A Week in Writing #367 - Powers Squared Takes Over

Hope everyone is staying well, getting vaccinated, and, of course, writing.

I know Powers Squared plays a major role every week in my creative space but this week it seems to have, at least temporarily, taken over. Part of that is due to getting ready for our signing on September 18th, the release of Issue 12 on the 15th, getting the Remastered version of Issues 1-5 ready for the Kickstarter in the Fall, and working on our Pitch Packet.

To start the week off, ComiXology rejected our submission, not for content but because there was some pixelation on page 3 of the book as well as other issues with Compression. They also complained that we had set it up under the wrong Series number. To tackle the last one first, for some reason there are two numbers for Powers Squared when we submit, even though they've told us they've removed the unnecessary one. We picked the first one listed but apparently, that's the wrong one. When we resubmitted, there was no way to correct that, so we're hoping our note in the "Tell Us About Your Book" section will explain and they'll tell us the right one to use so we don't have to guess in the future.

As far as the pixelation and compression issues, we went back to Trevor and his original files. He has a new version of Adobe and we're hoping that will do the trick. The other platforms, both print, and digital, did not have any issues.

In the past, we've let Comixology set the release date but we decided to go with the 15th even if they're not ready yet.

I wrote and Paul edited a press release about the signing and the release of the new issue. The first news site I submitted to on Sunday, published it on Sunday. If you regularly read the First Comics News site, you may have already seen it, if not here's a link. As always, if you're in the LA area and want to show some love, the signing is at Golden Apple Comics on September 18 from 1-3. We hope you'll be there.

There were also new pages to review for Issue 19. We even had our artist on our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared on Friday to discuss putting together the issue. She had sent pages earlier in the day and we used the show to talk about one more change we wanted her to make. We also discussed the back cover she's drawn for the BD for the Kickstarter. That's really coming along.

On that topic, Paul and I both individually reviewed the 100 pages Trevor had re-lettered. We have a few changes we need to have made but nothing too significant and nothing that is really his fault. It is interesting to see the first 2 story arcs at one time and see what still needs to be updated. We've been looking at that in conjunction with talking about the pitch packet, which Paul has also edited this week. Oh, the changes we would have made if we only knew what we were doing. Frankly, from a creative point of view, I'm getting tired of the first five issues and want to move on to better issues in the future.

There's more that I could discuss about Powers Squared but hopefully, that gave you a taste of what we've been through.

Let's move on to Trophy Unlocked. I've been tasked with writing two reviews, one for the animated film Batman vs. Two-Face (2017), which I've completed but not posted, and the other is Mystery of the Wax Museum (1932), which we watched on Saturday which I'm only partially finished with. The Batman review is for a planned salute to the Caped Crusader in September and Wax Museum is for October and our salute to horror.

Otherwise, the blog just completed No More Heroes week, with four reviews. On Monday, it was No More Heroes (Wii), on Tuesday it was No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise, on Thursday No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Switch), and on Friday Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes (+ DLC) (Switch). All were written by Paul, as was Saturday morning's review of Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train.

Despite everything, I did send off a new query on Thursday for Broken People; another email one, the type I prefer. While it is essentially the same query, there are some subtle changes. This time, I did some rewrites on the brief synopsis agents seem to want. So, that brings me up to four.

I also did some more work on Skylar this week, though, honestly, it is never enough time.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.