Baltimore Comic-Con: looking in the rearview mirror, part 2

In the first part of my retrospective on exhibiting at this year’s Baltimore Comic-con, I went on about the fan-service aspect of the show.  The creators I finally got to meet, the books I got signed, the enjoyment I got from attending a “big” comic show for the first time in a number of years.  And it was a great time, on that front.  But how was the “professional” side of the convention?

Sales were soft, which is really downplaying how tepid our sales were.  And I saw a similar thing – a cone of silence expanding in a five-foot arc around the front of an exhibitor’s table – in a lot of areas of Artists Alley.  Which is not to say there weren’t some creators who did well here, especially the artists (with prints of zombies or Dr. Who, please, judging by the attendees).  We had high hopes for this show, and, admittedly, it was disappointing on the sales front.  It certainly seems our audience is at the Small Press Expo, which is usually held the weekend after Baltimore Comic-con just down the road in Bethesda, Maryland.  That said, this was a pretty great convention for me, as an aspiring writer.

Early on the first day, Chris Staros (one of the head honchos or Top Shelf Publishing) was walking through Artists Alley.  Recognizing me, he stopped to talk for a few minutes, commenting on the wealth of books we had on offer and asking specifically about the collections we had.  We discussed rejection letters and publishing and how the perception and the reality of both creating and publishing are very similar.  Staros is intelligent, frank, and overly generous with his time, and I’ve been having conversations like this with him since before Dan and I started writing seriously.  But since then, we’ve also been sharing our work with Staros, offering copies of our new works when we go to conventions and discussing what works and what doesn’t within our growing body of work.  Staros has seen us at these shows, has seen our growth as creators and is aware of our inability to give up on this “crazy dream.”  By continuing to create new stories, by setting up at these shows, by having these conversations with Staros in person and through email, we’ve fostered a relationship with him that may pay dividends down the road.  He knows we’re serious; he knows who we are; and I know that if I ever had a proposal I believed fit with the Top Shelf brand, Chris Staros would give it serious consideration.

That wouldn’t have happened if we’d given up after our first, disastrous time exhibiting.

Later on Saturday, another, smaller publisher (forgive me for being coy, but I am superstitious, to a point) came strolling through Artists Alley, right in front of my table.  I recognized him and called him over.  Turns our, he was walking this aisle because he knew I was set up in the area.  We’ve gotten to know one another through common online forums, as well as through setting up at smaller conventions these past few years.  I love what his new company is doing, as far as their publishing line, and he is another person with whom I’ve shared my newer stories whenever we were at the same convention.  We talked comics for a bit (at least at a comic convention you don’t need to come up with a pithy ice-breaker; we’re all there for the same thing), and then he third-eyed me (that’s how the kids put it nowadays, yeah?).  Looking to the future, he wondered if I’d be interested in talking with him about possibly working with his publishing company on a new venture they’re hoping to put forth toward the end of 2014 or into 2015, depending, as always, on how well the current scheduling stays on track.  Hell, yeah!  That conversation, right there, made my day.

This conversation and opportunity (one that doesn’t mean I will be working with them, but does mean I will have the opportunity to share my story ideas and maybe see something get published through them) was only possible because, again, I have continued to write – growing as a creator, as a result of this – and continued to get my stories drawn and fostered a relationship with this man.  Never would’ve happened if we’d given up after that first time in 2005.

So, after Saturday I was feeling pretty good.  Sunday only improved on that.  Joe Hill was going to be signing at the IDW booth that day, and I wanted to get a chance to speak with him for a minute.  When I went over to inquire about the logistics of the signing, I recognized the guy running the booth as someone who’d worked for Dark Horse when Dan and I exhibited at Chicago in 2005; he’d been the one handing out tickets for the Frank Miller signing that year.  So I asked him if he had worked for Dark Horse and then we chatted for a quick bit.  I mentioned that we were tabling as well and he told me to bring some of my work by to show him.  Not a fool, I made sure to get copies of both my give-away books for the Joe Hill line.  And after meeting Hill and speaking with him, I went back around and handed my books to the guy at the booth, who is the VP of marketing for IDW.  He thanked me and asked if I had his card.  No.  So he handed me his business card and told me to send along some digital copies so he could share them with the editorial staff.  Bam!  This, coupled with the Joe Hill signing (which is a great story but not pertinent to this “professional-centric” piece), had me feeling pretty damn good for a couple of hours.  Obviously, this doesn’t mean my epic graphic novel will be coming out from IDW in time for Christmas, nor does it mean I’m ever going to be published by IDW.  But my work will get a look from the editorial staff. 

And – I obviously cannot stress this enough – this opportunity would never have come about if I didn’t have a body of work to share with editors and publishers.  If Dan and I hadn’t been working toward exhibiting at a new show every year, I wouldn’t have been trying to produce new work and new stories.  I would never have gotten to the point I am now, where I am unable to not write.  It took a few years, but it has become a habit, something I really can’t live without because when I got a few days without writing, I become irritable and anxious.  It’s part of me, and I can see how far I’ve come since 2005, while realizing how far I still have to go.  But doors are opening, just a little.  And I need to be ready to take that step through.  Without having exhibited, without having written or created, without having gotten stories published (a result of those previous facts in this long statement), I wouldn’t be able to create these opportunities.  You have to do the work in order to improve, and you have to do the work in order to make your own luck. 

