We… did a lot of markets… festivals… conventions… we did a lot of travelling this year meeting all of you fantastic lovely people who helped keep our heads above water.
SO–I wanted to try this thing where I do a round up of all our convention tables at the end of the year just to see how our display progresses over time. The last time we made a post like this was back in 2022!! During 2023 we did a couple posts dedicated to individual conventions but the upkeep on that one was a bit more challenging.
So here we are making a new round up for 2025 and hoping to upkeep it going forward~!
MONTREAL MAKER’S MARKET (MARCH)
Look… I… had ordered or was about to order the runner at the beginning of the year but March kind of snuck up on the two of us okay. Don’t look at me.
We started real early this year in March…. usually our first show of the year is all the way in April but looking at 2026–seems like our new normal is March-to-December with only 2 months of peace and quiet but hey. I don’t remember too much from this edition of MMM. I think it was pretty quiet. Not our best show, not really the worst. We did decent for a weekend but, personally? Not worth the hassle from two folks who need a bit of extra time making shit and telling stories.
ANIME OTTAWA
Ohboy Ottawa… We made the trip and that’s about it. That seems to be the uh, common trend with Ottawa shows, unfortunately–that doesn’t make for very encouraging likelihoods for us to return. I know we were a bit more disappointed with this particular show because it posits itself like an Anime show but it really just feels like Ottawa Comiccon… 2 since it is also located in the EY centre.
Anyway… this one’s a bitch to get to if you don’t have a car and if its a bitch for me, a walking vendor to get to without a car, it also makes it nearly impossible for younger folks without transit options to reach the center which means nobody shows up. I (and many other vendors) have brought up the issue of this particular expo hall to the convention staff who uh… for lack of a better word: Dont Give a Rat’s–AND keep increasing the table costs. So. Miss me with that whole shit.
Sorry Ottawa. Love you and your people but the hosts of these particular conventions suck 8) Maybe–we will be lucky enough to get into your furry-con and be back some day!
CALGARY EXPO
We were in the BMO this year??? We were in the BMO this year! Yippee! This show always splits us between the Big Four Building and the much bigger BMO building in Calgary’s Stampede Park and we’ve managed to make the Big Four work for us for the past seven (already??) years and grew there but this year the whole convention’s AA and Vendor alleys were placed in the BMO building together. Our revenue went up a bit more, mostly because I think the shuffle this year made it difficult for some folks to find us… but ALSO because we were hit with a LOT of folks who straight up had never seen us at the show before. I really hope we’re back there again this year. I–admittedly prefer the string lights and general Vibe of the Big Four but the foot traffic in the BMO makes up for it… considerably for us.
FESTIVAL JOUISSIF
This one was our third back-to-back with Calgary Expo being a big travel-con (across the country) for us and we were exhausted by the time we got here… only to find out we had to tear-down at the end of Saturday because the con staff wanted to do some burlesque shows in the pool area (le Bain Mathieu is a really fucking cool location/venue for a market but that tear down that particular weekend had me seeing daggers at the really friendly market staff (i love you guys but my god… teardown every day… that’s insane). Luckily the next iteration was in a different venue to accommodate extracurriculars without mandating teardown every evening~)
FESTIVAL BD DE MONTREAL (MCAF)
Boy….. did we have real piss poor luck with the weather this year. LOL. It’s been a real minute since we had such a miserable weekend for MCAF. 10 degrees in rainy chill… I don’t think I’ve been so cold in May in all my life. We were all layered up, leggings, jeans, 3 layers of shirts, several layers of socks…. hats… But boy did we sell. For as miserable as it was, Montreal still came out to support comics, real rain or shine attitude out here. I spoke to a lot of the vendors that weekend and despite the weather, everyone seemed to have great things to say. Made me real proud of this festival and how far it’s come since moving to St Denis street. The city really comes alive here. We found a LOT of folks were asking us if we’d tabled that at the rest of our local shows this year so its starting to make a real impression!
TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL (TCAF)
TCAF was also in a different location this year. The Mattamy Athletics Center has a real potential, I think, though TCAF staff is going to need to make sure their table spacing is a bit more refined. I’m really sincerely asking people who host conventions to put breaks in the line-up every 2 tables please, so people can get out and go to the bathroom without feeling like a nuisance to the rest of their vending colleagues.
Unrelated…. but this weekend had a lot of really bad air quality. The smoke was atrocious. Outside the festival’s control of course but, wow. Not going to lie that smoke really left me with a pit of dread and had me drafting a post about Artist Alley’s and our responsibility on the environment just to ease some of my anxiety. Maybe one day I’ll finish and be brave enough to post it.
Another tidbit for my memory bank is a friend from the US came to hang out with us that weekend and wound up selling comms at the table because we ran out of a bunch of our stock. Her perspective on comics…. well it really kinda gave a new life to the show and made it one of our most memorable TCAFs in recent years. Idk. I still think about it and it brings a smile to my face waah. ANYWAY OK MOVING ON–
MONTREAL COMICCON (MTLCC)
This show was on the Downsize Block for us this year after last year did so bad…. and the con staff ….. increased the table’s prices again… Would you believe this show costs us more $ to vend at than Calgary Expo? Even though it only has a fraction of the foot traffic.
Luckily, we did well enough this year the double-table spread lives on for another year but it is… not our most lucrative and continues to price out local talent so we’re at severe odds with the way it’s run. I’ve spoken up to the staff about it before & my concerns for the rising costs of the tables and they basically told us that we were the only ones complaining (even though we uh… talk to other artists… many of whom have also brought up complaints and were told the same).
We noticed, that since addressing rising table costs with MCAF (by comparison) they did drop the prices of their tables for the 2026 edition which has me absolutely taken aback that a con would actually consider it. But that’s MCAF– MTLCC refuses to engage with its AA even a little bit. This is the same group of people who runs Ottawa Comiccon so I’m not entirely shocked by their lack of uh… consideration for the people who basically make up their show.
MONTREAL MAKER’S MARKET (JULY)
I love my little Maker’s Markets here in Montreal but boy is a show in 40C weather with no air conditioning absolutely… Not For Me. We did okay considering the sweltering temperatures and while I was happy to try it at least once um… I don’t think I’m personally fit to do it again. We absolutely melted that weekend.
OTAKUTHON
We were in Vendors this year and to save some time here, I can direct you on over to a post I made about our experience in vendors vs our usual experience in AA if you were curious. Notable at this one is we were pretty sure we were going to run out of our plush at this con but they didn’t wind up moving as fast as I was hoping they might. Ah well. Did pretty decent anyway. Definitely not as well as our usual.
OTTAWA COMICCON
Ottawa Comiccon… my beloathed. As always, love the attendees, the people, you’re fantastic but I can’t even get my 5G to work at this show so we’re also having to buy an esim just to get it to work or risk (checks notes) paying 50$ a day for internet that doesn’t even work. This was our second year doing the show back-to-back… we wanted to give it one more shot to see if we can get things to grow/move from last year but…. yeah… no. I think its our last take here for a while.
GOUTTIERES ET GRIBOUILLES
A very first edition of (potentially) a new comics market~ G&G was quiet, as we expected but the atmosphere was honestly fantastic! It was really cool being able to shoot the shit with our local comics scene a lot of us don’t get to talk very much working on our own stories and in our own heads a lot of the time so it was nice! I got to talk a lot with Cab about a cool project she’s inking for… ironically while I was in the middle of inking Tas’ new graphic novel we’ve been scrambling on all year. There’s just something special about being the inker on a project.
Funny lil anecdote is uh… on the Sunday there was a marathon cutting right between our neighbourhood and the one this market was located in so the two of us had to walk almost an hour and a half to get there. Weather was nice so it was a gorgeous stroll and we were both pretty proud of the fact that our endurance has gone up a lot since we started working out hell yeah.
