Akron Comicon Report

Almost two years ago, the first meeting of POP! The Comics Culture Club met in Parma. As that gathering of people grew, I met Michael Savene. Michael is a man with a vision of big things in Akron with regards to comics. It’s not my place to reveal all of the good stuff he wants to do for the medium we love in the town we call home, but so far he has impressed me every step of the way as he executes his plans.

First, Michael successfully established the Akron Chapter of POP!, then along with his partner Robert Jenkins, he put on the first Akron Comicon at the University of Akron Student Union.

Michael has very graciously included me in his plans, allowing me the flexibility to be as involved as my schedule permits. My role in these activities is minuscule, but I’m proud to even be associated with these successes. And, while I can’t speak to the financials, the Akron Comicon appears to have been a success.

John and I had a table at the con, selling copies of our books. As a creator, I had a really good show. There was steady traffic for our table up until really the final hour or so. Sales and conversation was also lively for us. While I saw a lot of people I recognize from the local comics scene on hand, there were plenty of new faces coming by who were interested in what we had to offer.

Another high point of the show was the quality and number of cosplayers in attendance. (Check out my Instagram account for pictures.) They were on-hand for the entire day, too, sticking around to participate in the contest at the end of the eight-hour show.

I did not hear a single negative thing about the show from fellow creators or from any of the fans in attendance. If nothing else, it certainly feels like Michael has proven that Akron can sustain a comic convention. And I’m looking forward to next year’s event... November 09, 2013. Mark your calendars!

The Power Principle Kickstarter!

I first met Alan White online when comics brought us together. But over the last five years, we have become friends outside of our beloved medium, and he continues to surprise me in the best possible ways at nearly every turn.

Last October, we finally came up with an excuse to get him out to visit us and meet in person: Columbus’ Mid-Ohio Con. I got to know Alan even better as we shared the stories of our lives, and it was then that I first learned the details behind The Power Principle.

Over the course of that weekend, Alan shared his origin story and the role The Power Principle played in it. The reveal took place in epic conversations around my kitchen island and debates while driving in my car and smaller exchanges while back issue diving side-by-side at the con. It was these moments that reinforced my admiration and respect for Alan, and solidified my belief in his project. By the time we put him on a plane back home to New York City, he had given me the scripts to the first four issues of The Power Principle, and I had signed on to edit the whole affair.

In the months since, I have done whatever I can to help Alan... not just as an editor, but as a friend. We talk weekly about the series, the characters, the Kickstarter preparations, the finances, the fear, the excitement, all of it! I’m honored he has allowed me to have a small role in his dream. But more than that, I’m excited to see this Kickstarter campaign finally go live and see my friend put himself out there, inching even closer to the reality of a Power Principle on-going series.

I am often astounded by how effortlessly The Power Principle story spills out of Alan! As I have worked my way through the scripts, there are countless moments where I have had to stop and simply admire how well-crafted Alan’s vision for these characters is, and how well-executed the initial drafts were. And that’s what makes me so excited about the possibilities for this Kickstarter project... I love the idea that others will finally get to read these comics and get to know these characters Alan has created and invested so much of himself in, and be gobsmacked by the cliff-hangers and reveals like I have over the last nine months.

Please take a few moments to check out Alan’s Kickstarter project... read about what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. Check out the video he made that perfectly captures his personality and sincere gratitude for just having the opportunity to produce The Power Principle. And, of course, consider contributing whatever you can to realize Alan’s dream while getting to read a damn fine comic and some awesome swag to boot!

Iron Man Covers Project #9

Iron Man Covers Project #8

C2E2: What It's All About

C2E2 2012 was the best con experience I’ve had. Period. It was a perfect mix of comics and pop culture goodness, and good friends.

We’d originally planned to stay at the Omni because I have a bunch of free nights saved up from all the travel I do for work, but at the last minute (as in, the day before the con!) we decided to opt for convenience over saving a buck and were able to sneak into the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. And it was the best decision we could’ve made. Being situated at the hotel attached to the convention center is brilliant, especially when travelling with a kid and when you’re bringing along some hardcovers for your favorite creators to sign. The ability to quickly run back to the room to drop off a weighty omnibus or have some quiet mid-day downtime is invaluable.

As I left Tracy and Jack at the car while I went to check in, Jack told me to get the highest floor I could so he would be able to see the city. At the front desk, I explained the kiddo’s request and he was rewarded when the clerk moved us from our 17th floor reservation to a room situated on the hotel's top-most floor: the 33rd. The city and lake views we were afforded were breathtaking: Lake Michigan, the museum campus, Soldier Field, the Chicago skyline lit up at night. Gorgeous!

