallen trees, a sort of tea tree swamp creature etc.
It is well past time, and although the cost of self publishing condemns you to maybe building a papier mache shelter out of the unsold copies to keep warm at night, I actually need something of my work to sell at things like Supanova and Smash. (Theres a nice segway).

Smash 2011 is a Manga and Anime event (With lots of Cosplay people wandering around). Apparently last years event at the town hall was a bit of a disaster, but on Saturday there were easily the numbers you'd see at recent Supanovas(>20000?) - so that was good.
The whole thing did sort of reignite my interest in doing a comic or graphic novel - so maybe this time next year I'll have something to show.
I didn't get much time to draw at my table because there were several Art panels that I was a part of- but I did a few pages of doodles- some of which I can show- some I can't because they were 3Blokes related. Thankfully the good people from Kiseki at the table next to mine  kept an eye on my stand while I was away most of the day.
Thanks guys.