Various Deathworld-related Happenings - 2006

[RiESC]

well, there's a bunch of stuff going on with me and the comic in the next couple of weeks, so i figured i should put this poor, neglected board to some use and chronicle the various events that take place.

 So yeah, every once in a while, i appear at these comic & toy fairs here in Edmonton (i'm far too poor to go to shows in other cities, even in my own province!  ).  The last one was the Edmonton Collectable Toy & Comic Show, and i had just completed the newest installment of my self-published Deathworld comic books.

The big thing about this show was that i had made the decision to finally change the name of both my "production company" and the comic itself, and the newest comic reflected this change. See, most of my peers have decent studio names, yet i had nothing beyond my FFF logo, which really just stood for "Fudda Fudda Fudda". Yes, i really couldn't think of anything better when i started making these comics. Anyways, before the Pop Culture Fair in October 2005, i came up with the name Sulking Shadow Productions. As for the comic, i felt that i needed something that better reflected my goals for the book, which was a place to tell self contained stories that didn't have to synch up with the "main" continuum - so i went with Deathworld - Stand Alone Stories. Because really, i didn't want to turn anyone off the series by not having the earliest issues - because they weren't necessary to enjoy and understand any particular issue.

As for the show itself, it was a good amount of fun. i met a few people who remembered my comic from when i was published in the Universtiy's newspaper, and i also met a few other aspiring artists & writers who were looking for collaborators or talent they could "exploit". My sales weren't all that hot - in fact, i saw a few girls who i know are, or were, fans of Deathworld, so i'm hoping they didn't buy my new work simply because they didn't notice me (my displays for this show weren't as "extravagant" as previous endeavours). Probably the hilight of the show was towards the end when a huge Star Wars fan talked to all of the artists who were there at the Artist's Alley, wanting to get pictures drawn of Boba Fett - his favorite character. i'm pleased to say i did a very good rendition for the 15-20 minutes i spent on it, and he paid me $5 for it.

[Zarabadoo]

congratulations Rudi.

Now, you don't have to take my word for it, but I hear that a few of the people that go to these conventions take a little, cheap sample comics with them to sell. something they can practically give away for a dollar. IT is a short self contained story with the characters and printed in pure black and white on some fairly cheap paper (maybe some colored paper for the cover). That way they don't have to spend the full amount on the regular comic book and story right off the bat. kind an ice breaker of sorts.

[RiESC]

Now, you don't have to take my word for it, but I hear that a few of the people that go to these conventions take a little, cheap sample comics with them to sell. something they can practically give away for a dollar.

uh.. yeah, that's pretty much what i do...
So i'm not really sure if that warrants a "congratulations" or not.

But anyways, to get back on to what i was doing. Chronicling my "adventures" with my comic.
Now that i think about it, the Comic & Toy Show i mentioned last post wasn't really the first thing i did this year.
The first comic-related event i participated in was a 12 Hour Mangathon (which was just like a 12 Hour comic jam, except it was named in such a way to draw the attention of a bunch of high-school Manga-snobs). Of all the events that my local comic hangout has held in the last eight months, this one went over the best - probably in part because it was a competition, and partly because there was only a $10 entry fee. Long story short, after putting up with a gaggle of shreiking high-school girls, i was able to get a eight page story done (not including a cover page and ending splash page). It actually ended up being one of the five winning selections for the book that is going to be published (May 6). As a matter of fact, one of the judges told me that i was one of two unanimous selections, so that made me feel pretty proud.  One of the things that i decided upon doing for it was to lay-out the entire story in a right-to-left format, just like they do in Japan. The story itself was a bunch of random nonsense as told by my characters (in chibi-format). It included a ninja fight, an old man stealing panties, a Twilight Zone reference and a fair amount of subtle fourth-wall breaking.

So, i'm looking forward to Free Comic Book day on May 6 to see how the book turns out.

