SDCC Blues

I will not be attending San Diego Comic Con this year. I had planned to go for Friday and Saturday, but I was unable to get tickets, for the same reason that probably tens of thousands of other people were unable to get tickets.

This could very easily turn into an angry rant about the SDCC registration process, and had I been writing this 23 hours ago it very well might have. Instead I'm going to go the opposite direction, and point out that SDCC in an increasingly popular event, with probably hundreds of thousands of people trying to get a much smaller number of tickets (2010 attendance was at 130,000, I'm assuming that's the max capacity of the convention center). Of course there's going to be a mad dash for the tickets, no matter what method you use to sell them.

At least they've come up with a method that avoids scalpers. I've heard stories of tickets for popular concerts selling out quickly, and then half the tickets are on eBay for a thousand dollars.

Yes, it is absolutely frustrating to sit in front of your computer for an hour and a half watching a load screen only to find out that everything's sold out. There's not really anything else I can say to that. Sometimes things are frustrating.

There a few ideas I've had on how to alleviate the congestion, and most of them are band-aids at best.

• Some people have suggested switching to a lottery system. This would certainly solve the problem of sitting and staring at the load screen, but I don't think it would do much alleviate the issue of people who don't get a ticket feeling they've been treated unfairly. There are already complaints about the random nature of the process as is.
• The convention could be extended. More days would at least give people who only want to go for a few days a better chance of getting in. Again, really just a band-aid.
• Split up the convention. Have one for Movies and TV, one for Comics, maybe even a separate Video Game and/or Anime convention. This would certainly allow people who are mainly interested in one or two aspects of the convention a better chance at getting to see what they want to. However, I've always felt that one of the most positive aspects of the convention was the idea of exposing people to media they wouldn't normally encounter. People who are attending mostly for the movie panels brushing up against the comic book fans, for example. Splitting up the convention would kill that aspect.
• A similar option would be to have two conventions a year, and I don't even know if that would work. But if you can;t make the summer one, maybe you can make the winter one.
• Move to a larger convention center. San Diego's is big, and even if they could move to a larger one the demand for tickets is rising every year, but it would at least ease some of the pressure for a few years.
• Spread out. The convention is already beginning to engulf surrounding hotels, and even some of the nearby parking lots. If they moved more of the more popular attractions, panels, etc, to other areas they could probably sell more tickets. They'd still be limited by the convention center's capacity, and keeping track of who's inside and outside would be a logistical nightmare, but it might be worth it to explore that option.

Those are all my suggestions. None of them really solve the problem that there's too few tickets available and too many people wanting to attend, but some of them might help.

My real suggestion, not for the convention, but for potential attendees, is simply to go to other conventions. Sure SDCC is the big multimedia event, and most other conventions are mostly about comics. But there are dozens, and the more people attend, the better they'll get. I did Baltimore last year, and had a great time. I've been the Pittsburgh (my local convention) a few times. This year I'll be attending Heroes Con in Charlotte, and hopefully NYCC (which dies have a touch of the multimedia coverage, but is still mostly comics). I might even try to make it up to Toronto for Fan-Expo. There's also C2E2 in Chicago, Emerald City in Seattle, Comikaze in LA, and even Planet Comic-Con in Kansas City. There's plenty others that I've forgotten or don't even know about, but those are the more well-known conventions. They're all great fun, and you don't have to deal with nearly the amount of congestion and long lines of SDCC.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Probably a bit rambling, but whatever. (I'm such a good blogger)

It's Official!

So I just found out this morning that if you go to the Baltimore Comic Con's website (here), and you click on Artist Alley under the Guest header, and you scroll down, you will find my name listed. And if you click on it, it will bring you, well, here. I am officially a guest of Baltimore Comic Con's Artist Alley! It's very exciting for me (this may seem lame to people who have done this before, but this is a first for me). I've also registered at Pittsburgh CC, and Heroes Con. I'm hoping to get a table at NYCC as well.

