Sunday, March 31, 2024

A Week in Writing #502 - Not a Wonderful WonderCon


Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing. And Happy Easter, if you're reading this on Sunday night.

In the indie comics game, spring is sort of the unofficial start of Con Season. Every town of significant size will have one or more conventions celebrating culture and/or comic books for the rest of the year. I'm not much of a con goer or a tabler, if that's a word, at least not so far. I don't have the flexibilty for one thing, or the money. And even if those weren't issues, there's getting a table.

I was on the waiting list, or at least, I was informed that I was for this year's WonderCon, which happened this past weekend in Anaheim. And even though I never got off the waitlist, there were still several open spots on the convention floor. I don't know why and, if I ask, I won't be told either. My critique of this year's WonderCon is not based on this oversight on their part or on their slowness to renew our professional status (5+ months), but what I saw at the con. If you're curious about our expectations, that was the focus of this week's podcast. Listen here, available now, or watch here on Wednesday.

Compared to Comic-Con, WonderCon is small to begin with. After doing the floor, which took several hours, there wasn't much else to do. There were no major players in attendance, save IDW. It never bodes well when there is a large non-culture related vendor. In this case, it was a medical college, which seemed very much out of place, but probably paid well for the space. Plenty of vendors and artists and we bought judiciously. There were, of course, panels, but by mid-afternoon, a couple of hours before the next panel we wanted to attend, or at least I wanted to attend, we were all bored, tired and ready to go. I'm sorry to have missed the How to Get News Coverage panel, one that I usually attend, not only to support the moderator, Rik Offenberger, but because I've actually met people who have written about Powers Squared.

We did attend one panel, Independent Creator's Summit, which I had high hopes for, but after about fifteen minutes, we bailed. What I thought and hoped would be a how to grow outside of comics into animation, games, etc., turned in one of those panels that was more about the panelists, or at least that's how it was going. I always look for chances to learn something new, but I'm not interested in a biography lesson. And when one of the creators talks about "many projects" they'll be working on without specifics, even when pressed by the moderator, it didn't promise to be very informative.

There are always positives. We did run into people we knew and were able to ask three creators if they'd be interested in being on our podcast, so there were good takeaways, just not knowledge.

WonderCon also interfered with my writing a review this week. When we got home on Saturday, the most I could absorb was MST3K's take on Village of the Giants, which it turns out we had already seen anyway. We don't review parodies of movies, save for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which was a riff on This Island Earth, which we also reviewed.

My review of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. The week was the final one for God of War Month on the blog, which included Trevor's Second Look - God of War: Ascension on Monday, his review of God of War (Dark Horse Comic) on Wednesday, and finally his review of God of War: Fallen God (Comic) on Friday.

I did work pretty consistently this week on Skylar, trying, when I can, to get through editing a chapter or two a night. I'm coming up on another new passage, and then there are more rewrites and new writing ahead of me.

Next week, my blog will most likely be a day late. I'll explain then.

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

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