Let's be honest — many webcomic creators are fans of anime, video games, etc. Thus, when they look at their schedule and notice a convention rolling into town, it's entirely possible that said artist will want to visit it. There are no shortages of reasons for this:
- It's a great way to connect with fans and other similar-minded people
- They can make money selling merchandise related to their comic
- The comic gets more exposure, resulting in more readers telling their friends about it and/or buying their merchandise, etc.
- An artist can make friends with other artists, providing link exchanges, networking, et al.
- It's their freaking convention (okay, so this one just applies to PAX and Digital Overload, but still).
Naturally, like most people who attend a convention, they'll want to tell everyone about it, including their readers. This gave rise to this trope.
Webcomics that are Life Embellished, Journal Comic or GagPerDay format will stick these in anywhere, while some fantasy-based comics will take a break from the story to recap the convention (which could mean no updating for the duration of the convention). If it does update during a convention, you can expect a filler strip or two.
Comics that recap conventions:
- Parodied in And Shine Heaven Now, with one character spending a whole storyline
recapping a convention...of fellow religious fanatics, including Bible cosplayers and great deals on holy water.
- Applegeeks
- Comedity
- Ctrl+Alt+Del
- Dominic Deegan
- El Goonish Shive
- Enjuhneer has done several of these, usually for Genericon but also recently for PAX East.
- Humon Comics - Humon has drawn a series of cartoons describing her experiences at conventions as a creator. Diva Humon describes the way convention organisers (at the better cons) have fallen over backward to look after her needs.
- Insecticomics
- Megatokyo
- Mac Hall
- The Sunday comics of Narbonic were always for extra material or separate stories, so Shaenon's Con Recaps went in there. Ultimately, this included special recaps of the annual Narbonicons.
- Overcompensating
- Penny Arcade, with filler strips
- VG Cats
- Weregeek
- Least I Could Do has this in more recent times in the form of "Con Tales (Woo-ooo!)"
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