A Week in Writing #535 - Deleting Twitter and Not Looking Back

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

This week, not only had I moved our accounts to BlueSky, but we also deleted our Twitter account. Again, concerns over AI is the main reason. It's slow going rebuilding a following on a new platform, but it's a decision we made and I'll stand by going forward. If you're interested in following me, on BlueSky, I'm @lionsroar91406.bsky.social and Powers Squared is now @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social.

On the subject of Powers Squared, I'm happy to report that our new artist, Jen Moreno, turned in 8 really good looking pages for Issue #28. I hope we're in good hands going forward.

Our two former artists, Julia Canon and Rachel Wells, joined Trevor, Paul and myself for our 16th Comic Book Club, wherein we discussed Happy Kanako's Killer Life, Volume 1 by Toshiya Wakabayashi. After that we recorded, for the future, a preview of Issue #23, "Family Affair, Part 2". That podcast will come out on Black Friday, and the new issue will be released on Wednesday, Dec. 4. You'll have to wait to see that one, but you can listen to the Book Club here or watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PST here.

While I enjoy doing podcasts with the creative team, I'm at least twice as old as any of them and sometimes feel like Roy from the old The Mickey Mouse Club, which was before my time. All the young mouseketters would introduce themselves, then this older man would come out; Roy. You know he had less than nothing in common with Annette Funicello. Again, this was all before my time, but I've seen videos from that era. I don't have the same points of references the others have and they, for the most part, don't have mine either. And, to be honest, no one tries to make me feel that way, it's just how I feel sometimes.

I finished going through my rewrites on Skylar, so now it's down to the denouement, which I started to work on too late to make any real progress on it. I know how the book will end, but it's the getting there that I'm working on.

On to the subject of Trophy Unlocked. My review of Bombshell (1933) was the Saturday Morning Review. I picked that one to go up because last week was the anniversary of the release of Jean Harlow's first big starring role, Hell's Angels (1930) and she was on my mind. I'm still amazed about the impression she made in such a short time. Earlier in the week, Trevor's review of Sheepy: A Short Adventure went up on Wednesday, what I like to hashtag as GameDay.

I'm currently working on a review of Blade, which we watched on Friday night. I won't give anything away, but I drew the short straw.

I've already started working on the next newsletter, as it's due the Sunday we get back from the Thanksgiving holiday, but more on that next week. So, I'll be working on that some more next week and finishing up Blade and hopefully the second draft of Skylar. There's also some finishing touches to be put on the next release, like loading it on a couple of platforms.

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

A Week in Writing #534 - WonderCon and BlueSky

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

Big things are afoot for Powers Squared. The biggest news is that we will be tabling at WonderCon in 2025 (March 28-30). This is a big step for us, but I think we're up for it, especially after tabling at LA Comic Con. I've already added it to Events on our webpage. Much more to come in later posts.

Secondly, Powers Squared and I are both leaving Twitter (X). It's not so much what happened Tuesday, though that does contribute, but it's their AI policy. I don't want to post images that will train AI. If you're following me, it's @lionsroar91406.bsky.social and if you've been following Powers Squared  @MartyandEli, it's going to be Powers Squared at @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social. I hope you'll follow both of this on this new platform.

On the subject of Powers Squared, Paul and I discussed issue #23, only as it relates to unboxing proofs of issues #23. A couple of weeks ago, I found a mistake that probably should have been caught earlier. A glass that was supposed to be refilled, was full. I know it's minor, but you want it to be right. As it turns out, both proofs, one for Ka-Blam and the other Artithmeric, each arrived a day or so apart, and we didn't have a guest lined up, so it seemed like something new we could do. This issue comes out on December 4 and will be available in post physical and digital and links will be available in The Campus Store on our website. If you're curious to hear our latest podcast, OAPS #269, here or watch it on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PST here.

The peek-of-the-week, and yes, we do it weekly on the website, is a pencil of the cover. You can look at it here.

Yesterday was the first Neurodiversity Comic Con. I heard it went well. I've added some photos on our website on the Events page; to see them scroll down below WonderCon. Powers Squared was one of the sponsors.

Finished two reviews this week: one for The Thirteenth Chair (1929) and the other for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; the latter should be up on or before the upcoming holiday. No new review this week, as we rewatched Chicken Run this weekend. As I write that, I realize we've never reviewed that title before, hmm.

My review of The Cat's Meow (2002) was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked this past week. But that wasn't the only review on the blog; Trevor's review of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed was the Wednesday Game Day review.

