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The Rant Shack
(Wherein We Rant)
Mike Says:
(09/15/04)
SEPTEMBER AND SAC-CON.
Welcome to another exciting Nice Guy update! They happen every two weeks, you know...
Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. Tim and I had a pretty good one, representin' The Nice Guy at Sac-Con at the Scottish Rite Center on H Street. Bit of an adjustment, just coming off Comic-Con in San Diego where there were over 80,000 people to this one where there was...well, substantially less. But that's the job. Got to get out and get the product seen and meet the people. And we did.
Tim picked me up Sunday morning and we headed over to the Scottish Rite Center, which, if you didn't know, is a place of Masonry. It used to be called the Scottish Rite Temple back when we first started going there for cons back in high school. I guess they changed the name to discourage the idea that the Masons are some wacky cult (who would think THAT?). But when you enter, you do get the feeling you're coming into a church of some kind. It's the statue of one of the big founders and the portraits of upstanding Mason guys hanging on the wall that make you think you've entered a place of worship in the middle of Utah.
Tim and Mike kickin' it at Sac-Con
We signed up for this thing late, so we didn't really get a choice of placement on the table action. Just like in San Diego, I forgot to mention ahead of time that there would be a wheelchair issue, and so again we were sandwiched between a couple of other tables. but we fixed the problem by the guy to our right--a comic dealer that doesn't have a store, but just does his business at cons--pulling his table over and us pulling ours as well, giving me passage between our table and the table on the left. Awful nice of the fella. The problem with this arrangement, though, was that it made us look like part of this guy's table, as racks of his comics were pretty much behind us. So, even though we had our colorful Nice Guy banner screaming out who we were, a few people still came over, when our neighbor was away from his table, asking us comic prices and whether we had certain issues. No problem, mostly...all we had to do was tell MOST people that we weren't with the guy. There was one shopper, though, who just couldn't process the idea and kept coming back to us. We considered just handling the sales and taking money for our neighbor just to make the guy go away.
So we were there from 10am to 4pm, kicking it behind the table, working up some layout for upcoming Nice Guy strips, and even occasionally talking to people and selling books. Not a huge amount of business, but we weren't expecting that. There were some standout moments, though. Once again we were shocked to have a group of dudes come up who actually knew us from the internet and didn't know we had a book out (so they bought one!) and stood there talking about which were their favorite online strips. Now THAT is satisfying, let me tell you. I guess I still haven't gotten it into my head that people are actually reading this thing. I still feel like we're just doing it to amuse ourselves or something. Another guy came up because he'd actually bought our comic (woah!) at A-1 Comics and wanted to tell us how much he liked it. Sweet! Those moments were worth the price of the table right there, I think.
We got your usual mix of people that we're coming to expect. Some buyers. Some just curious who, if we're lucky, take the flyer at least and may check out the site and become fans later. Some who take a look at our stuff and realize there are no swords and/or boobs in our book so they move on (note to self--put swords and boobs in issue #2). A couple of crazy people. I guess it's true at any public gathering, but it just seems a definite at comic conventions...you're going to get some crazy people. Some are just nice folks that don't have a lot of social skills and don't seem to used to talking to other people, so they do it kind of oddly. Some are like, seriously, off the meds. But, you deal with it. And if you can deal with it AND get them to buy a book, so much the better.
Albert Pike. Now THERE was a Mason...
People-watching is always the most enjoyable experience at these things. I'll never quite understand the appeal of dressing up in costume to come to these things. I mean, San Diego is one thing. People go all out and do up professional costumes and get people wanting to pose for pictures with them. I can see that. But coming to a Sac Con where it's just people shopping for comics, DVDs and collectibles and showing up wearing a fake sword on your back? Or a cape? Can't see it myself, but hey...everyone makes their own fun. I guess a better question I should be asking myself is where ELSE do they get to go in public and wear their sword or cape? That puts it in perspective. Again, we saw the usual phenomenon of comic guys who bring their girlfriends to the con with them and have their girls dress as skimpily (that's a word, I swear) as possible to lord it over the other nerds. Kind of sad, actually. Yes, yes, you've touched a girl and they haven't. We're all quite impressed, I'm sure. You're still over there buying a Lady Death statue with the rest of them, pal.