In fact, Happy Harbor is releasing another book the same day that i'll have work in as well.  It is a compilation of essays, art and comics provided by the participants of their Comic Talks that they held in August of '05. i don't really remember if i had anything interesting to say during my appearance, but i do know that i contributed a decent short essay on why i make comics, some good stand-alone artwork and an awesome looking revamped version of a story i did back in 1999 when i first started self-publishing my ashcan comics.

i'll be getting up to some more shenanigans on Free Comic Book day, but i'll save that for another time.

[RiESC]

now, before i get to the happenings of the Pop Culture Fair, there is another event to relate happenings about. i speak of the 12 Hour Comics Jam War that took place April 1st. The basics of it were that we had to make an eight page comic in twelve hours, and we were all going to be judged by a panel of esteemed luminaries in the comic book world (of which i knew nothing about, because i'm not enough of a comic geek). The top seven entries were going to be published in a book published by the same folks that do the whole 24hr Comic Event (Nat Gertler et al.)  The event itself was pretty cool. A couple of my friends and i formed our team at the last minute (we were all waiting to see who'd show up on the day of the event). Daniel Schreider is an 18 year old with a lot of talent looking to make his way in the world, and Brian Guay is a veteran of independant comics, with roughly the same amount of experience that i do. We came up with an amusing story, some decent characters and worked our magic the best we could to make our entry. It took us the entire day to finish. Brian worked mostly on the background elements (he's a superb draughtsman), and we put Daniel to work on the "splash pages" which we wanted the readers to focus on and have look the prettiest. i did the lettering, most of the foreground work, and various shading details.

Sadly though, we didn't make it into the book. In fact, nobody from our store was successful in that regard, even though we had some really good material produced. One of the teams from Calgary (our neighbours and rivals from the south of the province) did get an honourable mention, so at least we did get some Albertan talent in there.

[RiESC]

April 30th had me attending the Edmonton Pop Culture Fair, which was a little disappointing, to be honest.

  See, the good thing about these kinds of shows is that the friendliest store in town, Happy Harbor, is always very supportive of independent comic creators like myself. What Jay, the owner, has been doing since he opened a little over a year ago, is renting a number of extra tables at these shows and offering them to local artists for practically free. Obviosuly, this makes it a lot easier for the little guys to make some sort of profit when they don't have to worry about covering a $50 (or upwards) table fee. So, in this regard, shows like these are always a blast, because we get to have our own little Artists' Alley, and we get to network a little.
  Now, the drawback to these shows is that they are not totally comic-oriented, and thusly a large portion of the patrons simply aren't interested in what we have to offer. Even if they are into comics, chances are they aren't interested in trying something new. Generally, the only goods i sell at these shows are to people who know about Deathworld already. i'm beginning to think that some of my peers may be on the right track, as they seem to do well selling prints featuring various iconic characters (ie. Conan, Spiderman, Venom, Catwoman, and Supergirl were the ones available this go round). At least this way they expose folks to their art style, and if people like it, they may take a chance and buy some of the artist's original works.
  Basically, what i'm trying to say is that no-one was particularly interested in buying the brand-spanking-new full-colour postcards featuring all my major characters i made specifically for this show. i did get some comments on how nicely they were designed, or questions about were i got them done, but i only sold ONE (this doesn't count a full set i sold to my fellow artist, but he was an exception because when i talk about sales, i just count folks on the other side of the table). At least i did sell a bunch of comics so it wasn't a total "loss", and like i said, when i didn't have to worry about table costs, it wasn't that bad of a day.
  So, seeing as how the general public seems to care less about my original works, i'm now thinking about what sort of prints i should make for the next show. Maybe some Star Wars or Horror film stuff, seeing as how my preferences lean more towards those genres.

