SPACE was pretty great overall. I liked the broad range of exhibitors, from young and old, from established creators to newcomers. It also felt very welcoming and I felt a good sense of community. The exhibitors all seemed excited to see each other and to get to spend time together.

Now while I’m not an exhibitor at these sorts of shows, I know plenty of creators so I do benefit and enjoy the hanging out aspect. But I think if you’re just a general attendee, SPACE probably isn’t big enough to fill up your entire weekend. Although I’ve heard mixed things about sales, I do know exhibitors who did well this year and usually do fairly well at this show. I have nothing to compare this year to since I’ve never gone before, but while it never packed, there seemed to be consistent attendee traffic most of the time I was there. (People wondered if the conflict with C2E2 mattered but I don’t know if anyone came up with a conclusion. I bet there will be more discussion of that in the next few days.)

The hotel itself is fine — pretty clean and spacious and maybe it’s a Midwest thing, but the drinks at the hotel bar were cheap (but I’m used to DC-area drink prices so maybe I don’t have a good comparison). Yes, there was some amusement over the other groups in the hotel (hunters and beef farmers, apparently) but everyone behaved themselves. As far as I know.

I do have to complain about the area, though. I know many factors go into why events like this are held where they are and I completely understand why SPACE would have to be there, but it is fairly isolated. I didn’t have my own transportation and the nearest major grocery store was about a mile and a half away. I don’t think the neighborhood is particularly dangerous, but there’s just not much around there.

If I go back next year, I’ll just be better prepared.

I took some photos of the, er, fun on Saturday night, which I may put up on Facebook and/or Flickr, but I completely forgot to take any photos of the show itself. Rafer Roberts has a few on Flickr (including one of me intently studying my bottle of Mexican Coke) and Matt Dembicki has others on his site, including a few from the pre-party at Packrat Comics.

Overall, I’m very happy I went. I’m very excited to dig through the comics I bought and I came away with a couple of new friends. I’d say it was pretty much a success.

Still, money is an issue, so that quickly began ruling things out (one of these years, I’ll make it to Stumptown Comics Fest, I swear). But Ohio didn’t seem to far off and the list of exhibitors had some old favorites and some creators who don’t seem to go out to the East Coast too often, so it seemed like a good idea.

So I enlisted my friend Timothy Lantz to come along and suggested he get a table (it’s not necessarily his scene or crowd, but he knows a few people who do exhibit there every year). It will be great to see him for an extended length of time.

Yes, I know everyone else is going to C2E2 and while it wasn’t an option for me, really, I’m still happy to be going to SPACE.

If you’ll be there, I’ll likely be hanging around Tim’s table quite a bit. Otherwise, I’ll be buying and reading comics and the sorts of things people do at shows like this.

I will probably be updating throughout on Twitter and Facebook, but I’ll have something up here no later than Monday evening.

It will be a fun vacation. And will continue my tradition of visiting places and really only seeing the inside of a hotel/conference center.