Comics... Yeah!

If you follow me on Twitter or frequent the PKD Media site, then you probably saw the announcement yesterday that I’m the new writer on Exo-1 and the Rock Solid Steelbots! I am so thrilled to be even a small part of the PKD Media Universe. I have a lot of respect for Shawn Pryor – the mastermind behind PKD, and the creator and original writer of Exo-1 (along with Mercury and the Murd, Agents of C.O.L.T., and the PKD Black Box Podcast) – and what he’s done.

The internet is an amazing thing – especially for a geek niche community like comics. Growing up, the only friend I had who was into comics was Mark. Mark and I are still friends (and comics are still very much a part of our lives – I wrote a book about comics and he teaches a graphic novel course at George Mason University), but now I also have friends all over the world who are into comics thanks to forums and social networking sites. My friendship with Shawn is a perfect example. I met Shawn through Twitter, then in-person at the Pittsburgh Comicon earlier this year. In late spring, mutual friend, comic creator, and con organizer Zack Kruse invited both Shawn and me to be a part of the first Summit City Comic Con in Fort Wayne. It was there at the pre- and post-show parties that Shawn and I really had the opportunity to hang out and talk about writing and comics and all of the things that get us excited about the culture.

I knew I wanted to try my hand at scripting a comic. It seemed like a perfect challenge to step outside of the non-fiction, pop culture-based, and often nostalgia fueled writing I have done up to this point. In getting to know Shawn, I realized he is just such a genuine good guy. He makes comics because he loves them, and that comes through in everything he has done with PKD Media and I’m certain that is what we’ll see from Action Lab Entertainment. The problem is that Shawn never stops working, and he was stretched far too thin. So that perfect storm of our friendship, my desire to push myself creatively, and Shawn’s need to lighten his workload resulted in this opportunity.

I’m having a lot of fun writing these characters and am enjoying the challenges of finding their voices while making sure I stay true to the characters as Shawn intended, along with plotting and orchestrating scenes. I am looking forward to finishing this story and ultimately seeing it realized through Daniel J. Logan’s art. I am forever grateful to Shawn for giving me this chance. I couldn’t be more proud to be associated with Shawn and hope I do justice to these characters and this world he created.

The Fuzzy Blue Elf

Since the kiddo couldn’t make it to Summit City Comic Con with me, I made sure to pick him up a few things. Top of the stack were these two great sketches of the Nightcrawler!

The first is a sketch card by my friend Andy Jewett. The kiddo was so pleased with it he had to email Andy to thank him for it.

And you can almost smell the faint scent of brimstone looking at the second sketch by Art Baltazar.

A Fort Wayne Weekend

Last week was a long one. I was working in Chicago from last Monday until I flew home last Thursday. Tracy and the kiddo had school events planned Friday night and Saturday morning and had tickets to the Jake Shimabukuro show Saturday night, so less than 24 hours after arriving home from Chicago I was on my own again, this time out the door on my way to Fort Wayne. I took the day off work Friday to recover from the business trip, pack, and drive to Indiana for the much-anticipated Summit City Comic Con.

The three hour solo trip breezed by quickly with a combination of podcasts and the new Black Keys album, and soon enough I was pulling into Chad and Heather’s drive. My base of operations for the next few days, the Seewalds were putting up not only me, but also Matt and Sarah Kramer, and Mike and Aimee Sims.

Summit City Comic Con was conceived and realized by Zack Kruse and the folks at Discount Comic Book Service, so the pre-show party was at the DCBS store. (Since I’ve been using DCBS for my monthly books for over a year now, it was nice to finally see what is I guess, technically, my LCS in person.) We made a couple of appearances there between some nasty passing storms. The first visit was early in the evening to take advantage of the sale the store was having. After stepping out for dinner, we returned later for drinks and conversation. I love hanging out with Dave Wachter and Amber, and guys like Steve Bryant and Shawn Pryor and Zack. It was good to have time to visit outside the con itself, where we could catch up and visit.