I loved being on the con floor with Tracy and Jack, exploring vendor booths, discovering new artists and creators, bumping into friends and acquaintances we hadn’t seen in years and meeting up with folks we’ve only known online up to this point. The ReedPOP group does a great job putting on these shows (they’re the same folks responsible for our Star Wars Celebration V experience a couple years ago), and the venue was great. Nice wide aisles, big artists’ alley, and the one panel I attended was well organized and in a comfortable space.

Equally amazing were the after-hours: Dinner and drinks with good friends. My Chicago comics friends are the most genuine people. No pretention, just hanging out and catching up over good food, even better beer, enjoying great conversation and the love of comics that brought us together.

High-points abound, but most were intangibles. Things like sharing some beer with George, meeting and getting lost in a conversation about movies and music with Rich, running into Joe Quesada on the con floor and giving him a copy of Deus ex Comica and snapping a picture together, attending the wildly entertaining John Barrowman Q&A panel with Tracy (which was equally wildly inappropriate for Jack – thank goodness for iPad distractions), breakfast with Rick and Noelle and Alan, dinner with the Kramer’s and Seewald’s, seeing how excited Tracy was after meeting John Barrowman and telling us how she made him laugh, getting to spend some substantial time catching up with Zack, and hanging with Pat.

That’s not to say there weren’t some cool tangible takeaways from the con. I had Joe Quesada sign my “One More Day” issues and my badge, Jason Aaron signed my Ghost Rider omnibus, and Bill Sienkiewicz scribbled his signature on a couple of my original “Demon Bear Saga” issues of New Mutants. I was able to snag the last copy of Black Heart Billy that Rick Remender brought with him to the show, and pick up a couple of music-related comics (the Bandthology one-shot from my friends at King Bone Press, and the Pretentious Record Store Guy three-issue mini from Carlos Gabriel Ruiz). Zombies were ubiquitous (read: overexposed) at the show, but the only time I gave in was when Jack and I stumbled on illustrator Mike Roll’s table and couldn’t pass up Apooka (“The World’s Most Adorable Zombie”).

Luck put Mark Morales’ table next to Gabriel Hardman’s, and when I was talking with Gabriel about a commission, Jack was understandably transfixed by Mark’s work. When Jack asked Mark how much a sketch was, Mark told him it would be free for him. After some amusing negotiations between my 10-year-old and this amazing inker, they settled on a Punisher sketch. Ripped off in virtually no time at all, Jack was completely blown away by the piece and I was impressed with Mark’s generosity. I believe he knows he’s got a couple of fans for life with that gesture.

Plenty of people and events have been left off this list (Jon, Bobgar, Cam, Lawrence, the list goes on), but only because there were far too many cool people I was fortunate enough to hang with this weekend. (Not to mention all the people I missed. Yes, I mean you, Ryan.) I hope they all know how much I appreciate their friendship and camaraderie. Growing up, I had only one friend who shared my love of comics. Today, I’m fortunate to not only remain good friends with him, but to also have a wife and son and whole host of other friends who share in this remarkable geek culture.

(All photos by Adam and Tracy Besenyodi.)

Iron Man Covers Project #7

Iron Man Covers Project #6

Iron Man Covers Project #5

When You’re Really Good, They Call You “Cracker Jack!”

There are certain ads that were ubiquitous in comic books when I was growing up. There was the “Win a Columbia Ten-Speed Formula 10 Racer” banner across the front cover of every Marvel comic in November 1981. Inside there were ads for Mile High Comics and Robert Bell selling back issues, D&D sets, model kits, Bubble Yum gum, Saturday morning cartoon blocks, you name it. And in the issues cover dated October 1982 (which means they would have been on the spinner racks of the Lawson’s convenience store at the corner of my street sometime around July of that year), there was an inside-the-front-cover ad for “Special Limited Edition Baseball Cards” from Cracker Jack!

I played little league (poorly) for a few years and grew up in the geographical center of the pro sports Bermuda Triangle (Northeast Ohio). My dad never seemed to have any interest in baseball and never took me to an Indians game. As a result of all this, I’ve never been a big baseball fan, but I do love comics, and I liked Cracker Jack. So I guess that’s why I saved up my eight box tops and shipped them off to Borden with my thirty-five cents. My reward was two sheets of all-time baseball greats.

