Greetings from Crazytown USA!
Once again I find myself at the Comic Con in San Diego, surrounded by a few hundred thousand close friends, a lot of them dressed up for the biggest comics party of the year. Or, I should say, the biggest mass media party of the year. The comics part of the show seems to take up less and less floor space while movies, tv and video games expand. The entire city turns into a sideshow, waitresses, store clerks and cab drivers dressing up to welcome the hordes that spill out of the convention centre in a constant flow.
I’ve previously raved about Trickster, the creator-owned comics event that has been running alongside SDCC the past couple of years, occupying different locations around town. It seems hiring a bar for an event during Comic Con has simply become too costly and as someone who shall remain nameless said to me: “Scott Morse is too busy… Taking over Pixar”.
Speaking of absent things, they managed to lose my bag at LAX so the first day here was spent shopping for clothes and toothpaste. The worst thing to be missing was the comics in my bag, including the hardcover edition of my book STILETTO that I really wanted to show people. I had to make due with the sample that was in my hand luggage. And luckily my wife and kids that are travelling with me did not lose anything.
Another thing that’s different this year, is that I have a monthly book out (Thomas Alsop from BOOM! Studios, for those who just woke up from a coma and don’t know what’s been happening). My graphic novel The Devil’s Concubine came out over here in 2011, but the amount of attention this year is a hundred times what that book got. It’s great to bump into strangers, other creators and retailers, and have them say “Oh yeah, I love that book!” when you tell them what you’re working on. If you want to read a bunch of really great reviews, go to thomasalsop.com/press.
I’ve also been invited to sit on a couple of panels this year, the first about breaking in to comics. It was good to meet other creators and hear their stories on how they got started in comics. The recurring theme was that hard work is needed, if you want to succeed in this field – but it’s not impossible.
My partner, writer Chris Miskiewicz, and I both attended the panel and after that went straight to our first common signing at the BOOM! booth. An important part of this trip has been about meeting our editors, who we only spoke with over email and Skype, and to get to know the others at the office better. We’re both floored by how hard working, competent and just plain nice the people at BOOM! are and we are very grateful to have been picked up by that company. They’re good people. Thursday night after the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) party, we spent the rest of the night – and most of the morning – hanging out with BOOM! at their party at the Hilton.
This last day here I’ll be attending another panel with the folks at Making Comics and other smart people like Mark Waid, Andy Schmidt (no relation) and Jim Zub. Am I nervous? Hell yes! But I’m also really looking forward to meet more creative people – the best drug I know of.
Tomorrow we fly to Portland, where I’ll be spending a couple of weeks working on the next issue of Thomas Alsop out of Periscope Studios. I also managed to set up a signing at Zanadu Comics in Seattle on the 20th of August, the day issue #3 comes out. I’m also looking forward to just relaxing a little bit with the family in one of the coolest areas I know in the US; The Pacific Northwest.
And the good news: They found my bag and it arrived at the hotel this morning, saving me another trip to the mall to buy a fresh shirt.