Amazing Arizona Comic-Con

This weekend I'll be attending Amazing Arizona Comic Con [image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/phoenix_final_pre.jpg" align="right" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]for the first time. I'm really looking forward to it! It'll be my first time in Arizona for anything more than driving through the corner of it or stopping in an airport. I'm looking forward to seeing the actual city for once. And, new city means a new con print. They're limited to 25, like all the rest of the set. Hope you like it.

It also kicks off another crazy con season for me. Here we go again!

I Did Not Want To Draw a Page Today

I did not want to draw a page today. I lettered sixteen pages. I ran errands and got my hair cut. At best, I wanted to do one of the commissions on my stack. The last thing I wanted to do was draw a page.

Still, I sat down at the Cintiq and opened up my template. I figured maybe I'd just lay out the page. So I did that, and, against my better judgment I laid out a page that had a complicated pose and a brand new background. That meant more work.

More work I had no energy to do. But I didn't get up.

I figured I'd ink the easy panel before dinner. Then maybe work out the new background.

I never got up.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ld070.jpg"  border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

A couple hours later, the page was done.

You want to get something done? You do it. There's no other way around it. You just sit down and you do it. You just sit down at your damn desk and you do it. Everything else is details.

Amazing Arizona Comic Con Print

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/phoenix_button.png" align="right" border="image_border" link="#http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/phoenix_final_pre.png" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ] I'm attending Amazing Arizona Comic-Con in Phoenix next weekend. I've never been before, and I'm really looking forward to going.

As is my tradition, I did a limited edition print of my characters taking in the local sites. Click to enlarge it.

My Art (and many others) Immortalized on Fabric

Over on Twitter, Canterlot Radio shared this pic of My Little Pony fabric. See that "EVER" and the picture of Twilight Sparkle in the center of it? That's pulled from my Twilight Sparkle "Pony Tales" story. How cool is that? Also on there looks to be Andy Price, Tony Fleecs, Heather Breckel and more.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mlpfabric.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mlpfabric.jpg" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

All the Tools in Your Toolbox

I was reading on StarWars.com about the new Star Wars comic by Jason Aaron and John Cassady, and came across this: [testimonials_box_style client_name="StarWars.com"] [p]In the original films, masks and costumes were hand-made. In order to maintain a visual continuity with those movies, Cassaday followed the rules of practical effects. “The key approach to design on this book,” Cassaday says, “is very much in touch with the original trilogy and the technology, make-up, and costuming of the time. No intricate CGI or mo-cap. When I design a new character or alien, I think of it as an actor wearing a rubber mask, prosthetics, or possibly a puppet, and I try to work within those given boundaries.” [/p] [/testimonials_box_style]

That’s an interesting thought. It may work just fine for this project, but in general, I’m against it.

When you adapt something into comics, or any medium, there are changes you have to make. There are things that work in one medium that don’t in another. Car chases are the usual example. Singing, too.

On the other hand, comics can offer things that other media doesn’t. As long as you’ve got the likeness rights, you can bring back any character you want. You can also do longer plots and subplots in a way that you can’t in a feature film. Marv Wolfman, when editing DC’s Star Trek comic, demanded that it be written like a comic, with new characters and multiple plots. It’s one of the reasons it was one of the best Trek comic adaptations.

Speaking of Star Trek, Peter David wrote about this very issue, focusing on how much humor he used in his run.

[testimonials_box_style client_name="Peter David"] [p]What’ve we got in the comics? Music? No.

Visual effects? Not that pack the same punch as TV, no. Besides, when people read the comics, they spend most of the time trying to determine whether the likenesses are consistent. You think anyone tunes in Next Gen saying, “Let’s hope that Riker looks like Jonathan Frakes this week?” “Let’s hope they got the bridge right”?

Acting? Only what the readers can conjure in their minds upon reading the words. Sound effects? Silent medium. Again, lacks that TV punch.

