Comic Book Resources

COMIC BOOK TATTOO @ SDCC - Part the first…

First off, my apologies for the lack of posts here. The book launch and the San Diego Comicon left the last few weeks a bit… lacking, in free time. So…

We’re going to interrupt the usual ‘making of’ blog entries, for a ‘behind the scenes’ blog on Comic Book Tattoo at this year’s San Diego Comicon. We’ll return to the usual format shortly…

THE LEAD UP…For two weeks prior to SDCC, Tori and I have been promoting machines. While we’ve been promoting Comic Book Tattoo for the last three months, the weeks prior to SDCC and the book’s release last Wednesday made that all look like a drop in the bucket by comparison. Every day was filled with back to back interviews to give, appearances to make, exclusive art to dole out, last minute arrangements to make, etc.

 

Tori and I at the Amoeba Records signing on Monday…

MONDAY
Tori did a sneak peek/early appearance at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles. 200 people got Comic Book Tattoo early and got to get their copies signed by Tori. There were lots of interviews on site, and the fine folks running Amoeba were incredibly nice, cool, and on top of all the details, making it very easy for us. A highlight of the day for me was walking down the line of people waiting for Tori to sign their book and signing their copies. Some people figured out what was going on, but others looked at me blankly until I explained that I was the editor, and that I put the book together. (I resisted the urge to be a smart ass and say “I’m just the guy with a sharpie who forgot to take his meds today!” It was difficult, but wisdom prevailed.) I had said in multiple interviews that you can’t really ‘get’ how overwhelming the book is until you have it in your hands (While being very aware at the same time that me saying so sounds like a hell of a lot of the typical PR hype). Now, the first people outside of myself, Image, Tori’s crew, and Diamond were seeing the book and their reactions were very gratifying. When you work on a project for a long time, it becomes close to you… there’s the danger that you’re not seeing things as objectively as you might, no matter how hard you try. However, the fans reactions to the book that day made it feel like ‘yeah, it’s NOT the typical PR BS, it really DOES have that kind of impact’ I drove back home afterwards to try and get a bit of sleep before…

Tori and I after the video interviews were done on Tuesday

TUESDAY
Tuesday I had to drive back up to LA for a bunch of video interviews that Tori and I were giving for about a dozen different venues. It would end up with almost seven hours of interviews with Tori, myself, and then us together, talking about the book, our reactions to it, our history together, and everything under the sun. I ramble by nature. I always come back (eventually) to my original point, but I’m an expert in the art of circumlocution. Tori’s the same way. Get us together, and talking about stuff? With 22 years of friendship and life history? Forget it, we’re off to the races (Although we might stop for a glass of wine and a mojito, then some shopping or a movie before GETTING to the races, if that makes sense.) Because a lot of these interviews were for ‘family safe’ venues, I was working VERY hard on not swearing. Anyone who’s heard me talk in person knows that I use the f-word like a comma. It’s punctuation for me. However, I was doing very good about all of this, not dropping f-bombs. Not even saying ‘shit’, which is no small feat unto itself. Tori notices this and, mid-interview stops and comments that I’m not swearing, and that led to this…

I got home exhausted and wiped out, did a half-dozen email interviews before crashing at 3am, but it was fine because I had Wednesday off, and planned on sleeping in, then heading down to SDCC with plenty of time to set up and make sure that everything was ready to run smoothly.

However…

WEDNESDAY (Preview Night…)
A work-related crisis at the last minute meant that I ended up going in to the office in the morning and didn’t get out until 1pm. After finally getting out of the office, I then rushed home to pack up everything and try to get down to SDCC in time. Between traffic, parking, picking up my badge and other joys of logistics I didn’t get to the booth until 7pm. That’s a full hour AFTER the con floor opened for preview night, and as I neared the Image booth and the CBT table there was already a line of people going back at least 60 people. I have OCD, which is a good attribute to have as an editor, but it tends to throw you off a bit, when you can’t be where you are supposed to be early, much less on time. Determined not to let being late throw me, or start things off on a sour note, I made my way to the booth apologizing for the delay as much as I could, got behind the table and started unpacking boxes and then realized there were two very big problems.

1.) No one had ordered the tickets to give to the 200 people who bought the book so that they could get in to the signing.