Did some work on Skylar and actually wrote some on it, but it is far from finished.

While I haven't launched query season, I did sign up to get a link to a video seminar about query letters. If and when I look at it, I'll let you know what I learn.

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

A Week in Writing #533 - Busy Week but Fall Back Looms

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

I'm sort of happy to have last week behind me. Congrats to the Dodgers, but those games pushed everything back in my house. And then there was Halloween, which, while fun, was also a bit of disruption as well. And, of course, looming ahead this week is the great fall back, which means it'll get dark earlier and that could affect me, since it has in the past. But that'll be next week's post.

On to this week and let's start with Powers Squared. At the moment, we have two artists, Julia Canon and Jen Moreno, working on separate issues. While I thought that would be a good idea to get more work done, it also means they'll both want to be paid, and deservedly so, for their work. Julia is finishing her work on issue #27, which is a standalone Billy and Raven story, and Jen is working on issue #28, which is the first of a two-parter that we're aiming for 2026. After a slow start, Jen has shown some real talent for sequential storytelling and we're very hopeful going forward.

So during the week, there was a lot of reviewing of pages from both with comments and some revisions, so good for the future of Powers Squared.

This week was capped by our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which we send out once a month. I'll put in my plea here for readers to subscribe. It's easy, free, and can be done here. (You get a free digital copy of Issue #1, an added inducement.) We covered the usual topics, including our tabling at LA Comic Con, our bookshelf debut and our support of the Neurodiversity Comic Con, which is happening next week. We also do a salute to twins, this month being  animators Tom and Tony Bancroft, whom we met at Lightbox and much more. Info on subscribing (enrolling at San Romero Community College) can be found here.

Our Friday podcast was a salute to 40 years of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You can watch it here on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST or listen to it now on our website or one of the other platforms you'll find there as well.

Still working on my review for Elektra, which I need to finish. And I might be reviewing The Thirteenth Chair (1929). That said, my review of The Man with Two Faces (1934) was the Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked. However, it was far from the only review that week on the blog. Paul continued his tribute to Resident Evil games with a second look at Resident Evil Village for the PS5, and on Halloween his review of Silent Hill 2 (2024) went up.

And let's not forget Skylar, I managed to work on that novel for a couple of nights. Some rewrites, but mostly updating per my own edits. I am finding that my chapter numbering in the first draft was pretty inconsistent; I think I had three chapters with Chapter Twenty-Nine as the header. More to come on that.

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

A Week in Writing # 532 - First Time at LightBox

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

This past Saturday, yesterday, I attended the LightBox Expo in Pasadena with Paul and Trevor. They are old hats at attending, but this was my first time to go. If you've never been, the main floor is like a giant Artist Alley, with nice tables, etc., and from what I could tell original artwork, not glorified fan art that you find at many Cons. The emphasis, though, is on animation, so it's a chance to meet and talk to animators, character designers and some voice actors.

There were two panels that I wanted to attend, but was not able to get a ticket for. I know the excuse is to blame line management, but in this case, I think they're not very organized as you're told one thing will happen when something else does. We were told to come back in thirty minutes when they would have the line up but when we came back early, there were already too many people in line for us to get tickets. And, another time, someone from the Expo moved the line we were in only to abandon us and leave us out of the running for tickets.

But otherwise, we had a good time and did make some connections that we're hoping will turn into guests on our podcast.

Speaking of OAPS, this past Friday we had a conversation with Ramon Gil, a comic book writer, artist, creator and teacher about his career and the Neurodiversity Comic Con that's coming up on November 9 at the Gillen Brewer School in New York. Gil is curating the event. Powers Squared is a sponsor and while we won't be in attendance, we have donated a couple of our trades to be auctioned. You can listen to our conversation here or wait and watch it on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here.

And, on the subject of trades, I'm happy to announce that our first trade has made its bookstore debut at the Talk Story Bookstore in Hanapepe, Hawaii. So, if you're going to Kauai, please be sure to drop by.

On the subject of Powers Squared, some good work done, but no pages ready to share just yet.

My review of Island of Lost Souls was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. I've been assigned to do the review of Elektra (2005), which we watched on Friday. Saturday night was a MS3K Night after all the walking at LightBox. While my review may have ended horror month, Resident Evil Month continues with Paul's review this past Wednesday, a Second Look - Resident Evil 7: Biohazard with more to come.

I've also been working, slowly it seems, through the rewrite of Skylar, but I am working on it most nights.

