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The Rant Shack
(Wherein We Rant)
Mike Says:
(7/27/03)
Post Comic-Con 2003 Report!
Wow. Was that ever a long week. So long that it took me an extra week to be able to get around to talking about it here.
So, the Comic-Con happened, and, as promised, Tim and I were all over the place, trying to push The Nice Guy site on people. Um...do you know how many people there ARE at this thing? I haven't been able to find a final number, but estimates had attendance and somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 people over the four days. Freaking huge. That's what happens when you tell people that they can show up and see Tarantino, Halle Barry, Angelina Jolie...
So day one came around, and armed with our cards, Tim and I split up ("Yeah, we can do more damage that way." -- Dr. Peter Venkman (in some cultures, the most overused quotes are considered a compliment to the reader. Honest. I read that somewhere)) and started working the room. "The room". Nice description. You know how many 747s you could park inside that convention center? Tim first found the "free stuff" tables upstairs where thousands of flyers are laying there for newbies who think they have to take EVERYTHING home. He put a big stack of our cards up there every day, and they seemed to disappear just fine. Excellent.
What we really wanted to do, though, was do a little networking. We wanted to meet other people successful in the business, see what they were doing, what advice they might have, etc. I met some really great people doing this. I met David Hahn, writer/artist of the well-loved indie comic Private Beach . His book's kind of this character/slice-of-life/David Lynch kind of thing that soundly rocks (as I know because I picked up the trade paperback from him). I also met artist Tyler Page, whose straight-to-trade comic Stylish Vittles is a beautiful autobiographical work on relationships and life. Also had the pleasure of meeting Jeff Parker, creator of the graphic novel The Interman that's just been optioned by Paramount (we should all be so lucky. Oy!). Hey, Parker's earned it, believe me. Looks to me like he's the hardest working man in self-promotion. I was heading by a booth for a comic called Alcatraz High and something about it struck me as familiar. I remembered why. I'd read about its creator, Bobby Rubio, in the San Diego Union Tribune. He's a local guy, so I had to meet him...us local guys have to stick together, right? And a couple of great guys that had some very solid advice for me were Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum, the team behind the online comic Unshelved. They've found themselves a great niche...their comic strip takes place in a library. And apparently there are a LOT of librarians out there. These guys have 10,000 readers a day. They, too, really know how to self-promote, and passed along some great pearls to me. I mean of wisdom. They didn't actually give me jewelry or anything.
Tim managed to shake a lot of hands and pass out a lot of cards...including to such big industry names like Bendis and Oeming. He'll have to let you in on his specific adventures himself, if he's so inclined. But we covered a lot of ground and got rid of a lot of cards, so we'll see if maybe some of those people held onto them all the way back to wherever they came to the Con from, and maybe decided to check our site out. Sure hope so.
We also got a chance to see a lot of booths and tables for small publishers set up there, and got some good ideas for what we want to do with our own. Our plan, now, if our timetable holds, is to not only keep this site up, but have a book ready to push on people at next year's Con...at our own table. You'd think I'd feel better about our chances knowing that's a year away. Nope. I feel like we're behind already. But we've got our plans, and have our deadlines, and hopefully next summer we'll be behind that table instead of wandering around with cards. We've already got friends of ours volunteering to become part of "Team Nice Guy" and work the table with us. So mark your calendars. July 22-25, 2004. Be there.
So, yeah, I did get to ask my Michael Madsen question. Funny thing was, it was supposed to be a panel for "Kill Bill", but Madsen was the only one there. Tarantino, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah...all stuck in traffic. Michael Jai White showed up for about the last 30 seconds of the panel. So it was a whole hour of just rapping with Madsen. Outstanding. He's everything you'd expect him to be. So I asked. I think his response was, "That's a very interesting question. I guess it would depend on what weapons were available". (If you missed my question, check my previous writing in here under the new Rant Shack Archive below).
All in all, we had an outstanding time. Had a few friends of ours in town who both went along with us and hit the town with us during off-Con hours. Discovered a bar in Seaport Village of all places called Buster's that's probably going to be an annual tradition for Tim and I and our pal Martin (everyone, now..."Typhooooon!"). Spent time with old friends, made some new ones, met a couple celebrities (though I managed to miss most of them, mostly due to my inability to find a parking space Saturday morning anywhere near the Convention Center), and got motivated to keep this thing going and see where it takes us. I'd say a pretty successful Comic-Con trip.
Oh, except for not being able to track down Crispin Glover for my friend Cindy. Sorry again, Cindy. Your consolation gift I got you will be in the mail soon, I promise.
Okay, all that said...time to get the first update to this site since the Con uploaded, with a new (2-page) strip and our new Tim's Sketchbook section. Hope you enjoy, and again, be sure to keep checking back in with us!
I can't believe I missed seeing Eliza Dushku. Does it make me more of a loser that I missed her there, or that I was trying to meet her in the first place?
Michael
The
Nice Guy
“Pilot”
Now on Sale!
ITEM!
New strip added in the Comics! section: "Kneeeel Before Zod"
ITEM!
New update in The Rant Shack...with the news on the A-1 Comics Van Fundraiser...and the shocking Tim Watts finger news...
ITEM!
Update to the Photos page with A-1 Comics shots! Sorry, no shots of Tim's finger...
ITEM!
Always find out the latest NG News in the What's Cookin' Section
ITEM!
Look for new material on the 1st and 15th of every month!
And now available for purchase! "Serenity", the film continuation of Firefly! Order yours now!
Want to see more? How about watching the first 9 minutes of the film for free? Click below!