In other news, I have enlisted John Burton to do letters on both Anonymous Nancy and Lunatic Fringe. He can be seen here. He should be getting started on Nancy as soon as I figure out how to reformat the files I have. I've also tentatively confirmed Dylan Todd (here) to do layouts on both books, as well as designing the logos for the books and for my imprint, which I intend to call Evil Genius Comics.

So there you have it, things are certainly moving along!

Project updates

Just a few updates on what's going on with my comics.

I've been given a full schedule for pencils and inks on Anonymous Nancy #1, so if everything goes according to plan I expect to have that ready in time for convention season this year. I'm very excited to see how this all turns out.

Lunatic Fringe seems to still be on track, nothing new on that front. I mentioned a little while that I wrote a feature for a character called the Leaf, I've seen the first four pages of that and it's looking really good. All in all things are shaping up quite nicely for the coming season.

Of course, I'm also looking for a second job so I can afford all the printing costs and especially the costs of going to all these conventions over the summer, but no-one ever said doing this would be easy. So if any of you know anyone looking for a someone to do some writing (especially if it's something like reviewing comics or ranting about pop-culture or something else that I already do anyway) let them know that I'm available.

That's all I have at the moment.

They are A-Changing

So Amazing Spider-Man #700 happened. I wanted to post some thoughts, since I've been seeing a lot of reaction to this on-line. I won't really go into the details of the issue, mainly because I haven't actually read it (I haven't been reading ASM, mainly due to my budget, but I've read the reviews so I know basically what happens). Not having read the issue, I can't really speak to the quality of the writing, but the reviews I've read so far have been largely positive, so I'll just leave it at that. The main thing I wanted to address were the complaints I've been seeing.

And there have been complaints. A lot of people claiming that Marvel and Dan Slott have ruined the character. That it was a terrible way to kill Peter Parker, he deserved better, what a waste, etc. One comment that I keep seeing along the lines of "No wonder no one buys comics anymore."

Now, granted, I haven't really researched the numbers, but it was my understanding that comic sales were in an upswing recently. So I can't help but wonder, when people make this claim, are they referring to comic sales from the 70s? Things have changed quite a bit since then.

And as far as Peter Parker deserving better, that it was a terrible way to kill him, I first want to mention that there is no reasonable person, who is familiar with how mainstream comics work, that could possibly believe that this is the last we'll see of Peter Parker. Beyond that I would suggest that for longtime fans of the character there is no possible death of Peter Parker story that they would accept as worthy of a title that's run for 700 issues.

Which brings me to my larger point (if you haven't figured it out by now, I have a tendency to pick specific events to make much larger, universal, points, because I have too much time on my hands and overthink everything). As I mentioned earlier, things have changed quite a bit since the 70s, or even the 80s or 90s. Status quo is no longer king, and I say good riddance.

ASM 700 marks the end of the Amazing Spider-Man series. There are now only a small handful of titles in 3 digits, and most of them are only a few years old (a la Walking Dead) or books that were dropped decades ago and recently revived with the old numbering (a la Journey Into Mystery). People have been complaining about constantly starting a title with a new #1 issue, to which I respond "Why?" Think of it this way, if I want to read Ed Brubaker's Captain America run in its entirety, I know exactly where to start. If I want to read Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four, Grant Morrison's Batman or Dan Slott's ASM run from start to finish, I have to go digging around for the starting points.

As far as I'm concerned, a new #1 can designate a new direction for a character, team, or series in general. New writers, new editorial direction, or just a generally new concept for the character. Ed Brubaker's Cap was largely an espionage-themed series, Rick Remender's Cap is more sci-fi.The new numbering marks the new direction. Having series run into the hundreds just means there's a big number on the cover. Sure, it can show off how long the series has run, but it can also be intimidating to a new reader who might feel they need to read 700 issues of backstory to understand what's going on. They don't, and a new #1 issue is an easy way of telling them so.

This is, of course, just my opinion on the matter.