Now, the question becomes where to put my focus.  I know that SPX is the show where our audience is, and it’s the show where we have the most success sales-wise, and it is a show I love.  But there are very few publishers there, as compared to a show like Baltimore.  And with the reality that Dan and I can only do one show a year, along with where my life is at this point, being a “publisher” is not something we can pursue, and, truth be told, not something I want to pursue.  I want to find a publisher willing to get my stories into readers’ hands.  But do we get a table again, especially with Baltimore going to a three-day show?  Or do we choose to merely go as attendees and walk around with our books to share, as we see fit?  I’m not sure.  At least I’ve got some time to think about it.

Meanwhile, I’ll be writing – working toward creating more opportunities for myself.  It’s what I do.

-chris

(As always, you can read more from Chris at Warrior 27)

Baltimore Comic-Con: looking in the rearview mirror

                                                                         

Part 1

The Baltimore Comic-con took place a little over a week ago.  And Dan and Matt and I set up in Artists Alley with our wares – copies of Warrior27, Mainelining, and Reading Watchmen, among a few other things.  So, how did it go?

First – the older I get, the more that fact becomes obvious during these 12-hour drives Dan and I endure to attend these conventions.  (when you live in Maine, going anywhere means you have to drive for a while, but there’s nowhere you can’t get to within five hours, so twelve can come off as a bit ridiculous).  But we love these shows, so it isn’t that big a sacrifice.  I just wish we didn’t have to do the overnight drive immediately after the show ends (and, to be fair, the traffic isn’t as bad when you’re traveling at night, so we got home at 4:30, eleven and a half hours after departing, rather than the standard twelve from Maryland to the heart of Maine).

Second – sales were soft, to say the least.  I saw a lot of dead areas in Artists Alley when I got a chance to trawl down the aisles.  One of those happened to be directly in front of our table.  We sold a few things, made back a little less than half our table fee, but we didn’t do nearly as well as we have, in the past, at the Small Press Expo.  I talked to a number of other creators who had similar things to say.  A couple of really talented artists I know, who have a larger profile than myself and Dan and Matt, were not happy with their sales.  They weren’t going to be able to cover costs, and one of these guys had a book published through a small press publisher earlier this year.  Odd. 

But here’s the thing.  As “indy-friendly” as Baltimore is said to be – and I can’t outright deny that, as I know a couple of other guys in Artists Alley who had good shows – it really is a show for fans of Big-2 comics and their creators.  With retailers at the front of the hall offering longboxes full of Marvel and DC comics, along with books from other, smaller publishers, and writers and artists such as Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Amanda Conner, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Jim Starlin, Frank Cho, Mike Mignola, Art & Franco, Ramona Fradon, Justin Jordan, Rob Venditti, Sean Murphy, et al. available to meet with their fans, this show is heavily geared toward the mainstream comic fan.  And with as much of the market share as is taken up by those two publishers, it makes sense.  That means it’s even harder for the “little guy” to succeed at this show, unless they’re pushing zombies, which does not seem to be a fad that has yet to run out of steam.

The nice thing about doing these shows with Dan, and Matt this year, is the fact that none of us is tied to the table.  We can give each other a breather and allow for opportunities to stretch our legs, maybe do some shopping, peruse the tables of other Artists Alley exhibitors, and do the fan service thing.   Dan and Matt did some of the former, with Dan managing to fill in some more of the dwindling holes in his Batman collection and Matt picking up some cool prints from an artist just down the line from us, while I focused on the latter.  And, to be honest, I was surprised at how easy it was to get to meet some of these creators.  Other than one major exception, which I’ll get to in the next installment, the longest line I got in was for Mark Waid, and that one went very quickly. 

Other creators with whom I spoke included J.M. DeMatteis, Keith Giffen, and Kevin Maguire (I got all three to sign my original Justice League collection), Mark Buckingham, who signed two issues from his Miracleman run with Neil Gaiman, Mike Mignola (who only had three people in line when I got there o_O seriously?), Justin Jordan, Tradd Moore, and Rob Venditti (who’s been a great guy to talk to at conventions through the years and super-supportive of my writing), Mark Nelson (who drew an Alien in my collection of the original Dark Horse series), Greg Larocque, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who drew a beautiful Wonder Woman sketch in the front of the sketchbook I purchased from him.  I managed to get some of my favorite books signed and was able to thank the creators for what they’ve done, while also getting the opportunity to speak with some newer creators about writing and comics and various other topics.  All the writers and artists, with a glaring exception I will keep to myself, were very approachable and came across as genuinely pleased to meet their fans.  So, from the point of view of a fan, this show was definitely a success. 

But how would I judge it from the point of view of a writer working to “break in,” as it were?  That’s for next time.

-chris

(You can read more from Chris at Warrior 27.)

Brad's Week in Dork! (9/1/13-9/7/13)

After a rather abysmal Summer I found myself aching for Great Cinema.  I'm sick of disappointment.  How to cure these Blockbuster blues?  Well, after the last Barnes & Noble sale, I found myself with a massive pile of Criterions stacked next to my television set.  What better way to enter the Oscar Bait season than with a month long Criterion-A-Thon.  Yes, I'm one of those hipster assholes that drinks the Kool-Aid that is The Criterion Collection.  I'm not going to say that every one of their releases is a classic, but I've never encountered a film from them that I didn't find redeeming in some fashion.  You'll notice a theme of Anger running through most of the films listed below.  Does that reflect on the builders of the Collection or my own current mood?  Serious Cinema tackling the big issues.  That being said, this week is mostly filled with genre content, and that is certainly a reflection on my own tastes.  Next week I'll have to branch out with some foreign film, but for now I was just giddy to jump from Seconds to Lord of the Flies to Robocop to Black Narcissus.