Make up? Come on. We have an audience which is used to seeing Nightcrawler or The Hulk every month. If Ensign Fouton, the tall, skinny blue alien, appeared on the TV show, fans would be singing praises about the makeup required to give him life. In the comic book, the most response we’ve had to something visual was R.J. Blaise, and she was human! Exotic aliens and civilizations don’t have the same effect on comics fans as it does when they see the same thing on the series. Face it, the comics can’t possibly work as well, on all levels, as the TV series– both old and new– do.

Except for one thing: humor.[/p] [/testimonials_box_style]

If you’re going to do a comic of something, I think you should do all the things you can in comics that you can’t somewhere else. One of the many things Whedon’s Buffy comic got right is focusing less on clever banter and long scenes in the library and more on the type of scope and effects that were cost prohibitive. I’m not objective about the My Little Pony franchise for obvious reasons, but I love that the second series, Friends Forever, focuses on characters who would never get to carry their own episode.

As a creator, you have to make decisions about how you’ll tell a story. I like leaving as many things in my toolbox as possible

Freelancing: Being Your Own Travel Agent

As a cartoonist, I spend a lot of time as my own travel agent. Conventions are part of my business, but that means managing hotels and airfares and rental cars. Some cons bring me in, and that’s wonderful. But not all of them do. And you have to do the math:

CON PROFITS - (TRAVEL EXPENSES + HOTEL EXPENSES) = ACTUAL PROFIT

It’s in your best interest to get your expenses down.

When I fly, I fly almost exclusively Southwest. First, bags fly free and I have to bring a lot of stuff to sell. Second, you can rebook your ticket with no penalties past the change in cost. That’s good for when you want to book something but leave the possibility of changing your mind. If I need to cancel flying to Convention X but I know I’ll be going to Convention Y later, I can take the cost of that first ticket and put it towards the second.

Most of the flights have layovers, which I know not everyone likes. They don’t bother me, and an extra three hours of travel time to save $200 seem worth it, especially when I can work decently in airports.

The math here is complicated. How many people are going? How much stock do you have to bring? Is it driving distance? What’s the cost of gas right now? For me, being in Cleveland, Chicago and New York are definitely driving shows. DragonCon in Atlanta is the far end of my travel time, but I usually go with Amy, which means weighing two plane tickets and bringing freight against a rental car and gas prices. Usually those numbers works in favor of the driving.

Selecting an “official” airline also means you’ll rack up some Frequent Flier miles. (What? You’re not a member of a Frequent Flyer club? Join now!) I usually manage to get a free flight every year or year and a half through my Southwest Rapid Rewards account. [1. Super pro-tip: Here in Ohio we have Giant Eagle, which allows you to buy gift cards and accrue rewards for discount fuel purchases. So, at it's peak, you can buy a $50 Southwest gift card and save 20¢ a gallon on gas. If you know you're going to spend $400 on a flight, this way you'll at least save $1.60 per gallon on your next fill-up. I did this with Best Buy cards to get my new iPad, and I've been driving free gas for the last few weeks. If somewhere near you has a similar program, take advantage of it]

When possible, I book my rooms through Hotels.com. Again, picking a dance partner here has some advantages. After every ten stays, you get a free night, and I’ve used that more than a few times. Cancellations are often free, and they have a price matching program where if you see a better price, you can call and they’ll match that. It can be a hassle to monitor that stuff, but I just dropped my DragonCon hotel down $150 doing it, so it’s worth it.

You may need to stay in the con hotel, so that locks out some choices. And there are places like Comic-Con in San Diego where you’re locked into the Hoteloween system. But not every show has the same nighttime social needs. And maybe you know you’re going to spend your nights in the hotel drawing commissions. So you can look to hotels that are a little farther off-site.

For DragonCon, we stay at a hotel half an hour away. Driving back and forth isn't as easy as walking from the hotel, but for one night at a con hotel we can cover our entire stay at the off-site hotel. And since every dollar I don’t spend on expenses is a dollar profit, it’s the difference between slightly better than breaking even and turning a profit. Add to that free wifi and free breakfast at this hotel, and there’s no question which is better for us.

