A Week in Writing #623 - Report From the Front: San Diego Comic-Con 2026

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

As promised, this is coming to you a day late. We did arrive back yesterday from San Diego Comic-Con, but I wasn't really at my best to tell you everything or really anything.

While I did attend several panels, at least one a day, several of them didn't live up to their titles nor did they really apply to what I'm trying to do. You go into them, hoping to be inspired by the muses, but many tines you only come away with the bios of the muses instead.

The first one I attended was:

How to Get Press Coverage - July 22
Moderator: Rik Offenberger
Alexander Raymon
Francis Sky
Ed Catto
Chris Squire
Todd Spear

I've been to this panel for several years, but it doesn't hurt to get a refresher every year.

A press release for an issue needs to include a cover, what it is about, and when is it coming out. But you need to sell the story of how you got there.

They also dealt with getting your book in retail stores, so in that case you're first marketing to the retailer and then marketing to the consumer. (Note: The how you do that is not addressed.)

They also suggested a way to get publicity is to do an event for charity or a public library and try to get the local press interested in it. If you can get news coverage, like your local network affiliate, you can use that clip in other ways down the line.

It was also said that when you table at a comic convention, you need to show passion for your product. One way to do that is to stand up at the table the whole time. That way you can engage with people.

Build Your Own World and Intellectual Property - July 23

Moderator: Lorran Garrison

Britton Payne

Tara Harrison Avery

Mark Nazal

Quinn McGowan

John Jennings

This, I'm sorry to say, was the least useful of the panels. Again, it wasn't a how-to discussion but rather the personalities and whom they were trying to represent with their creations. There are a lot of niche markets in comic books and the panel represented those. I was hoping to learn how to build a world rather than knowing what others had built.

Pitching Animation in 2026: What Buyers Want Now - July 24

Moderator: Sam Goff

Malia Dawkins-Jennings

Patrick Stou

Bill Drasta

David Trumble

John Rauschelbach 

Since Sam Goff is a talent manager, it should come as no surprise that the panelists were her clients.

They did emphasis that if you're not in the animation business, you're going to need at least one of the following to get into to pitch:

An agent

An Entertainment Attorney

Manager

This was a fast-paced panel using slides that they informed us we should take photos of, so it was hard to do that and take notes, so I'm going to show photos. Apologies for being over to the side of the screen and for the woman's hairdo being in some of the photos, but I hope these will help.

These are the slides from one pitch deck presented:

There will be two distinct pitchdecks. One that you will use for the demo and one to leave behind. They're similar, but the leave behind one should include contact information.

Also, while the presenters were good, they never said if any of the projects they presented were picked up.

The Future of Kickstarter Comics - July 25

Moderator: Chris Hacker

Sean Edgar

Jeff Smith

Eric Powell

John Layman

Rob Guillory

Natalie Andrewson

A bit of a misnomer, as this was not the future of comics on Kickstarter, but rather a panel of established artists and creators discussing their next projects or how they've used Kickstarter in the past. Sean Edgar is noteworthy as he is the new director of comics and collectibles at Kickstarter. Very entertaining but not very informative on what is happening next on the platform.

The Dos and Don'ts to Kickstart Your First Comic - July 26 

Moderator: Barbra Dillon

Shannon Bailey

Ash Troub

Kat Calamia and Phil Falco

Sean Edgar

Even though I have done two successful Kickstarters, I'm no expert, so I was hoping to learn here. However, these are not first-timers at this and since Shannon and Ash represent major brands, Todd McFarlane and Boom!, respectively, they aren't coming at this proces as unknowns. Kat and Phil are very savy at Kickstarters, doing, at their own admission, 2 to 3 a month, however, they have also garnered a niche market with LGBTQ works.

To be transparent, we have had Kat on our podcast, backed one of their Kickstarters and even hired her to advise on our second one with Arthmeric. Still, I'm a little off put by their constant Kickstarters, which all, to their credit, seem to be very successful. I'm just not into Kickstarters as a way of life.

Still, their advise would mean slightly more than the others, since they are in the same field as Powers Squared., indie comics. They were high on women-led stories and horror, two things our book is not about.

General advice:

Don't Over Promise and Under Deliver

Simplify Your Page

Use Graphics to Know What They're Getting

Have Preview Pages and Covers

Make Sure Your Thumbnail is Good (You can also change it during the Kickstarter)

Add a video to your Kickstarter, 1-2 minutes. (According to Edgar, Kickstarters do better with one)

Add a pre-launch page 2 weeks to a month ahead. The length of time varies, but you don't want to have one for six months, as it will go stale.

Don't start one around Christmas or January.