The week concluded with the Baltimore Comic Con.  Maybe not as popular on the Internet as say San Diego or New York, but Baltimore is the real deal for fans of comic books.  At the very least it's an assault on my wallet.  Of course, despite the con, I actually didn't get any reading done this week.  Gotta work on that.  I've certainly have a lot of options right now, and SPX is just right around the corner.  No trips to the theater, and I only watched one film not a member of the Criterion family; Matt finally planted me down for The African Queen.  But I gotta say, this was one of the most pleasurable Weeks in Dorks that I've had in months.  Watched a lot of my favorite films, discovered some new ones, and had a blast spending money on the four colors.  I think I made a good call with this particularly broad movie marathon.

Seconds (Criterion Spine # 667):  "I thought you had a better chance."  Like the best Twilight Zone or Star Trek episode, John Frankenheimer's Seconds is an angry, trippy exploration of morality safely filtered through the science-fiction genre.  After receiving a mysterious phone call from a friend thought once dead, bored old husband John Randolph travels to the city's meatpacking district where he encounters an organization promising an escape from his failed existence and a chance at a new life.  One teeth cracking surgery later, and John Randolph is now Rock Hudson.  He has a new passion for painting, a beautiful woman randomly discovered on the beach, and a cadre of friends willing to STOMP THOSE GRAPES!  But how long can this new life hold his interest?  Can this new man just accept his past failings?  Of course, Frankenheimer directed The Manchurian Candidate, so there are no happy endings.  Hudson certainly delivers his finest performance, and Murray Hamilton is extraordinaire in his one scene, but the real stars of this flick are Lewis John Carlino's screenplay and James Wong Howe's cinematography.  It's a biting brutal story shot & cut in the fever of a nightmare.  An absolute highlight of the Criterion Collection, and certainly this year's strongest blu ray release.

Homicide (Criterion Spine # 486):  Not to be confused with the equally excellent Baltimore based crime show, David Mamet's Homicide is a mystery when unravelled that cares less about the answer and more about the horror exposed along the way.  Joe Mantegna is a rage-fueled detective pulled off a flashy cop killer hunt to investigate the murder of a Jewish shopkeeper.  What begins as a distraction from glory slowly grinds into an obsession of newly found faith.  A lot of typical dark territory is explored in Homicide, and it's all layered in that too-smart Mamet dialog, but the racial anger stirred by the events is infectious.  This film will leave you mad.  Mad at people.  Mad at the system.  Mad at yourself.  So basically, it's everything you expect and want from Mamet's rabble rouser.

Lord of the Flies (Criterion Spine # 43):  "After all we're not savages, we're English!  And the English are best at everything!"  Everyone knows the story.  A group of prep school kids shipwrecked on an island.  Fending for themselves against the elements, and an unseen monster, the boys quickly form a society of rules and regulations....superstition and greed brings it all crashing down.  Too often regulated as High School Summer reading, William Golding's novel is a violent declaration against hypocrisy, and Peter Brooks' film manages to perfectly capture the author's contempt.  But where other adaptations have failed in kiddie performances, Brooks' films succeeds solely because he gathered an exceptional cast of children.  There is no difficulty in supplanting your emotions into James Aubrey's Ralph; the young actor balances youth and wisdom perfectly, and you never cringe at the "acting" on display.  And then there's Tom Chapin's Jack.  What a monster.  So easy to hate.  He never went on to do anything else, but he takes on your disgust as easily as Aubrey takes your heart.  Kids as strong as these are certainly a real rarity in movieland.

Eating Raoul (Criterion Spine # 625):  "He was a man.  Now he's just a bag of garbage."  Another graduate of the Roger Corman school of filmmaking, Paul Bartel leaves behind the exploitation brilliance of Death Race 2000 for this equally broad & whacky ribbing of American consumerism.  Bartel and Mary Warnov are a financially strapped married couple who resort to killing swingers as a means of funding their country restaurant.  This demented endeavor finds real success after partnering with Robert Beltran's cat burglar, but can their marriage survive someone so handsome?  The answer may surprise you.  Bartel's comedy is certainly not for everyone, and I found his special brand of odd more successful in Death Race, but Eating Raoul certainly nibbles a funny bone or two.

