Wizard World Dallas: Day Two (Now with pictures)

Day Two here at Wizard Texas was a little slow. Saleswise, it was a little better than yesterday, but off from last year. That’s okay, though. Things are going well enough, and the day had a lot of highlights.

I wore my Captain Hammer shirt, and I’m always surprised how few Captain Hammer shirts I see at these shows. But, for the people who know the excellence that is Doctor Horrible, it always gets a reaction. I met a guy dressed as the bad Doctor, and I posed for a picture that will inevitably appear above my biography in Love and Capes #9.

I also met a couple dressed as Captain Hammer and Penny. In a bout of coolness, she’d dressed as Dead Penny for Halloween. (Ooops, I hope that I didn’t spoil anything.) They asked me for a Captain Hammer and Penny commission. It was really the only one I did on Saturday, but man alive, did it come out well. And, because I brought my Wacom Tablet, and because Jesse’s nice enough to drive me to a FedEx Kinkos before the show today,they’ll be able to get their color commission today. No shipping for the win!

Plus, I figure any day you sell out of something is a good day. Well, I sold out of Powerful Women #2. If you sell out of anything, it menas people wanted it and you printed a good amount. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to press on it eventually, probably when I get a third version done.

I also did some business stuff on Saturday. Any day you can meet someone at a major publisher who’s been told to come over to see you by a mutual friend and they walk away with some copies of your book, it’s nothing but good.

I also did two different podcast interviews, with a third to come on the phone when I get home. Any PR isgood PR, and the more the better, especially with the trade coming out at the end of the month.

Speaking of which, I did get my first advance copies of said IDW trade paperback collection. It looks phenomenal! You all are going to be so happ when you buy your ten copies.

Jesse and I went to the Heroes For Heroes sketch party after the show. There were some phenomenal pieces there, including by Marko Can’t-Spell-His-Last-Name who worked on Daredevil. It’s just amazing to watch him work. He shouldn’t be able to do the things he does with a brush.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling Sunday will be even better.

Wizard World Texas: Day One

I’m back in Dallas for WizardWorld Texas. It’s a great show for me, because I get to stay with my good friend Jesse Jackson. The con is a bonus on top of that.

There’s a lot of talk about WizTexas not doing well, and it always seems to be on the bubble of cancellation by Wizard. Last year I thought Wizard had reached that point of maximum compression from which they could build into a bigger show. With Friday in the can, color me ambivalent about that.

Friday’s a slow day in general. It’s hard to get a read on the convention in general based on that. I think any show that takes place outside the summer and has a Friday start is going to have some slowness. And this year’s WizTexas is no exception.

That said, I’ve made my table costs on Day One. Since there were years where I didn’t make that at the end of Day Three, I think I’m certainly in the win column here. I’ve got more stuff, and more popular stuff, than any year before, so I think I skew the results, too. Still, whatever worlks, right?

The only problem I really had was that, stupidly, I left both my drawing paper and my brand new display rack, built by McGyverDad, at Jesse’s place. Jesse takes the role of my Ace Assistant here at these shows, so drove back to his place to cover my stupidity.

I could have lived without the rack, cool though it is and I’ll post a picture soon, but the art stuff was a neccesity. Commissions have become a huge chunk of my business at cons.

I did two commissions: a Princess Leia and an Invisible Woman. Both turned out well. I also sold the Mary Marvel piece that I did for the first Powerful Women book. I sold a bunch of issues of Love and Capes as well, including my seemingly-constant “first issue to a girlfriend who doesn’t read comics”. They’re there for all three days, so I expect that she’ll be back to buy the rest. I’ve seen it happen more than a few times.

I may have lined some work up out of the show, so that’s always good. And I’ve locked in some participation with the excellent Heroes For Heroes group, supplying comics and pop culture stuff to our armed forces abroad. Tonight they’re having a fundraiser which I’ll be going to. Last year was fun, and they promise tonight will be better.

Jesse and I had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. The Defuser, of Who Wants to be a Superhero fame. I ran into The Defuser last at Comic-Con, and we saw each other for a few minutes in a restaurant, but never hooked up again. We got to rectify that by going out to a great dinner at Po Melvins (Food so good it’ll make you want to slap yo mama, that’s their slogan. No, seriously.)

The Defuser told us more about his charity haunted house in Austin. I’m not much of a haunted house guy, but, man, it sounded cool.

So it was a pretty nice first day.

We’re leaving for the second day in a few minutes. I’m expecting to sell decently, and do more than a few commissions. If you’re bored or just have the equivalent of computer-based ADD, you can always check me out on Twitter to see posts live from the show.

Did I Mention?

I'm going to Dallas today (right now, as my plane is about to board) for Wizard World Dallas tomorrow. If you're in the area, come on down and see me… and buy some books.

Dinner of Champions

One of my favorite parts of Mid-Ohio-Con is the dinner. Not that the food was particularly good, although it often is, but the company is always excellent. If you're lucky, you can have some amazing dinner companions.

Sunday night, I had dinner with Chris Claremont, Mark Evanier, Bob Ingersoll, Tony Isabella, Jesse Jackson (no, not that one), Carmella Merlo, Roger Price, Roger Stern, and Len Wein. Amazing.

The stories we told, the laughs we have. Man, I wish I could share them, but they're no longer in continuity.

Actually, we mostly talked comics, which was just great. We had the viewpoint of legends, readers, and sometimes even me. Seriously, this was one of the high points of the show.

Click on any photo to embiggen and enjealousify yourself.

Mid-Ohio-Con 2008: Gotta Love It!

