Eric Johnson Comics

The 85-year old retired couple who are part-owners of the hotel are neat to talk to. So many stories of WWII and similar times. Last night, Mr. Utt mentioned that at one point when they were living in Cambridge, they lived on the same block as Al Capp. So neat! (okay, that wouldn't excite many people my age, but I'm a comics geek).

I'm considering making 2012 a year to go to Conventions.  I think it'd be good for getting out of the routine, and a little promotion of the ol' amateur comic book writing career.

Cons I'm considering for 2012

Motor City Comic Con, May 18-20th (some of the other midwest AC Comics creators might be there, plus I can stay with downstate Michigan friends)  http://www.motorcitycomiccon.com/

Cherry Capital Con, Traverse City, MI, May 25-27.  (gotta go to hometown con, plus Gail Simone will be there, and it's a good place for me to do an actual artist table.)  http://www.facebook.com/cherrycapitalcon

CONvergence, Minneapolis-St.Paul, July 5th through 7th  (theme is female creators and characters, so I might be good to represent FemForce there.)  http://www.convergence-con.org/

Might not be able to make it to all three, but I'm pondering what I can do this year.

Just a quick screenshot to document a milestone of playing City of Heroes. As of 1/20/12, this badge total of 1306 represents ALL the badges in CoH that I could possibly get. (everything but Bug Hunter and Passport, which are kinda special circumstances badges)

Maybe this me announcing to the world that I have no life. So be it.

So, FemFury is done and complete. Until Issue 22 comes out, with new content and new badges. But, for now, DONE!

This puts me currently as one of 10 people tracked on the City Info Tracker fan website who's completed collecting all these shiny virtual badges.

City Info Tracker leaderboard is here, if you want to see my CoH avatar's name "in lights":

http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/leaderboards

Well, I've long neglected my little website here.

But, I managed tonight to update the links on all the comic book issue pages.   Everything has been re-pointed to the correct links, required because AC comics did a big revamp not to long ago.   Check out the new AC website, they've got spaces for comments on every single back issue.

New page entry for FemForce #156 also posted.

Pretty soon, I'll do some reorganizing of the Commissioned Art section, and add some new stuff there.

Just got a new script accepted by AC Comics and my editor is sending it off to the artist!  Well, it's not a NEW script, it's actually the oldest script I've written for AC that's still unpublished.    It's THAT script, the one which has gone through more drafts than ANYTHING I've ever written before. 

And boy, did Mark Heike and I go back and forth, hammering out the issues he saw with it.  In the end, we had both back-burnered it as not worth the trouble.  Today, he read the latest revision (half the length of previous version), liked my final tweaks,  and saw it fit really well with some current other plotlines in FemForce.

Feels really good to see the efforts from literally years ago poised to produce some end-product.

Well, I'm going to admit I totally neglected my commitment to keep this blog up.

But, I have been doing some writing every day.  Private writing exercises on a very regular schedule.  So, there is that...

Work and other stuff has been very time-occupying lately.  I have gotten a little progress on a script for AC.  And I have some other nibbles on other projects.

Hope to have news and more significant stuff to post soon.

Of course, on some level, I realized that taking 6 days out of town to do the convention and see family, that paperwork would accumulate while I was gone.  And, of course, rationally speaking, I expected to have a huge pile of work waiting for me when I got back to work today.

Knowing something, and actually seeing something are often very different things, however.

I'll be working on slicing this pile of "to do" items down to size for a while, I think.

Yep.  I failed to keep anything like a daily blog posting going for a while now.

In retrospect, the mistake I made was to try and get my daily blogging habit going right before the big lead up to working my first convention.

Not only did I have con prep, but I also had to work like crazy at work to have a clean in-box before the very extended weekend and extra time off.

If I had developed a daily habit BEFORE the crazy hectic time, maybe it would have worked.  As thnigs ufolded, I don't think I had a chance.

Still, I think the debt of postings is not insurmountable.

And this blog entry counts.  

Cherry Capital Con 2010 is behind me.

Official con website: http://www.cherrycapitalcon.com/

The box of comics I brought to sell isn't much lighter than when I first put it in the car. But, I got the experience of "working a con" in my hometown.

