Conferences in Quebec City

Blog
Conferences in Quebec City
By Hervé St-Louis
October 14, 2010 - 21:29

I've been very busy to say the least. If you've asked me to review a book through email or Twitter, sorry for the late replies. I'm in my last crunch for my thesis and very busy overall. Here in Canada, it was our Thanksgiving weekend which matches the US' Columbus Day. It was a hell of a weekend.

The guys at Cape and Kimono, a new comic book convention in Quebec City invited me as one of their guest to deliver a few conferences. I did three in all on Saturday alone. I couldn't stay for Sunday because of family obligations in Montreal.

So on Friday, I traveled across Canada from Calgary to Edmonton to Toronto and finally to Quebec City. Deliver my conferences all day in Quebec City related to comics of course and then rode to Montreal for a one day visit. Then left Monday morning at the earliest hour to fly back to Calgary.

Woah. Still pretty tired. Next, is all the work I've been doing to finish my thesis. I've got a bunch of data to finish crunching through and analyze. Not easy work but it's all original research so it's worth it.

And of course, I've been working like a madman on ComicBookBin apps all year long and show not signs of stopping. There's so much left to do with those apps it's crazy. The only thing is that there's work for three platforms now to do.

Of course more platforms are on the way, but I'm not ready to announce anything. Maybe after I shouldn't release anymore apps until I'm completely done with my thesis....

Yeah right, like that's gonna happen. The Android app needs an update pronto.

Thank god the guys at the Bin have been doing their share of work and keep the site up and running while I run all over the place.

I still find time to read comics though and have stocked up on tons of Euro comics over the weekend while in Quebec City. Thanks to the trusty store locators in the ComicBookBin apps, I was able to find the store just one block away from my hotel in Quebec City.

It's always fun to use the store locator and see what stores it finds locally. It does a pretty bang up job overall. It just works.

The conferences in Quebec City were in French, so the PowerPoint material was also in French. Too bad because it was great material that was well received by the crowd that attended. They all liked the two topics I discussed.

One of the topics was called the comic book ecosystem. It borrows from some older articles I wrote years ago on the site but updates everything. It's actually university-level material with an interesting approach to comics and sales.

The other topic was another dear one to me which was about business plans for comics publishers. If you've followed the Bin for a while, you'll know about those classic articles I started way back in 2006 which are still going on - whenever I have time. They take a lot of efforts.

You could say that sales and comics is one of my favourite topics and I'd like to discuss that some more. If you want me to discuss my insights at one of your cons, just let me know and be prepared to fly me over for the weekend.

The guys at Cape and Kimono were super cool by the way and got me a great room in a boutique hotel called Pur, in the St-Roch neighbourhood in Quebec City, just off the old city. Their organizers were great and even picked me up at the airport with one of those cool signs with your name on it!

The event seemed super crowded for the small Pur Hotel, and I like that there were a lot of fans of all ages there.

Quebec City and Montreal are odd places for the comic book world. Like was mentioned by some of the people I met there, the mix of French and English raises the bar in terms of what product ends up the shelves. If a new comic book is not good, it's not gonna stay long in a general bookstore. But the selection is not a problem at all. Whenever I visit Quebec, I always find it difficult to leave without at least five books.