Greetings everyone,
We’re back from our month-long trip across the US, going from coast-to-coast at different comic-cons, getting people interested in Torchbearer and Odd Truth in general. With the traveling and some of the work our lead guy has been doing on the side , it’s been hard to find the time to update everyone on our latest comings and goings. So, without further ado, here are some updates.
First, Torchbearer #7 is in the editing stages and will be starting pencils very shortly. Needless to say, we’re super excited to continue work on our saga, and so far the feedback we’ve been getting has been largely positive. At this time, we’ve sold over 400 copies of both Torchbearer v.0.25 and v.0.5 combined. Which, if you’ve ever tried selling your comics on your own at comic-cons, you’ll realize getting to this number is an impressive feat on its own (and to give you an idea of the time frames involved, it took us 10 months and 7 comic-cons to get this far). But we’re not done yet. We still have Boston Comic Con, BaltimoreCon and our big one, New York Comic Con, to look forward to.
Second, you may have noticed throughout the weeks that we have a new project in store. It’s a new animation series called “Dr. Feeny and Jade“. It’s a short created for Comics Experience’s Introduction to Animation course. We’re quite proud of it and are gathering the necessary resources to get started on it. The script is up and you’re more than welcome to read it.
Starting this month-long trek, we’ve had a marvelous time traveling across the nation. First up, we went to Long Beach, CA and had a blast at Long Beach Comic Expo. We met up with Chris Callahan at the comic con itself, and commiserated on the trials and tribulations of creating our own comic books. Here’s some of the few pics we were able to capture from our table:
We also had an opportunity to meet up with one of our own, Dave Lanphear, with whom we had a marvelous time in LA. As to Long Beach Comic Expo itself, while we had a marvelous time, there are a couple of factors we, as well as anyone else, have to consider before coming back to Long Beach. The first is the timing of the comic-con and the second is the costs to get there and back. In the case of the former, next year Long Beach Comic Expo is going to be too early for us to consider it. As to the latter, we have to say that, if we were local to LA, we would definitely return, as it is a fantastic comic-con through which one can start the comic con season, and try out new things before heading to the big ones. But, such as it is, we are still looking forward to another year where we can return to Long Beach.
Now, here’s hoping that by then there’s a frozen banana stand at the boardwalk by then 😉
PhoenixCon was another blast. We had amazing neighbors in Vanquish Studios, from whom we had an amazing Darth Vader commission made that hangs proudly on our offices. PhoenixCon was a blast and we think we made a lot of new Torchbearer fans. Thankfully, this was one of the few cons where we were able to take pictures, so here they are:
Yep. That last one is a picture of John Barrowman holding his own copies of Torchbearer. Needless to say, we were more than glad to furnish him with his own copies 🙂
I think it’s safe to say we’ll be returning to PhoenixCon. The question now is whether to return for an artist alley table or maybe go for something bigger. There are pros and cons we have to consider, so there’s some number crunching and planning before we can finalize on a decision. Even so, we have fallen in love with Phoenix and plan to return.
From here, we went back close to our home turf in Westchester, NY at NY Comic Fest . Though the comic con was our shortest one yet (it was only for a day), it was phenomenal. Our new friends and con neighbors Wayward Raven were amazing at the con, and I’m sure they’ll be the very first to tell you that they enjoyed our rendition of I’m Gonna Be . We also met up with both Christina Blanch and Mark from Alter Ego Comics, who were very kind to us and humored us in resolving a small bet between Wayward Raven and Odd Truth regarding the power of one’s will.
Finally, we ended up at HeroesCon, where we met up with some old pals and made some new ones. Aside from getting Torchbearer out there in North Carolina, and meeting up with amazing creators, one of the highlights was certainly seeing life through someone who has Google Glass. A friend of ours is a bona-fide early adopter of Google Glass, and while we believe the technology powering Google Glass will be commonplace in the future (I mean, our Collectors in Torchbearer wear shades that are, in effect, Google Glass V100.3 or so), it was enlightening to see people react to it. Most of the time, Glass was treated as an object of curiosity. There was an instance at a bar where an individual was somewhat aggressive towards our friend, but thankfully the alcohol reduced his attention span and moved on to other things. I will say this though, it was nice to capture some moments from a first-person perspective, and can only hope that as we iterate through the technology, it becomes more stylish and accepted (yes, there are huge privacy implications to consider. We all should have an ongoing discussion about it because, whether we like it or not, the technology is coming and it will become mainstream).
All in all, it was a fantastic month, but we’re kind of glad to be back home and working on our projects. Throughout the month of July, we’ll be working on our exhibits for both Boston Comic Con and NYCC, which (if all goes as expected) will yield some pleasant surprises.
In the next two weeks, we’ll have a pair of blog posts regarding some of the financials of comic-cons, some more tips we’ve learned. It’ll have graphics and charts and as much data as we can share! Hopefully it’ll help other creators have a better comic cons.
Until next time.
Best,
-Nick D.