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Comic-Con 2007 was probably the most successful Con yet for CCAS. A big part of the entire event was prayer. Before the Con even started the SoCal group and Alpha-Omega members were praying for it and everyone thought that this year would be successful. Each day, at the Con we would pray at our table, we would pray before we left the hotel room, we prayed before the Sunday panel. And I know that the AO guys were praying for us while we were at the Con. The entire CCAS community, praying in unity, was a major factor of the huge impact CCAS had, and all the glory goes to God.
My Con technically started Wednesday afternoon, as I drove to Pasadena to meet up with Eric to talk over logo designs. Later, I drove to Geoff/Jose’s place to spend the night. We talked about the direction of CCAS, the website and other stuff. Excitement was in the air, which, probably explains why I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours that night.
Thursday, 3:00 AM Jose and I woke up (actually Jose didn’t sleep that night), packed up our stuff and headed down to Santa Fe Springs to load up Ralph’s car. Ralph, myself, Jose and Janae (Ralph’s daughter) rode down to the Con together. It took about 2 hours. The dock workers took our boxes to our table, I got the exhibitor badges, and Ralph parked the car simultaneously. We setup the table display, along with our nice new CCAS banner. On our left was Robert Luedke (Eyewitness) and on our right was Christine Kerrick (Empire). How often do three openly Christian tables get placed next to each other? God is so awesome. Thursday had a good crowd of people who stopped by and took our free tracts.
Later that day, Jose and I met in an empty panel room and discussed story ideas. But considering that Jose didn’t sleep at all the previous night, I was talking to myself as Jose was nodding off. After people started coming into the room, Jose and I decided to check into our hotel room early, so we wouldn’t run into any problems like last year. We took a bus up to our hotel (13 blocks away) and checked in with no problem. Our hotel room (Sheraton Suites) was really nice. We took a bus back down to the convention center, finished out the day and then walked to Horton Plaza (a big mall area with a food court) for dinner. Kevin, Heather and joined us and we talked about a wacky story idea called Madge's Beauty Salon (don't ask; Kevin and Ralph started it).
Friday, 8:00 AM, Ralph left early to go setup the table. I followed about an hour and half later, but the bus was running behind schedule, so I decided to just walk. (As a side note, I did more exercise these 4 days than I have all year.) It took about 24 minutes, walking the streets of downtown. Friday turned out to be even more busy than Thursday (it sold out) and we gave out more tracts. I walked up to the freebie table and gave the guy our Christian material (praise God, it wasn’t as much of a problem as it was last year). Scott and a few others showed up Friday. Christine and I did some video evangelism (she would ask someone if they believed in God, what happens when they die, etc.) We interviewed two people and I think it was very effective.
I noticed something different this year: the general feeling among us Christians was that no one really wanted to walk the floor. Everyone I talked to seemed to have not wanted to be there for any other reason than for CCAS. If CCAS weren’t there, most of us would not have been there. That is very encouraging. It means God has been working in our hearts to show us, even more, the benefit of CCAS, and, at the same time, taking us out of the darkness that surrounded us. I admit, I didn’t want to walk around either. There’s nothing there for me at the Con. And that’s how other CCAS members felt. So, due to that, the table was never lacking in terms of manpower. Everyone wanted to help out at the table! And that was awesome! It just meant that spent more time walking around and less time at the table than I have in all my six years of attending. God was working in everyone’s heart and that was very encouraging.
Eric and I walked the floor a lot, wearing our new CCAS shirts. We talked to Sergio Carrielo, Gary Martin, Jesse Hamm, Harold Bucholtz and met Scott Christian Sava. It was fun talking to each of these guys. Even though CCAS is the most openly Christian organization/group of people at the Con, it is so great that God has placed others in other areas of the industry to be a light. Guardian Line (UMI) was also there. Christine’s sister showed up and she was funny! I also saw my good friend Paul Hamerlinck and talked for about an hour. Friday night, Jose and I walked to Wendy’s (a burger place) and then walked back to Horton Plaza to meet up with Ralph and Janae. We then walked back to the hotel.
