Fall ComiCon Report

I forgot to report back about the Twin Cities' Fall ComiCon from last weekend. It was great.

The Midwest Comic Book Association volunteers are always awesome, but we especially appreciated them for this show. Diane and David hadn't confirmed that they were attending as creators, so we were a little nervous about whether there would be room for them. But not only were they planned for by the volunteers, another creator near us had cancelled, so we were allowed to spread out to a couple of tables. That meant that Diane had an entire table for her face painting and that David was able to spread out his monster sketches for people to see more easily. That turned out to be super helpful for him, because he usually only has a quarter of a table and potential customers have to flip through a stack of sketches to see if there's anything they want.

The convention was well attended and people came to spend money. Diane always does well, but folks were also buying David's sketches and copies of the Kill All Monsters Omnibus. In fact, I only have a few left now, which is awesome.

The quarter bin was a big success, too. I got rid of a bunch of comics that were taking up space in my office and we raised about $30 for Hero Initiative. A lot of people refused their change, so that all went to the charity, too. Will definitely be doing that again.

This Weekend is CONvergence. Here's my schedule.

The Twin Cities' big science fiction/fantasy convention, CONvergence, is this weekend. I had such a good time getting my feet wet last year, so I'm back this year on some more panels. I'm on fewer than last time, but I'm moderating all of them. Here's my schedule, so I hope you'll come see me!

Saturday, July 8

2:00pm - Movie Year in Review (DoubleTree Bloomington)
Panelists: Alex Musial, Matt Gamble, Michael May (mod), Norman Cates, Melissa Kaercher
From indie darlings to foreign films to big-budget blockbusters, let's discuss everything from the last year of film.

3:30pm - Dungeon Apprentice: How to be a Great Dungeon Master (DoubleTree Plaza 3)
Panelists: Brian Casey, Michael May (mod), Kenneth Justiniano, Nat Morse-Noland, Kristin Daley
Ever wanted to run your own D&D game but never dared take on the role of Dungeon Master? Experienced dungeon masters will provide beginner tips for hosting a great night of D&D and share their stories of how and why certain campaigns went terribly wrong.

Sunday, July 9

9:30am - Parenting in Troubled Times (DoubleTree Plaza 3)
Panelists: Anj Olsen, Vetnita Anderson, Michael May (mod), Peter Larsen, Katarina Larsen
Our world seems beset by unsolvable problems and unwinnable battles, from Global Climate Change to the rise of Fascism. How can we, as parents, raise socially aware children without passing along our fears and worries to the next generation?

3:30pm - Aging Poorly: Pop Culture and the Test of Time (DoubleTree Atrium 6)
Panelists: Kevin Eldridge, Rick Ellis, Dana Baird, Michael May (mod), AlysshaRose Jordan
Is Seinfeld as funny as you remember? Is The Dark Crystal really that good or is it just the nostalgia talking? Why do The Beatles persist while Falco falters? What makes something timeless and how can today's pop culture avoid aging poorly?

Today is Fall Comicon!

Today is Fall ComiCon from 10am to 6pm at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in the Education Building. I'll be there all day with the Kill All Monsters and David (from Dragonfly Ripple and Mystery Movie Night) and Diane, the insanely talented superhero face-painter.

If you've already got a copy of Kill All Monsters, please drop by and say hello anyway. We can talk comics and movies. I know it's not MovieCon, but we can talk movies anyway. Or comics. Whatever. Just stop by. David and I would love to see you.

Come see me at CONvergence 2016!

This weekend - starting today, actually - is CONvergence, a big-deal science fiction/fantasy convention here in Minnesota. I've heard about CONvergence for years, but have never been and always felt I was missing out. So I'm pretty excited that this year I not only get to go, but get to go as an Invited Participant.

I'm not totally sure what all that entails, but I do know it means I'll be on a lot of panels. And moderating a couple of them. My schedule is below, if you'd like to come say "hi."