So, this coming week, more of that, my review of Elektra and work on the newsletter The Hound Dogs' Howl, which comes out next Sunday.

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

A Week in Writing #531 - Lots and Lots (Reviews and Videos)

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

I'm still very much in the editing mode on Skylar and at the rate I'm going, I think I will be for the next couple of weeks. In addition to various other things, I'm getting through a chapter or two a night on the nights I'm writing. Some nights, like Fridays and Saturdays, I'm writing, but not at night and not always on this book.

I was thinking earlier in the week about my promise to start querying for an agent again, now that LA Comic Con has passed. Not sure which book to query yet and I still have to write a good paragraph summation. But thinking about it doesn't get it done. I'll have to do better on that one.

Currently, I'm working on a review for Island of Lost Souls. This will be the final Halloween review of the month for Trophy Unlocked; so I have a deadline to complete, hopefully tonight or Monday. My review of Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) was the Saturday Morning Review on the blog but far from the only review this week. It's Resident Evil Month, so two reviews went up during the week, both written by Paul. On Tuesday it as Resident Evil 6 and on Thursday it was Resident Evil: Revelations 2. And you might be saying, wow that's a lot of reviews for one week, they couldn't do another one, but you'd be wrong. Today, Paul's review of My Hero Academia: You're Next went up as well.

Staying with the Resident Evil theme but unrelated to Trophy Unlocked, our Friday night podcast was Resident Evil Retrospective (RE4R-RE8), part 2 of a videogame retrospective Paul started last year. You can listen to it here (Play Loud) or watch it on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 PDT on our YouTube channel.

On the subject of podcasts, next week, we're having Ramon Gil on the show. Ramon is a comic book creator, but also one of the principals behind Neurodiversity Comic Con next month in New York (November 9). Information about the event can be found on our website at Events. We were invited to table, but it was a little far for us, but Powers Squared is an additional sponsor of the Con. We go live at 6 pm PDT on twitch.tv/powerssquared.

Since my last post, we've also put up two new videos on our channel both from Paul, Oreo Coke Collab | Taste Test Special, which explores the flavor combination with cookies, soft drinks and Slurpees with Paul as your Tasting guide; and A Tale of Two DeLoreans | LACC 2024 BTS, some behind the scenes footage we shot, which also happens to feature the Back to the Future DeLoreans that were at the show. One was promoting the musical and the other was a reconditioned car from the films.

On the comic book front, we're in a waiting game for pages, but that too should change next week as we're expecting pages from both Julia Canon and from Jen Moreno, both currently artists on different books.

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

A Week in Writing #530 - Back to Reality

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

This is my first real post-Con week and sadly, the glow wears out quickly. It's a different feeling that I usually get when we go to say San Diego Comic-Con. Not totally unrelated, but different. And strangely, when I attend a Con I get more questions at work about it. This time, no one in my department even asked about it. Someone at work, in another department, did ask a couple of days later, but you kind of hope that it's a conversation for at least the first day. But alas...

We have been very busy with the videos about the Con on our YouTube channel. First up was Paul's LA Comic Con Haul video, wherein he talks about his experience and what exclusives he bought and who he got autographs from/spoke to. That went up on Tuesday. On Wednesday was our podcast from the floor, OAPS #264 LIVE From LA Comic Con 2024, that was followed on Friday with the Under The Radar | LACC 2024 Panel video. Paul edited two recordings, one by Erik Arreaga and one by my wife Nancy, together. We ended the week with the podcast, OAPS #265 LA Comic Con Wrap Up (feat. Lucas Scheffel). The audio can be heard here and the video will be available on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here.

Interesting story, we were planning to talk about the experience on our podcast, who wouldn't, before Lucas offered to ask us questions about it. Our videos with Lucas are always fun, so we thought that would be an interesting twist. So, when that goes up on YouTube, I think we'll be pretty much done with L.A. Comic-Con.

Did we get the fever to do more Cons? I would say yes. We've reached out to a couple and we'll see what comes of it. I know we're on the waiting list for Artists' Alley at Ontario, and we've applied to both WonderCon and SDCC. In fact, I wrote to SDCC on Monday and got an almost immediate reply, telling me that submissions would have to be postmarked by October 11th. Since I had the day off, it was relatively easy to comply, but I'm glad I asked when I did.

I got back to my rewrites on Skylar and I believe I only got through five chapters, so less than expected.

