Flatstock 53 & SXSW Gaming Expo

I'd be lying if I said I was a little worried about not making it out to Flatstock this year...  but I pulled a number of strings during the week to open up my schedule on Saturday to take in the legendary poster show.

I can't shake the feeling that Flatstock seems to be getting a little smaller every year...  the floor was set up a little differently so maybe it was the same size as last year but the floor was laid out differently.  I can't seem to shake the feeling that maybe poster making is a little saturated right now and its becoming harder and harder to come to these things and becoming acquainted with new and consistent work.

A couple of years ago the median price for posters seemed to go up from $20/25 to  $35/50....  it felt like posters came back down to $25 across the board.  Actual gig-posters (which is what I gravitate to) has kinda taken a big hit to poster makers making artwork prints in poster or t-shirt wearables.   

I kinda hoped to see more screened record mats, but I didn't really see that materialize.

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I came pretty close to not picking up any posters this year until I struck up a conversation with one of the vendors at Mercadorama.  They had a number of Cafe Tacvba posters that caught my eye that seemed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their seminal album: RE.  I learned that Senior Designer at Starbucks - Victor Melendez got tapped to do the poster work so I jumped at snagging a copy for my collection.

Gaming Expo

So one of the biggest surprises I had over the weekend was getting to spend a few hours at the SXSW Gaming Expo.  I have never been to a "gaming convention" of this size or quality before... but I was happy to see that it included - Console, Tabletop, Mobile Device and Computer game development.

Attendance was strong for the event...  I believe the graduated to the Austin Convention Center this year and I suspect that this will move to a bigger room next year.  I've never been to E3 - but I would liken it to that to anything else I'm familiar with.

Picked up a card game called Gruff while there too.

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Staple 10

Attended an Independent Media expo over the weekend called Staple in Austin Texas over the weekend.  I kinda heard about it last minute and I lucked out by having a pair of friends express some interest in tagging along so I wouldn't have to drive out there alone.

The show exceeded all of my expectations.  It was held in a theater so a full was available to grab hooch and walk around.  The assembled group of artists were stellar - in addition to picking up a small collection of books that seemed interesting - I picked up a beautiful signed & numbered screen print from a comic I started reading late last year called Sex Criminals.

I wish I had brought my copies so that Chip Zdarsky could have signed them.