A Week in Writing #550 - Report From the Front: San Diego Comic-Con 2025

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

I know this is a day late but we didn't get home from San Diego Comic-Con until about 10:30 on Sunday night and I was in no shape to be doing much other than eating, unloading and sleeping.

For the first time ever, SRCC Press (Powers Squared and The Book of Miracles) tabled at San Diego Comic-Con. As I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, we didn't know we would be tabling until July 3rd at 6:30 pm, so it gave a little less that three weeks to pull everything together. If we had had more time, we might have ordered different things, like a table runner for SRCC Press and maybe a banner for The Blade of Miracles. But we had to make do with what we had, though we did order some more trades and copies of issues to have on hand.

We went down on Tuesday to set up at the Convention Center. Things went surprisingly easy as far as that went. While Paul and I were officially the exhibitors, we were able to have my wife, and Trevor, help us set up the table.

Doing that then, freed up Wednesday, so we could wander around the Gaslamp District and see the installation of the installations. I guess I never realized they were ready so close to the start of the Con. Preview Night is a different experience when you're behind a table. As soon as the doors open, there is a mad dash for exclusives. Since we had no exclusives, business was slow, though we did sell one copy of Issue One.

I won't go through each day, but it was safe to say, even though this wasn't a money-maker, we did far better than LA Comic-Con and Wonder Con combined. We were hindered by the short lead time (we didn't make the printed program) and by a neighboring table, which not only partially blocked us from view, but also attracted enough of a crowd that further blocked us. However, some people did find us.

We sold about 8 times as much as we did at WonderCon, which is a nice trajectory to see. We had one customer come by and after hearing my spiel, bought the first five issues, and then she came back later that evening to buy the other 20 issues. That was 25 issues in one day, which is definitely a record for us. Also a record, 17 new names signed up for our mailing list.

On another day, someone bought the run for The Blade of Miracles, which currently has five issues out. Our overall take, which is paltry, was still about 3.5 times what we made at WonderCon.

You can see photos from SDCC 2025 on our website at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/events.

Since we were gone on Friday, artist Julia Canon took over as host of the podcast, On the Air With Powers Squared, and one of her guests is me, live from the floor. She also shows how she colors Power Squared. You can watch it at twitch.tv/powerssquared. You can listen to it on our website here or watch it on Wednesday after 2:30 pm here.

And just because we were away, that doesn't mean things came to a stop on Trophy Unlocked. With the new Fantastic Four opening on Friday, we went old school with a review (a second look) at the last version of the story, Fantastic Four (2015).

This was nearly a week without any writing from me. I did manage a little work on Blackmail, so I'm at about 50,160 words, which is good, but I'm far from through with the story.

And, it should go without saying, no new queries from me.

This coming week will involve adding all the names on our sign up sheet, writing the newsletter and getting everything put away.

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

A Week in Writing # 549 - Getting Ready

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

This has really been a week of prep for SRCC Press going to San Diego Comic-Con. And it's busy and expensive to boot as it seems every day we need to buy something else.

The biggest item purchased this week were Exhibitor-Attendee badges for Trevor and my wife, Nancy. That allows them to be behind the table during exhibition hours, while Paul and I will be the Exhibitors allowing us early and late access to the floor. I wasn't sure if I could purchase them, but it worked when I tried.

I'm sure the Exhibitors Relations Office is really busy, but they are not all that communicative, but we'll get there and see what happens.

I'd like to say Ka-Blam came through and we received the books we'd ordered on Friday, which lifted a big load off my mind. I was a little worried when the first indication from the Post Office was this coming Monday by 9 pm, which would have been cutting it close to say the least. Now, I'm wondering if I ordered enough of the right stuff, but that's what we'll learn from tabling.

To help us get ready, we had artist Don Nguyen on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. Don is a frequent exhibitor in Artist Alley and while he won't be there this year, we know that he has a lot of experience with SDCC. He gave us some good advice and led to a few additional purchases since Friday. Find out what he suggested when you listen to it here or watch it here for the next few days, and here, when it goes up on Wednesday.

Artist Julia Canon will be handling the podcast in our absence, so be sure to tune in on Friday at 6 pm on https://www.twitch.tv/powerssquared to be supportive.

Next week, though it will most likely be Monday, I'll be doing a Report from the Front, though I'm not sure at this point how many panels I'll be attending, or how exciting it will be reporting on tabling, but we'll find that out together. If you're reading this and attending SDCC, come by M-11 in Small Press and say hello.

We opted out of movies on Saturday night, so no new review from me, though I did manage to finish the one I was writing on 3 Bad Men; as always, not sure when it will appear. There were two new reviews on Trophy Unlocked  this week, Trevor's review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, on the anniversary of its release on Friday, and Paul's review of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was the Saturday Morning Review.

