Hello my dear dragon readers,
I have to apologize for my lack of engagement this month! It's been quite STRESSFUL behind the scenes trying to get everything ready for the SZ finale. After 8 years of working on this series, I can't believe I have less than 7 episodes left!!!! (WISH ME LUCK SURVIVING THESE EPS HUHU)
Despite the stress/intensity of the panels in the latest chapters I am quite happy with how things are turning out and I'm SO EXCITED to get to work these finale eps I have envisioned in my head for so long. (I will share a quick preview very soon)
Aside from working on episodes I also wanted to share my MOMOCON 2026 experience which took place May 21-24th last weekend! (I don't get into a lot of big conventions so I saw this as an opportunity to meet with readers in person for the last time before the series ends).
As you can imagine, I had 0 time to prepare anything aside from this rushed i-pad doodle I made while on the 15 hour car ride to Georgia! (My partner drove the entire way while I fed him been jerky). BEHOLD my fugly catalog below!!!
Event-wise, MomoCon was AMAZING! Since Covid ended, many readers returned to school/work and dropped SZ and webcomics altogether while they continued on with their lives. To be frank, I was not expecting many readers to recognize the series (much less buy anything from our booth) but to my dismay WE SOLD OUT OF SO MUCH STUFF!
We hauled 90LBS (around 4 boxes/80 SZ BOOKS) with us to Georgia and around half were completely gone on the very first day. By the 4th day, we had NO BOOKS, NO dragon stickers, and 1/2 of all our prints were gone! I actually had pretty big FOMO for not bringing more merch but to be honest I don't think we could have fit any more in the car anyways.
HUHU Aside from the SZ stuff, I also dabbled into making some FAT horsie pins for the general con-goer. Who knew there were so many "horse enjoyers" (as my partner called them) wanting to get horsie pins. I was so rushed I did not get a chance to share them with you (they arrived like 2 days before the con). I plan to share some better pics with you all soon but here are the ones I made for the display. They're not the best pictures but I hope you can at least tell who they are from the display.
Overall, I was truly moved to see so many longtime readers come up and speak with me (I hope I didn't disappoint anyone with how tired I looked haha). Some readers were super caught up with the latest fast pass while some had not read the series in a while, but still expressed how much they enjoyed it. Many were sad that the series was ending and expressed how they felt they had grown up with the series (having started it from the very beginnings on Webtoon Canvas/Discover).
As a creator, my mind loves to focus on the nasty, awful comments I get online and I often find myself forgetting the people that do enjoy SubZero, imperfect as it is. Something that brought me to tears was hearing readers who told me they loved how Clove was written and how they found the story to be compelling despite the dragon powers. I think it finally validated the struggle of sticking to my guns in telling this story the way I wanted to, despite the screaming comments that tell me to do otherwise. T-T
Aside from meeting many long time readers, I also managed to sneak away and meet the wonderful Tracy Butler (creator of Lackadaisy) while she was doing a meet and greet. I was a little girl reading her cat comics in 2006/2007 so of course I had to run over there and express my gratitude for how much she had inspired me all these years! (I even gifted her a SubZero book Q_Q)
The other story I thought would be funny to share... during MomoCon setup, my partner and I were going down an escalator with all our stuff when I recognized that the man in front of us was Griffin Burns (for all my Genshin Impact fans, he's the VA for Tartaglia). He even did his classic "Hey Girlie, hold still" tagline and wished us to make a lot $$$.
Overall, I'm SUPER happy I got to be a part of such a big convention (I love Atlanta) and I'm so thankful I got to meet the readers who who have supported me over all these years!
Now back to working on these final episodes!! We return June 7th!!!
<3 Juni