Posts Tagged ‘Pop! Goes the Icon’

Guys! Gals! Robots! It’s the first week of November. You know what that means, right? Right?!

Yep, I finally switched the A/C at home from “cool’” to “heat.”

Ha, no, but really, you know what time it is?

VEGAS VALLEY COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL TIME!

It feels redundant for me to blow a lot of pixels here going over the details of what awesomeness awaits you this Saturday, Nov. 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Clark County Library, because a full website already exists dedicated to that mission, so I suggest you go there, read all about it, then come back here so I can share my personal take.

Done? OK, so … I’ve been involved with the planning of the VVCBF since 2009, which is incidentally the first year I officially launched Pop! Goes the Icon, at the very same event. Each year, my involvement has increased, to the point that I now basically handle all of the marketing, promotion and tangential events related to the festival, while the Superduper Events Specialist (or whatever her title is) at the library, Suzanne Scott, handles all the logistics/contracts/money/political stuff. That means from September to November every year for me has become kind of like a marathon (though it really starts in the spring with the conception of the commemorative comic book I edit and publish for the festival, which is a whole different topic). And the finish line is just about two days away, beyond which sleep and, well, catching up on deadlines awaits.

But I would love to see your smiling faces before then, at the VVCBF on Saturday. I’ll be running the Pop! Goes the Icon tables, at which we’ll be launching the aforementioned commemorative, benefit comic, Tales from Fremont Street (which actually soft-launched last night). Most of the contributors to that fine volume will be at our tables signing and sketching and chatting. We’ll also have, of course, the full line of PGTI goodies, including our most recent trade paperbacks. So grab your kids and loved ones, throw on something geeky, and spend Saturday morning/afternoon with me at the Comic Book Festival. It’s FREE, y’all.

But, first, a quick word about the 48 Hour Film Project, which my awesome team, Mechanical Cow Productions, successfully completed Sunday at 7:34 p.m.: The screening of our team’s film, “Sugarhook,” will happen at 7 p.m. tomorrow (April 13) at Century 16 Suncoast. If you’d like to buy tickets in advance (and you should), they’re $10 at BrownPaperTickets.com. We’ll be posting the film online as well, but not until after the premiere. I’m not saying much more about the experience now because I write about it exhaustively in this week’s Vegas Seven.

However, on Friday I fly up to Portland, Ore. for the first time to attend the eighth annual Stumptown Comics Fest, being held April 16 and 17 at the Oregon Convention Center. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends such as Jill and Frank Beaton (and their bouncing baby Beatrice), finally meeting collaborators such as John Bivens (an awesome artist who will be sharing my table throughout the weekend), and generally putting birds on everything to make it into art. If you live in the area and love comics, you should check it out. Otherwise, I’ll be hanging around for an extra day or two just to take a short break before returning to the madness.

I know I’ve been absent from the blog for the last few weeks, but as I mentioned sometime in the recent past, I was using the latter half of November for a vacation of sorts, and part of that included stepping away from the web somewhat. Also, I’ve been working on overhauling this website for a redesign launch Jan. 1, something that will de-emphasize the bloginess of it to the outside world and function more as a portfolio for my illustration, writing and other things for which I occasionally get paid. If you’re an RSS or e-mail subscriber, nothing much will change for you.

Anyyyyyway, I’m regathering the Tales from the Boneyard crew this Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. for a signing/meet-and-greet at Alternate Reality Comics (4110 S. Maryland Parkway #8). Almost all of the creators should be there, including myself, Jarret Keene, Victor Moya, Warren Wucinich, Deryl Skelton and Danny Roberts. It should be good times. If you haven’t gotten your copy of the Boneyard comic, well, it’s the perfect opportunity, and if you can’t make it, rumor has it you can buy a copy from multiple comic shops in Vegas, plus directly online. Remember, all proceeds go to a good cause!

Other stuff you missed while I was away:

• Total, epic fail on National Novel Writing Month. I stalled out at about 6,000 words two weeks before the end of the month and gave up. It’s kind of a long story why, but basically, I did exactly what you’re not supposed to do: got caught up in the structure and plot of the novel instead of just writing what came to me. Also, I chose a genre in which I have little experience (political science fiction), and to make things worse, I realized I was writing a bad Nineteen Eighty-Four knock-off.
• Went to Disneyland. It was maddeningly busy for the Monday before Thanksgiving. We figured it would be slow, with kids still in school and people not traveling until the following weekend. Boy, were we wrong. But it was fun regardless, especially with the weekend kicking off in Los Angeles with dinner and drinks at the Magic Castle.
• Um … I think that’s it. Like I said, took the month “off,” sort of. But now I have deadlines again and am actively pitching stories again, so expect to see more of your favorite person named Pj Perez soon.

All right. Bye.

I’m starting to fiddle with video production again, and I’ve been meaning to assemble a trailer for Omega Comics Presents‘ next issue for a while, so I finally did:

Omega Comics Presents #3 Trailer

Pop! Goes The Icon | Myspace Video

Not too bad, I think. It’s always kind of a challenge to present literature — even the graphic kind — in a motion medium, but I think this is effective enough. It really helped that by coincidence all the stories in this next issue center around a theme of paying back the bad guys, something that’s made promoting this collection a lot easier than earlier issues.

Of course, my serial “Omega” continues in this issue, so if you’ve read the first two chapters and want to continue doing so, please consider ordering a copy.

Thank you.

I’m back at the drawing board, trying to get all of the pencil artwork for my eight-page contribution to the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival anthology finished before I leave town for 10 days. And get the website for said anthology launched, at which point I’ll post all about it here and beg you for money. What else is new? At least the money is for the Library District and not for my hedonistic exploits.

