Comic Con 2010, views of our booth

New Post AUG 14.... In case you've wondered what it takes to get 7 tons of books and fixtures down to comic con to set up our 50 foot long booth, here's a look...

First it takes STEVE... Stuart's brother, who joins us every year at comic con and drives the (ever bigger and bigger) rental truck Stuart picks...This year's truck was a 24-footer. That's a big truck kids...

Now when we get to the convention center w/ our truck, we have a team of friends who help us move the boxes and fixtures from inside the truck onto pallets. Teamsters at the convention center then shrinkwrap and fork-lift the pallets to our booth, where we get to unwrap the shrinkwrap, move everything inside the booth and start the set-up. And the whole operation works in reverse for load-out on Sunday night...

All this labor is provided by team Stuart Ng (Stuart, Mary, Peggy and me)... and our "andy hardy puts on a show" group of bookseller and convention buddies who pitch in to help us. There's a romantic idea of being a bookseller w/ your quiet little store and your smoking jacket...and then there's the reality that books are HEAVY and there's actually a lot of lifting and moving involved in the job. I'm lucky that Stuart buffers me from most of that these days, but I've done my share. But there are times (usually Sunday afternoon at comic con) when I wished we sold feather boas or Styrofoam instead of boxes of books for a living...

So kids, when you think about all the man0power it takes, just remember how hard Stuart works to price the books fairly for an event like this. Our prices are the same if you buy the book at the convention...or from our website. The service we provide you is bringing you the books so you can see them in person and make your choice for which books suit your needs. But just like you had to pay a fee to get into the convention... we have expenses for the cost of the booth space, transportation, lodging... etc....Which is why I like the quote from Liz Ohanesian in her LA Weekly "Best of LA 2009" review of Stuart Ng Books as the Best Comic/Art bookshop: "Stuart Ng Books isn't cheap, but it is reasonable."

My favorite customer comment from the 2010 con.... when he looked at our 50 feet of French comics (the largest inventory of this type of material on the convention floor) and said: "Oh wow you have French comics!..... Is this all you brought."

Below are views of the booth before the show is open to the public, so you can see the size of the space and the variety of the material....

This year, as last, the rare books were on the wooden shelves near the cashiers. We bring all this shelving material with us, and most of the tables that you see in the booth. We also bring and assemble the heavy metal grids and shelves that display the French albums. Our friends Long and Brandon help us build those during set-up. There are pics of them in action in the 2009 comic con posts.

Stuart designs all our display banners. They are quite popular, and we've even been asked if they are for sale...

Here's a good view of the interior of the booth and the grids and tables. We also bring and assemble the rows of flip boxes for the French books....