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First draft of issue #3 of Gloaming completed today; very exciting day for this writer! Now it’s off to Kyle Burles for his read-through and then we hammer out errors, critiques, and begin the refining process. It’s Miller Time! Or, in my house, time for another Starbucks!
Mr. Punch is a Britishly flamboyant mage who debuted in the pages of Twilight Detective Agency #1, and the response to his presence was tremendous. He is easily the number one fan-requested character I’ve created, both for story reasons and “appearing in tight leather pants” reasons.
Artist Jeremy Thew and I have therefore embarked on giving Mr. Punch his very own comic, The Magickal Mister Punch, which is in the works and will probably debut sometime in 2018. However, we believe in not leaving our audience hanging that long, and so we present to you the webcomic, “Hello, Punch!” which will introduce the character more thoroughly and give you a taste of what’s to come in his own eponymous title!
I’ve decided to upload a new page of Hello, Punch! every Tuesday to honour my friend Sherri, who often says she would like to punch Tuesday in the face, and so, voilà– Punch Tuesdays!
Please read and enjoy!
Fresh from the fantastic Calgary Horror Con, and I want to capture some of my thoughts on the show.
Firstly, it’s expanding– last year there were two dealer’s rooms, this year there were three! Celebrity guests included Doug Bradley and Ashley Laurence (from Hellraiser) and John Kassir (voice of the Cryptkeeper) as well as Zach Galligan (Billy from Gremlins) and others! Attendance was also up from last year, to the point where there was a line-up to get in as the show opened on Saturday.
The show seems to attract all types of fans: families, individuals of all ages; there’s no “set” demographic that I could really discern. I saw a family of four in full costume from four different movies, fans in their 60’s and 70’s browsing tables for curios and photos; girls and boys, women and men. It was lovely to see!
Traffic was steady and flow-through was good in our room on both days, with brief lunchtime lulls and a dwindling crowd in the last hour of Sunday.
I love Horror as a genre, though it’s never been as intrinsic to me as to my friend Kyle Burles, the artist on our shared Horror comic, Gloaming. The first year of the show, Kyle had a table by himself, and because it was slow he asked if I wanted to come down and set up some of my stuff and share a table with him; we had such a good time, I’ve come back every year.
Two Gargoyles Comics produces a rainbow of comic book genres- Superheroes, Comedy, LGBT, Noir, and Horror- and at first I thought of Horror-Con as a small supplement to a very specific audience, but I was in error. The fans are of course delighted by horror offerings but are interested in others as well!
This year, my comics seemed to fly off the rack. Gloaming 1 and 2 were very popular, of course, being the “Showcase” comic for this show (in fact, on Saturday afternoon I had sold out of Gloaming #1 and had to rush home to grab more inventory); but also there was interest in the Gargoyle Noir/Comedy Twilight Detective Agency, and half-Norse God half-Canadian superhero Thunder. Folks also enjoyed the cartoonish Diaperman (I actually sold out of his graphic novel at the show!) and there was also love for LGBT hero Spectrum. I sold 60% of my 4-day Calgary Expo numbers of comics at this show– to a whole different audience, which made the show amazingly worthwhile!
It’s worth noting that for the first time ever (and we’ve been doing shows together for eleven years), my comics sales exceeded Kyle’s print sales, and his sales are always incredible! Perhaps this was the year for fans to broaden their horizons? Who knows? It’s frustrating for all creators/vendors to try to anticipate the market, because it seems we never can, but I will appreciate success where I find it and that’s for sure!
According to its own website, Calgary Horror Con is “The first and largest convention in Canada dedicated to Horror,” and this seems to be corroborated by actor Dick Warlock (Halloween) who, in his CBC News interview, said “The crowd has been tremendous… this show is as good or as big as any I’ve ever been to.”
Last weekend, the good folks at Panel One put on a small expo designed just for comic creators: No celebrities, toys, gadgets, gewgaws, or indeed anything that wasn’t directly related to a creator’s independent comics work.
It was amazing.
As an Independent (Indie!) creator, I’m used to having to fight through a sea of oversaturation in my medium, to shout at the top of my small marketing lungs just to be heard above the noise of the bigger, more glamorous creative juggernauts; at the Panel One show, I didn’t have to do that: the audience was already engaged before they even walked in the door.
I didn’t have to explain myself, is the best way of putting it; the folks who came to Panel One knew comics, and were interested in seeing our stuff right from the get-go. TWICE I launched into my spiel where I normally describe my books by tagline and synopsis and both times, the books were off the rack and on the table for me to sign, with money being pushed into my hand, before I’d even finished my intro.
WHY CAN’T THIS BE EVERY DAY? I thought to myself.
I sold one third of my TOTAL sales from the four-day Calgary Expo in ONE day at Panel One. Cue the hip hip and the hooray.
I was invited to join a panel on “Marketing Your Comic: Successes and Failures” with some great folks including Renegade Comics and Erin Millar. We discussed methods of getting the word out, things we tried that worked and some that didn’t work so well. For me, I found that the “One Post Per Day” on social media — ALL my social media– goes a long way toward being front of mind; other creators varied in how they engaged their audiences.
One thing I would say to my fellow creators is to remember that how your audience perceives YOU, the creator, influences their relationship with your work. If you’re engaging, they will be engaged. If you’re positive, they will view your work positively. However, if you seem to hold the opposite opinion to every single topic that’s brought up, if you’re constantly difficult, unapproachable, and abrasive, people will view you negatively. I watched it happen during the show– I felt bad for the creator in question, but ultimately that’s a lesson I think they have to figure out on their own.
Remember: It’s not just your work. This isn’t an art gallery where “the piece speaks for itself”– these are comics, books, stories, and people want to know who’s behind them.
I loved the Panel One festival. We were treated like legitimate creators, the way we all fantasize about being treated as we strive to distinguish ourselves from the big and loud world dominated by labels like Marvel and DC.
I would have liked to have been able to have banners behind my table to make my name more prominent, but that’s more a restriction of the space, not the show, and I will plan signage and such accordingly for next year.
Hats off to the organizers; I will definitely be back.
Michael