The Last Temptation of Christ (Criterion Spine # 70):  "Fear.  Look inside me and that's all you'll find."  Martin Scorsese has made a career of exploring man's relationship with the divine, but never has he been more blunt with this struggle than here.  The Last Temptation of Christ portrays Jesus as both man and god, as such he is victim to both doubt and desire while fulfilling his role as messiah.  This is not the masterpiece the director or his followers might have wanted, but it is a fascinating insight into the creator's religious struggle.  The film certainly suffers from budgetary constraints, and Scorsese's bullpen of performers don't quite jive with the average vision of these characters.....however, there is something incredibly refreshing about Harvey Keitel as Judas or Harry Dean Stanton as Paul.  Scorsese is reaching for the humanity in these characters, to shake the dust off, and treat them as real-deal human beings.  As such, I think he succeeds.  The Holy aspects of the film work less for me, the miracles come fast and loose and feel like the highlight reel from a Super Hero film - capes & spandex stuff.  The final temptation on the cross certainly stirs the pot, but only the most stringent of terrified censors will take umbrage with this postulation.  And Jesus's confrontation with Paul over his manipulation of the crucifixion is probably the most brilliant sequence of the whole movie, and absolutely makes Scorsese's cinematic quest.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (Criterion Spine # 61):  "If we didn't have crucifixion, this country would be in a right bloody mess!"  While Scorsese attempts to deconstruct belief, the mad buggers that assemble Monty Python sharpen their swords for war.  Brian Cohen is born on the same night and just a few doors down from Jesus Christ, which confuses The Three Wise Men and sets the idealistic young Brian down an absurd parallel path.  Religion is such an easy target for Python, and no other comedy troupe can match smart & silly with as fierce precision as these nutjobs.  I dare you not to laugh within the first five seconds of the movie, and once you start you will not stop.  After all, what good have the Romans ever done for us?!?!

The African Queen:  Another Cinematic Resolution has been met.  Why did it take me 34 years to see this John Huston classic?  I love Bogie.  He's the king of cool.  The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep.  The man can't be shut down.  Katherine Hepburn...never been a fan...never tried to be.  What little snippets I had previously seen of this movie highlight Bogart's five o'clock shadow, and Hepburn's virginal old maid.  Just never screamed "WATCH ME!"  And, yeah, it's a weird one.  Bogart is utterly gross and pathetic in this film.  Never seen anything quite like it from the actor.  Sure, he's done pathetic (gin diving in Casablanca & gold scumming in The Treasure of Sierra Madre), but his stomach growling steamboat captain is just an absolute mess of a human being.  And Katherine Hepburn is simply angry and shrill.  I found it hard to wrap my brain around this Beast & Beast romance, but in war torn Africa all they have is each other...and mosquitos.  I only wish the film followed the inevitability of their romance instead of ditching doom for Hollywood happy.

Robocop (Criterion Spine # 23):  "Excuse me, I have to go.  Somewhere there is a crime happening."  In a lot of ways, I think of Paul Verhoeven's Robocop as the ultimate geek film.  You've got the endless outbursts of squibby violence to appeal to the savage teenager inside us all, and then you have the blunt force trauma of the consumer satire to appease our wannabe intellectual side.  This is the Wall Street for the genre crowd, but Verhoeven has no use for Oliver Stone's subtlety -- HA!  And has there ever been a gang of villains as despicable or as terrifying as Kurtwood Smith's posse of cop killers?  The murder of Alex Murphy immediately establishes these villains as demons of capitalism, joyously toying with the hot shot cop before delivering the coup de gras.  It's gut wrenching; so much so that you'll cheer when Robocop rediscovers his humanity by delivering some arterial revenge.

Black Narcissus (Criterion Spine # 93):  "We're all human, aren't we?"  A group of nuns are charged with the establishment of a convent in the himalayas, but their contract with god is challenged when they find themselves seduced by their surroundings.  Attempting to forget the failed romance of her youth, Deborah Kerr's Sister Superior finds her heart reawakened by David Farrar's brusk British official, but the man's good looks also draw the attention of Flora Robson's twisted Sister Ruth.  Directed by the dynamic duo of Michael Powell & Emric Pressburger, Black Narcissus is a sensual British melodrama that practically descends into the realm of horror when the bent eventually snap.  And as strong as the performances are, Jack Cardiff's transformative cinematography deserves equal billing; who wants On Location filming when British backlots can look this damn good?  Of all the films I watched this week, Black Narcissus takes top prize.

The Game (Criterion Spine # 627):  Not my favorite David Fincher film (that's Zodiac).  Not my least favorite either (that's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo).  But what earns The Game entry into The Criterion Collection?  Popular filmmaker + attainable rights = Criterion.  Simple as that.  Still, I have to admit that I was a bit perplexed when I first got the news.  There is a lot to like about this film.  Michael Douglas is an assholey mess of a human being, and the wringer that Consumer Recreation Services puts him through is thoroughly entertaining even if the payoff is not exactly what this genre fanboy desired.  I have just never bought into that anticlimax.  And starting this week with Seconds really established The Game as a pretender to the paranoia throne.

The Baltimore Comic Con 2013:  As much as I drone on & on about the real Comic Con (San Diego), there is nothing that can top the comic book goodness of Baltimore.  You want movies and celebrities than grab your ticket for the west coast.  You want to score an obscene amount of funny books?  Baltimore is the place to be.  Sure, you've got your comic book creators (snagged an autograph from Joe Hill), but the main attraction are the half-off trades.  This year I came away with a complete run of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, the latest Animal Man, Scott Snyder's Gates of Gotham, and Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.  Plus a few toys (Magnum PI Hot Wheels, a Frank Frazetta beer stein).  Baltimore can fill up with panels and autograph sessions, but I pretty much treated this year as a bazaar.  And with Matt working the Warrior27 table with Dan & Chris, and The Wife busy with her day job, I was free to spend the hours roaming the dealers room with my buddy Robert.  Spending far too much money.

