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The Rant Shack
(Wherein We Rant)
Mike Says:
(08/01/04)
BACK IN SAC!!!
We're BACK, ladies and gentlemen! Your fools at Fool Court Press have returned from out monuMENTAL week at Comic-Con International in San Diego! All the details are below, and if you head to the PHOTOS page, you can see all the photographic evidence. So let's get on with it! Oh, but first...
NICE GUY GETS PIMPED!
Big thanks to James Sine, The Comic Pimp, for giving us mention in his column (click on "The Comic Pimp) over at ComicBookResources.com. He'd promised that if anyone found him at the Con and handed him a CD-Rom with info on their book and some pages of art, he'd pimp that book in his column. And good to his word, he did so. Use that link above and check it out!
COMIC-CON 2004 NICE GUY REPORT - THE CONCLUSION
I started giving you the skinny last time, and now here comes the rest of the news. Now you can find out what went down Friday thru Sunday at The Nice Guy's first Comic-Con International appearance. Read on!
Friday, July 23 (Day Four)
Well, it’s almost 1pm here on Friday, officially day two of Comic-Con International. Tim’s just took off with our boys Aaron, Russ, Tony and Jeff to go grab some lunch in the Gaslamp. Me, I felt like hanging around and manning the table, trying to do some business. Hate to leave the table unoccupied on such a busy day.
And yeah, Friday is pretty busy. Very crowded today. It just keeps getting more and more crowded every year. Oh, and get this…here we are in downtown San Diego, jamming up the city with all these comic geeks, right? Well, it just so happens, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan is pulling into port here today, with a big ceremony and an appearance by Nancy Reagan. Over 10,000 people are expected to attend that. I am SO glad I’m in here today and not dealing with the downtown streets. It’s got to be insane out there.
Tim is the first to notice that giant robots have invaded San Diego
Okay, we’re getting WAY too many young girls coming by our booth because of our free tattoos. I mean REALLY young girls. This is not good for us. Didn’t want to hit the Britney demographic. We’ve decided if they want to buy our book, we need to get them to get a permission slip signed by their parents…
Hey, our sign-up sheet for the newsletter is working! We actually filled up the whole page in less than two days and had to start a new one. Cool. If we can’t get a sale, at least that means a possible sale in the future (or at least a new fan, which we’ll take).
Panic marketing move #1: When Tim was here earlier, we saw a bunch of folks dressed as Jedi coming down the aisle. I quickly told him to pull out the Nice Guy Star Wars original art and set it out. He got it out just in time, but, sadly, they didn’t stop. But we’re keeping on that kind of thing.
Mike hanging at the Fool Court table
Now later, about 6:20pm. Going to pack up soon, as it closes at 7pm. Let’s see…did a lot of sitting here, gave out a lot of cards and flyers and tattoos, didn’t sell as many books as I’d have liked (of course). But met a lot of nice people, and we’re still making sales. Still having fun hanging with our aisle-mates. I went around and got photos of a lot of the tables. Oh, and get this…Chuck (Whelon) went out for a smoke break, and while he was there, two of the booth hookers from eAdultComics came out to smoke too! Is that the best-timed smoke break EVER or what? He had to ask how much they make for that terrible let-dorks-take-pics-with-me all day job. $100 per day. That is so NOT enough for what they go through. We’re thinking maybe we could outdo their current pay, split the cost, and get them working for our two tables…
Once Tim got back from lunch (and drinks) I actually took an hour off and roamed the building and took some pics. Tried to find my contacts at both the San Diego comic stores I know, but neither of them were here. Got my picture with an X-Wing. And ooh, better…I got a Con exclusive Quentin Tarantino Crazy 88 action figure from Kill Bill I. With real blood-spraying action! That’s even better than my Reservoir Dogs Mr. Pink figure! Score!!
Someone’s trying to talk Tim into selling his original art for the Star Wars pandering month. He’s not sure yet.
You know what? That just made the whole day worthwhile. A very nice woman just walked by our table and said, “Hey, I know you guys from the web!”. Again, our web presence turns out to be actually working. She bought a book from us, and for being such a cool fan, we even gave her one of the very limited Nice Guy fridge magnets. Wow. A real fan. That was cool.
By the way, did anyone ever imagine there’d be THIS much opportunity for girl-watching at a COMIC CONVENTION? I’m not kidding. I feel like a construction worker.