No new queries this week, as something had to get squeezed out of the way.

I did more editing on Blackmail, though the word count is still hovering just under 50,000 words. I don't want to promise I'll get much further this week, as we're going down on Tuesday to set up.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing, and I'll see you back here next week (unless I see you in San Diego).

A Week in Writing #548 - Going to the Show

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

The big news is that SRCC Press (Powers Squared and The Blade of Mircales) is going to be tabling at San Diego Comic-Con. And we're pretty much ready, though I wish things were moving a little faster. By that, I mean working with Comic-Con International. I am not a patient man, but I don't see why it took 7 days to go from we have an opening, are you interested to here is your table number. And, while I've paid for the table, I'm still waiting to buy the badges, because they haven't approved a form I sent them on Friday.

So, if you are going, look for us:

If all goes right, we should be M-11 in Small Press. It's going to be a bit of a grind, but it should be fun but in a different way. Looking forward to going and I hope we not only make some sales, but also get more people interested in our books.

We did a mock set up today. We're going to incorporate video into our booth, so we're having to buy a monitor for the occasion. And there are still some odds and ends we still need to buy. Nothing like having a three-week lead time for the biggest event in your creative career.

A fair warning, this post will be late a couple of weeks from now, because of SDCC, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

We had a come to Jesus moment with our artist on Saturday. I'm not sure what's going on sometimes, but I'm hopeful she'll turn it around and get us pages. Otherwise, we're standing still and like a shark, that's deadly for a comic book.

I got to a "refueling point" with Blackmail. By that, I mean I came to a spot where I needed to sort of rethink things and get a running start. For me, that's going back through the book to sort of refamiliarize myself with it and then when I get to the end of what I've written, keep going. I don't think my word count has really shot up as a result. I'm now at 49,726 words and I don't see that number really changing too much either way until I get back to where I left off.

One new query this week. Trying to get back on the horse after missing it for a couple of weeks. All quiet on the agent front.

As far as reviews, I'm currently working on one for 3 Bad Men (1926), a John Ford western. I got interested in it since I'm reading Joy Girl: A Novel of Olive Borden (Forgotten Actresses) by Laini Giles. I've really enjoyed her series of books about silent film stars that are mostly forgotten today. Borden was one of the romantic leads in 3 Bad Men.

Trophy Unlocked doesn't wait for me. The Wednesday Game Day review was Trevor's for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x and the Saturday Morning Review was his as well for Fantastic Four (2005) + Extended Edition. The latter is our look at the previous films leading up to this year's reboot.

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

A Week in Writing #547 - A Weird Week

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

A short week with a National holiday at the end really sort of threw me off my game. Let's begin with Thursday. I didn't submit a new query. I know I said I would, but I figured no one was going to react on the 4th of July and I didn't want to start the DNR clock on anything queries. I know it's an excuse, but it makes sense, at least it did to me.

Friday, even though we had pre-taped the podcast, we all forgot about it until about 6:40 pm, only 40 mnutes late. It went up and if I hadn't told you that, you probably wouldn't have known. But we're all about honesty here. This podcast was our 19th Comic Book Club, yes 19. We were a small party of four, with only Julia Canon joining Trevor, Paul and myself in discussing Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo: Ice and Snow. You can still catch it on twitch for a little longer this time (one week), listen to it now here or watch it on YouTube when it goes up on Wednesday, July 9 at 2:30 pm PDT.

On Saturday, which is usually a night that we watch a movie that I review, we instead watched A Minecraft Movie, which Paul is reviewing. So no new review from me for two weeks in a row. As I said, this is a weird week. That said, the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was my review of Gulliver's Travels, the 1939 film, which was the second animated feature film made; the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

My big project this week was to write the Powers Squared newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which I'm happy to say went out on time, so something worked this week. This was our June wrap up. A typical newsletter, it talks about what happened in the worlds of Powers Squared and The Blade of Miracles during the past month, including new issues for each. We also recounted the news as it relates to Golden Apple, as well as going vertical with the first issue of each book.

There is then a wrap up of the videos we've done, a link to the current audio podcast we had last Friday (see above), a section I call "Heard Around Campus" (since this is supposed to be a school paper), a spotlight on twins, a recommendation, a list of upcoming Powers Squared  milestones, and any social media mentions of us, if there were any. As always, you can subscribe here, if the spirit so moves you. And, it's FREE.

On to Blackmail, the book I'm currently writing. I added the chapter I was thinking about, which accounts for most of my work on the book. The word count is a little more than 49,000 words, so there has been progress.

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