I wrapped up a feature for Vegas Seven I’ve been working on for a while on breaking into comic book writing, something about which I know a little. Actually, I turned in the story yesterday, got asked to do some rewrites today, and finished those rewrites tonight, so hopefully that will be the end of that. I’m still busting my butt as much as possible to get The Utopian wrapped up ahead of schedule and then turn my attention back to other things, like finalizing and releasing the fall publishing schedule for Pop! Goes the Icon and turning my band’s rehearsal space into a recording studio for the next few months.

Speaking of As Yet Unbroken, it seems like momentum is picking up again quite quickly. We had those bookend gigs last week, and hadn’t planned another show until the first week of September. But the band that opened for us at N.O.I.S.E. on Friday, Thrown Clear, has asked us to join them (or at least one of them) at another venue in a few weeks. So we’ll probably do that, and I’ll have more info on that soon. And for you lovely Southern Californians, we’re working on a gig in the Orange County area circa Oct. 1. Nothing is confirmed yet, so if you know any bookers in the L.A.-O.C.-S.D. area, feel free to highly recommend us for a slot at one of their venues on that date. Otherwise, keep posted here, or even better, join the AYU mailing list.

Hey, remember Omega Comics Presents? The black-and-white anthology series I started publishing in the winter, which features multiple new stories by up-and-coming independent comics talents?

It’s baaaack.

This time, we have some awesome contributions from folks across the North American continent, such as Glenn Arseneau and Andy Gray’s mystical adventure “Greyman: Highway Patrol,” Dino Caruso and J. Korim’s comedic quickie “Door to Door,” and perhaps most awesomely, former The Batman Strikes! writer Russell Lissau’s “Greedy,” a sultry, noir crime drama elegantly drawn by mpMann. Oh, and I have a story in there too, the second chapter of my espionage-action epic, “Omega.” If you picked up the first issue and want to see where that story is going, the only way to find out is to buy the second issue.

Remember, these fine creators only get paid if you buy the comic. So buy it. Buy a few copies and hand them out on Halloween to trick-or-treaters. Buy a few more and line your birdcage. Personally, I don’t care what you do with the comic, so long as you buy, buy, buy.

Further incentive? This mind-blowing cover drawn by my own fat fingers and brilliantly colored by Bozeman, Montana’s own Stephen Downer:

Here’s a little more incentive: If you live in Las Vegas, and you get there early enough, three local comic book stores have copies of the first issue they’ll be giving away this Saturday, May 1, during Free Comic Book Day: Alternate Reality, Comic Oasis and MaximuM Comics. So, you know, pre-order issue two and pick up issue one FREE. America: Fuck Yeah!

I’m back. Didja miss me?

Of course you didn’t. I’m sure between Twitter and Facebook and whatever else you kids use to do the cyberstalking these days, it feels like you can’t get rid of me. It’s OK, I understand the feeling. I can’t get rid of me either.

So Emerald City Comicon. It was fun. For the most part. I didn’t sell nearly as much as I’d have liked to — mainly, the goal was to push the first issue of the new anthology series I’m publishing, Omega Comics Presents. But people at the show seemed much more interested in having their stacks of comics signed by Big Name Creator X, or buying Wow That’s Neat-O art, not investing $3.50 into an unknown comic anthology by unknown creators from an unknown publisher.

But once I got over the depression of that on the first day of the convention, I simply learned to enjoy the time in Seattle, both at the show and outside of it, meeting new and old friends, walking around a beautiful city in gorgeous weather, and doing the working vacation thing. I could spill more, but that’s all I have the energy (or time) to say about it. For some reason, I’ve been kinda drained since getting back to Vegas, part of which I think is the kick-off of the annual Trees and Plants Assault Pj’s Sinus Cavities event, which has already caused my eyes to puff, my throat to clench and my body to go limp.

While I was up in the Pacific Northwest, two new reviews of Omega Comics Presents #1 hit the interwebs. The first is from a weird little horror-themed website that may or may not be called “Count Gore De Vol’s Tomb of Dark Delights.” It’s focused mostly on John Dimes’ tale in the debut issue, as John has one foot firmly in the horror fiction world, but overall, the, er, Count calls the comic “an entertaining first entry in what promises to be a very satisfying series.” Works for me!

More visibly was our review on Comic Book Resources’ “Comics Should be Good” blog. It’s a thorough, and I think fair, dissection of the issue. While the writer, Greg Burgas, doesn’t love everything (and in an anthology, I guess that’s the point), he does admit “there’s room for improvement,” and that “the fun of comics comes through rather well.” On the subject of my specific contribution, the first chapter of espionage-action serial “OMEGA,” Greg is critical but objective, and more importantly, the story was set up well “enough to be intriguing,” and I’m OK with that. I know the art’s not great, nor even my best, but so long as the story is told well, that’s all that really matters to me. But he did write that I have “talent, certainly, but [need] work on fluidity and nuance.” Which is all true. And kind of him to say. It would have been easy enough to outright say “the story’s OK, the art sucks,” but he didn’t, and the thing is, this is a starting point, and the only way to go is up. And believe me, the second issue of OCP – from cover to cover — is gonna rock peoples’ worlds. Or so I TELL YOU.

Anyway, the next week or so will be spent trying to get back into the swing of things, despite questionable physical and mental discombobulation. I need to get back to work on a number of projects, back to the gym, back to housework (bleh) and just, um, back. Like the Beatles.