Baltimore, like every convention nowadays, is also a great excuse for Halloween Part II.  Cosplay.  When I was younger, I never quite understood the appeal of dress-up, but the more conventions I attend and the crazier a display of costume I witness, I swell with fanboy pride at the passion on parade.  Twenty years ago, Comic Conventions were a collection of 30 year old white guys and the occasional wandering child.  Now we have boys & girls of every race SHAZAMing it up as Iron Man, Deadpool, Poison Ivy, Captain Marvel, Jack of Hearts, and...holy cow - Hulkbuster Iron Man.  I got a taste for the giddiness of cosplay when The Wife & I participated in the Alamo Drafthouse Shaun-Off a few weeks back, and it was fairly thrilling.  Can I see myself one day dawning a cape and browsing the convention floor as Darkhawk?  Maybe.  But don't hold your breath, I'm shy.

The Most Dangerous Game (Criterion Spine # 46):  This film is most famous for being a coproduction with the 8th Wonder of the World, King Kong.  The same jungle sets used for Skull Island can also be seen as the hunting ground for the diabolical Count Zaroff.  The film also stars Fay Wray & Robert Armstrong, but the hero of the piece is an incredibly young Joel McCrea zigzagging the island in an effort to turn the tables on the big game madman.  The Most Dangerous Game might not be as famous as its primate brother, but I would argue that it's nearly as thrilling.  At just over an hour in running time, the film races to its finish and has no time for narrative fat.  It's all action.  Character moments last no longer than a wink & a smile.  Oh McCrea, you dog.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (9/1/13-9/7/13)

    I started out the week by actually finishing some things.  Yes is the Answer, a sort of oral history of Prog Rock and The Burning Man, Chirsta Faust’s latest Fringe novel.  And the end of the week went crazy with Baltimore Comic-Con, and a visit from Dan and Chris.

Dredd:  A satisfyingly brutal take on the venerable comic character, Dredd finally does 2000AD’s bent sense of humor and grim future justice.  And yes, the helmet NEVER comes off.  Karl Urban makes a great Judge Dredd, with a constant frown and that chiseled jaw.  The villains are nasty, the heroes are nastier.  The violence is weirdly beautiful and the world building is spot on.  For some reason I’ll never understand, this movie did not get anything like the audience it should have.  I’m constantly seeing stuff online from people just seeing it, saying ‘this is so good; how did I not see it before?’  I don’t know.  I saw it in the theater, and had it been there longer, I’d have gone again.  Loved it then, and love it on this second viewing.

Battle In Outer Space:  A pretty good space launch turned alien attack movie from Japan, this is perhaps too slow paced.  Still, in spite of the slow pace and the occasionally meandering plot, I found myself enjoying the adventures of the various characters.  Cool Toho type model work.  It’s not great, and not as wild and weird as some others of the era.  But it’s good.

Mothra:  The argument could be made that this is just kind of a Godzilla clone, with a giant moth instead of a giant dinosaur.  But so what?  It’s fun, it’s well done, and it’s got some cool model destruction.  The King Kong style island adventure in the middle is cool.  There’s a nice twist in the middle.  And the action is solid.

Lords of Salem:  I’m actually kind of impressed by just how unimpressive this film is.  It’s easy to crap on Rob Zombie.  House of 1000 Corpses was a jumbled mess (with a few interesting bits).  The Devil’s Rejects (his best) is uneven, to say the least.  The Halloween remakes sucks (there; I said it; it sucks).  El Superbeasto was absolute garbage.  And now Lords of Salem.  It has a lot of the disorganized, aimless feel of 1000 Corpses, with the yawn inducing boredom of Halloween.  But, it also looks great.  That’s the thing with Zombie’s work.  He does some good stuff.  He works with different cinematographers every time, but always has very cool imagery in his films, which I assume come from him.  But the writing.  It’s just not there.  I loved a lot of the early scenes of Sheri Moon Zombie walking around, and going about her life.  It had a very nostalgic, New England in the early 80s vibe to it that I thought was quite nice.  But otherwise, the movie is just a mess.  I think he was aiming for some combination of The Devil’s Rain and The Sentinel, but he missed the mark.

Hey look.  A goat.

The African Queen:  “Ain’t a thing I can do about it.”  I enjoy the heck out of this light-hearted adventure movie, set against WWI era Africa.  Bogart and Hepburn are two down and out people on the edge of nowhere, who come together with a hair-brained plan to strike a blow against the Kaiser.  We then follow these two down a torturous river and through the fumblings of a budding romance.  I love that the actors don’t look good.  Hepburn is clearly getting older.  Bogart looks like crap.  They sweat, they get dirty, and they just don’t look like movie stars.  Yet, the film is beautiful to look at.  Is it an amazing, life changing film?  No.  But I get why it’s a classic, and I do really enjoy it.

Wrong:  “I only realized that I loved my face after it had been burned with acid.”  Two years ago, Rubber kind of blew me away.  It was so out of nowhere, so strange, so sickly clever that a movie about a murderous psychic tire (yup!) made it on my top ten list.  Wrong is fun, and it’s weird.  But it’s not on the same level.  Sure, there’s plenty of weirdass behavior and strange images.  But while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t blow away by it.