I don’t know why I kept them over the years, but I have. I stumbled on them when we were cleaning the basement last summer. They were in a large box that also included my relatively meager collection of other sports cards – football, baseball, basketball – along with my Topps 1981 Football and Baseball Sticker Albums.

In Deus ex Comica, I talk about how playing with my toys never equated to destroying my toys, and the same was true for any of my other possessions. My comics were always neatly stored and my various cards were always kept in tidy little boxes. And the Cracker Jack sheets have remained uncut for the past three decades now.

A quick search on the interwebs, and it appears the cards were commissioned from Topps and aren’t worth too much. But immediately after scanning them for this blog post, they went right back into the box they came out of. And they’ll probably stay there for another 30 years.

Iron Man Covers Project #4

A Sort of Homecoming

I’m pretty excited to have another library visit on the horizon. I’ll be reading selections from Deus ex Comica, talking about my journey back into comics, and having what I hope will be a fun Q&A session afterwards. I love doing author visits because they bring back to me just how much I enjoyed the process of writing the book (and how proud I am of that accomplishment).

This visit will be at the Stark County District Library’s Lake Community Branch. What makes this one extra cool is that the library is located between the middle school and high school I attended. The talk is scheduled for 6:30pm on Tuesday, April 10.

These kinds of events always remind me why comics are so important to me, and the timing of this one is sure to put me that much more into the right mindset for attending C2E2 the following weekend!

Author Visit – Adam Besenyodi,
Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan
Tuesday, April 10
6:30pm

Lake Community Branch
11955 Market Avenue N
Uniontown, OH 44685
330.877.9975

Register for the Event
Online or by Phone

I will have copies of Deus ex Comica and a limited supply of Exo-1 and the Rocksolid Steelbots (the graphic novel I co-wrote for Action Lab Entertainment) available for purchase after the talk.

As always, if you buy a copy of Deus ex Comica direct from me, you get a free digital copy of the book for your tablet, PC, or smartphone.

Iron Man Covers Project #3

I have always been in awe of the artist’s work. It’s talent and skill, and I recognize that’s not something I possess. But another byproduct of this Iron Man covers project is being even that much more impressed by comic book artists who only work in black and white. The cover recreations I’m doing look like indiscernible messes before I use colored pencils to finish the pieces. Plus, mixing colors to come up with skin tones and blending and things like that have been a great exercise. Not to mention the fact that coloring is just plain fun!

Iron Man Covers Project #2

The first Iron Man cover recreation I did was quick and dirty. I ripped through it really fast and without regard for much of anything – including lettering and the number of fingers on a human hand. Since then, however, I’ve been taking more time with each one, slowing down and drawing purposefully. They are taking me about two hours apiece now, from first ink to finished colors. I’m really happy with how the subsequent covers have come out, and I’m excited to share them!

Iron Man Covers Project #1

I loved to draw as a kid. Sometime in the mid-’70s I sat down and drew an illustrated four-page “book” depicting the lyrics to “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. (Man, I wish I still had that!) Around second or third grade my mom sent me to art classes at the Canton Museum of Art. Now, however, I recognize that the confidence and any ability I might have had as a kid is long gone. But I saw Bean’s FF Cover Project and thought he was on to a really great idea. So I cribbed it. Wholesale.

I’m working my way through the Iron Man covers one at a time, and I’m going to see where it leads me. I have no designs on any sort of long-term art-related job. I’m not looking to draw comics or anything like that. I just want to see if I can get better at something I used to love doing and haven’t done in a very long time. Sort of exercise a different set of creative muscles than those I use when writing.

Taking my cues from Bean and the self-imposed, warts-and-all approach he came up with, I’m working in a 5 ½” by 8 ½” lined notebook with black ink and colored pencils, no real artistic talent, and a love of comic cover recreations…

Back In Back Issue

On page 345 of the current Previews comic shop catalog, there is a solicit for Back Issue #56. It’s their “Avengers” issue, and among the pieces in it is my examination of Clint Barton’s Hawkeye. I’m really excited about the piece and the folks I was fortunate enough to talk with about the character. Of course, I would love to have had the opportunity to speak with the late Mark Gruenwald about his epic Hawkeye four-issue limited series, but I was able to talk with the amazing Brett Breeding who inked the first half of that series, and the entire creative team behind the West Coast Avengers limited series – longtime Avengers scribe Roger Stern, penciller Bob Hall, and inker Breeding. I also had the chance to speak with Roy Thomas about the transitions he put the character through in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I had a great time researching, conducting interviews for, and writing this piece.

