A Week in Writing #514 - Starting to Take Shape

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

Spent some time this week trying to put the booth for LA Comic-Con into shape. Got out the box of things we used at our last convention appearance, which was over 5 years ago, and started to put together what we're going to need now. This includes a skirt for the table and a new banner for the booth. It was decided by a group vote to have the new banner and the table cloth match colors and then there was agreeing on the placement of the items on the banner.

We already have one for Powers Squared, though it has the old logo on it, but we wanted to have one for SRCC, which is how people join our mailing list. Getting people to sign up is really the goal of the con as far as I'm concerned. I want to sell books, but I want us to expand our reach, too.

While we're not selling t-shirts at the show, they will be on sale on the website. To that end, we ordered some t-shirts to wear at the show. I will, of course, post photos on our website after the event, but until then, you'll just have to imagine what I'm going to look like wearing Julia's chibi Dr. Atlas designed t-shirt.

We were able to ask another creative about their con experience when Lucas Scheffel made his 7th appearance on our podcast, OAPS. Lucas, dressed as his character Gary Gorilla throughout, related his experience with conventions in Australia, which is where he lives. We also discussed his latest Kickstarter for Gary Gorilla, as well as his thoughts on the last two issues of Powers Squared. You can listen to it on or find other platform links on our website: https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. You can also opt to watch it, and it's worth watching, when it goes up on our YouTube channel on Wedenesday afternoon at 2:30 PDT. While you're there, subscribe and ring the bell, as they say.

Next week, will be the 250th OAPS podcast, but we will be out of town (more on this later), so the artists past, present and possibly future will be taking over the show for us, the first of at least two times this summer.

Speaking of future artists, we took some steps this week on replacing our artist, who is leaving the role at her own choice. Our current colorist has expressed an interest in assuming the artist role and we asked her to draw the four main characters to get the testing underway. Still waiting to see what she comes up with.

I wrote a review this weekend for The Big Trail (1930), John Wayne's first starring role in a film directed by Raoul Walsh. My review of Blondie (1938) was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked.

And there was more work on Skylar this week, though not as much as I would have wanted. I seem to be getting a late start and getting sleepy earlier, which is a bad combination.

Next week, we'll be visiting my wife's family over the weekend, so this missive will be a day late.

That does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you next week, just a day late.

A Week in Writing #513 - The Show Must Go On

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing and a Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there.

More cancellations on this week's OAPS podcast. We were doing our 14th Comic Book Club podcast, to discuss Pompo: The Cinéphile Vol. 1, story and art by Shogo Sugitani. This time, Jen and Rachel had to pull out at the last minute due to reasons. But, as the old saying goes, the show must go on, so just Julia joined Paul, Trevor and myself on the show. Interestingly, earlier in the week, I had the notion that one or more wouldn't make the show. It was a good show, as we also discussed our three favorite films, since that is also something in the manga. If your curious, you can listen to it on our website. If you want to watch it, it's on our twitch channel now (twitch.tv/powerssquared) but only for  a week. If you're reading this later or want to watch it on our YouTube channel it will be available there on Wednesday afternoon.

Next week, fingers crossed, Lucas Scheffel's rescheduled appearance. We're closing in on #250, but unfortunately, we won't be a part of it, as we're having to go out of town. The good news is that Julia will be hosting another artists' takeover.

My plan this week was to work more on Skylar and it did start out well, with my writing more than 1200 words on Monday, but the progress did slow as the week went on and there was more editing than writing.

I'm currently working on a review of Dark Phoenix (2019) for later in the summer. We've been on a mission to watch all the X-Men films prior to the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, so all will be revealed in good time. Trevor had the last two reviews on Trophy Unlocked with a review of Robot Dreams as the Saturday Morning review and Inside Out 2 up today; we watched it on Friday afternoon in 3D before the podcast.

New issue was released this past Wednesday, Powers Squared Issue #21, "Mission: Istanistan, Part 2". Every release is not without a hiccup or two along the way. One of the platforms we're available on, even with a month's notice, missed the date of release, but did make good the next day. If you're curious, check it out here.

They're far alone from problems. As has been noted here, we did a Graphic Novel version of the first five issues some time back and then did a revised version for a Kickstarter with another platform we're on. Not too long ago, we did another trade for the next four issues, which is currently only available on LibraryPass. However, I wanted to have print versions available for the future. When I submitted the pages, I included the cover and the backcover in the .pdf and they ended up in the book. (My mistake, though it wasn't one I rushed to fix.) This past week, I got around to dealing with it; I wanted to make sure I was following how the previous trade looked. When I downloaded the .pdf being used, it wasn't the right one. Rather that using the .pdf we used for the Kickstarter, the old version was being used (that is, if anyone ordered the book.) I'm still in the process of getting that fixed. This is how I spend my nights sometimes, working through fun stuff like this.