Got to see Brian Peets of A-1 Comics, of course. Did I mention we'll be doing another store appearance there at the grand opening of his new Roseville store next month? I'll be talking more about that soon, I'm sure. And it wouldn't be a Sac appearance without a drop-by by Nice Guy superfan Sarah Haslett (thanks for dropping by, Sarah!). And got to run into a guy named Ryan Claytor, creator of Elephant Eater Comics, who we first met back in the Small Press area at San Diego. Always good to run into some old self-publishing pals. Dan Cooney--creator of Valentine--was there, but once again I managed to not bump into him. Only made it out to the area where his table was (where they sat the comic creators who got their table early) once, and he wasn't there at the time. Maybe next time at A-1. I think he and Tim were supposed to get together for drinks later that night. Not sure if that came together. The one "celebrity" there was a guy named Ken Foree, who played Peter Washington in the original Dawn of the Dead. Can't have a comic convention without at least one sci-fi or horror actor. It's the law. He seemed to be having a really good time meeting his fans. Seemed like a nice guy. Some should make a comic about him, maybe. See what I did there?
All in all, a pretty laid-back appearance, and we had a good time meeting some folks and signing some autographs. Hopefully we got a few people to come check out the site, too. Time, and fan mail, will tell. We're thinking about going to a San Jose show coming up, one put on by the same guy who runs the Sac Con, just to try and reach out to a Bay Area audience. If we do, we'll surely let you know.
And if you want to check out all the pics from Sac-Con, jump on over to the Photos page.
SACRAMENTO KINGS DRAFT TIM WATTS AS NEW POINT GUARD!
Oh, my God. I'd forgotten all about these until I stumbled upon them last night on my hard drive. Back in 2001 I'd picked up NBA Live 2001 for my PC...because I'm a basketball freak. I was screwing around with the player creation feature, and decided, for no good reason, to create Tim as a player to put on my Kings team. I caught these screen captures to send to him. He's WASTING his skills on comics, man! He needs to be on the hardwood!
Player of the game? With 4 points? This must have been the 1989 era Kings...
Here Tim taunts the Nuggets while Peja stares off in the distance, looking slightly retarded as usual...
What? Are you thinking of guarding Tim? Get real, fool! You can't guard HIM! You can only hope to CONTAIN him!
Here Tim lays some wicked defense on the stunned "gangsta hoopa" Nick Van Exel, while Vlade starts running over for the double team. In the background, Webber seems to be leaving the floor with a bad knee. Imagine that...
Boomtown on DVD?! Hallelujah!
I had one of those glorious shopping moments that don't come along often a couple of weeks back. I was at Best Buy, looking to spent a couple of my Rewards Card certificates on some new DVD love. I started looking in the TV section, pretty sure that I already had all the box sets I wanted already, when my jaw dropped. One of my favorite cancelled shows ever was out on DVD...and I didn't even know it!
My friend Kevin was raving, a couple of years back, about this NBC drama called Boomtown. One weekend they happened to be having a Boomtown marathon on Bravo, so I set my VCR (this was before I became one with the TiVo love) to catch the seven they were showing. Holy CRAP. I fell in love with this show. A brilliant drama with a really unique narrative style. You basically would have a crime, which you'd often see right at the front of the episode, and then they'd do this time jump thing where you'd see the story from the perspective of each of the main characters, and usually from the people involved in the crime, too. The style alone was enough to hook me, but I'm all about character, and this show had some amazing, rich characters played by some of my favorite actors (and some that became favorites). I was a huge fan of Band of Brothers (I have a framed BoB promo poster above my desk), and Boomtown's creator was Graham Yost, one of the writers on Band. He brought arguably the two best actors from Band over to his new show...namely Donnie Wahlberg ("Detective Joel Stevens") and Neal McDonough (kickass D.A. "David McNorris", one of my favorite TV characters in years). He also pulled in Mykelti Williamson ("Detective Bobby 'Fearless' Smith"), who I've been a big fan of for years (you might remember him as "Bubba" from Forrest Gump, but I'll always remember him as one of Pacino's boys in Heat). Boomtown had everything I love in a TV show...great writing, characters you really care about, that perfect mix of drama and occasional comedy.
So, of course, NBC cancelled it partway into season 2.
But season 1 is now on DVD. I grabbed mine up and I'm working my way through all those great episodes again. If you're looking for something new and satisfying to try out, you've got my thumbs-up on Boomtown. I'm betting you'll love it, too.
Click up there to get yourself one, foo'!
DISTURBING INTERNET IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Personally? I think Steve Jobs set him up...
Octoberfest Awaits!
Michael
The
Nice Guy
“Pilot”
Now on Sale!
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New strip added in the Comics! section: "Kneeeel Before Zod"
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New update in The Rant Shack...with the news on the A-1 Comics Van Fundraiser...and the shocking Tim Watts finger news...
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Update to the Photos page with A-1 Comics shots! Sorry, no shots of Tim's finger...
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Always find out the latest NG News in the What's Cookin' Section
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Look for new material on the 1st and 15th of every month!
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