Okay, looks like we’ll be out of here soon, and my laptop battery’s getting low. Going to be hooking up with my pal Summer tonight (our almost booth girl), so that should be a good time. She’s a huge NG fan! And she sells panties! Didn’t think those would go together, did you?
Tim, Summer and Mike enjoying drinks at the Holiday Inn on the Bay
Saturday, July 24 (Day Five)
Okay, no longer live. I’m back in Sacramento writing this. Just ran out of time during the thing to keep writing live, so going to have to summarize in flashback here.
First, Friday night Tim and I did end up hooking up with Summer at the “Elephant & Castle”, the pub downstairs at our hotel (which I can now say was the Holiday Inn on the Bay”. Had a total blast. We had dinner and many drinks and closed the place down. Summer’s got a very successful web business going on with Vicious Enterprises, and had lots of good advice for us that we’re going to follow up on. And we’ve decided we definitely need her at our table next year. Tim and I are just NOT natural salesmen (as we discovered throughout the week). Summer, on the other hand, could do that whole “snow to Eskimos” thing. We’ve got her signed up for table duty next year. Thanks for the drinks and fun, Summer! Great seeing you again!
Our Small Press row before opening
Saturday
we got up early and headed to the center for the big day. And I do mean
big. Saturday is THE monster day at the Con, the one that most people
come to. They expected 50,000 plus people for that day alone. Looked to
be about right to me. Wall-to-wall people. We were hopping, believe me.
People all up and down the aisle all day, and us trying to get their attention
with our stuff. Our problem, of course, was that Chuck with his wily carnival
barker ways and much-cooler-than us accent kept getting them first (curse
your sales expertise, Whelon! Kidding, Chuck…). Oh, and here was
as bonus…some of our Nice Guy pals decided that are banner wasn’t
doing us as much good hanging down low in front of our table, and that
it needed to be up high. So that morning, though Tony couldn’t make
it, he took piping he had and passed it off to Russ and Aaron, who came
by and hung our banner up high behind us. Sweet!
I took the time in the middle of things to go see one of my two panels,
the Stargate SG:1 one with stars Chris Judge and Michael Shanks, which
was way too much fun. Total comedy duo, those two. Those of you who watch
the show know that Chris Judge, who plays T’ealc, gets to say almost
nothing on the show. Couldn’t be more opposite of the real him.
You can’t shut the guy up. I went in there with my former roommate
Aaron, which made it more fun, since Stargate Friday nights (or later
in the week if we were out and had to TiVo the ep) was a big part of our
San Diego life. Afterward, on my way back down, I snuck outside where
some S.C.A. guys were having sword duels in armor. Figured I had to get
that shot for the Photos page.
I then went back down, and Tim took his break to head to the Gaslamp and get some sushi, and of course, that’s when all hell breaks loose. Lots of people stopping by, buying books, and wanting sketches from the missing artist. Had a hilarious moment during that time that summed up the life of a comic writer. Some guy stopped at the table, seemed to really like and be excited about buying the book. He had pulled one out of our stand and was going to buy it, and asked for an autograph. As I was reaching for it, I said I was sorry the artist wasn’t there to autograph it, too. He literally yanked it back, just before I had my hand on it, with a look of shock and horror on his face. “You’re not the artist?” he asked in disbelief and dismay. No, I said, I was the writer. But, seeing that it was the artist that interested him, I mentioned that he’d probably be back in about an hour. Holding the book to his chest and looking disappointed and somehow tricked, he thought it over doubtfully, then said, “Okay, I’ll come back, then”. He put the book back in the stand and walked away. I kid you not. Cracked me up. Nothing better could prove my metaphor that the artists are the lead guitarists of the comic world, and us writers are just the bass players. Everyone knows the lead guitarist gets all the chicks. After Tim made it back, I told Tim he’d be coming by. Then Tim had to run off and do something, and that, of course, is when the guy showed back up. Had to tell him Tim was in the building, and would be back soon. He held his patience and did finally show up when Tim was there, bought the book, and had Tim autograph it. Eddie freaking Van Halen.
And the same row when things get hoppin'
Met some great people who became fans that day. One girl in particular had to do the come-back thing, too, because she wanted a sketch from Tim (Tim had put up a sign offering a free NG-related sketch with every purchase, or $15 for any other kind of sketch). Turns out she was a big Buffy fan, which I noticed when I realized that her convention badge holder was autographed by several of the Buffy stars that were appearing upstairs. So we all had a great Buffy conversation while Tim drew her sketch, which is rare treat, being able to have such a conversation in public. The beauty of the Con. Doesn’t matter who you are, there are plenty of people around you who are MUCH bigger geeks than you are.