2.) While we had the limited editions, and the SDCC exclusive art print of the cover, we only had ONE box of the HC book. 35 boxes of HCs and SC editions were nowhere to be found.

Image quickly started trying to track them down, but meanwhile I’ve got a line of very antsy people waiting to buy books so they can see Tori. Being an editor, you realize a couple of things as you do your job. The first is; it doesn’t matter how you do when things are running smoothly, it’s how you run things in moments of crisis. The second is; as the ‘head’ of the project, you are the one that everyone looks to in order to solve problems. You no longer have the luxury of getting upset or throwing your hands up. If you want your project to succeed, you deal with it.

So, I had to make an ‘executive decision’ that pained me a bit. The point of having the ltd edition prints was in order to make some money to give to the CBT creators who were attending SDCC to help defray the gas-crisis-induced insanity of travel and lodging expenses. However, we had fans waiting, no books, and it wasn’t fair to them to tell them ‘sorry, you’ve waited an hour, come back later’, so I made the deal that if they bought the print (which was the same price as the softcover edition) AND we got books in (because at this point I had no idea if we’d even GET books in) that they could come back and get the SC for free, or the HC for the difference ($20). This way if we DID get books in, they’d end up getting a $30 print for free, and if we DIDN’T get the books, they’d have the print and be able to see Tori.

One of the few pics from Preview Night… My camera didn’t come out until FRIDAY

I signed the back of people’s badges since we didn’t have tickets (my signature is kinda hard to ‘fake’, being uniquely sloppy), and minor ‘incidents’ (the programme guide had failed to note that there was a limited allocation of tickets to see Tori given out each day in order to allow people who didn’t get to the show until Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, to still be able to have the opportunity to get in to the signing, and a few people weren’t happy with that.) aside, we got through Wednesday with everyone (pretty much) intact.

THE CON PROPER - DAY ONE: THURSDAY
I’m just going to cover Comic Book Tattoo-related stuff here, and I’ll cover general con stuff on my personal blog. Also, as a fair warning, I was getting 3 hours sleep a night (and sadly, not due to post-con partying) so if I get events/times mixed up, I beg forgiveness in advance.

Let me just say this up front. I knew from working with them that I had an incredible crew of creators on CBT. They were smart, talented, professional, and a joy to work with, but even the most level-headed individual can fray under the weight of SDCC. However, I can say this. The CBT creators at SDCC were among the kindest, most generous and helpful people I have ever known in comics. They worked as a team, supporting each other, dealing with the crush of fans, keeping their senses of humor, and never once losing their cool. I’ve been asked in interviews many times why CBT worked, and the creators at SDCC just underscored the point I’ve made over and over… we had an incredible team across the board, and I can never, ever thank these people enough.

I got to the con at 7:45am, and started to set up, when my wife called to tell me that there had been a truck that jackknifed on I-5 (the freeway that runs from LA to San Diego) Since there were rumblings that the missing books were en route from LA, the news that all truck traffic was delayed by at least 5-7 hours was… not exactly the news I wanted to hear. By 9:30am the doors were open and we immediately had a line of at least 20 people, so I walked out next to the line, and shouted so everyone could hear that we didn’t have books yet, but… and went on to explain the print arrangement. Most people had a good sense of humor about it, and I tried to keep the mood light, but it is nonetheless frustrating to not have books to sell when people actually WANT to buy them.

By 11am, I had signed 75 badges (the day’s allotment for ‘passes’ to Saturday’s signing with Tori) and we were almost completely sold out of the last 50 copies of the signed/limited editions. The rest of the day was filled with interviews, meetings, and time at the booth, and it was great to get to know some of the creators in person after only dealing with them via the internet. It was even more enjoyable that the CBT table was right next to the Pixu/5 table with Moon, Ba. Cloonan, Grampa, and Lolois. They are such incredibly talented comic creators, and have such a genuine passion for comics that you can’t help but be infected by the comics love just by being in their proximitity. At the end of the day, my two Brazilian powerhouses Kako and Peov showed up. Kako flew in fresh from winning the Brazilian illustrator of the year award (and SO well deserved) and was dazed but happy. Peov’s film had been accepted into the CCI film fest, and we had happy hugs all around at the fact that we could all be there to share the release of the book (if they’d only show up already… no, the OCD-driven editor wasn’t worried, why do you ask?)