As far as killing Peter Parker and leaving Doctor Octopus running around in his body, I personally think this is a fantastic story, with some great potential for interesting character arcs. Doc Ock trying to be a hero, trying to live up to the legacy he's basically stolen, finding out how hard it really is to be Peter Parker? (I can't help but wonder if the Spider-Man we saw in Avengers #2 was Parker or Octavius. I assume it was Parker, based on the fact that it was a flashback, but it would make it so much more interesting if it were Octavius.) Maybe he'll realize that he was wrong and try to find a way to restore Parker to his body? Maybe he'll go out in a blaze of heroic glory, paving the way for Parker to return. The potential is limitless.

And to those who say that this wasn't a worthy end to Peter Parker, I wonder if you've ever read a Spider-Man comic. This is Peter Parker to a tee, and it couldn't be any more heroic (well, yeah, it could be way more heroic, but it was still pretty heroic). Pete is the perpetual sad-sack, the constant loser. Goes out, saves the girl, saves the city, saves the world, then he still has to make rent and his girlfriend's pissed because he missed their date. And the Bugle's front page story is about how Spider-Man attacked some girl, tried to destroy the city, or the world. And he does it all over again the next day. Because he's Peter Parker, and that's what he does. Not because he expects a monument when he dies, or weeping mourners. Because it's the right thing to do. That's why Spider-Man is the best.

And keep in mind that, really, he did win. Sure, he died in Doc Ock's body, and no-one knows it, and Ock gets to tool around pretending to be Peter Parker. But he's not going to use that body to commit crimes. He's not going to kidnap Tony Stark or try to defraud Aunt May or build some kind of Octo-Spider-Pus robot army to take over Manhattan. He's going to go out and Spider-Man it up, and he's going to be the best damn Spider-Man he can be. Like I said, I haven't read the issue, but I know he has Peter Parker's memories now, and I can only assume he's doing it because he's somehow been inundated with Parker's overwhelming need to do good.

So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, this is a great direction for Spider-Man.

Anyway, back to my larger point. What this really represents, and what I feel people are most outraged about, is a deviation from the business-as-usual model that comics have followed for so long. The idea that characters should never change significantly, should never grow up and have children and long-term relationships (One More Day, anyone?). Something that has been especially apparent in the Spider-Man continuity over the years.

This is not how you tell stories. At least not good ones. If you want everything to stay the same all the time always, there's plenty of police procedurals on TV, and there's a ton of the old formulaic sitcoms on Netflix. Harsh? Maybe. It's not my intention to offend, but I think the worst thing a writer can do is everything their fans want them to. Of course you want your favorite character to win in the end, and get the girl and all the money and barely even have to try. Good storytelling challenges that desire. Good storytelling puts your hero through hell, and sometimes they don't make it out the other end, and sometimes when they do they're worse off than before.

One of the things that drove me crazy when DC announced their New 52 reboot were all the comments asking "Why should I bother to keep reading the comics that are coming out if they're not going to matter in a few months?" The answer, of course, is for the same reason you were buying them before. Because you enjoy the stories being told. If you're buying comics for any reason other than that, then you're buying for the wrong reason. If you're just reading comics because you buy everything with your favorite character in the title, or because you need to know all the continuity even if you hate the story, then maybe you should just stop. The reason there are currently five Batman titles running, and arguably only 3 of them are any good, is because DC knows there are people who will buy any Batman title that is published. When the Batman title that gets such bad reviews that most sites don't even bother reviewing it is getting consistently higher sales than books like Swamp Thing or I, Vampire, which almost always gets fantastic reviews (I, Vampire is one of my current favorites), there is a problem. People who only care about continuity or who have to buy every book their favorite character is in are hurting comics. They're a huge part of the reason comic sales are struggling to get up.

I'm going to wind things down before this turns into (more of) a rant. I just wanted to conclude with a thought. I've heard some recent speculation calling this the 2nd Golden Age of Comics. Mostly this is referring to the fantastic creator-owned series that have been cropping up all over the place, but I think there's also a good bit of that going on at the big 2, especially Marvel. Writers who grew up on 80s and 90s comics, writers who have a more literary take, but also have a strong respect for the comic book medium. People who saw what was good about those eras as well as what was bad about them, and are creating a whole new tradition in comic books. One that relies more on exploiting the potential of the characters, rather than just maintaining the status quo.