Saw old friends, including at least one that it was really important to see about now, with what's going on in his life.

My being there got my family members to come by and see the con, have the neat experience.

My sister brought her two boys by, which was great. Pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=58114&id=1078812761

The trip down to Traverse City let my friend Pat, set up his wife Keri (who was my booth assistant) where he came down to TC two days after we did to surprise her for a lead-in to their anniversary.

While he was here, Pat also slapped on his pirate costume (the one with the awesome hat) and jumped into the costume contest at the last moment. I hope I can find on the internet somewhere a pic of him doing the Captain Morgan pose on the stage.

As I hinted above, sales were slow, even though I was giving a 2/3rds off discount for a "back to my hometown" sale. Got a few people to buy all 6 comics though. Had one person say "I just got this most recent issue online", then he picked up the other 5. Another person who just bought FemForce early back issues at the big retailer nearby, then got the new issues from me, saying he was a huge Bill Black fan. One person bought all 6 issues after hearing me explain my "Fantasia" character from the 1-900-Giantess stories.

Several non-buying browsers said things like "FemForce? I've heard of that, not sure where." or "FemForce? Those guys are still publishing?"

Left Keri to watch the booth while I attended two writing-related panel presentations on Saturday. Daniel Way had some interesting info on breaking into writing for the mainstream comic book publishers.

The second panel was on the collobrative process between writer and artist. Panel was Daniel Wray again, Steve Dillon, and Jason Aaron. I was kinda gratified that much of the stuff in the second panel, I had already learned by experience.

Cool moment towards end of con, in final push to get more donations for the MS fundraiser, and the various comic book stores one-upping each other with donations. I threw in a few bucks, of course.

Hung out and chatted with cool people in the booth next door.

Go check out Bruce Gerlach's home page, he and his lady are nice people: http://www.tattooed-sky.com/

He's done a lot of sketch cards and editorial cartoon type stuff. And has some neat prints too.

More importantly, having the booth next to him made the con a lot less boring for both Keri and I.

Plus, he bought my comic, so he has a good soul.

My other booth neighbor to my left was Eric Mullarky. Self-publishing under "New Baby Productions". He and I didn't talk as much. We had the gap between our tables for exhibitors to get in and out of the "island" of tables. I did buy his "Elemental Fources" 6-issue mini-series. His pitch line was "Superheroes mixed in with Hellboy and the DaVinci Code".

Self-publishing in hard, so check out his website, see what you think: www.ElementalFources.com

Wrote first draft of two scripts for 8 page comic stories during the slow times at the booth. The next "Gammazon Housewife" story, and another "Ali Bastur and her Forty Feet" comedy. Both hopefully coming to a future issue of Gargantarama near you. I guess being at a con gets me in the mood to write. Hopefully, the transition from written first draft to typed-up submission draft is a smooth one.

Big thanks to Keri for being by "booth assistant". And to Pat for letting me "borrow his wife" for most of a weekend. Also thanks to Marty for driving me down, and doing some quick last-minute gophering. Of course, thanks to friends and family for stopping by and seeing me at the table, which helped make it feel much more 'real' and definitely more worthwhile.

My final summary of my first time working "behind the table" at a con: "Sure, net loss in money terms, but big net plus in life experience."

Here's an little chunk out of a note I just sent someone:

***************

Ever been exchanging correspondence with someone, then something comes up, you have a bunch of bad days in a row, and totally can't get back to it?

Then, you resolve to get back to the time-delayed conversation, but there's a slight additional delay as you get your thoughts back together. Then you think you better take the time to come up with a really long, detailed response to make up for the drop in conversation?

Then, you fall further behind, and the person has other posts and stuff you should respond to, but you tell yourself you can't, not until you write that really long first response to the first thing you *Promised* yourself you'd get done?

Then the list of things the person posts gets longer and longer, but you just can't bring yourself to post a one word or one sentence response. Not when you should write this person a whole letter first....

******************

This is how I fall out of touch with people on the internet for a while.  It's a pattern I've done before.

I bet I could make it a pattern with blogs too, if I'm not careful.