Mid-Ohio-Con was a blur of goodness. Roger Price had one of those rare shows that, as a creator, was just so friendly. Big name to little name, you felt special and part of the Con Family. James Henry, new owner, has managed quite a feat in continuing that without missing a beat. If anything, that Con Love has just gotten better.

I did a couple panels, along with the Good Morning, Mid-Ohio-Con panel. I did a Breaking Into Comics panel with Marc Sumerak and the Joe Kubert School (of which I am a graduate). I realized how long I'd been in the industry when everyone was talking about how they started with web comics, and I said "When I graduated, there weren't any web comics."

Actually, this was my twentieth Mid-Ohio-Con. Of course, I started coming when I was in high school, but still, that's a long run. I only missed a couple when I was at art school.

But, back to this show. I've mentioned elsewhere that sales were great. The guests were great, friendly, and I got to spend some time with more than a few of them. Hopefully I'll post some pictures of that soon. And it was just too cool to see the Con Crew walking around in Amazonia t-shirts. I know some of that is because of my special reationship with the show, but still, it seems like Love and Capes is really gaining some traction.

I also did a webcomics panel with Wes Molebash, Chris Eliopolous, and a third creator whose name I can't find right now. That was a lot of fun. (And thank you Iron Fist for all your questions!)

I participated in the MOC Sketch Jam, where we did drawings on a stage that would be later auctioned for charity. I did an Amazonia sketch that came out pretty well, especially for a drawing done early in the morning and on an easel, to boot.

And my Captain Hammer shirt was quite the hit. In fact, I had people complaining that they had "Everyone's a Hero in Their Own Way" stuck in their head after seeing me. So I flexed the deltoids of compassion and sang a couple lines of "A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Got to Do" to get a different song stuck in their head.

I live to serve.

There's still more to write, and I'll be parceling that out over the next couple of days. Hopefully a couple more sketch scans will come through, and I was interviewed on the Comics Related podcast. As soon as that goes live, I'll let you know.

Commishalicious

I did a boatload of commissions at Mid-Ohio-Con this weekend. According to my list, I did a couple of Power Girls, a couple of Supergirls, an Alfred E. Neuman, a Wesley/Fred/Ilyria, an Abby from Love and Capes, an Elektra, an Amazonia, a Devil Girl, and a caricature/wedding sign. Whew! That was a lot, and that doesn't include any quick head sketches or the inevitable things I forgot, too.

I took some photos of a couple on my wicked cool iPhone, and some are being sent to me so that I can color them and finish them up. I'll post them over the next couple weeks and show them off. Some of them came out particularly well, and they were all fun. In particular, I really liked this Devil Girl I did. It was fun having a generic theme, rather than a specific character, and playing in that world.

The other commission here is Power Girl, and she's always fun.

Ca-ching!

Some of you may remember the tragic lunchbox story from last year. I made some money at the show, and proceeded to lose it in one of the non-fun, non-gambling ways. I left it somewhere and I don't know where.

Well, I can say now that my earnings from the weekend made it back, and are now safely stored at my bank.

Although, these days, that may not be all that safe.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Con

The New Mid-Ohio-Con debuted this year, and I'll write much about it. The prêcis version: Awesome. I had my best sales at a show evah. Tons of good at the show.

Here's a quick hit, and one of my favorite parts. It also illustrates why I love the Con World: It's that unique parallel universe where stuff like this works and is appreciated.

So, good friend and great writer Paul D. Storrie and I were having a war of words. Lyrics, actually. The truly-excellent Dr. Horrible (written by Buffy scribe Joss Whedon, and starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day) musical features songs that are darn-near instant earworms. You can't get them out of your head.

Paul and I would go up to each other, sing a phrase like "Everyone's a hero in their own way…" and know that the other person would have it burning in their skull for the next couple of hours. On Sunday, Paul went nuclear by calling me and singing the Bad Horse song.

Not one to be outdone, I set upon a plan. I went to Paul's booth and said "It's time for my revenge." And I sang (if you can call it that) "I hear it's better the second time/I hear you get to do the weird stuff" and, on cue, my friends Mariann and Sarah popped their heads through the curtain behind him and sang the chorus "We'd do the weird stuff."

Paul even got caught up in the moment, singing the chorus before he knew there would be a chorus, and inadvertently putting him in the role of Creepy Fan from the show. Thom Zahler for the win!

To do this, Mariann and Sarah had to walk through Darryl Banks' booth. I went up to explain the situation, which I swear went like this: "Darryl, I'm Thom Zahler. We've met before and I work with the show…" Daryl had an inquisitive look on his face, not knowing where this was going. "Oh, hell, I need to play a joke on Paul Storrie."

Darryl smiled and said "Do whatever you need to."

Man, I love conventions. Especially this one.

More updates as I find the time.

Here I Go

I am outta here and on my way to Columbus for Mid-Ohio-Con. (Well, there's the printer I have to stop at, and the bank, and probably some car food, but after that, straight there.) I'll be there doing commissions, on a couple of panels, and participating in a live charity drawing event.There's lots of coolness to be had, so come on by!

They Have Mass and Take Up Space

Some of you may remember the horrible events of 2004 and the missing Mid-Ohio-Con program books. I've always been gunshy about shipping since then. But, I cansay without question that the 2008 Mid-Ohio-Con program books are done and printed. They left on a truck yesterday, and are guaranteed to be there tomorrow.

Well, assuming the truck doesn't flip over or drop through a wormhole or something. It's as guaranteed as a thing can be.

But, the books are done and it's always great to see them and hold them in my hands. Here, the Last Daughter of Krypton plays spokesmodel to the printed Program Books.