Of course this means that there's not going to be room for some of the old-school fans. But if you can't learn to love good stories, then why are you even here?

Again, this is all just my opinion, and I know it got a bit rant-y there in there middle, I hope I didn't offend anyone.

New script - Raven

New script here. Fair warning, it's melodramatic vampire romance. It's actually an adaptation of a short story I wrote like ten years ago. I posted a previous version of it over at deviant art, but that version was extremely cramped. I'm pretty happy with this version.

Also, got some concept art for Lunatic Fringe, so far everything is looking great!

Some Cool News

Hey all,

So my big news is that I will be self-publishing a new comic next year, it's the first issue of what I hope to be a series, called Lunatic Fringe. It will be drawn by Sloane Leong, who I highly recommend you check out (also here). Bar fighting and space battling and punk rock and all that nonsense. Barring any catastrophes in the next five or so months I should have it ready for next year's convention season, so keep an eye out!

Also next year I should have a feature in The Leaf, not much I can say about that at the moment. I'll be finishing up the script this week, and then I'll probably try to get a few short scripts to post up here. Probably just touch up some stuff from my Deviantart, we'll see.

Anyway, there's my exciting news! Later!

Faking it vs. Making it

I just wanted to post my thoughts on this whole “fake geek” debate that’s going around. Just in case anyone was interested in my opinion. I thought I’d address it with a helpful comparison.

While I have held geekery in my heart for as long as I can remember, there was a period, mostly in high school, when I dabbled in a few other subcultures. This was back in the late 90’s-early 00’s, back before geek-dom had the organization and legitimacy it has now as a subculture. I tasted the offerings of the standard rebellious teenager fads. I tried to be goth, but that didn’t work out. I went to, I think 3 raves in late ’99, but found that crowd to be beyond exclusionary. I had a number of skater friends, but could barely keep upright on a skateboard.

The punk subculture I found to be interesting. I think mostly because at the time I was discovering it, so were most of America’s youth. If the first decade of this century belonged to any subculture, it was punk. And one thing I noticed was that every punk had a different idea of what made something punk. Sure, pretty much everyone agreed that Avril Lavigne wasn’t punk, but what about Green Day? What about Blink 182? Could you call yourself punk if you didn’t know who Pennywise was? Did you have to own a Dead Kennedys album on vinyl to really call yourself punk?

There were people that would argue that any band on a label bigger than Epitaph was a sell-out. I remember watching an Against Me! DVD in which a kid explains that whenever a band signs to Fat Wreck Chords, they suddenly start playing mainstream music. There were people that claimed that the very act of making money off your music made you a sell-out. That the only way to really be punk is to refuse to get a job and Molotov the local Wal-Mart. And anyone who considered themselves a punk claimed that everyone who became punk after they did was just a poser trying to be cool.

A lot of the same things are happening in geek culture now, and I think it’s for a lot of the same reasons. If punk was the definitive subculture of the 00’s, nerd culture is set to be the definitive subculture of the 10’s. Which means a lot of the same arguments. “You can’t be a nerd because you don’t know who the original five X-Men were.” “I’m more of a geek than you because I’ve read every Dune/Ender/Discworld/etc book!” “I’m more of a nerd because I’m in a weekly LARP group!” And so forth.

And of course, everyone who’s reading comics, or genre fiction, or playing WOW, or whatever the case may be, for any length of time is immediately going to accuse people who are just getting into these things of being posers

The fact is this, plain and simple: Culture does not belong to anyone. Just because you were a fan of Doctor Who before Russell T. Davies, doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be allowed to just like Matt Smith, any more than you liking Bad Religion in the 80’s means that people shouldn’t be allowed to like Rise Against. You don’t get to decide how/when/why someone else’s fandom manifests.

Even if, for the sake of argument, there are people just going to conventions because they enjoy dressing up, and that’s the extent of their interest in any of it, that’s still a form of fandom, that’s still a form of geekery, and it’s not your place to give or deny permission.

That’s about all I have to say about that.