The Hawkeye story is significantly longer than the Elektra piece I wrote for Back Issue last year, which allowed me to stretch a bit and explore the depth of character added by Hawkeye’s strengths and flaws, specifically the egotism required of a non-superpowered character to be successful in the world he inhabits and the self-doubt resulting from that same set of circumstances.

You can order your copy of the magazine through Previews, or get it direct from the publisher (which comes with a free digital copy of the issue) or pickup just the digital copy at a discounted price for your tablet or PC. There's sure to be plenty of Bronze Age comic-y goodness packed in the issue! Hope you’ll check it out!

The StarSensor™ Never Lies!

When we were in high school, my buddies and I played Lazer Tag. We got the kits and played in our various backyards and across our neighborhoods. There are stories from those epic battles that are still used to regale friends and family with two decades later. (Yeah, I’m talking about the time John ran into a tree, full bore, at dusk.) But what I definitely don’t remember are these comic book ads for the game or the Lazer Tag Academy NBC Saturday morning show referenced in them. Logically, I suppose that makes sense considering by 1986 I was really only reading G.I. Joe and Uncanny X-Men regularly, and, without any younger siblings, I was too old to be really entrenched in the Saturday morning cartoon routine. But regardless, these are some fun time capsules for late ’80s toys and marketing…

The Comic Book Kid

I feel like I’m rediscovering all kinds of hidden gems as I go through my immediate family’s old photos. And now there’s this. I swear if I had remembered this picture existed three years ago, it would be somewhere on the cover of my book Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan! I had completely forgotten that my mom had made this for me. And, embarrassingly, I have no idea where it might be today. (Sorry, Mom.) But, man, how awesome is this?!

Christmas morning, 1984. I’m 14 years old and deep into comic reading and collecting. I didn’t ask for this, but I remember my mom doing a lot of this kind of chicken scratch embroidery. (We had a table runner made of the same brown gingham at the time.) Mom had left a loop at the top, and Dad got me a dowel rod to slip through to hang it in my room, where it resided for quite a few years after this.

When Tracy and I cleaned and purged in our basement last summer, this was not among my stuff. Think this might call for an excursion into my parents’ basement and my childhood closet to see if it can be located, and then I can properly pass the mantle of “The Comic Book Kid” on to my kiddo.

The Science of the Seventies

In the mid-’70s, there were a lot of things wrong in America. There was an oil crisis. Nixon had disgraced the highest office in the land and resigned. And with the end of the Vietnam War, one of the biggest problems our returning GI’s faced was how to “get it all together.” Thankfully, if they were reading comic books, these guys knew the Cleveland Institute of Electronics, Inc. was there to give them the break they needed.

After earning their FCC license from CIE, servicemen were able to sit around dressed in nice suits sharing drinks with pretty blondes, and were so flush with cash they had to keep the extra dough right out on the table in front of them. Now that’s livin’, man.

Orienteering

I recently reread Uncanny X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga. If you’ve read my book, Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan, then you know this was the trade paperback that jumpstarted my long-dormant love of comics. Reading this classic X-Men tale again was a real treat, and I find that each run through of the material yields something new to me. This time, what really struck me was the brilliance of writer Chris Claremont and penciller & co-plotter John Byrne’s work, specifically, the recap on page two of issue #134. It’s preceded by the expected splash page, but by itself the second page is impeccable. The simplicity of it belies the complexity of where we are in the story. It’s both a visual feast of color and a descriptive bit of storytelling to orient the reader. Perfect.

Mini Marvels Magic

Jack loves Chris Giarrusso’s G-Man books and his Mini Marvels work (which I’m also a fan of)! So having the opportunity to meet the man in-person at Mid-Ohio Con was a pretty big deal. The kiddo took his copy of G-Man for Giarrusso to sign. Walking away Jack looked inside the book to find that not only did Giarrusso sign it, but he also did a little G-Man sketch in it, too! So the kiddo had to run back to the table to thank him again!

When I saw that Giarrusso was doing 8 ½ by 11 sketches for just $20 a pop, Jack and I talked about it and decided we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I have had Hawkeye on the mind since wrapping up the piece I just wrote for the upcoming spring issue of Back Issue magazine, so I knew right away what I wanted. For Jack, who has always loved the three-legged Iron Spider-Man gag in “The Iron Avengers” Mini Marvels story, it was also a no-brainer. We couldn’t be happier with the results!