I probably won't be around much today or tomorrow, but I'll be there all day Saturday and Sunday. As you can see, Saturday is packed with panels, but I have more time on Sunday to check out everything else that's going on. Hope to see you there!

Saturday, July 2

11:00 am

Moving at the Speed of Plot - I'm moderating this panel on the relationship between world-building and plot. The official description of the panel says it well: "When you’re world building, how do the choices you make, such as setting, affect the decisions you make later about plot? Has your world inspired your plot more than your plot has inspired your world?" If you've read Kill All Monsters, you know where I fall on this, but it'll be fun to discuss with some other writers.

12:30 pm

Gaming with Kids - All about introducing kids (and really anybody) to deck-building, role-playing, and Euro-style board games. David introduced himself to deck-building games with Dinosaur King and Pokemon, but I'll take credit for RPGs and board games.

3:30 pm

Are Comics No Longer for Teens? - I'm moderating this one, too. According to the official description, the panel is mostly focused on DC and Marvel, but I expect we'll widen the discussion to include more kinds of comics than just that. I've been talking with some of the other panelists and we've got some varying opinions, so this should be an awesome conversation.

5:00 pm

Building Collaborative Works - Talking about the benefits and drawbacks of collaborating with other creators, as well as some practical "how to" stuff.

8:30 pm

Everything New is Old Again - Really looking forward to this conversation about reboots, remakes, and sequels. Been talking to some of the other panelists on this one, too, and I'm not the only one who enjoys a well-done remake. Maybe not at the expense of original stories though (if such a thing exists). Gonna be fun to hash this out.

Sunday, July 3

2:00 pm

Submarines: They Don’t Have to Be Black - The theme of the convention this year is the vehicles of science fiction and fantasy and I couldn't be more thrilled to get to talk about scifi/fantasy submarines. If you follow my Life at Sea Tumblr (or just this blog for a long enough period of time), you know how much I love the sea adventure. Looking forward to geeking out about some favorite fictional subs and most likely learning about some that I'm not so familiar with.

Come see me at MSP Comicon!

I'm super late with this post, but if you live not too far away from Minneapolis/Saint Paul, I hope you've already made plans to come to MSP Comicon this weekend. And while you're there, I hope you'll look me up! I'll have a table with Kill All Monsters comics, but also some nifty Starmageddon "May the Force Live Long and Prosper With You" stickers.

And speaking of Starmageddon, this morning at 10:30 I'm hosting a panel called Star Trek and Star Wars: Why Can't We Be Friends?. We've got a great group of comics creators who are also Star Trek and/or Star Wars fans (a couple of whom have worked on honest-to-Spock official Star Trek comics). We'll be celebrating Star Trek's 50th anniversary by sharing our favorite memories from the show and hopes for the future of the series. And we'll be talking plenty of Star Wars, too, debriefing over The Force Awakens and looking forward to Rogue One. And then we'll wrap up with a discussion of the differences and similarities between both series.

It'll be audience participatory, too. We want to hear from anyone who wants to share!

See you at the show!

Fall ComiCon was fantastic

The Midwest Comic Book Association's Fall ComiCon was Saturday and it went great. As always. Those folks put on a wonderful convention and it's always nice to see friends that I don't usually see more than a couple of times a year at MCBA shows.

Kill All Monsters did well, but in a different way than I'd predicted. I sold a little over half of the Dark Horse Presents bundles, which was less than I expected (though Jason Copland will tell you that anthologies are difficult sells and he's right). Because the graphic novel didn't sell super well at MSP ComiCon last spring, I thought that maybe I'd already reached my local market for that book. I figured that people who already had the graphic novel though would be interested in the all-new, color tale.

What actually happened was that I ran into a bunch of people who weren't familiar with KAM and wanted to try it out. They went for the graphic novel, though several of them did the whole shebang and picked up DHP, too. The result is that I'm down to a little over a dozen copies of the graphic novel. If the spring show goes like this one, I'll be sold out.

