Month: July 2011

So we’re back, and I can honestly say this was a very, very different Comic-Con than we’ve ever experienced in the past. I don’t know why that came as any sort of surprise, since I kept repeating that to myself and others prior to last week, but it’s akin to the difference between being told that the exhibit hall is big enough to land a small plane in, and actually getting in there and seeing just how overwhelmingly big it is. We had three SDCC “virgins” this year in our immediate circle and every one of them was still shocked despite my descriptions.

Two of those noobs happened to be my mom and dad, who were able to attend for the first time ever as part of our exhibitor staff quotient for Lab Reject Studios. Mom is an old-school Trekkie (seriously, one of the houses I grew up in had the street number 1701), and dad used to take me to hole-in-the-wall comic shows in places like the Shrine Auditorium when I was a tyke, where I bought my first ever comic in the form of an issue of Groo the Wanderer. Dad and I both ended up loving Groo, and when Groo celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007 I bought us matching Groo hats. Unfortunately, he lost his somewhere along the line, but Comic-Con gave him an opportunity to not only buy another but meet Sergio Aragones, who personally signed it for him! It’s like one of those universe-come-full-circle moments.

But back to exhibiting for the first time… wow. You get to be in early to set up, so on Wednesday I thought about walking around and checking things out before the crowds roared in and clogged all the aisles. Here’s the thing, though — the aisles are already quite clogged. Crates and boxes everywhere, forklifts rolling through, cherry pickers overhead… when you get in after it’s ready you never even really think about everything that had to happen to get those gigantic displays ready to go. When you’re there during the process, you fear for your life and I wanted nothing more than to quickly return to the relative safety of the Small Press area.

Also, they don’t turn on the air conditioning until Preview Night actually begins, so we were very smart to be wearing black t-shirts for our load-in. Toil and sweat, but luckily (at least in our case) no blood or tears.

Preview Night went about as expected, i.e. not one sale (except to my dad), and almost no one even stopping by the table. I didn’t get depressed, because Preview Night is not a night for Small Press, it’s when everyone goes swag grubbing on the other side where the big exhibitors (and their big promos) are. In fact I swear I saw some Small Press tables that didn’t even bother to show up at all that night. I was afraid that would be a big no-no, but again, not much traffic on our side of the Con.

Thursday was a different story. First thing in the morning, we got our special delivery of a custom made Zeke plushie, who would remain our mascot for the rest of our convention (you can see the pics listed on our Facebook page HERE). Rick Marson, the man behind the ZOM outbreak, sewed him up special for us in exchange for the donation we’d made to his Kickstarter project. Rick even went so far as to figure out ways to simulate the scars on Zeke’s arm and neck, despite his ZOM template not really having much of either.

Webcomic types I knew from online correspondence came by to say hello, such as Jon Del Arroz of Flying Sparks, Brock Beauchamp of Variables, and Andrew Russo of Part Time. Apparently when we left mom and dad watching the booth as we went out to lunch on Thursday, other people stopped by looking for us, but unfortunately neither parental unit took very good notes on that. Promotionally speaking, we did manage to hook up with the guys of Humerus and the gal who runs the San Diego Zombie Walk. A lot of free temporary tattoos were dispensed but so far I haven’t had any sightings in the Zombie Walk pictures, and she never made it back by our table on Sunday so we don’t know how that all went yet.

It was a whirl of a time, quite exhausting, and almost before we knew it the closing announcements were being made on the last day. In past years I’ve always had at least one amazing “high point” I could identify that made being at SDCC worth every penny, but this time there was nothing so dramatic… except, I think, exhibiting. I suppose being there, selling, was really the high point, and it just seems less intense for being spread out over several days. Other than the arrival of ZOM Zeke, from a vendor perspective I remember two moments that really stuck into my brain:

One, a lady came by and pulled out a piece of notebook paper with several entries. It was a list her friend, named Katie, had made for her of stuff to do at the convention, since Katie herself had been unable to attend. Our comics were on that list, and Katie had also gone to the trouble of baking up some homemade banana bread as a thank-you gift. Thank you for what? Well, for making Zombie Ranch, I suppose.

