So a few weeks ago I went to WonderCon here in SF. I meant to post some thoughts and notes about the event, but then I got sick and didn’t feel like writing anything. So here are some thoughts that aren’t timely any more.
For those of you that don’t know WonderCon is basically a comic book convention, but there are other themes/events there so it draws non-comic peeps as well. I was there primarily to hang out with an old friend who now is a comic book publisher. Because of that connection I was able to get a presenter’s pass and a guided tour behind the scenes. It was quite fascinating to see the business side of the convention. The last time I had even been to a con was in the 7th grade, and that was with this same friend, but back when we were living in SA and saving up our money for X-Men books and anything John Byrne was drawing at the time. Anyway, I got introduced to some really nice artists and writers. I even recognized some names, so I got to be a bit of a fanboi.
Random note: Most of the people I met were incredibly well read. And I’m not talking about comic books. These guys were trading notes on the latest literature and even business books. I thought I did a decent job keeping up with the occasional book on the bus– but no way, no comparison. These guys and gals devour books. Now, a few of them listen to audiobooks too because they commute in LA, but even with that they must be reading all night. (note: I found out later that the Kindle is really popular with this crowd because they really can speed up their reading) I went and sat in on a panel talk. A lot of these panels at cons are were the real news comes out. The bulk of them though (if you’re at a publisher’s panel) are like the quarterly team meetings and updates in the tech world: a quick look at the last quarter or two and the roadmap for the remainder of the year. At the Boom! Studios panel I went to there were some cool items on their roadmap. I’ll post some links en masse below but here’s what I thought was really interesting. Boom! has a deal with iVerse to publish some of their titles on the Android and iPhone. Their title “Hexed” (which is a really good book- I’m waiting for issue #4 and I’m hoping it keeps going) was the first comic on the Android platform. 10K copies were downloaded in the first 48 hours and more than 20K were downloaded immediately after the conclusion of the recent NY ComicCon. — Now as pridkett pointed out to me on irc, 30K downloads doesn’t mean 30K paying users, but still that’s great news and I hope Boom! (and iVerse) convert a lot of those users to paying customers. What’s interesting is the free numbers/signups can convert to paid users not just in the software world, but if those readers go to a brick & mortar comic shop and pick up a title they wouldn’t otherwise, then the publisher wins too. (and that’s been happening for a lot of titles) Random note 2: (random notes & thoughts I scribbled during the Boom! panel):Paramount optioned “Foundation”;
Mr. Stuffins looks great;
Cthulu continues to be popular (I need to pick up Vol #3 The Gray Man)
There’s a
There’s a lot of buzz about some upcoming Mark Waid books Two stories to leave you with- (I may have to take these down, they may be confidential) 1) I was talking about tech support land and translation problems dealing with India… but the comics guys all had stories about Brazil (and Korea too I think). Apparently they have artists all over the world working with them (it’s not really outsourcing, they just like good art no matter where they find it) and a lot of times the artists use their own translators or translation services, and with mixed results. One story involved a script which described a bad guy in a panel as “rat-faced”. Well, that artist drew a rat-faced man. Another editor had a similar story where he couldn’t figure out why a lot of characters were being drawn suddenly as black people until he re-read the notes to the artists which used phrases like dark and brooding… apparently that translates to ‘mean black guy w/ a furrowed brow’. And my favorite was about a series involving old Roman and Greek ships. There was a line in the script where after a battle the sailors ‘dropped oars to float away’ – the art came back as the sailors throwing a large crate marked ‘oars’ over the side of the boat and sinking while the boat floated off somehow…. 2) There was a lot of talk about how great it is to work with really great people who were just getting into comics or switching careers and producing art. One such person was a young woman in Spain who wound up doing all the art for Hexed (Emma Rios) (flickr link). Apparently she had been working as an architect and drawing on the side. But after doing just a few issues of Hexed (and some other titles), she started getting noticed and picking up a lot of fans. She’s been picked up by other publishers and will be doing a lot of comic art for some major titles soon. I think the Boom! guys only met her online… I’m not sure about that. But that’s great for both of them. Links:
Boom! Studios
iVerse Media
Top Cow
Radical Comics
Mark Waid’s blog
a good post from Filp Sablik of TopCow