Because I had a hard time getting my act together, David didn't have a lot to sell at the show. We left a whole box of stuff at the house, so all he had was the comic he'd made for the spring show. He sold a few of those though and spent the day drawing robots and monsters and robots fighting monsters. I'm amazed by the imagination on that kid and love the inventiveness and humor of his drawings. He's got ideas for a new comic, but we're also going to put together a sketch book with the stuff he drew on Saturday.



Diane did great as well. She's made a reputation for herself as a nerd-friendly face-painter who can reproduce anything on your head. If she can look up a reference on her phone, she can put it on you. And she's got a following now of people who come to her first thing so that she can complete their costumes with make-up. She does an awesome Two-Face, for example.



I spent most of the day at my table, but did get around for a little shopping in the afternoon. Found an awesome General Ursus figure for an even more awesome price and also got caught up with Kaijumax, Zander Cannon's inspired mash-up of kaiju and prison stories, signed by the author of course.



It was also cool to talk to people about non-comics things. I got to visit with a reader of this blog and geek out about A Christmas Carol a little, and also had a conversation with a buddy about the Starmageddon podcast. My dad even showed up for a while and I walked around with him and got to hear him interact with a creator about their mutual interest in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. That's what's great about this show and others like it: People finding all sorts of things to connect over and to be nerdy about. It's fun on the Internet, but it's even more fun in person.

Get your Kill All Monsters at Fall ComiCon!

This weekend is Fall ComiCon here in Minnesota and I'll be there with Kill All Monsters. In addition to the graphic novel, I also have bundles of the three issues of Dark Horse Presents with the new Kill All Monsters story in them. These issues are the only way to get the story in color (it'll be in black-and-white when it's collected in the omnibus), so if you don't already have it, come on down and see me. Supplies are limited though, so swing by early!

Hope to see you there!

City Pages at MSP Comic Con 2015

Nerdy Fun with Comic Artists at MSP Comic Con 2015 from Voice Media Group on Vimeo.

Forgot to show you this great video that City Pages made at MSP Comic Con back in May. It's a great look at what makes that show so special, and at about 00:53 there are a couple of shots of my wife Diane painting some faces.

Among the excellent interviews is one by our friend Chandra Reyer  and her amazing, awesome daughter Gillian. If we ever start having guests on Dragonfly Ripple, Chandra and Gillian have to be the first ones. That's some A+ nerd parenting going on right there.

MSP ComiCon 2015

The first annual MSP ComiCon (formerly SpringCon) was a big success. The reason they changed the name was in part because WizardWorld came to town last year and - like they do - scheduled their big pop culture/media convention near the date of the small, local, comics convention. Last year, when my friends outside of the comics community asked if I was going to "Comic-Con," they meant WizardWorld. It was a pretty big deal in the Twin Cities; the closest we've ever got to something like San Diego with all the movie and TV stars there. But it was grating to have to explain that no, I wasn't going to that show; I was instead going to the actual comics convention in town. The one that had been around for decades.

SpringCon has always had an excellent reputation among comics fans and creators and has been gaining wider attention locally in the last few years, but it was being held back by its name. As popular as comics are these days, all those fans and interested people didn't know what SpringCon was. So this year it became MSP ComiCon and when I was asked by civilians if I was going to "Comic-Con," that was the one they meant. That's a success, but so is the fact that people turned out in droves.

Here's a picture of the line to get in fifteen minutes after the show opened. I heard that it took another hour for it to finally shorten and that fits what I saw inside the building. The floor was packed all morning on Saturday.



It slowed down Saturday afternoon and Sunday, but overall the attendance was record-breaking. And even more encouraging than that were the kinds of people who were walking around and enjoying themselves. Comics readers have become a steadily more diverse crowd over the last few years and it really struck me at the show how true that is. There were people of all ages and races and I saw a lot more groups of just women and girls than I have in the past. This wan't a surprise; just very very reassuring.

