Motor City Comicon was a complete and total blast. Made a ton of money, saw a ton of great
artists and creators. Had visits from fans from as far away as TEXAS, for heaven’s sake.
I’ll have the full report up and ready in a couple days, when I get the pictures of the Ninja Hedge
and the other fans. If anyone has a photo of the really good cosplay Nightcrawler playing
peekaboo with the little girl in the stroller, please PLEASE
send it to me. It was one
of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.
Motor City Field Report
Okay — here’s a picture of the Ninja Hedge.
What’s a Ninja Hedge, you ask, and why does it bear not one but two separate mentions in
my infrequently-updated News section? They’re from The Tick, that’s why. And anyone cool
enough to dress up like an incredibly obscure injoke from a Ben Edlund book gets
heap big props.
You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.
The Comic Buyers’ Guide gave Vögelein an A+ rating.
Booyah!
Happy Boofday to me
It’s my birthday today, and a right pleasant one it was. Went shopping with mum on Thursday, had dinner with one brother last night,
introduced him to Korean Food and the entire round of 11 draft beers at ABC (those wee sampler beers are the
best thing ever, aren’t they?). Today, got a phone call from a special someone to wake me up, which made my day all over, then
had Sunday dinner and blueberry pah with the family.
Now, I’m being a good little comic artist and working my keister off, trying to get the book
out as soon as I can. Status report: The art is remastered and re-scanned for issues 1,2 and 3. Why am I
taking the time to remaster the art? Well, let’s face it, I did most of that art FIVE YEARS AGO, and I’m quite
unhappy with some of the faces. So I fixed them. Hey, wouldn’t you? There’s a fine line
between letting your art stand to show your progress, and publishing total crap. Now, it’s
not as major a change as you think: it’s a facial expression here, a properly sized head there.
But it makes a difference to *me*, and if I’m going to spend five thousand of my or anyone else’s dollars,
I’m going to put out the best product I possibly can. Another reason for re-scanning the art
is that when I originally scanned and Photoshopped the first three issues, I had ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE
what I was doing. Say this sentence to any graphic designer and watch them cringe: “Jane set the
levels on the art for those issues by using the Brightness/Contrast sliders, and didn’t save the original scans.”
That’s usually enough to give any GDer worth her salt a facial tic. So I’m rescanning and resetting the levels, too.
The end result of this is that you’ll get a much nicer quality of art in the new book than
you did in the individual issues, even though it’ll be slightly smaller.
Other updates: None. Haven’t had time to work on finding a new silversmith. Decided I wanted a
full workday instead of doing a Free Comic Book Day appearance. Will be making a big stink
about a certain distributor (not Diamond) who totally hosed me over recently, robbing me of
several hours of precious worktime. The workshop in Chelsea got cancelled for low attendance;
special apologies for the few of you who wanted to attend. THe Chelsea Community Ed director and I
will be rescheduling for this fall, so don’t despair. Work continues for Motor City; I’m working up
the signage right now. Well, that’s about all. Back to the grindstone!
Fundraiser report
Well, things are going exceedingly well over at the Vögelein order center. You guys
have ordered close to $1000 in art and comics and preorders! Thanks to your help,
I’m getting very close to the actual printing costs of around $4000. Thanks so much!
Always a Bridesmaid
No Xeric for me. As a result, there’s a fire sale on original art going on in the
Online Store. Go check it out, score yourself some cheap art
before it’s all gone.
Free Comics Day!
Hey, if you haven’t heard about this already, I’m here to tell you about Free Comic Books Day.
It’s Saturday, May 3rd, and *everyone* is invited! Yes, you too. On that day, you can walk into
just about any comics store in the nation and get yourself some free comics. It’s designed
to get new readers into comics stores, and to introduce longtime readers to new titles.
As you probably guessed by this point, Vögelein will be appearing in select stores for
Free Comic Book Day. I couldn’t afford to be part of
the big nationwide effort, but I did want to offer free books to the stores that have
done a really wonderful job in promoting Vögelein to their customers. If you don’t see your store
on the list, drop me a line and I’ll send them some freebies, too!
The stores that will be offering free Vögelein comic books on Saturday, May 3rd include:
Comic Relief in Berkeley, CA
Isotope Comics in San Francisco, CA
Titan Comics in Dallas, TX
The Laughing Ogre in Columbus, OH
Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn, OH
The Splash Page in Missoula, MT
Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, MI
Underworld Comics in Ann Arbor, MI
Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor, MI
Stadium Comics in Ypsilanti, MI
Fun 4 All in Ypsilanti, MI
Future Pastimes in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Free Comics Day!
Hey, if you haven’t heard about this already, I’m here to tell you about Free Comic Books Day.
It’s Saturday, May 3rd, and *everyone* is invited! Yes, you too. On that day, you can walk into
just about any comics store in the nation and get yourself some free comics. It’s designed
to get new readers into comics stores, and to introduce longtime readers to new titles.
As you probably guessed by this point, Vögelein will be appearing in select stores for
Free Comic Book Day. I couldn’t afford to be part of
the big nationwide effort, but I did want to offer free books to the stores that have
done a really wonderful job in promoting Vögelein to their customers. If you don’t see your store
on the list, drop me a line and I’ll send them some freebies, too!
The stores that will be offering free Vögelein comic books on Saturday, May 3rd include:
Comic Relief in Berkeley, CA
Isotope Comics in San Francisco, CA
Titan Comics in Dallas, TX
The Laughing Ogre in Columbus, OH
Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn, OH
The Splash Page in Missoula, MT
Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, MI
Underworld Comics in Ann Arbor, MI
Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor, MI
Stadium Comics in Ypsilanti, MI
Fun 4 All in Ypsilanti, MI
Future Pastimes in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
D’oh.
So I went over to Sol’s place last night to pick up a box each of V #3 and V#4,
and at the bottom of the pile of boxes, we unearthed one final box of V#1. Now, this is
a good thing, because it means that I’ll be able to keep selling complete sets until the
trade paperback comes out. However, I’ve been saying over at the Online Store that I
only had twenty copies left, which is exactly what I thought I had. I even went to
Vault of Midnight and bought back the few copies they had left, so that I could
continue to offer full sets. So anyway. More V #1.