Comic Con 2017 (1 of 5) -- Stuart Ng Books Booth

From my estimation... 2017 was Stuart Ng Books 20th year exhibiting at SDCC. We've been attending even longer. Longtime SNB fans know to look for Stuart's 50' space at Booth 5012.

Few people see the hard work behind the scenes to build a bookstore booth from scratch.
It starts back at the store in Torrance.. pulling and boxing stock and loading it onto a truck. Once the truck gets to the convention center... the boxes are hand loaded onto pallets and forklift drivers take them to the SNB booth location...

Stuart and Jim are assisted by a team of local colleagues who have helped with the logistics, set-up and tear down for many years now.

 Stuart and the team assemble the shelves... unbox the books.. and Stuart prints labels throughout the show to help patrons and team staff locate the treasures!

 Stuart spends weeks ahead of the show... organizing maps to lay out the booth.

 Set-up begins on Tuesday....

 And continues on Wednesday morning....

 as more signage is added...

 and the shelves are filled with books..

 Getting everything ready for the opening on preview night...

Shelf below featured vols. 1-3 of Harpy Gee by artist Brianne Drouhard. Since Brianne wasn't able to attend SDCC, she used social media to let her fans know they could find her signed copies of her books -- with a sketch -- at SNB.
http://stuartngbooks.com/harpy-gee-chapter-1-signed-with-a-drawing-en.html

 Thanks to our team of friends and colleagues ... Stuart gets the booth up and running.. with a smile!

 Our rock star cashier Selana is a familiar face to Comic Con patrons!

Stuart is known for rare items... like these exhibition catalogs below from the Art Ludique Museum in Paris.

http://stuartngbooks.com/the-art-of-walt-disney-animation-studios-movement-by-nature-exhibition-catalog.html

 Photo below shows shelf of kids books....from artists like Steph Laberis.
http://stuartngbooks.com/grumpy-cat-a-is-for-awful-little-golden-book.html
Annette Marnat  http://stuartngbooks.com/moana-and-the-ocean.html
and Claire Keane http://stuartngbooks.com/little-big-girl.html

 Another shelf featured English Language editions of popular French graphic novels/Bande Dessinee.
Titles here included volumes from the Valerian Series http://stuartngbooks.com/valerian-2-the-empire-of-a-thousand-planets.html

 The end cap location of the booth help feature stock like statues, prints, best sellers, and a few boxes of sale books...

On Saturday..photo below shows Stuart with guest artist Tony DiTerizzli signing at the booth.

http://stuartngbooks.com/diterlizzi-sketchbook-album-per-schizzi-signed.html

Another photo at the signing.... this one taken by Stuart

50 feet of books is a large space.. but it's still only a fraction of what is in the store and on the website.

After Comic Con closes at 5PM on Sunday.. the clock starts ticking for tear-down and load out. Again, our local helpers arrive to get the job done

This means packing boxes, tearing down the fixtures, securing all the items onto the pallets so they can get forklifted back to the loading docs.. Then even later in the evening... the SNB crew packs the truck for the trip home.

Thanks to the support of con attendees, we are grateful to take home fewer boxes than what we bring. And the boxes we do bring back include new items. Stuart's customers who can't make it to Comic Con, count on him bringing back the best selection of sketchbooks from his many artist contacts. 

San Diego Comic Con has exploded in growth and popularity over the years. While this is good news overall.. it does bring challenges. Logistics for doing the show... and expenses for both attendees and exhibitors.. have become more complicated. A full schedule of activities on the convention grounds... and the many FREE attractions surrounding the convention... all compete for the time and budget of attendees. 

Indie artists and other small vendors appreciate the attendees who are making the choice to find new art.. and shop at small businesses.