Kill All Monsters did pretty well Saturday morning and I was pleased to donate a copy to a library in Wisconsin. Even though sales dipped Saturday afternoon and Sunday, I got a lot of questions from people who've already read it and wanted to know when the next volume is coming. It was really great to be able to tell them about the Dark Horse Presents story in July and the hardcover omnibus scheduled for next year. Saw some very excited faces about both of those things.

David did well with his new mini-comic, a fantasy story about an heroic goat who recruits a middle-school boy to defeat a powerful evil. I can't wait for the second issue.



And Diane did extremely well with her face-painting. She'd mastered Groot and Rocket Raccoon and those were popular, but she's also able to make up stuff on the fly, especially if she has a reference. She maintains a constant line of both kids and adults and she's thinking about maybe bringing in a partner to help meet the demand.

All in all it was an awesome show. The volunteers of the Midwest Comic Book Association were fantastic as usual; always welcoming and often checking in with creators to bring a drink or a snack or anything else a table-bound person might need. Couldn't ask for a nicer show.

Come see me at MSP Comicon

This weekend I'll be at the all-new, somewhat-different MSP Comicon at the State Fairgrounds in the Twin Cities. This is the show that used to be called SpringCon, but the new name makes it more obvious what the show's about. It's always been a great convention and one of the highlights of my year. My wife Diane will be there doing superhero facepainting (she's developed a very cool Groot!) and my son David is planning to have a new comic as well. So come see us!

Michael and Jason at C2E2

Jason Copland and I will be at C2E2 this weekend, hanging out at Table L2 in Artist Alley (right next to Eric Freaking Powell!). C2E2 is the one, big show I do every year and there are friends that I don't see any other time. This year I also get to meet the Nerd Lunch guys in person for the first time.

But one of my favorite things about the show - or any convention really - is just sitting at the table and meeting readers. If you're there, I hope you'll come by and say hello.

FallCon report

FallCon was a huge success on Saturday. It was an especially cold day (the weather folk were evening threatening snow), but that didn't keep people away. Crowds were great all day and especially huge around lunch time. And they were spending money, too. Every creator I talked to had great sales days.

Kill All Monsters did really well and my son David sold out of a couple of issues of his Hulkasaurus mini-comic. He also made huge dents in his stock of the other two. I'm really proud of that boy. He set his own prices and hawked his own stuff all day. His work is great, too. I know I'm totally biased, but his drawings are super imaginative and often laugh out loud funny. He's becoming a real pro at this.

My wife Diane had kids lined up all day long for face-painting and for the second year in a row FallCon was her most successful show of the year. After doing FallCon solo for so many years, it's been great sharing a table with David for the last two or three and with Diane a little more recently than that. As she says, "The family that cons together, bonds together." Gonna need that on a T-shirt.

We were worn out after the show, so I didn't get a post ready for yesterday, but I'll make that up tomorrow with two horror movies. And I'll have one up tonight, too. It is Mummy Monday after all.

[Thanks to Grant Gould for taking the photo above.]

FallCon is this Saturday!

If you live in or near Minneapolis/St Paul, I hope you're making plans to come to FallCon on Saturday. I'll be there with Kill All Monsters books and posters and a few other things, but even if you've already got what you need, please stop by and say "hi" anyway. It makes the day go by and you know I love to see you.

My wife Diane and son David will also be there. Diane will be the one decorating kids' faces with superhero and other nerd stuff. David will have issues of his Hulkasaurus mini-comics and plans to debut a new anthology of short strips. He showed me one of them and I LOLed all over it, so it's good stuff. Not that I'm biased.

Godzilla and SpringCon: A Perfect Weekend

So, a few things.

First of all, Happy Memorial Day to those of you in the US. I'm eating bratwurst with friends and family, but also remembering fallen soldiers like my father-in-law. Hope you're able to do something similar.