And
I had a couple of drop-bys, one being from my friend Sheldon, a former
co-worker of mine, who promised to make an appearance. And he bought a
book, of course! I also had a surprise drop-by by a girl I used to work
with at the same company, who had no idea 1) I was there, or 2) that I
did a comic. But the bigger surprise was an old pal of mine and Tim’s
from back in our amateur press association days, a guy named Jim. We’d
known him for years in the pages of the publication we were all in, but
had never actually met him. Turns out he happened to be in California
(he’s an east coaster), and decided to hit the Con and surprise
us. And a great surprise it was…made even better when he bought
a few books to give to friends back home. Also, our old friends Ben and
Kaye made their appearance, and both knew Jim as well.
The rest of the day was sell, sell, sell…and a little laptop desktop
publishing for me. See, we had just updated the site with the Firefly
strip and art as part of Fandom Week…and I knew that tomorrow, we’d
be going to the Joss Whedon “Serenity” panel (“Serenity”,
in case you haven’t picked up from me mentioning it before, is the
forthcoming big screen continuation of our favorite cancelled show, “Firefly”).
It occurred to me that I could get some traffic, sure, from posting on
Firefly/Serenity boards, but here was a chance to be with thousands of
Firefly fans live. I came up with a Nice Guy Firefly flyer special for
that panel, and figured we’d pass them out to fans. So I burned
it to a disc and passed it off to Tim, who made the run after we closed
down to Kinko’s to get the flyers printed up. Me, I took the time
to go out to dinner with my old pals Joel, Jeff, Ben and Kaye…even
though we had a total nightmare trying to catch a Con bus back to Ben’s
van to drive us where we were going. Our “where we were going”
ended up being Woodstocks, the best pizza place in San Diego, and one
that was popular with Ben and Joel back in their SDSU days. Late that
night, I made my way back to the hotel to get a little sleep. Too little,
I’m afraid, for the second night in a row.
Hey, look! Our banner's up high now!
Oh, and the other big fun of the day…we found the Comic Pimp! James Sime, who writes a column at Comic Book Resources called “The Comic Pimp” had posted that if anyone with a comic was able to track him down at the Con, and give him a CD-Rom with some pages from the book and a description of it, he’d pimp the book in his next column. It took us 3 days, but I finally spotted him as he walked by. Of course, I had no idea what Tim had done with the disc. After several attempts that got me nothing but voicemail, I finally got Tim on his cell, and he rushed back with the disc before James got away. And sure enough, James pimped us. Thanks, Jim!
Sunday, July 25th (Last day of the Con)
So after two days of no sleep, I was dragging, but got up and around. This was the final day, and Tim and I really didn’t want to have to carry all our crap back from the convention center to the hotel, so we figured this is the day we’d drive over and park in the underground garage, so we could load up after breaking our table down and just drive right to Russ’s for the big first annual Nice Guy Post-Con BBQ. So there we drove…only the find out that the whole lot was full. As was everything else downtown, of course. So we had to drive back to our hotel, park, and walk back. Rassum, frassum…
So we did our final day of selling, but we also had a big mission that day…hitting the Serenity panel! We closed down the table for a couple of hours for the first time (there was always one of us with it the rest of the week) and headed upstairs to the big Ballroom #20. Which seats 4,000. And which was totally full. See? Fox WAS stupid to cancel our show! Luckily Aaron and Russ had headed up early to save us seats. Tim, Joel, Tony and I found our way to them and waited for the fun to begin. Joss was to be appearing up on stage, where there was a big long table for him and his “special guests” (and we all knew who they were going to be). Russ asked for a stack of the flyers, and he walked up to the stage before anyone got on it. Having to leap up to do so, he deposited them on the table. We all watched to see if any of the Con people that then came to set up the mics would take them away, but they never did. Score!
Joss Whedon addresses the fans at the Serenity panel
Soon, Joss came out, to a thunderous, prolonged standing “O”. After it finally died down, he said we didn’t have much time, so he was going to cut to the chase. He leaned down to the mic and said in a deep voice, “I have something to show you.” The place went wild, as we all kind of knew what was coming. We knew he was bringing some footage from the film, which is still in the process of filming. What we didn’t know was that Universal had taken the existing footage and come up with a special trailer made JUST for the Comic-Con. Wow. You couldn’t even hear it the first time around people were cheering so much (thankfully he replayed it at the end). After it was over, and after the next standing “O”, he got back to the mic and said, “I have something else to show you,” and then brought out the entire cast of Firefly/Serenity…the whole nine. They all left from filming to come to this thing. It was insane. Pandemonium.