HAL-CON SCI FI CON
Folks… after a nice month-long break…. and 6 years since the last time… we finally made it back to Halifax for Hal-Con… and boy did I miss this show. I really missed this show. Halifax is such a fantastic city–so fantastic I almost wrote ‘wonderful’ like I’m some sorta gramps. Anyway. It rained on and off all weekend but we did amazing. People are always so friendly here. We talked a lot about our work and folks had a lot of incredibly nice things to say. I’m just so sorry its really difficult for us to get into this show. Its small. Real small. But in a good way, so I totally get organisers being picky about who is in or not. I’ll still be rattling at the doors next year when signups happen! These folks know how to run a con. We had free wifi for our Square readers. Free. Incredible! Bottled water every day?? Wow. seATS WITH CUSHIONS…. luxury.
This weekend we also got to hang out with a few friends, catch up, eat some fantastic fish & chips! It was really nice ;v;/
QUEERSMAS
Queersmas (I think they made this title the more official one because last year we did it and it was just a Christmas Edition of Festival Jouissif). This one’s always a joy…. admittedly I feel really intimidated by how cool everyone at this show is. Everyone’s so nice, and confident and comfortable. I feel really connected to the queer community here every time we do it. Maybe one day I’ll feel a bit less shy and take some folks up on their suggestions to do pottery classes or printmaking. This one took place over at L’Usine C which is… a really cool looking location. I did miss Le Bain Mathieu because that one’s just closer to our neighbourhood but… not having to tear down was a massive bonus so I’ll take it.
FESTIVAL HOBBY (MINI COMICCON)
Festival Hobby or… Mini Montreal Comiccon Christmas Delux Whatever The Hell They Wanna Call it is usually our top show in the Holiday Run we do and this year? Ohboy. It was no exception!! We did the best numbers we’ve done since we’ve started and we were honestly a bit floored by it! Luckily our costs are pretty low going into this one so we could really use the big boost this time of year.
Little shoutout to our neighbours this time! We were (finally) placed beside my buddy Gen and their small biz: The Lost Attic only to find out they were retiring the business and stepping away from conventions. This was their very last one! (If there’s still a few items on their website you like you might wanna pick something up for yourself!)
It’s a little sad finding out a friend’s quitting the circuit but heartening to find out that stepping back is actually an option… honestly markets and cons can be fun but they’re also extremely exhausting haha. Gen, if you’re reading this I’m happy for you! Thanks for spending your last market weekend with us : P
XXXMAS (MMM DECEMBER)
XXXMAS Montreal Maker’s Market was the one that got us a bit hooked on Maker’s Markets if I’m going to be honest! We’ve done this one 3 years in a row now and its always a blast and a riot. This year…. we were a wee bit worried we were gonna end 2025 off on a whimper, sales-wise. This weekend we were competing with a LOT of other holiday markets going on at once so it meant a lot of the city’s shoppers were pretty scattered about. But boy does Sunday’s Burlesque show ever bring people in. Its such a fun addition to the atmosphere. People have fun. Its a chill space. What more could you ask for?
BIG DATA
Here’s where I get to put all of our tally sheets in a couple of funky little tables for anyone who is curious about that sort of thing–don’t get TOO excited. I’m not dropping how much we made because I’m a gatekeeping shithead (jk I just believe in this thing called: Privacy). But without further ado… THE NUMBERS:
| CONVENTION | BOOKS SOLD | ITEMS SOLD |
|---|---|---|
| MMM (MARCH) | 9 | 25 |
| ANIME OTTAWA | 50 | 38 |
| CALGARY EXPO | 81 | 308 |
| JOUISSIF | 15 | 26 |
| FBDMCAF | 109 | 135 |
| TCAF | 127 | 130 |
| MTLCC | 78 | 281 |
| MMM (JULY) | 7 | 34 |
| OTAK | 82 | 269 |
| OCC | 24 | 84 |
| G&G | 20 | 12 |
| HAL-CON | 58 | 252 |
| QUEERSMAS | 21 | 39 |
| FESTIVAL HOBBY | 35 | 93 |
| XXXMAS (MMM) | 24 | 23 |
| TOTALS 2025 | 740 | 1749 |
| TOP CON | TCAF | CALGARY EXPO |
Okay so it seems a little crazy that I’ve lumped all the Items in one column but its mostly because a lot of our stuff is getting an overhaul this year (we’re phasing out a lot of our pins and shifting towards more embroidered goods). We’re also a lot more focused, personally on how many books we can get out vs the merch that basically pays for their printing.
