Cheese Country

I might do some updating as the day goes on, but tonight we're headed to Wisconsin. My brother-in-law (and Cownt co-creator) Dave is getting married on Saturday. I've been trying to update this every day, but there won't be entries for Friday and Saturday and maybe Sunday too.

"Buy My Stuff" Confirmed

Just got back from the Source and I was right about the comics with "Completely Cold" in 'em. So run! Go! Buy! Collect Them All!

I like the image IDW put on the header. Wasn't expecting that and it's cool that it ties in with the story.

Guess I'm Reading IRON MAN

I'm heading out to the Source in a minute for my comics, but in the meantime, Newsarama just ran an article that makes me realize there will be Iron Man comics in my future. Daniel Knauf, creator of Carnivale, is going to be writing the series after Ellis's run is over.

According to the article, Knauf's six-issue storyline "will feature a string of high-visibility assassinations, prompting an intense investigation by Tony Stark, as the killer appears to be employing the armor and weapons of Iron Man. Stark is shocked and horrified by the truth he uncovers, as a far deeper game of death and deceit is being played – with Stark himself as one of the pawns." That normally wouldn't grab my attention except that I remember too well the intricate plots of Carnivale and it looks like Knauf is going to bring some of that to Iron Man. I wonder if he can really do it well in only six issues, but if he builds characters as strong as he did in Carnivale, it'll still be worthwhile reading.

Minnesota FallCon

I wasn't gonna start talking about this until next week, but Grant Gould went and shared this flyer on his Live Journal and got me all excited about it. I'm pretty sure Grant designed it; Adam Hughes is obviously the artist.

I love FallCon!

Quote du Jour

This is kind of a no-brainer, but it's still something that I struggle with, so I appreciate reminders.

"...don't worry about grabbing reader's attention. If you're not entertained, then chances are, neither will they."
--Steve Niles

Buy My Stuff: "Completely Cold." Take Two.

Okay, I've got it figured out for sure this time. Maybe.

My medieval spooky story should be in the back of these comics coming out on Wednesday:

Shadowplay #1
Shaun of the Dead #3
Angel: The Curse #4

The Times They Are A-Changin'

I'm enjoying where DC is going lately with their Universe. They've made their iconic characters more human lately than they've ever been. They've shown some of their characters doing some pretty despicable stuff in order to do that and a lot of folks aren't pleased about it, but if you can make me give a fart about Wonder Woman, you're doing something right.

And it's not just her; it's Superman and Zatanna and Booster Gold, for cryin' out loud.

In a recent interview, Mark Waid revealed Where All This Is Going and it makes me even more excited: "The good new is, and I guarantee you this, when we’re on the other side of the CRISIS, those days (of grim and gritty '80s-like stories) are GONE. Just gone. We’re sick to death of heroes who are not heroes, we’re sick to death of darkness. Not that there’s no room, not that Batman should act like Adam West, but that won’t be the overall feeling. After all this stuff, after everything shakes down, we’re done with heroes being dicks. No more 'we screwed each other and now we must pay the consequences.' No, 'we’re super-heroes and that’s what we do.' Batman’s broken. Through no ONE person’s fault, but he’s a dick now. And we’ve been told we can fix that."

You make me like Wonder Woman, Superman, and Zatanna and now you tell me I'm gonna like Batman too? Somebody pinch me.

Re-Commitment: PopThought and The Great Curve

I haven't contributed to either PopThought or The Great Curve in ages. A couple of months ago I started really focusing on my novel and it's taken time away from these places. And rightfully so, but I love the Conan column I'm doing at PopThought and the Great Curve is a lot of fun too.

The Great Curve has been difficult to update because it's more talk about comics and I don't want to steal from Comic World News to contribute to the Curve. Posts that I've made over there might have made interesting CWN Newsletter articles, for example, and I always struggle with what to write in the CWN Newsletter. The Curve's head honcho Alex Segura has suggested that I write about comics-related TV shows. He reads my LiveJournal where I do a lot of that already and I don't feel so guilty about cross-posting thoughts between LJ and the Curve.

As for PopThought, there's no cure but for me to get reorganized so that I can get back to updating the Conan column for every week. No shortcuts on that one.

(I was gonna make links all throughout this entry, but everything's already linked up under "Find Me" on the sidebar there. And I'm lazy.)

On the plus side, I'm 30% finished with the first draft of my novel.

Fan Letter Followup

I asked the guy who sent me the letter where he got a copy of Shaun of the Dead #3. He's got a subscription, which means that he gets it before it hits the comics shops. Pretty cool.

Maybe that means that the issue'll be out next week.

First Fan Letter?

Okay, "fan" is too strong a word. "Appreciator" is more accurate, but I like the sound of "fan" better.

Apparently, there are copies of Shaun of the Dead #3 out there, because someone just sent me a message saying that he read "Completely Cold" and enjoyed it. In his words: "You tell some good tales!!!" And he wanted to know where he could find more of my stuff, which was nice to hear. It's also nice that this isn't a person I've talked with a lot before, much less have a relationship with.

The Evil Diamond Empire Keepin' the Little Guy Down

I've been going back and forth on the issue of Diamond's new policy about what comics they'll distribute. My knee-jerk reaction was to be concerned for my friends in the small press biz, and I still am. But there's a sentence in the Newsarama article about it that makes a lot of sense to me.

As proponents of the idea have said, the move will force smaller publishers and independent self-publishers out of a marketing plan that amounts to nothing other than “list it in Previews.”

That's not an entirely accurate statement. The typical small-press marketing plan also includes sending out press releases to comics news sites and spamming every comics messageboard they know about. And that's been shown to have a very limited impact. Small-press guys need to get smarter about marketing. So do DC and Marvel, for that matter, but that's a discussion for another day.

Ed Cunard has conveniently collected a lot of the discussion about this in a Low Road entry and there are a couple of points that I found especially interesting. The first was from a poster on the Newsarama board who wrote that marketing and promotion is "a lot of work, work that takes time away from actually making comics. (Small publishers) may not be able to afford it."

This is exactly why I don't want to get into small-press publishing as anything more serious than a hobby. I'm not a business guy. I'm certainly not a marketing and promotions guy. I love to write and that's what I want to spend my time doing. Creators who choose to also put on the Publishing Hat need to make sure that they know what they're getting into and have the skills to do it right. Take some classes at least. DC and Marvel can afford not to market very well because they've already got enough customers to let them coast. Small-press guys don't.

I love this quote by Damon Hurd that Ed includes in his post:

What i'm wondering is, if Diamond is saying you need to make $600 on a book or we won't distribute it, is that really so harsh?

I mean we decided to stop self-publishing Temporary once our orders hit the 700 mark with issue #4. 700 copies of our $2.95 book equals $826, which is above the 40% benchmark, but too low for us to continue. especially considering the print costs are $1400 (including fees and shipping) and we spend roughly $300 in promotion for each issue.

Why would a self-publisher really want to keep losing roughly $1000 on every issue they put out?

That's a question I'd love to hear answered, or at least debated.