Two, a gentleman approached our booth, gave a quick glance over our stuff, and bought a Special Edition copy of Zombie Ranch #1. Yeah, the same one we have for offer in the store, the one that costs $20. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve sold these to people we didn’t know before, but usually only after they’ve listened to the concept, maybe checked out the samples, and decided we were cool to talk to. This guy was someone we’d never met, and furthermore who’d never heard of Zombie Ranch until he walked by the table, and he cracked open his wallet and presented us with Andrew Jackson’s blowdried mug. The marketing side of me was sorely tempted to quiz him on what prompted the sale, but in the end I figured I’d just better shut up and take the money before he regained his sanity. NO REFUNDS.

Seriously, though, I hope that he enjoys his purchase, or at least doesn’t regret it. We ended up selling more issues of the comic during SDCC than we have at any other comic convention, by a long shot. Part of that was having Issue #2 for in-person sales for the first time, part of it was a result of friends and family either adding to their collection or finally getting around to picking up print versions in support of our effort… but still, a lot of those comics went out to brand new people who seemed genuinely intrigued with our idea. And then of course there were the hundreds of postcard fliers we gave away to those who might not have had the money or inclination for a print issue but might come join the crew reading for free online. This time, unlike the disappointment of last year’s jaunt with the freebie table, I could be fairly sure the people picking up the cards had looked at what they were about.

I was also quite happy with our friendly neighbors on both sides, and the Small Press area’s prime location near both bathrooms and refreshments. Even if there were times Dawn and I lamented that we were missing out (this was the first Comic-Con where neither of us made it to ANY panels whatsoever), even if it was rough getting up every morning at the same damn time I usually get up to go to work, I’d have to say our previous attendee experience, some careful preparations and planning, and a good dose of improvisation carried us through the Big One with a good amount of smoothness for a first time. I’m really glad it wasn’t our first convention, but in any case, we’ve already turned in our paperwork and begun preparing for next year. Even though SDCC became a working vacation rather than just a pure party for us, we’re ready and more than willing to do it all over again.

Every so often I run a google search on Zombie Ranch, just to see what might turn up out there in the wilds of the Internet. This past week I turned up a great review from a Western-themed blog called (cleverly enough) “Slap Bookleather”.

Hang on before I give you any link though, and let me explain what I mean by “great”… because what you’ll see early on is that he found the comic amateurish, going so far as to write, “I read the first couple of pages in shock at how bad it was”.

What was great to me about the review is this: here was a man Dawn and I had never met, with no stake whatsoever in sparing our feelings or otherwise making us happy, giving his brutally honest opinion of what he was looking at. A man who has digested dozens if not hundreds of Westerns in all forms of media, including comic form, and as a result has some pretty high standards. I’ve always wondered how I’d react to being told I sucked, since I figured that sooner or later it was going to happen. At first, there was the natural feeling of disappointment and failure, but I swallowed it down and kept reading. After all, if I’m too thin-skinned to take criticism, I doubt I belong trying to keep going with this. And you know what? It turned out that soldiering on was a really, really good thing to have done, because the whole of that sentence was this:

“I  read the first couple of pages in shock at how bad it was, then kept reading a couple more pages, then a couple more, then, inexplicably, it actually started working.”

Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s not a glowing review of our workmanship by any means. Nor does it need to be, as we’ll be the first to admit embarassment at our earliest pages, and admit that to this day we still have a long ways to go to reach what, to use a loaded term, might be considered a “professional” level of polish. I hearken back to a classic early episode of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series where Oz comes across a review of his band from the guy in charge of the school paper.

Oz: “‘Dingoes Ate My Baby’ played their instruments as if they had plump Polish sausages taped to their fingers.”
Freddy: Sorry, man.
Oz: No, that’s fair.