Okay this last chart I wanna make is mostly in relation to how many of each title we sold & at what con they sold best at~
| TITLE | # SOLD | BEST CON | # SOLD AT CON |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lost Time | 103 | MCAF | 22 |
| Lost Time Artbook | 28 | TCAF | 8 |
| Prism Knights | 68 | MCAF | 10 |
| MR: Iphigenia | 45 | MTLCC/TCAF | 7 |
| MR: Atalanta | 41 | TCAF | 10 |
| MR: Medusa | 67 | MTLCC | 11 |
| Augustine | 48 | Calgary Expo | 8 |
| PTTR (V1-3) | 105 | TCAF | 21 |
| Lab Partners | 82 | TCAF | 15 |
| Magic Word | 15 | TCAF | 3 |
| Dino Dykes | 43 | TCAF | 10 |
| Dinovember 2024 | 33 | MCAF | 8 |
| Fakemon Zine | 39 | TCAF | 12 |
I have to say that breaking things down like this I am totally shocked by some of these numbers. There are a lot of books we have to pick & choose and even Limit how many we bring to a show. But even something like TCAF where we only pack 10-15 copies of each book because we prefer to sell out of an item than have to haul anything home, seems to be the consistent record breaker over local shows like MCAF/MTLCC/OTAK. I’d love to go into the minutae a bit more, things like Paint The Town Red have been a bit of a tiresome group of books to haul around and this didn’t even break down how much of each volume sold. It looks impressive having topped Lost Time but Lost Time is much more consistent in its sales, as a published book with marketing and distribution. People See It More so when they catch the real author selling it at a con, it sells consistently double or triple what any of our selfpub could ever make. (I really want to do a breakdown of self vs tradpub–maybe one day maybe one day)
I’d also love to do a breakdown of merch but that will take me much longer than I want to spend on a general overview here so maybe if that interests people, once I’ve plugged in all my data (stop I’m a professional I swear) I’ll maybe make a post going over trends we’ve noticed through the past 5 years as it pertains to our own personal business? As mentioned above, within some sort of limitation because I still think we’re entitled some privacy with regards to how much actual $ we make. Though if you catch us at a con and wanna shoot the shit about numbers we’re usually pretty happy to if there’s a give & take!
Overall, pretty pleased with how this year went, more thoughts on things once I finally plug in a bunch of numbers from previous years and can do proper comparisons! That’s what it looks like generally doing conventions on a professional level, I’d say (please if you’re new to this do NOT look at these numbers and compare to your own we’ve been doing this as W&W for almost 7 years now and Winter’s been in the con game for easily 12 years in total). This doesn’t take into account cost of printing or tabling or what have you. Keep that in mind if you’re looking into doing something like this! (As always ask us questions I’d be happy and excited to make blog posts about anything folks are curious about… I’m just scattered as shit and struggle to focus. Questions really help me narrow things down)!
OVERALL THOUGHTS
5 markets is a little, 15 markets is a lot.
Yes yes, I’m neurodivergent enough to quote the nutrition table on the backs of Canadian food products what do you want from me.
I think we hit a bit of our limit this year, between 15 markets throughout the year and trying to squeeze out an entire 245 page graphic novel in 8 months. I keep peering across the fence to the folks doing upwards of 20-30-40 markets or whatever in a year and wonder how the hell they have so much energy to be able to do that but you know, most of them are not being fucking insane and also drawing comics for a living so I’m giving us a bit of slack on that.
We did a lot of these in 2025, mostly because our online sales completely tanked. We lost a lot of our safety net (a consistent stream of online sales) and were scrambling with a noose around our neck in the shape of a certain Kickstarter that got jammed up in the de-minimis kerfuffle in August (and we wound up having to pay…. way more out of pocket for…). Needless to say. I’m exhausted. We’re exhausted. But still we must go on.
Next year you can catch us bright and early in MARCH (wheeze) for our first ping-pong–we’re hopping from Vancoufur to Toronto’s Furnal Equinox–wish us lucK~!
For now… we rest~
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