E7? Where's That?

Comic-Con 2009 is over, and it's the same for me every year. At the beginning of the Con I'm pumped and ready to go, but at the end I'm crawling away, barely alive...

This year I promoted my Pretty Vacant comic book through the Bare Bones Studios table at E7. To save on the cost of a table (and to have a table at all), I teamed up with three other people: Mike, the bunny-eared leader (who had to choose between publishing his book or eating -- he chose to eat), Rob, who cosplays as a killer robot every year, and Sandra, coming back to the Con after a brief hiatus.

As valuable as pooling resources is to maintain costs, getting along with your partners is probably more important. The great thing is that the four of us get along very well; much so that by the end of the show we instinctively knew the other’s selling points even when they were not around!

Our selling points were all unique. My own Pretty Vacant: how mad scientists make money to fund their evil experiments, Mike's Battlescars: where the villians wear the costumes, Rob's Shadow Prophecy: touted as "The Worst Comic Book Ever," and Sandra's amazing art prints, ranging from cute girl art to erotica.

I’m grateful that Mike provided the table even though he had no new product! Only Rob would dare sell a comic book by offering a refund if he or she actually liked it! As for Sandra, attendees were offering her $50 for a single commission piece! I was just happy whenever I sold a three dollar copy of Pretty Vacant…
As Comic-Con shifted its focus away from comic books to other popular arts over the past few years, the convention crowds have gotten tougher. Movie studios, toy companies and even the bigger comic companies all give away cool swag at the show. Attendees are expecting more and more freebies. Though inexpensive, comic books aren’t free. Sandra and I each had free postcards to give away, but we both ran out well before the show ended. Fortunately, Mike had the ideal solution for our table -- stickmen!

Mike glued thousands of Styrofoam balls onto popsicle sticks to create his stickmen. With the help of his friend Carlos, they enticed attendees with the offer of “free action figures!” It worked. People would come by the table to see what the fuss was all about. Some turned away, no doubt feeling deceived, but most of the Con-goers actually got the joke.

On the first day of the show, one attendee felt slighted because her stickman had no face. I snatched her stickman and proceeded to draw a happy face on the Styrofoam ball with a black marker. Delighted, she turned and bragged that her action figure had a face, prompting many other conventioneers to come by the table to receive a customized ball on a stick!

Thus I became the unofficial “artist” of Bare Bones’ stickmen. I was soon drawing every face imaginable: happy, sad, angry, even zombie (it is Comic-Con, after all)! My favorite came from a lady who noticed the Beatles shirt I was wearing on Day Two and asked me to draw her stickman face “like Paul McCartney.” I drew two dashes and a blackened oval. I waved her stickman back and forth and sang, “whooooo!” Satisfied, she even bought a Pretty Vacant comic, which was the point.

We were loud, brash and in people’s faces. These are not attributes I normally exhibit in my day-to-day life, but at Comic-Con, it’s a necessity. Nice guys don’t sell comics. Funny, talented, give-stickmen-away-for-free guys sell comics! By getting people to our table, we were able to show them the items we had for sale: be it Pretty Vacant, Sandra’s art prints, or “The Worse Comic Book EVER.” Mike even got to talk about his upcoming book.

I’m not going to dwell on the negative things like temporarily losing my voice, sore feet, or that 12 year-old kid who looked at my stuff and said, “You suck!” I was able to cover the expenses for printing Pretty Vacant with the sales I made at Comic-Con, but that’s just a nice bonus.

Hanging out with creative people, seeing old friends (Rachel, Danny and Jennifer), meeting new friends (Mike, Phil and Elizabeth), giving advice on a panel (“Try to sum up your idea in a sentence”), attending the Chuck panel with my nieces, and a baseball-heavy lunch conversation with my good friend Rodney are the memories I will take away from this event!

Let me add that Rodney really liked Pretty Vacant.

Mike, Rob, Sandra and I agreed to split the table next year. If you attend 2010’s Comic-Con and see a killer robot, give the robot some love. Rock on, killer robot!


And I do hope the lady who had nicest smile at Comic-Con comes back to sell her comic book in 2010!

The ‘Joie de Vivre’ of Comics: San Diego Comic-Con

With a new book to promote, one would imagine that Comic-Con would be the ideal place to debut Pretty Vacant. Yet it is not, and it leads me to my main criticism about Comic-Con: the focus is not on comic books anymore.

Comic-Con once took only films and television shows with a comic book, sci-fi or fantasy bent. Now it seems that it will take studio money no matter what the show’s content may be. Where Heroes and the V remake are a definite fit with Comic-Con, Chuck and The Big Bang Theory are only borderline fits at best. But Dexter and Weeds? No staffer gave me a decent explanation as to why those shows were at the Con.

Comic books? The big joke was that comic books were the endangered species at its own show! Where I was selling Pretty Vacant, other tables were selling t-shirts, films, jewelry, toys, and there was even a table showcasing a Playboy bunny! There were only two tables selling comic books in my aisle.

Despite all its flaws, I love Comic-Con! Even if studios and attendees don’t care about comic creators, the Con still treats them very well. I always want to see what new comic books are out or are being planned. It’s great to meet friends that I only seem to see at the show. And I love how almost everything offered at Comic-Con is accessible to everyone – even if Hollywood is now starting up exclusive invitation only parties outside the San Diego Convention Center.

Exclusivity ruined the Sundance Film Festival. What started as a low-profile festival for small independent films has become a media extravaganza for Hollywood. I can only hope that the same fate doesn’t befall my beloved Comic-Con!

Alas! Poor Mindy, I Knew Her Well...

Pretty Vacant starts off fast! Page One opens with an accosted Mindy being sedated. Unseen antagonists have special plans for Mindy and her friend Gigi, kicking off the perilous plot.

Since the original pitch for Pretty Vacant was how mad scientists make money to fund their evil experiments, it’s obvious that Mindy’s fate will be something insidious. Indeed, Mindy is plastinated to make casting molds for the Still Life Corporation’s new mannequin products.

Cruel? Probably. Unfair? Perhaps. Necessary? Yes.

Mindy’s fate is crucial to the story. By linking it with Gigi’s, Gigi is made vulnerable. Suspense can now build when Gigi undergoes the same process as Mindy, leaving doubt that Gigi could prevail!

Some characters are not destined to be the lead. Mindy’s part is short but essential, and appropriately given a beautiful demise. In a supporting role her character shines, not as bright as the comic’s stars, but just as intense!