It's nice to have a day off after an extremely busy May. Between C2E2, SpringCon, and just work in general, I'm excited to not do very much today. I started a new day job in December and it's been tough to get back in the creative groove. This blog has suffered and my fiction writing has suffered, but I guess that's expected. Cartoonist Jake Parker wrote a really encouraging blog post about how to ramp up creatively after a major life change, but points out that it usually takes about a year to recover after starting a new job, having a baby, or moving to a new city. I hope it doesn't take me that long, but it's good to know that I'm not alone in struggling.

I'm going to try to update at least once a week, which is way less than I used to, but if I want to get any fiction written then I've got to be a less prolific blogger. I'm finding Tumblr super useful to quickly share weird, fun stuff, so this blog is going to be more about updates and longer pieces like the Bond series that I promise I haven't given up on.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a post up last week, because the weekend was too full of fun. Friday night, David and I saw Godzilla (Diane had a previous commitment) and it's probably the most fun I've had at the movies since seeing Star Wars about thirty-two times in the theater in 1977 and '78. The new Godzilla isn't a perfect movie, but it's awesome and we engineered our experience to pull the maximum amount of fun from it. We finished our massive marathon of the entire series (minus a couple of impossible-to-find entries) about a week before and then made it to our local screening of the original 1954 film. We were eating and breathing Godzilla by the time we saw the reboot.

This Weekend: Kill All Monsters at SpringCon

I'll be at SpringCon this weekend with lots of Kill All Monsters books and prints. If you live near enough to plan to travel there, you probably already know about SpringCon, but just in case you don't, it's a fantastic, two-day show that's all about the comics.  Guests this year include Jeff Parker, Adam Hughes, Bill Willingham, and a ton of other great creators. My wife, Diane will be back too, making everyone's faces more superheroey or Pokemony or whatever else people want to put on their kissers.

One of the things I'm most excited about is that I'll be on a panel with my pal Otis Frampton and a couple of guys I haven't met in person yet, but am looking forward to getting to know: Erik Burnham and Anthony Hary. Here are the details:

Sunday, 1PM to 2PM: LOCAL BOYZ MADE GOOD! 
Meet a crew of hot local creators on their way up and discussing how they got that way. Featuring Otis Frampton (Oddly Normal from Image), Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters), Anthony Hary (Fifteen Minutes), and Michael "Kill All Monsters!" May!

So if you're in the area, come by and say hi. And if you're there on Sunday, please come to the panel and ask hard questions like, "Who would win in a fight: Skullbot or Mechagodzilla?" Then I'll ask you which Mechagodzilla and we can have a whole conversation and totally take over the panel. It'll be fun!

Free Comic Book Day was amazing

Free Comic Book Day was awesome. It was a family affair for us with David and I selling Kill All Monsters comics and Diane doing all kinds of nerdy facepainting from superhero logos and Pokemon characters to full-blown Spider-Man masks and zombie makeup. That's her setting up behind me in the photo above.

We were at The Source Comics and Games, which has completely figured out how to win at Free Comic Book Day. They turn their store into a mini comics convention, not only giving away free comics, but also having a huge sale and inviting local cosplayers and creators to come and be part of the festivities. It's grown bigger every year and this time the line at opening was unbelievable.



What you don't see in that picture is that the line continues to wrap around two more corners to the opposite side of the store. There were tons of people and Kill All Monsters sold really well. In fact, from a sales per hour standpoint, it did even better at FCBD than at C2E2.

So thanks again to The Source for hosting a great event, and thanks to all the customers who came by and chatted and/or bought a copy of KAM. It was great meeting you all and I couldn't be more excited for SpringCon in two weeks.

Kill All Monsters at The Source this weekend!

This weekend is Free Comic Book Day! As usual, I'll be spending it at The Source Comics and Games, but this year I won't just be picking up a stack of free comics and taking advantage of the store's huge sale. I'll also have a table with copies of Kill All Monsters.