Saturday morning was busy. It was so busy that the bus was full and couldn’t hold anymore people. So we had to walk to the Con again. The doors opened a half hour earlier, so I had to rush to the table to get the promo stuff for our Saturday Spiritual Themes Panel. Eric and I loaded up boxes full of stuff to take to the panel room. The panel went smoothly. It featured Doug TenNapel, Holly Golightly, Miriam Libicki, Christine Kerrick with Leo Partible as moderator. About 70 people attended. The panel was very well received by the audience. We were also able to give out a bunch of Z Graphic Novels that Zondervan had donated to us. We were happy to help promote their new line and also give an incentive for people to come to the panels.
Linda, Kendra and Geoff came down that day. I left for a few hours to meet up with my parents at Seaport Village. (They were in town, because they planned a little vacation that same weekend). On my way back to the convention center, I took a different way back that had a nice view of the ocean. My Cons have all too often been filled with stress and it was just so nice to take it easy and enjoy the sights and sounds of the ocean.
Janae and I saw Stan Lee talking at a booth about the Iron Man movie. That was cool. The rest of the day flew by. Christine and I drove to meet everyone else at the Horton Plaza. Saturday night was incredibly packed at the Horton Plaza. Each year it gets more difficult to put tables together so all us Christians can eat together. Scott suggested getting a room at the Con and turning it into a Christian Social room, where we could eat and fellowship without worrying about table constraints. Many organizations are able to do this at the convention center and I hope we could do something like that next year.
Sunday morning, we (Ralph, myself, Clint and his son Demarcio) woke up around 7:00 and prayed for the rest of the con, specifically that the Sunday panel would be effective. We checked out of the hotel and headed down the convention center. We walked over to the Omni Hotel and had a nice breakfast with Christine, Janae and Marjane. Scott and Clint took up the promo stuff (catalogs, free books, and business cards) to the panel room. We prayed again before the beginning of the panel. Marjane Johnson opened up with a beautiful worship song and there was an intensity in the room as everyone was worshipping our great God. Ralph then preached on the topic of unity and how we should be united in our mission of Christian comics. The sermon was very well received by the audience. The panel featured Buzz Dixon, Eric Jansen, Robin Parrish with Thom Parham as moderator. Everything went smoothly, thanks in no small part to Scott Shuford's detailed planning. About 90 people attended! It was probably our most successful panel ever, praise God!
The rest of Sunday, Eric and I walked around some more and came back to the table. We watched the table as Ralph took some time to walk around. Everything was depleted by the end of the day: the tracts, free stuff and candy, which is always a good sign of a successful Con. 5:00 PM came and everyone helped us pack up Ralph’s car. We hugged everyone goodbye and Ralph, myself and Janae drove back up to Santa Fe Springs (Jose had left the previous night). Janae did a video interview of me and Ralph (as tired as we were), asking us questions about the Con. We arrived around 8:30 and I drove back home. I made a quick stop at Burger King and got home around 9:30. I was so happy to be back to reality and back home. I was happy to go, and I was happy to be back.
This year marked Ralph’s last year at the Con for a while (in the organization of it anyway). He’s taking a leave of absence. Though, he said that he would attend for one day next year with Janae and Joy. Though we made about half the money we did last year, it is apparent that God blessed us in so many other ways than monetary. Even when our panels were cut by one half hour this year, it didn’t effect the turnout. Even when our Sunday panel was moved to a smaller room, it didn’t affect the turnout. We were so blessed in fellowship, no snags with tables, badges, hotels, the panels went smoothly, tracts were given out, free prayer was given to people and we all had safe trips to and from San Diego.
God blessed our trip this year and we will probably start attending Wizard World in Los Angeles in March. I’m excited to see the new directions that God is taking CCAS. It is so encouraging to have seen everyone taking part of the “whole machine” of the Con. No one had to be micromanaged. If someone saw a need, they did it. I can’t count how many times people would come up to the table (sometimes the same faces we see every year) and tell us how thankful they were that CCAS was there. And that is to the praise of God. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us; you’re just as much a part of Comic-Con as we were! God bless you!
But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. —1 Thessalonians 2:4
August 1, 2007
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