As Omaha Perez and Mark Sable sign prints, I explain the situation… (note the energy drink)

At 3pm, I got a call on my cell that records showed that the 300 books had been delivered on TUESDAY, signed for, and between the loading dock and our booth, they disappeared. Vanished. Gone. On the GOOD side of things, I could authorize an emergency drop ship (not cheap, by the way) of books that would be there first thing Friday am, or I could wait and hope the missing books would show. It wasn’t even a choice at that point, I authorized the shipment, and told myself we’d sell the other shipment if it showed up, but at the very least we would HAVE books.

More meetings, promotion, and interviews wrapped up Thursday, and I went to dinner with comic-creating husband and wife team Leland Purvis (of Act-i-vate fame) and Elizabeth Genco (of Blue and the story Hear in My Head for CBT fame) catching up with them, and talking about comics, projects, and plans. They’ve been great friends for a couple years now, but (thank you internet) this is the first time we actually had the opportunity to meet each other in person. We went from dinner to the CBLDF/Image Comics party, since the CBT creators were supposed to be ‘guests of honor’. There we did the rounds, talking to people until I realized that “I’ll only stay an hour” had turned into 3, and I needed to get in the car and drive back to the house to sleep a bit before the next day’s mayhem.

DAY TWO: FRIDAY
Got in early Friday to the convention center in order to try and track down the shipment of books. Traci and Allen from Image got on it as well, and while we didn’t have books in hand by the time doors opened at 9:30, we knew the books had arrived on the loading dock, so… more ‘fun with prints’ while we waited for the union folk at the Convention Center to bring the books to the booth (we were not allowed to move books, otherwise, I think I would have carried every box there myself at that point) At around 10:40, the crew with the boxes of books showed up on a palette, 35 boxes of book is a LOT when the books are 12″ x 12″. Of course, NOTHING can go smoothly and evidentially the palette bumped into a guy with a cane. Now, when I say ‘guy’ I mean a person who is about 7 ft tall, weighs 400 pounds, and is not fat in the slightest. He was one of the largest humans I have ever seen, and it was obvious this man tears people apart for a living, because he proceeded to get in the shipping crews face for ‘being rude’. Loudly. ANGRILY. 10 feet away from the booth. With the books sitting on the palette next to them.

I have to admit, it took a LOT of strength to not start cracking up at the craziness of it all, with us going through so much to get the damn books, and now that they are 10 feet away, I’m not going to have them because they are no longer going to be in ‘mint condition’ because there will be convention center worker blood and entrails all over them. I overcame the lack of sleep and just watched until finally security came and ushered the guy away.

…and we had books.

Jimmie Robinson and Derek McCulloch (in the BG) frantically unpack books while myself, cover artist Jason Levesque, and Hope Larson sell and sign books as fast as we can…

Now, I knew we would sell out of CBT at SDCC. That wasn’t in question. The question for me was, once people SEE the book, how FAST will we sell out? The answer? DAMN fast. We had 3 creators unpacking boxes and getting them onto the table as fast as they could, with people buying the books as fast as they could, and another row of creators signing books as quickly as they could. Friends who witnessed it said it was like watching something out of the Grapes of Wrath, starving people scrambling for grain. I don’t know about that, but I know we sold out all of the standard hardcover editions (125 books) in 3 hours, and sold out the entire shipment of Softcovers (275 books) in less than 24 hours, as well as the last 50 of the signed/numbered/limited edition (and I know we could have sold another 50 if that if we’d had it, because I had at least that many people asking for it)
After 5 hours of the books literally flying out of the booth, our backs were sore as hell (I’d like to apologize to all of the retailers who have to cart around multiple copies of CBT. Honest, I had no idea the book would be THAT heavy!), and we were tired, but damn it felt great. Even more so to have people coming back again and again to get their books signed since we rotated the three creators signing every hour so that all 40+ CBT artists and writers that attended would have a chance to sign.

The day was broken up in the middle by me being interviewed by a crew doing a documentary on SDCC. It was the only non-CBT-specific interview I did, and it was a lot of fun.

NEXT UP: SATURDAY (aka ‘The BIG day’) and SUNDAY…