I rent a fair number of cars, too. You don’t need them for every show, especially if you fly in, but if you’re going to drive to Charlotte, you might want to put those miles on someone else’s car, especially if it has a bigger trunk.

Here I haven’t found a ton of benefit to the frequent renter programs. I am a member of Hertz’s which is free, and allowed me to set myself up as a business. That means I don’t have to pay for extra drivers on the rental if they’re driving for my business. And I do get some free days of rental or free upgrades every now and then.

But, when I’m renting in a convention city, I swear by AutoSlash.com. With AutoSlash, you make your reservation and then they continually price the best offers and send you emails to change. So, if you book a one week rental for $200 at Hertz and then Enterprise offers a lower rate, AutoSlash alerts you and by replying to the email, you switch. Pretty cool!

AutoSlash does great with airport-based rentals, less so with suburban locations.

Past all that, I recommend taking advantage of free cancellation policies. If you want to go to Convention X, book your room, grab your car, as long as you can cancel them without penalty. I booked my MegaCon room a year out this year. You'll get the best prices, and the chance for better prices, that way. Far better than waiting until a couple of weeks before and lamenting the high prices and few choices you have.

More time means more options and better prices. And better prices mean lower expenses!

Color is Part of Storytelling

I came upon this over at Comicbookmovie.com… [blockquote sub_text="James Gunn" blockquote_border="border_top_bottom"] I believe color is a part of what made Guardians successful. When so many huge, spectacle films have the beige color palette of Saw, the brain becomes thirsty for color. We were that Technicolor pitcher of water at the edge of the summer desert. [/blockquote]

I can't say how important I think this is. One of the things I really liked about the first Pirates of the Caribbean was it's warm gold and orange palette and how different it was than anything else out there. The next movie went to that more common desaturated blue and green and was a lot less fun and visually interesting. Same with the third one.

Storytelling Advice from Professor Zoom

I was reading CBR's interview of the awesomely talented Tom Cavanaugh (please, someone put Ed on DVD), and came upon this gem. [blockquote sub_text="Emphasis added" blockquote_border="border_top_bottom"] "One of the most enjoyable things about doing this show is these guys, like Andrew [Kreisberg] and Greg [Berlanti] and Geoff [Johns], are not interested in just teasing stuff along. The perfect example of this, it doesn't really involve me, is the Iris/Barry storyline. That's the kind of thing that in other hands, on other television shows, you'd see that going on for years -- longing gazes. You know how it works, you've seen it a million times. We're not doing that here. Stuff that would be a season-ending cliffhanger, to us, is just another episode."  [/blockquote]

I think that's true in Arrow, too. It works well for those shows, and I think it's a great lesson to keep in mind in writing in general. Maybe you planned for something to take six issues. Maybe it should take three. Keep going. Your readers can tell when you're killing time.

It also reminds me of years ago, when I asked the late Dwayne McDuffie about his run on Fantastic Four, which I adored. I commented that every issue felt like a complete story and had none of that "trade waiting" feel. I asked him how he did it and he said "You just make more stuff up."

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, one and all! While you're enjoying your holiday, I hope you also enjoy this year's Christmas Card!

A Christmas Co-inkie-dink

Every year I do a Christmas Card. It started back when I was in art school, and it's taken off to the point where its actually a pretty daunting task to do these days. There are people who tell me they have kept all the ones I've done and look forward to the new year's. It can be a bit of pressure. So, I was in Target looking to see what cards were out there in hopes of inspiration and I found this one.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/christmas_copy.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

Which obviously reminded me of this one I did in 2011.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/xmas2011_front.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

These kinds of parallel development happen, I know. How many volcano movies can Hollywood make in one year? I like to think this validates a good idea I had a years ago. And props to this artist for actually drawing the reindeer.