    So, Friday night, Chris and Dan arrived.  Saturday morning…way too early Saturday morning, we hopped in the car and headed to Baltimore, setting up the Warrior 27 table.  We were each able to make various excursions around the place over the course of the day, and I got to see a lot of cool stuff.  This year stood out for me because of the breadth and obscurity of the cosplay.  I was impressed.  Sure, there were a lot of New Who costumes (only one good enough for me to give a pass on the cliché/overexposure).  And there were a bunch of Deadpools (I don’t get it).  But there was a Captain Haddock (from Tintin) for crying out loud.  There was even a couple of ladies doing the nerdy scientists from Pacific Rim.  It was pretty cool.  After the show, co-Dork Brad and our friend Robert joined us for some Mexican at a place not too far from my house.  Too late to bed, and an early rise the next day for Day 2 of the con.  More on that next week, I guess.

-Matt

Baltimore Comic-Con part 2C – Still more preparation or Will this never end?

Comic convention preparation.  In the first part I discussed prepping your display and table.  In the second part I went into some detail about prepping your own mini-comics (or chapbooks, as my pretentious self likes to call them).  This time out, we’re talking about selling.  I’m sure you all have seen a salesperson at work, whether you were the target or just an innocent bystander.  You all know about the hard sell.  Many of you have probably worked retail at one point in your life – and for that, I take pity on you. 

This isn’t that.  Though I do expect there will be some “obvious” stuff scattered in this segment (which, I’m certain, we all hope will be a bit shorter than the last two).  [I don't! -Matt]

So.  Here’s something that should be self-evident.  Have a package (in this case, your comic book) that is appealing visually.  There’s the subjectivity of taste to overcome with this one, obviously, but you can alleviate some of the issues with a little thought and preparation beforehand.  As stated in my previous segment, having a single, bold image as your cover is one thing that can help you stand out against the rest.  Whether you approach “bold” through the use of color, texture (as with some heavy cardstock, screen printed covers), or the imagery itself doesn’t matter.  Just keep this in mind when creating your cover.  The interiors should be equally compelling, because if you can hook passersby with your cover, the next step, for them, is to page through the book. 

If you want some great advice on comic art and how pages play off one another within a comic, go to the archive at Comics Comics and The Comics Journal and do a search on Frank Santoro, who was a regular contributor and editor at Comics Comics and is a current contributor to the Comics Journal site.  The man knows art, knows comics, and understands how the grid and the page work within the distinct visual lexicon of comics.  My only advice in this area, and this only applies to anyone including text with their comics, is to make sure that there are comic stories at the staple in your book, because your book will naturally fall open at that middle point, and when prospective customers seeking comics find a bunch of words filling up those pages, it doesn’t take long for them to move to the next table. 

This might be another obvious one, but don’t be pushy when you’re standing behind the table selling your book.  Acknowledge people as they pass by, ask them how their show’s going, offer them the chance to page through the book if they come over – in short, give them a chance to decide, for themselves, they want to read what you’ve helped create.  But don’t be the guy yelling across the aisles for people to check out his book, or take his card, or “come on over,” because you’ll be driving more people away than you’ll be dragging in.  And, you’ll be driving these people away from your neighbors’ tables as well.  Not cool.  I’m certain some people will tell you differently, but despite how much this goes against Selling 101, I just haven’t seen it work.

Now, perhaps the most important thing to consider, but something many people may not even give a second’s thought – myself and Dan having once fallen into that group.  Go where your audience is.  You may be thinking – duh, I’m setting up at a comic convention.  And that is true.  But which convention are you exhibiting at, and what kind of comic are you bringing to the show?  Dan and I first set up at Wizard World Chicago in 2005.  The shows we’d attended prior to that one, we both haunted artists alley in search of books that were quirky, distinct visions of their creators, not cookie cutter superheroes that couldn’t make the grade at Marvel or DC.  We expected we weren’t the only ones.  So we brought our black-and-white, comics/prose anthology – lacking any superhero stories – to a big convention highlighted by the presence of the large publishers that do color comics about superheroes, for the most part, and we tanked.  The following year, we went to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, a show highlighted by self-publishers and smaller publishing houses that specialize in black-and-white comics almost completely devoid of superheroes.  We had found our audience.  And we did very well. 

Finally:  what is your comic about?  That first show in Chicago, Dan and I were never able to answer that question the entire four days there.  We hadn’t considered this basic point of our book and weren’t helped by the fact that it was an anthology.  With the next few issues we thought about what we were trying to say with the stories in each issue – and you can affix an overall theme after the fact as easily as crafting stories around a set theme.  Our second book was the “difficult relationships” issue, while the third was our “reflections on faith” issue, which had the first photo-cover by Shane Leonard, who has since created variant covers for Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key series.  And when we put together the collection, our pitch became a bit longer:  “an anthology with stories in multiple genres, from zombie westerns to UFO stories, by artists in multiple countries, from the Philippines to Tanzania, along with short prose and interviews with comic luminaries such as Chris Staros, Gary Groth, Bryan Talbot, and Joe Quesada.”  It’s not easy to condense the scores of hours, hundreds of words, and thousands of lines of ink into a ten-second pitch, but it might be the most important skill for you to master.  Because not only will it help you in selling your books, but it will also be a necessary skill for when you start pitching longer series and have to provide a synopsis to an editor.  Starting now can only help.

You can read much more from Chris at Warrior 27! (or click on On the Fly Publications over on My Blog List to the right of this page).

Baltimore Comic-Con 2013 part 2B – more preparation

When last we met, I briefly discussed preparation for exhibiting at a comic convention, with a focus on your table display.  Now, let’s talk about the books, specifically mini-comics and chapbooks, as simple as one with little artistic talent can get.  We will look at this from the point of view of the writer, as that’s where all my experience lies.