KAM will be for sale, but I do have some awesome prints to give away with every purchase of the book. So... Free Comic Book-Inspired Art Day, I guess? And of course I'll be happy to sign any copies that you already have for absolutely zero dollars. Whatever the situation, if you're in the area, I hope you'll come by and say hello whether you buy anything or not. My wife Diane will also be there face painting; also not for free, but super fun. She's great at superhero faces, logos, Pokemon, and pretty much anything geeky and cool. If she can find a reference for it, she can put it on your cheek and make it look amazing.

As long as I'm writing about appearances, I should quickly mention that C2E2 was a great success. I got to spend the whole weekend hanging out with Jason and a bunch of other friends, both old and new, whom I don't want to list because I'll forget someone important. But we sold a bunch a books and talked to a lot of kaiju fans, all of whom never fail to humble me with their vastly superior knowledge of giant monsters and robots. If I talked to you last weekend, please know that I loved it and look forward doing it again as soon as possible.

Jason sets up before the show

Kill All Monsters at C2E2

Just a quick note that Jason and I will be at C2E2 this weekend with plenty of copies of Kill All Monsters and other cool swag. Table Q-8 in Artist Alley.

Hope to see you there!

I'll be at FallCon this weekend!

I'll be at FallCon this weekend at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, so if you're in the area, please come by and say "hi." And meet Mark Waid while you're at it.

I'll have copies of Kill All Monsters as well as the Avenger anthology I contributed to, but even if you don't need those, I hope you'll stop by and chat.

SpringCon killed all the monsters

SpringCon was great. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's the larger of the two Minnesota conventions put on by the wonderful folks of the Midwest Comic Book Association. FallCon is a one-day show in October, but SpringCon runs Saturday and Sunday, usually in May. The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area has a great comics scene and the MCBA goes out of its way to treat creators like royalty, so there's always a lot of participation. Both conventions are fantastic, family-friendly shows and highlights of my year.

My wife's out of town for a friend's college graduation, so David and I hung out together all weekend. David made the second issue of Hulkasaurus, his series of mini-comics about his own giant monster, and I had several copies of Kill All Monsters left over from C2E2. KAM did very well and I sold out early on Sunday. A surprise hit for me was Hunt the Winterlands, a fantasy anthology of prose stories that I contributed to a year or so ago. I've had it at a few shows since then and sold some copies, but it sold like hotcakes this time.

David sold most of his copies of Hulkasaurus #2. A couple of other friends of mine were also exhibiting with their kids who also did very well all weekend. It's great to see children getting into making art and comics so early, and even greater to see the local community support them so much.

David had an iguana puppet at his table, which is the model for a giant monster in Hulkasaurus, so he had a great time using it to attract people to the table. Or just playing with friends:



As usual, we sat near Grant Gould who's always amazing with kids. He and David did an art trade, with Grant's drawing one of David's favorite characters and David's drawing something Grant had mentioned earlier: a dinosaur/scorpion hybrid.



Otis Frampton was on the other side of our table nearest me and I had a great time getting to know him a little better. He's a super-talented artist and was also really welcoming of David. My good friends Jessica Hickman and Darla Ecklund were nearby as well and David and I shared a couple of meals with them.

I also enjoyed finally getting to meet Ron Marz, who was visiting an MCBA show for the first time, and Trevor Von Eeden, who is - no lie - the sweetest person in comics. I had the privilege of being in the audience at San Diego Comic-Con last year when he received the Inkpot Award. Getting to hear him accept it and talk about his career was a highlight not only of that panel, but of the entire convention for me. Getting to tell him so yesterday was a highlight of this weekend. Comics people are the best people.

In addition to talking to people - and I know I'm leaving out so many of you; I'm sorry - I bought a bunch of comics of course and a couple of pieces of art, including this Godzilla silhouette by Jennifer Menken.



One final memory of the show was how humid it was. We had unseasonably hot weather at FallCon a few years ago and it was appropriately dubbed SweatCon. This year, I thought that MoistCon would be appropriate until the torrential rains started coming down on Sunday and it turned into something more like HurriCon.



Not that that "dampened" anyone's fun. It was a great time and thanks again to the MCBA for hosting!