For Trophy Unlocked, I'm working on a review of Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), which I need to complete because that's going to go up on Saturday, as part of our horror in October salute. My review of The Vampire Bat was the Saturday Morning Review and Paul's review of Resident Evil: Revelations was the Wednesday Game Day review. More horror and Resident Evil to come.

This week, I have that review to finish and more work on Skylar and I should probably start work on the newsletter.

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

A Week in Writing #529 - Report From the Front - Tabling at L.A. Comic-Con

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

This week, Powers Squared took a step that it had never done before, that is tabling at a "major" Con; and I intentionally put major in quotes. While L.A. is a major city, L.A. Comic-Con does not have the same reputation as say San Diego Comic-Con, or even WonderCon, though the last event was a bit of a disappointment.

Friday was the first day of the Con. As you might imagine, no one really slept well the night before, mostly due to anxiety; we were delving into the unknown for us. We had been told that we would unload and then get our badges and were expecting that when we got to the Convention Center. However, there was a long line of cars that wasn't moving. Getting out to investigate, I was told I'd have to check in first and when I went to check-in, I was told that I'd have to have the badge first.

We left the car in what was supposed to be a turning lane to go get our badges. I told the guy behind us that we would be leaving the car there and he was cool with it, as he was aware and his wife was getting their badges. Picking up the badges wasn't hard, though it's a long walk from the back of the convention center, through the garage to the front lobby. The only hitch was, even though I had informed the Con and had been told it would be taken care of, initially, there were only two badges, when I had requested four, but that was easily overcome and off we went.

Badges in hand, we got our pass, took the truck up and unloaded all the stuff we'd brought. Unloading wasn't hard and then we moved the truck. We had been told parking would be $25 and it turned out to be $30.

After setting up the booth, we took some boxes back to the truck and waited. We had been introduced to the floor manager, but when I tried to approach him later, I couldn't catch him. We had brought four chairs and didn't need the two assigned to the booth. I wanted to get rid of them, but not be charged for missing chairs or some such thing. We spent the day with the chairs, to make a long story short.

Being on the booth side of a Con is a much different experience. Time moves very slowly and especially so when there is little foot traffic. We did manage one sale and got three people to sign up for our mailing list. I don't think there were many sales going on around us, but for all we'd put into it, the results weren't great to say the least. But it's the first day of the Con, right?

We had brought a laptop to make a stab at recording our Friday night podcast, but due to connection issues, we ended up calling in with Paul's phone hooked up to a microphone and two headsets. I haven't seen the results, but they're available here to listen to and will be uploaded for Wednesday's premiere on our YouTube channel.

Saturday was a longer day than Friday and was somewhat uneventful for our booth. It was chibi shirt day, as we all wore chibi shirts of the four main characters, Marty (Paul), Eli (Trevor), Mocha (my wife) and Dr. Atlas (me). It actually helped with the pitch, as I could use my shirt to explain Dr. Atlas being in the story.

If you look at the description of our neighboring vendors, you might get the wrong impression of the people behind the table. To one side of us was a company that published spicy romance and erotica books and on the other side was a couple that published images of the boss cat back at their bookstore. Our pre-apocalyptic comic book was wedged in between. We could literally watch people look at the books and the oh and ah over the cat images; and, of course, passing us by in the process.

However, we did sell 3 issues (all #1) and 1 trade, so sales were way up from the day before.

Sunday was our last day and possibly the best day we had at the Con. We sold 17 issues, most to one person, and 1 trade. We also had a panel to attend, Under the Radar, which was a good experience. John Barber came up from San Diego to moderate. Steven Prince (Monster Matador) and Erik Arreaga (Chingona) were panelists along with the three creators of Powers Squared. As was the case the last time we had this panel, the panelist outnumbered the attendees most of the time.

We had heard that packing up at LA Comic Con is the worst, so we planned ahead and got off the floor before it got really bad. We would have made a quick getaway, but we couldn't find my keys. I wasn't sure what had happened to them and they didn't show up until we got home and were in my backpack, which we had searched several times on the way out. Tricky keys.

A big shout out to my wife, Nancy, who pitched in and did so many things for the Con, from setting up the booth to passing out business cards that I know it wouldn't have worked as well without her.

You can see images of our tabling at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/events. Scroll down one event to watch the slideshow.

Even though we were busy all week, we did manage to keep Trophy Unlocked going, with Paul's post of Resident Evil 5 on Wednesday and my review of Little Shop of Horrors on Saturday morning. Given the circumstances, no new reviews for me this week.

I also managed to do a little rewrites on the next story, but not much as time was short getting ready.

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