(an aside:  if you have ideas of creating a comic that looks like a comic book check out the Ka-Blam! site; they can help you with that)

So, you’ve written your stories and need to find someone to bring your masterpiece to vivid, delineated, inked life.  Easier said than done.  First you need to find the artist.  You can check websites like Deviant Art or Digital Webbing (though I’ve heard DW isn’t the go-to place it once was, but that’s where your due diligence comes in) or do a search for “comic book artist.”  Keep in mind the tone of your story and seek out an artist who best fits that without breaking the bank (yes, you should be paying them in monetary notes and not the promise of “exposure” or “back-end money,” as those are as ethereal as your dead gramma’s ghost).  A generally accepted rule of thumb is that it takes a comic artist a day to create a single comic page.  From there, as Dennis Culver noted on his twitter feed, the bare minimum page rate can be extrapolated from the “norms” of an 8-hour work day at a minimum wage of $7.25/hour, which comes to $58 per page.  Of course, it’s all negotiable.  Be up front with your artist and do not short-change them.  You will also want to discuss ownership of the story.  A best practice, in my opinion, is to share creation and ownership evenly with your collaborator(s).  But, again, it’s all negotiable.  Just do your homework, be up front with your collaborator, and don’t take them for granted.

Once you’ve found an artist and negotiated a fair price, prepare for the wonder of finished art pages in your inbox.  I can almost guarantee every one will be far better than what you pictured in your head while you typed away in the dark.  Once the art’s done, you’ll want to get high-resolution, print-ready scans from the artist – at least 300 dpi.  And if your artist doesn’t also letter, you need to find someone to do that or, better yet, learn how to do it yourself.  There are numerous tutorials and fonts available from places like Comicraft’s Baloon Tales site and Nate Piekos’s Blambot site.  These sites have everything you need to get the job done.  From here, it’s time to begin formatting your book.

Most likely, your mini-comics will have smaller dimensions than the typical comic book.  With my chapbooks a single page is 4.25” by 5.5”, or half the size of a standard letter-sized piece of paper.  Since my chapbooks include a lot of text, I use Microsoft Word to format my books.  If I were only including comic stories, I would use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop for formatting, since they are image-based programs, but why bother doing anything simple, right?  But I digress. 

Once in your formatting program of choice, you need to layout the pages so they have a nice flow, while keeping in mind that any “reveals” in the comic pages need to land on a page-turn, or an even-numbered page (of course, this only applies to those creating books with multiple stories, but really, the text that follows is so scintillating, you’re going to want to continue).  First, you should plug your stories into a single word document in the order you want, using the same layout and margins as the final product.  Understanding that a half-letter format requires a total page count divisible by four (because you have four pages to a single sheet), you can now see how many story pages you have along with the number of blank pages.  At this point you can move things around to make the page turns (even-numbered pages) and story opens (preferably odd-numbered pages) work.  From there, if you have blank pages, you can decide what extras to include – an introduction, script pages, background on the stories, character sketches, or nothing at all.  With the layout finalized, you can begin placing each individual page into its corresponding page in the final print-formatted document.  The diagram below shows the first two sheets – front and back – of a 9-sheet, 36-page chapbook:

Having done a number of these, the page layout seems obvious, but it took me a few tries before I was confident I was doing it right.  Paginating your mini in the manner above relieves you of any need to re-order the pages once they print.  Just pull the sheets from the printer at Staples – or, if you’re lucky, the one at your place of employment – and fold them in the center to create your mini-comic.  Of course, you’ll need a long-arm stapler at this point, but they’re relatively inexpensive, especially if you’re in this for the long haul. 

Now, let’s backtrack a step, before moving onto the final step.  If you decide to number your pages and you’re working in Word, as I do, then it takes some work to get it right because the program wants to automatically number pages according to your initial header on page one.  You need to separate each page to create individual sections (that’s important, you’re not inserting a page break but a section break for the “next page”).  Once you’ve created your sections, you need to sever the header links to the previous sections.  Double-click the header and look for the “link to previous [section].”  Uncheck that box – depending on the system and version of Word you’re working with, it could be in any number of spots.  Now you can create a header with page numbers distinct from the rest of the document.  But be careful if you’re placing text and images into the main body of the document after doing this because if pieces in the main body are copied in and bleed into the following page, all the work to separate the headers could be deleted, and you’ll be forced to do it all again. 

So, you’ve got your mini formatted, page numbers are in place (if that’s how you roll), and you’ve printed off the interiors of your books.  Now you need a cover.  I’m certainly no artist, but I’ve gathered some good advice from friends who are, and the two main things I’ve taken to heart are:

1 – use a single, bold image for your cover
2 – incorporate a singular image to brand yourself (more about that in the following paragraph)

The first mini-comic I ever put together had a powerful and evocative image on its cover, thanks to Sergio Martinez.  I was so impressed with it I modified it slightly to use for my business cards, my online avatar, and, when I conceived my Mainelining chapbooks, it became the cover image for each volume, with varying color schemes to differentiate them.  As Baltimore approaches, I have six volumes of Mainelining that will be available for purchase at our table and am finalizing the contents of a second volume for editors and artists with whom I would like to collaborate.  These latter two volumes are my writing portfolio and include only stories published outside of Warrior27 – stories other editors have deemed worthy of publication.  As an aspiring comics writer, you need to be able to show what you can do, and the best way to do that is have a collection of finished comics, and/or short prose, to share (and they needn’t have been published elsewhere, they just need to be completed).  Because the reality is no editor has the time to read your script, especially if it’s your 200-page OGN masterpiece.  So, you write short stories, you get them drawn, you print them, and you share them.  Not only are finished stories easier for editors and artist to assess, but they also exhibit a seriousness that a vast majority of your peers lack.  And that can make all the difference in the world.