They hadn’t sat down but for a couple of minutes when I noticed Adam Baldwin, who plays “Jayne” (who you probably remember from “My Bodyguard”), had spotted the flyers. He picked one up and checked it out, and as Joss kept talking, Adam started passing it down the line for all the other actors to check out, too. How cool do you think THAT was? I don’t think any of them took one (Adam did fan himself with one for a while), but it was pretty cool just the same. I figured I’d try to be sure, after the panel was over, and go out to the autograph area and try to hand one to Joss and one to Adam in person. The rest of the panel was, as always when Joss is onstage, a total blast, made even more so by the very funny and highly talented cast joining in. Total love-fest, and I cannot WAIT until April 22nd when it’s due to hit the big screen. Yet another reminder…you still have time to pick up your copy of Firefly: The Entire Series on DVD and catch all 13 episodes before the movie comes out. You won’t just thank me for it. You’ll LOVE me for it.
I tried to head out quickly when the panel ended, but the autograph line was already ridiculous. Aaron had left early and gotten into it, but we found out soon that even he wasn’t close enough, as they finally had to cut it off because of too many people. But while he was in line, Aaron started passing out some of our Firefly/Nice Guy flyers, and Tony (with an assist from his daughter Emily) took most of the rest and started working the back of the line. We got rid of all of them, and ended up getting a huge amount of traffic because of it. Later that night we’d find out that someone had already posted our link at Whedoneque.com, the site for all things Whedon, and at other Firefly and Serenity sites as well. We got well hammered with hits, and thanks to the help of faithful Firefly fans, we ended up Fandom Month breaking 100,000 hits for the first time over. Go, you browncoats! I knew you’d come through for us.
Team Nice Guy troopers Tony, Russ and Emily hangin' with Mike
After that, it was back downstairs to finish off the day. We made our last sales and met our last new fans. I went around to all the tables around us, as I’d planned, and bought product from our neighbors, many of which we’ll be seeing again at A.P.E. this spring in San Francisco. Finally we had to pack up, and as 5pm rolled around, the sarcastic announcer lady come over the PA and announced that the 2004 Comic-Con International was over, which was met with celebratory applause from all of us exhibitors, all grateful for a wonderful week.
Joel and Jeff both had to hit the airport and head back to their homes (Iowa and D.C., respectively), but Tim and I headed to Russ’s place to meet up with Aaron, Tony, and our old friends Andy and Jo for some tasty BBQ and celebration. Tim and I were just emotionally exhausted, but in a very good, very satisfied way. We had done it. After all these years of talking about it, we hadn’t only printed a book, but got ourselves a table at Comic-Con. It was sad to have to go home, but the next morning, we headed back to Sac.
In summary? Had the time or our lives. We sold a lot of books…not as much as we wanted, of course, but we learned a lot to help us next time. Next year we’re hitting it bigger and better, with a larger table, two books to sell, and lots of tee shirts this time to make the real money (more on the in the future…). We got to meet a lot of great fans, and for those of you among them that are reading this, it was great to make your acquaintance, and we hope to keep on hearing from you. We had some good contacts made…a couple of movie studios actually got their hands on some Nice Guy material, and I even got a card from a major voice talent agent who wants to set us up with her people if this thing ever goes animated. We got to spend a week in San Diego, having a blast, catching up with old friends, visiting old favorite places. And speaking of friends, we can’t end this thing without giving a BIG shout out to the members of Team Nice Guy…our pals who showed up and handed out flyers and wooed people to the table and did whatever they could to help the cause. Russ, Aaron, Jeff, Joel, Tony (and Emily!)…and you, too, Brian!...we can’t thank you enough. You helped make an amazing week for Fool Court Press all the more amazing.
So that’s our first Comic-Con behind us. Oh, we’ll be back next year. And you’ll be able to read all about here again, if you stick around!
Thank
you, San Diego! Good night!
DISTURBING INTERNET IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Damn you, Joe Camel! Have you no shame?!
I
GOTTA SLEEP!!
Hope you all enjoyed Fandom Month, and all the Con fun. We're back on our 1st and 15th schedule, and big things are about to start kicking in for Fool Court Press. We've officially arrived, faithful fans, so stick around. This is going to be a year to remember!
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!