Issue 21 was featured in the Indy Spotlight on First Comics News on Saturday. Always nice to get a little unsolicited push. Much appreciated. I won't go through all the gymnastics I had to do to get this link on our website, but it's there as well, along with the other stories which have featured Powers Squared.

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

A Week in Writing #512 - A Week of Reviews/New Issue

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

Rather than a week in review, this was a week of reviews, as I spent most nights this past week finishing reviews for Trophy Unlocked. I know that doesn't sound like a week's worth of work, but given how things are going, that took the week. A couple of the reviews were pretty far along, American Graffiti and X-Men: Apocalypse, but another was barely started, Pushover. Then there is finding images, spell checking, adding links, posting and placing the images and that takes longer than you might think.

As it turns out, Pushover was the Saturday Morning Review on the blog. That was more of a late Friday night decision but that one's up. The X-Men review will have to wait for summer and I'm not sure when American Graffiti will appear; let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In other news, we have a new issue of Powers Squared coming out on Wednesday. "Mission: Istanistan, Part 2". This issue is a continuaiton of "Mission: Istanistan, Part 1". In that issue, the U.S. military enlisted Marty and Eli to help stop a rogue nation, Istanistan, from deploying a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) that they've been developing. Eli volunteers to teleport into the site and, using telepathy, Marty relays instructions on setting an explosive. But things go wrong and Eli is captured. Even though the Army tells Marty there is nothing they can do, he takes it upon himself to mount a rescue. But things again do not go according to plan. You'll have to read the issue to find out what happens. The issue will be available in print and digital through our website's store, The Campus Store. It's where the Hound Dogs shop.

Not a lot this week with Powers Squared. Our colorist's computer has been on the fritz for awhile, so we don't yet have her pages and I'm not sure when we'll be seeing art from our artist (see last week's post for details on that situaiton.) And no work forward yet on finding a replacement, other than some texts with our current colorist.

Our podcast had a guest all lined up, Lucas Scheffel, the creator of Angry Fred and Gary Gorilla, but he had a family emergency and had to postpone. Luckily, we had recorded a short preview on Issue #21 in April and were able to slot it into the OAPS timeslot. You can listen to it on our website (which also has links to the other platforms it appears on) or wait and watch it Wednesday afternoon on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared).

As always, Skylar got the short shrift. I did find myself editing another of the books, The Runaway, sort of by accident. I was looking for something else, but opened the title and started reading and editing as I went along. A real edit job awaits before I would submit for query, but I think it reads pretty well.

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

A Week in Writing #511 - A Bit of a Surprise

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course writing.

A bit of a surprise this week. The artist on Powers Squared, Julia Canon, has stepped down. The current issue that she's been working on, #27 "Billy and Raven", will be her last as the artist. This came during a Discord call that was initiated by me because she was not only way behind on pages but was being unresponsive, which are two things I hate. My plan was to read her the riot act and instead, before we can launch into anything, she resigned. She'll still finish the issue, which, again, is now behind schedule, but we're now looking for a replacement.

There are currently two streams of search. We've reached out to our former artist, Rachel Wells, to see if she knows of someone; she is a SCAD grad. And our current colorist, Jen Moreno, has already made it clear that she'd like to be considered for the spot. She's never done a book before, but from what I've seen, she's talented as an illustrator; it's another thing to do sequential storytelling. We'll probably want to do a test with all the potentials to see if their style is a good mix for us.

Julia's not going anywhere and will still be a part of the podcasts, etc. going forward, but it remains to be seen if she'll return to being the colorist or not.

This was newsletter week and that did get off this morning, when it was due. We've opted for the first Sunday of the month, as it gives us an opportunity to look back at the previous month and doesn't overwhelm. We tried a weekly newsletter, but were advised that was overkill, not to mention hard on me/us.

Our celebration of all things Transformers came to an end on Friday, when we played our interview with Marty Isenberg, who had been a writer on several Transformers-themed shows. While we usually go live on Fridays, we pre-recorded this interview back in April, when he was available. It also gave us some flexibility having one in the back pocket, so to speak. It's available to listen to here and can be watched after Wednesday, the 5th, here. There is also a playlist of all the TF40 podcasts, if anyone is interested.

For Trophy Unlocked, my review of The Guardsman (1931) was the Saturday Morning Review. This one dates back to 2021, but at least it's seen the light of day. I'm still working on three, having finished The Little Shop of Horrors, I'm also working on one for Pushover.  As part of our drain the DVR Saturday nights, I picked this one, since I had recorded it twice to view; it seemed like the time to get to it.

I've worked on Skylar as often as possible during the week. I've got a new chapter to write, as the plot has been evolving, so I'm looking forward to that.

Queries have not made their way back into the grind. I just don't have the time to get to it. One more thing to add the pile that's already too high.

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