[felneymike]

Hehe, you been busy. My "outings" for my comics include

The UK Webcomix thing (sold 5)

Three Saint Zoe Gigs to sell my Fanzine at (all cancelled, no drummer, and i havent finished the 'zine)

Bristol comic con (probably wont go even if i do wanna see my friend again XD)

International Mini Show, Poland (car won't make it, cant fly on a cheap airline, they wont like me bringing dashboards/seats/engines/whole Minis back in my luggage XD)

[RiESC]

oh man, i just realized i forgot to post something about Free Comicbook Day (which happened almost a month ago!)

uh yeah, so a bunch of local artists all had some table space at Happy Harbor Comics, so we did free drawings for the people who showed up. It was actually a fairly busy day (not for me though - i think i did four drawings total?)  Jay, the owner, had a few people dressed up in costumes (a Captain Marvell, a Harley Quinn, a Catwoman, a Darth Vader and a Boba Fett), and there were a ton of free comics (and they went really fast too!). Myself, i drew a picture of Spiderman, another of the Flash, some chibi-killbots and a picture of my character, Kâgé ( the shadow dragon). A bunch of us all went out for dinner afterwards, so in all the day - while long - was a lot of fun.

[RiESC]

gah - i really need to be a little more timely with these journal postings. i just realized today while i was working on my October entries that i had forgotten to talk about this year's Animethon convention in which i hosted a
discussion panel about webcomics. So, yeah, i've forgotten most of the details, but i wrangled a few local webcomic creators to talk about how they create their work, and to give tips to other potential artists in the crowd. i don't think it was as well attended as the panel i hosted the previous year, but the reception seemed pretty decent.
With me was Tony Esteves (Cigarro & Cerveja), Kyle Hubbard (Ripped Ticket) and the artist known as Kung Doe Joe (actual name: Mike something or other - he won't tell me his last name!) - who does a variety of one-shot comics on his webspace.  i wasn't selling comics there this year, though i did hang out in the dealer's room with my artist friends. KDJ and i ended up making a bunch of 5-minute comics throughout the weekend and gave them away to anyone interested. We did have a tip jar, and ended up making around $40, if you can believe it!

[RiESC]

October - a very busy month indeed.
First and foremost was the 24 Hour Comics Day Challenge, which was a blast.
i think in total i was up for 30 hours straight, mainly fueled by Sobe Arush energy drinks
and an mp3 mix of heavy metal (Fear Factory, In Flames, Mudvayne and Silent Civilian).
i did manage to get all 24 pages drawn and inked, as my strategy was to draw the beginning
and the end first, while my drawing was still "good", and leave the middle to be more
sketchy (as it was happening in the dream-world, where i wouldn't need to worry about
consistancy, etc.).  However, due to the nature of the event, the agreement i had with my
friend who runs the comic store where this was held was that i was not allowed
to do a Deathworld story. Why? Well, the spirit of the event is that you're not supposed to
go into it with pre-generated stories or characters - and let's be honest, i've been making
Deathworld for so long now, it's impossible for me to follow those guidelines. So i had to
come up with something else on the fly, so i ended up doing a Dorothy-in-Oz story with
heavy Lovecraftian influence - basically a little girl who has lost her voice travels to the
Dream-Lands in a quest to recover it, meets some of the various monsters along the way, etc.
In all, it turned out okay, although looking back on it, anyone who isn't familiar with the
source material would be lost in the middle (when i was running out of time and resorted to
full page panels depicting the journey) - hell, the middle part of the story could easily be a
24 page story in and of itself. Perhaps something to think about re-doing down the road.

[RiESC]

Next, during October, was a local convention i attended called Pure Speculation. Mainly i was there as a part of the Comics Talks seminars discussing the makings and doings of webcomics. Actually, i attended all of the panels, as they were all very interesting, and while i wasn't there, i was down in the merchants room selling my wares. i'd have to say this convention was easily the best one i've ever been to, and i sold more of my stuff there than in any of those other Comic & Toy fairs i attended eariler this year. i had my poster cards, my buttons and a brand new issue of the mini-comic book available (which i had finished at the zero hour the night before, and had gotten photocopied at the downtown print-shop the morning the convention started!). As for the discussion panel i was one, apparently i was very talkative and eloquent, which most of my friends thought quite unusual - as they usually only see the quiet, reserved me.  Then again, making comics is one of the few things i truely care about these days, so i don't find it that suprising i came across as passionate as i did.