Saturday began with a made-to-order breakfast at Casa de Seewald, then we made our way over to the Grand Wayne Center to get set up and ready for the one-day con. From a creator’s perspective, things were well-organized and smooth. Zack and his host of volunteers (which included Chad) were greeting guests at the entrance and directing us to our tables, and throughout the day they were continually coming by to see if we needed anything.

Sales-wise, May has been good for Deus ex Comica. I did as well at Summit City as I did on Free Comic Book Day at the beginning of the month. But more than that, I got to hang out with so many cool creators and fans. Not sure what I did to deserve it, but Zack placed my table in the best possible location: I was between Ryan Stegman and Mason Easley, and across from Mike Norton and Art Baltazar. It was a plum spot, and I am forever grateful to Zack.

Hard to complain about eight hours of hanging out with Ryan. Fresh off the official announcement of his Marvel exclusive contract, Ryan’s the most down-to-earth guy you could imagine with a great sense of humor and perspective on his fortunes. We had a blast talking about comics, sports, travel, and heckling each other at every opportunity.

During a lull in the afternoon, I walked across the aisle to Mike’s table and had the opportunity to get to know him better. I had briefly met him at Wizard World last year, but was able to talk with him for a long while at Summit City about all-ages comics (a topic I love) and he was interested in hearing about Deus ex Comica (or at least humored me with polite questions).

I also had a chance to wander the floor every now and again when I could recruit Chad to man my table. (Both Ryan and I were impressed with Chad’s sales skills. At one point I was chatting with Steve Bryant at his table, and I looked over at my table to see Chad closing a sale for one of my books! I immediately had to run back over to thank the guy and sign the copy for him.) I really wanted to say hello to Jim Rugg and let him know how much I enjoyed Afrodisiac. I’m always still amazed when someone I don’t know personally knows about my book, so I was kind of floored when Jim said he’d heard of it. We talked about Pittsburgh (where he lives), the local comic shops there, and his AdHouse books publisher. Very cool guy, very cool conversation.

As I was making my way over to Jim’s table, I was stopped by Jay Sternitzky who asked me if I was the same guy who is on the Marvel Noise podcast. When I told him I was, he said he’d heard my voice and recognized it immediately and that he really enjoyed my contributions to the podcast. He also insisted on hooking me up with a copy Short-Stack: Tales of a Super-Human Plumber #1, the comic he writes and letters and that his brother draws and colors. I glanced through it, and it’s visually stunning, along with the Summit City exclusive ash-can of Jay’s other book, The Skeptic. I’m looking forward to sitting down to give them a good read.

Between the pre- and post-show parties and the con itself, I also had a chance to meet a bunch of forum and Twitter folk, like Jim Nelson (How have we not met before now?!), Jonathan “Jonny the Homicidal Drummer” Westhoff, George Cavalenes, and Mike Schwartz.

The ever-present Chris Neseman stopped by our tables multiple times throughout the day to scare off customers. In the final hours of the show, Chris hooked me up with Patrick from Challengers Comics + Conversation, who was attending the show as a vendor. Patrick graciously agreed to take some promotional postcards for Deus ex Comica for his Chicago store and ended up buying a copy of my book, too. I’m looking forward to stopping in to see him on my future trips to the Windy City.

I have always enjoyed talking with Steve Bryant. We had a chance to catch up and talked at the pre-party the night before about selecting my Athena Voltaire original art page that is one of the incentives at the level I pledged to his Kickstarter program. When I could get away on Saturday, I had fun picking out my page from Steve’s Athena Voltaire portfolio. He actually had the page I chose with him, handed it over to me, and told me to go ahead and take it now. What a great piece of art and well worth the money pledged to his cause.

After the show wound down, I packed up the considerably lighter stack of my books, thanked Zack on the way out for a great day, and headed back to Chad and Heather’s house to say good-bye to Mike and Aimee and decompress before heading out for dinner, then over to the after-party at J.K. O’Donnell’s. The place was hopping by the time we got there. Shawn and I had a chance to compare notes on the successes of the day and make plans to take over the world… or at least figure out how to help each other out as we find our places in this medium we love.

Chris, Steve, Jim, Zack, Dave, Hilary, Amber, Andy, and I’m going to forget people if I continue this list… were all there, too. It was a good ending to a fabulous day.