Freddy being the writer of said review, and he apologizes, probably expecting Oz to hate him for it. But Oz thinks about it a moment, then nods and proclaims it a fair enough criticism. Similarly, as I kept reading the critique on Slap Bookleather, I not only thought it fair enough from the perspective of a man used to much more polished works, but he goes on to say that in spite of his reservations concerning the writing and artwork, he was still drawn in to the story as a whole and kept “flipping through”.

And really, isn’t that the whole core of storytelling? The ability to engage your audience, as I already talked about a few months back?

This is especially crucial for a webcomic because of the tradition of not going back to revise your early work. I’ve seen arguments for and against this, but for a lot of people one of the joys they have in reading a webcomic is being able to delve into the evolution of how far the creator(s) have come from where they originally started. We made the decision early on to adhere to that, which means someone unused to webcomics may go back and start reading Zombie Ranch and quickly decide we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Which, to be fair, we did not. But if we can manage to grab their interest long enough (even if it’s just out of a sense of “ogling the trainwreck”) then a review like Slap Bookleather’s gives me hope that we’re doing enough things right, and improving enough over time, that we can get past the rough stuff and have them not only genuinely enjoying the tale, but ready for more.

Read it here: http://slapbookleather.blogspot.com/2011/06/zombie-ranch-diy-of-web-comics.html

This time next week, Dawn and I should be down in San Diego, steeling ourselves for five straight days of showing off Zombie Ranch to any and all that might wander by Small Press K-4.

We won’t be in the schedule as Zombie Ranch, however. For the first time (but hopefully not the last), we’ll be officially using the label Lab Reject Studios. We’ve been intending to make this switchover for some time now, ever since we finally came up with a name late last year that a) wasn’t taken (not easy!), and b) we could both agree on (DEFINITELY NOT EASY).

Now you might ask, why go through this trouble? Well, thing is, Dawn’s been doing her art for a lot longer than Zombie Ranch existed, and if weren’t for her persisting in said art over the years, Zombie Ranch just flat out wouldn’t exist at all. She’s been participating in the Art Show at Comic-Con International since 2004 and maintains an extensive gallery of her work both on DeviantArt and her personal site, Art of Dawn. In fact, when we made our debut exhibiting at Long Beach Comic Con 2009 (also where we debuted Zombie Ranch), I believe we used Art of Dawn as the label for our table, not to mention the Zombie Ranch #1 print issue… it wasn’t a huge amount of brand recognition, but it was something, right?

So it’s never been purely Zombie Ranch when we go to conventions, nor do we feel it should be. But Art of Dawn is, well… Dawn’s baby, so it didn’t feel right to keep everything under that name either. Beyond that we had (have!) dreams of making more comics in the future, and we needed to figure out something to put on a permanent seller’s permit so we didn’t have to keep getting new permits every show, and…

You see how it goes — but the actual going has been slow. First figuring out the name, then the paperwork, then when you sign up for conventions you’re usually doing so weeks if not months in advance… and then there’s the matter of a Facebook/Twitter/Web presence when people go looking for you. It was a lot to sort out, but we’ve finally got everything at least in a fledgling state, just in time for our listing in the SDCC programming.

http://www.labreject.com

http://www.facebook.com/labreject

http://twitter.com/labreject

All that said, Zombie Ranch will be a BIG part of our presence at San Diego, and not just at our table… our Z Ranch temporary tattoos will be part of the giveaways for the Zombie Walk. We can’t be there ourselves due to needing to man the exhibit hall, but we’re hoping there’ll be a nice herd of branded zeds at the pre-party and shambling down the avenues, and the best part is you don’t even need a Comic-Con badge to participate!

Still lots of preparation to be done. I’ll have another blog for you next week, but we’ll be making use of a generously donated (and very striking) piece of fan art to tide you over until we continue the story in the wake of the Con, hopefully for the benefit of several new sets of eyeballs (rotting or otherwise). See you then!

If you read my blog entry last week then you know I was a tad starstruck at the idea of being invited to speak on the same panel as someone like Neal Stephenson. I carried through with it in what I hope was a professional, and, more importantly, thought-provoking manner, but there’s that word: professional.