Once more, I’ve gone on at lengths unimaginable for the internet.  So I will cut it short here and continue with convention preparation in the next part, where I’ll discuss what I’ve learned about standing at the table and “hocking my wares.”  Until then…




{You can (and should) read more from Chris at Warrior 27. -Matt}

Baltimore Comic-Con 2013 part 2 – the preparation

As I write this, we’re a bit over three weeks out from Baltimore Comic-con.  A mix of excitement and anxiety is churning in my gut – excitement because, y’know, I’m hitting a big comic show for the first time in years (and, as noted in Part 1 of our harrowing journey [ahem, sorry, hyperbole switch was on], I am looking forward to meeting some of the creators whose work got me into comics and kept me reading for almost thirty years) and anxiety because:  ahhhhh! I gotta get everything together for the show and can I do it in time?  So, it’s an adrenaline-filled time leading up to Baltimore.

Luckily, much of what we need for the show Dan and I already have, thanks to the five-plus years we’ve been doing these shows. 

·    Banner – check (just have to remember it). 
·    Copies of Warrior27: the Collection – check.
·    Individual issues of Warrior27 – check.
·    Tablecloths – check. 
·    Business cards – I gotta look into this one, because I was without these at the CGS Super Show this spring. 
·    Freebies like pins and postcards – check.
·    Copies of Indie Comics Horror #1 & New Orleans by Gaslight (with stories written by me included therein) – check.
·    Older Mainelining chapbooks for sale (each one with a short comic story and short prose story written by me) – check.
·    Comics written by Dan, including Fevre Dream and Warrior27: Push – check.
·    Mainelining editions for editors and possible collaborators – volume 1 is all set, but I need to finish up volume 2.
·    Change – we’ll get that a day before we leave
·    Hand sanitizer – check.
·    Markers/pens/other writing utensils – check.
·    Stuff I’ve forgotten – not sure, that’s why it’ll be forgotten.


The first time Dan and I exhibited at a convention, we didn’t put much thought into it, or not as much as we probably should have.  Our table at that first show was rather plain (read: dull).  A few books.  Some pins.  A print for sale.  And no artist.  So, not much to catch the eye of passers-by.  But we learned a lot from walking around the show and, especially, seeing what others in artists alley did with their tables.  Upon returning home, I read some things online by other self-publishers exhibiting at comic conventions, while Dan did some more serious research into marketing and design.  And we started to make a plan for the next convention.

One thing I noticed about some of the creators whose tables stood out was that they brought their own tablecloths – not necessarily finished tablecloths, but large swathes of fabric they used to pull together their display.  We decided to go with red and black.  Dan wanted to use that color scheme for the title on our second issues of Warrior27, and it seemed like a good color scheme.  It’s a simple thing, but using the cloth makes our set-up look more professional, especially if you’re at a show where they have those paper tablecloths.

You also need to think about how you’re going to display your books.  At our early conventions, the issue wasn’t how to fit it all onto the table as much as how do we make this look like a substantial amount of stuff?  But with each year Dan and I have added to the collection of books we have on hand at any given show – which leads to other issues, but that’s not pertinent to our current thesis statement.  We’ve been lucky at times to have a table on a corner and used a tall wire rack for our individual issues.  This opens up the table a bit and offers a pretty nice display to catch people’s eyes.  But, if you aren’t that lucky (or if the convention frowns on that because of traffic issues), then it’s a good idea to get a smaller stand to do the same thing on the table, or you could even use various sized boxes to create a series of steps for your books.  Standing the comics and collections up, rather than laying them on the table, not only looks better, but it helps with people’s necks.  From walking these conventions, I can tell you that bending your head down to look at what’s spread across the myriad tables can become physically taxing.  So being afforded an opportunity to straighten up a bit can be a welcome change. 

A banner was another thing I noticed at many exhibitors’ tables.  Having a large image, whether art or text (as I’ve seen some creators, like Russell Lissau, do) can be helpful, but you need to be thoughtful about this because your banner will be the single most identifiable marketing image you have.  You want it to be appealing while getting across what you’re selling, and there is a fine balance to achieve with this.  I got some advice (for cover art, but it applied here as well) from an artist I know online, Marvin Mann, and he told me to go with a single, bold image.   Dan and I chose the cover painting from our first issue, by Andy Lee , mainly because it is such a gorgeous image.  I reached out to Marv again regarding colors for the text and borders of the banner, and he suggested I sample colors directly from the painting in order to make it “of a whole.”  The final result is below.

Ultimately, you want to make your display as presentable as possible.  Make sure the titles and prices are visible and easily read from a short distance away.  Keep it neat.  And, especially if you aren’t exhibiting with an artist, have a sample of the interiors readily available for browsing – whether you have an issue open in the middle of the display or possibly an oversized preview of a comic story or two (which I’ll have at Baltimore) – so that you break down the barriers as much as you can between you and the fan. 

Next time: prepping the books.


You can read more from Chris at Warrior 27.