The next morning, after Star Wars pancakes courtesy of Williams-Sonoma and Heather, I packed up my car, said my good-byes to the Seewalds and Kramers, and headed east toward home a little bit exhausted, but it was the kind of exhaustion that can only follow a really good weekend.

SCCC Countdown!

I am a DCBS convert. I still throw money around in the local comic shops, but for the last year the bulk of my monthly haul and new-release collected editions now comes via UPS from Discount Comic Book Service. But even before I was buying my comics from DCBS, I was friends with Zack Kruse… first through forums and then from con-going.

So when the folks at DCBS decided to put on a one-day show in their Fort Wayne hometown, there was no way I could pass it up. I know I’m not “mention worthy” (or even belong on that great list of guest creators they’ve put together for the show), but I’m still pretty damn excited Zack asked me to be a part of Summit City.

There are so many artists and creators you should be looking forward to seeing at this show: Dave Wachter, Andy Jewett, Jim Rugg, Hilary Barta, Mike Norton, Katie Cook, Shawn Pryor, Steve Bryant, Zack himself, and the list goes on. These are all people with talent to spare!

I’ll of course have copies of my book, Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan, available for sale at the show. And if you buy a copy of it, not only can you get it signed by me, but more impressively, you can take it over to the book’s cover artist and Eisner Award Nominee Dave Wachter, and he’ll do a free quick head sketch in the book for you!

I’m looking forward to the short road trip and getting to see friends – creators, podcasters, forum family, and fans – who I only ever get to see during “con season.” Although I’m sure there will be deals to be had, Summit City Comic Con strikes me as filling the hole left by the Around Comics guys’ Windy City Comicon going on hiatus this year: A one-day show that is creator focused over vendor gluttony.

See you next Saturday!

Farther Afield

I took Deus ex Comica to Virginia for George Mason Unversity’s Fall for the Book Festival last year, and it’s time to take the book outside of Ohio again...

First up, I am going to be on the “How to Get Published” panel at the Pittsburgh Comicon Saturday, April 24! I attended this con as a fan last year in September and was able to give a copy of Deus ex Comica to Stan Lee, now this year I will be on a panel with John Booth and Paul Anderson. I don’t have details on what time my panel will be yet, but will add that to the “2010 Author Appearances” schedule on the blog and will certainly be tweeting about it as soon as I know.

I am also going to be at the Summit City Comic Con in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on May 22! This single-day show is being put on by my friend Zack Kruse and the great folks from DCBS. I’m very excited to be a part of this event and have an opportunity to see a lot of my Midwest-based friends in the process.

On the more immediate horizon, and after the success of my author visit at the Learned Owl in Hudson in mid-February, I’m now looking forward to reading at the Northwest Akron Branch of the Akron-Summit County Public Library Thursday, March 04 (time and details below). If you’re in Northeast Ohio, please feel free to stop in, listen to some readings from Deus ex Comica, take part in the conversation afterward or just say “hello!”

So I am still on-track with my goal to average no less than one book-related event per month in 2010 and there's more to come!

• March 04, 6.30pm-7.30pm: Northwest Akron Branch (ASCPL), 1720 Shatto Avenue, Akron (330.836.1081)
• April 24, TBD: "How to Get Published", Pittsburgh Comicon, Monroeville Convention Center, 209 Mall Boulevard, Monroeville, Pennsylvania
• April 29, 7pm-8pm: Nordonia Hills Branch (ASCPL), 9458 Old Eight Road, Northfield (330.467.8595)
• May 01 (Free Comic Book Day!), TBD: Comic Heaven, 4847 Robinhood, Willoughby (440.942.6960)
• May 22, 10am-6pm: Summit City Comic Con, The Grand Wayne Center, 120 West Jefferson Boulevard, Fort Wayne, Indiana
• June 27, 10am-4pm: Akron-Canton Con, Chapparells Community Center, 2418 S. Arlington Road, Akron
• July 10, 2pm-3pm: Firestone Park Branch (ASCPL), 1486 Aster Avenue, Akron (330.724.2126)