Singapore Toys and Comics Convention – Sunday

STCC finally came to a close last night, and I think overall it turned out better then many of us had expected. There were complaints about the size of the exhibition space, crowdedness and teething problems with queue-organization…but I guess its difficult to avoid these things at a first time event. Attendance was probably bout 50-70,000, which is impressive given even San  Diego CC is bout 125,000 a year.

One great thing bout STCC was seeing so many fellow creators together; left to right above are Tan Eng Huat,  Kenny Chua, Rixou, Michael and Julian ‘Lefty’ of Gilamon, Derrick, and Kai and DCJW from IFS (the name of the girl in blue escapes me :p)

Not to mention the ever ebullient Jerome Hinds , Skan Srisuwan and Zemotion (who had to run off for an assigment in Paris on saturday, so its her sister assistant (?) and Geraldine and fellow Wacom exhibitor in the pic :p).

Left is super helpful Winston Goh from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose has a folder full of excellent Wonder Women sketches by various artists and far right is Gary Erskine, guest artist whose credits include 2000AD and Dan Dare!

“3 Guys in a Booth” reunited: me and two of Singapore’s most intriguing and talented cartoonists, Troy Chin and Ken Foo.

Us again, and Eddie from Collatarel Damage Studios….

Before you knew it, it was closing time, so it was goodbye to the Booth That Didn’t Exist, and a near miss as I almost tossed out a box before noticing neat drawings on it by Danny Yee (L-R: Oliver, Danny, Sue, Atari!) . End-of-convention hour is always kinda sad; maybe its the (re)realisation of the transitory nature of it all. Sub specie aeternum, right?

The organisers have already said there’ll be another convention next year. They’ll probably secure a bigger space. Personally I don’t have a lot of reference points for what conventions are like beyond SDCC, so it’s hard  to envisage any model to aspire to besides San Deigo, though maybe that’s always going to be a touchstone rather than realistic goal.

Aside from attracting more artists, creators and publishers to attend, I guess what STCC might need in the future would be more exclusive launches, maybe a seminar or three, maybe some tie-ins with Mediacrop etc for TV serial or movie launches to add a bit of celebrity razzmatazz :p And maybe some  easy access rest/food/beverage areas!

Still all in all it was an excellent start, but now its back to work work work.  But last but not least: students from CHIJ with their first runners-up Lego model and my favourite costume of the day!