When are you considered a comics professional? When San Diego Comic-Con tosses a badge your way? When people invite you to exhibit at conventions? When your name goes on promotional materials? Do you have to be at the point where making comics is your primary livelihood and source of income and your day job, if any, is “the hobby”? Or is it more of a mental thing? Your attitude towards the work. Your approach as you start getting a sense of how things work in the industry (or at least some part of it)? Let’s not go so far as to call it cynicism — how about “empirical experience”?

For example, have I ever told you how lucky I was to have had a willing comics artist basically right in front of my nose? I believe I have, and I also believe I’ve mentioned how many years we were together before we actually started collaborating. I just didn’t know any better, did I?

So for any of you who don’t know any better, an analogy: in the comics world, the artists are the pretty ladies at the singles bar. The writers are the guys trying to impress them, because if they don’t score a pick-up, well… if we were any good with our hands we wouldn’t need an artist.

The trend is everywhere. Any big comics-related forum usually has a message board which equates to a personals page where people are trying to find a partner for their project. Every so often you’ll get “Artist ISO Writer” (and there will be many responses in short order), but by and large it’ll be the other way around and the writer is going to have to put a lot more effort into their, ah, opening lines. Best if they’re offering generous creative credit and even some money to sweeten the deal.

Comic-Con International is hosting a face-to-face meetup which is basically structured exactly like a speed dating session. Five minutes to talk and maybe exchange cards, and at the end of it you get up and move to the next person down. There is a notice:

“Thank you for your overwhelming support of the Comic Creator Connection. We have now filled all the open spots for writers, but still have openings for artists. “

Emphasis theirs. I’m surprised I haven’t seen one of these where they offer free drink tickets to any artists that sign up. What if 50 writers show up and only 10 artists? Well, it might be awkward, but let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised.

Go through the submission guidelines for just about any comics publisher and they’ll be more than happy to hear from an artist looking for work, but writers usually need not apply. If you have a story pitch you’re shopping around to the independent outfits, the usual first question will be, “Do you have an artist for this?”. If not, you better be an established name or it’s almost unheard of that anyone will go through the trouble of hooking you up.

So there’s a lot of writers seeking artists out there, because without one, it’s even worse than just going home alone… your comics story you want to tell is dead in the water. I’ve talked to several people at conventions where they’ve got a great idea, if they could just find someone willing to draw it. If they had the money, well, a lot of artists are ecstatic with the lot of getting paid to draw–suddenly you’re not just the random guy at the bar, you’re the random guy with the nice suit and the valeted Lexus–but a lot of writers are just as poor as the people they’re hoping to partner with. Collaborations without money involved can still happen, but you’ve got to have a fantastic personality to get past the dreaded line of “Well, when we make it big you’ll be part of that”. Artists hear that line a lot, and it’s about equivalent to “Of course I’ll respect you in the morning”. You better come off like a guy who’s willing and able to cook breakfast.

One last thing I could bring up is the conventions. While I’ve had artists come by to show off portfolios for critique and occasionally a story tip or two, I’ve never had one ask me if I’m looking to take on any new writing projects. Contrast that with Dawn, who usually has at least one new business card from a hopeful writer any time I come back from a walkabout. That even happened once when I was present, but that was at Anaheim where we each had a full table so it looked like we might both be artists. If we’re together and I’m introduced as the writer then it’s probably equivalent to the lady at the bar saying “Oh hi, have you met my boyfriend?”. But hey, at least one guy took Dawn’s business card and then contacted her later. Several months later, and in a way that seemed like he was probably sending a similar (non-paying) pitch out to everyone he had a card from that could draw–but it’s nothing to take personally. He was perfectly polite and, as far as I know, took the rejection in stride. It’s not actually sex, after all, it’s just the needs of the business.

Although really, if Alan Moore walked up to Dawn and said “Please draw my new comic”, all I would probably be able to think of to ask is, “Can I watch?”.