According to Edgar, October is "On Fire"

Launch early in the week: Monday or Tuesday, and early in the morning, but not midnight

You can add add-ons and stretch goals as the project moves forward.

On the personal side, we were able to meet our fourth colorist in person for the first time ever. Ninakupenda Gaillard was an Eisner Award nominee for Best Coloring for Chickenpox written by Remy Lai (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers). We're very proud to have been her starting point in professional coloring.

Powers Squared creators, Trevor, Paul and David Hankins meet Eisner-nominated
and former Powers Squared colorist Nina Gaillard at SDCC 2026.

Speaking of Powers Squared colorists, our current and longtime one, Julia Canon, took over our podcast for the week, and on Friday did a two+ hours presentation on her techniques. You can watch it on our twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it here or watch it on our YouTube channel any time after Wednesday at 2:30 pm. Many thanks to her. 

Speaking of On the Air with Powers Squared, we tried to line up some new guests while in San Diego, but until they're confirmed, we won't divulge names. No reason to needlessly get your or our hopes up.

Oddly enough, while SDCC didn't grant us a table, we did manage to sell two trades, thanks to the San Diego Comic Fest table in the mezzanine. At the News Coverage panel, a representative from the Comic Fest asked if anyone had books they wanted to present. I had taken our four trades (3 Powers Squared and 1 The Blade of Miracles) with me and let them use them. When I went back up to take a photo, two of them were gone, even though it wasn't supposed to be a sales opportunity.

There were four trades on the table when I left, but only two when I returned.

On a personal note, I walked over the five days, including Preview Night, 82,537 steps (36.88 miles) and burned 18,255 calories.

Work continued without us on the new issue of Powers Squared, as our artist submitted two new pages (19 and 20) for review.

I also did some writing on a possible script for our spinoff story, Billy and Raven. It needs more work, but I got it from concept to 20 pages.

Even though we were out of town, there was a new Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked, John Wick: Chapter 4 written by Paul, continuing our summertime look at the franchise. No new review from me this week.

This next week, I need to work on the newsletter and questions for our next guest on the podcast.

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

A Week in Writing #622 - Prepping for SDCC

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

San Diego Comic-Con is next week and there are a lot of preparations that have to be made before going; planning out panels, exclusives and the like. I will admit I'm not a big participant in the prep for the event, as my wife and two sons really have their pulses on what's going on. I do appreciate their efforts. I chime in with what panels I'd like to attend, but I'm not really big on autographs or exclusives. There are several panels I'd like to attend, but I also want to walk the floor, and, dare I say it, attend Hall H for the first time in 20 cons.

With the panels I attend, I'll be sure to write something up here next week, though, please be kind, that might not appear until Monday. You are forewarned.

A point of interest, is that our fourth colorist on Powers Squared, Nina Gaillard, will be at SDCC and is nominated for an Eisner Award. We hope to actually meet her for the first time in person and we, of course, hope she wins.

I took it on myself to do a better job cataloging the podcasts. Several are gone and some remain only in audio format, but I've finished cataloging all available 492 podcasts and videos, including our most recent one, OAPS #360 - "SDCC 2026 Prep + Unboxing", sort of keeping with the theme of Con prep mentioned above. If you watch our raw podcasts on Twitch, a couple of weeks ago, we attempted to unbox SRCC 70th Anniversary t-shirts, only to find that we received the wrong order. That was rectified, but we had other reasons for waiting, which I won't get into here. However, the t-shirts were correct and we talked about the new trades, one each for Powers Squared and for The Blade of Miracles. You can still watch it on twitch.tv for the next few days, listen to it here (where you can also find the other platforms it's on), or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel after 2:30 pm on Wednesday.

Julia Canon, our colorist turned artist turned colorist, will be hosting the podcast in our absence, but again there will be delays in getting the video to audio, which will have to wait for our return next week. Catch her on our twitch channel next Friday at 6 pm.

I think I'm finally done with Blackmail, though I won't be doing anything with it until Fall. I've learned that many agents take the Summer off or very slowly, so I won't start the query drudge until then.

I also worked on a couple of outlines for possible stories for Billy and Raven, characters we spun out last year into their own book this year, "Life on the Road".

No new review from my this week, sorry to say. The Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Today, we published Trevor's review for Descendants: Wicked Wonderland.

Next week, I'll have to start working on the next newsletter, and work on questions for our next guest on the podcast, creator Demi Naito, who will be on August 7.

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

A Week in Writing #620 - Happy 5th!

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing and that you had a happy and safe 4th.

With the 250th birthday of America upon us, we decided to spend our podcast on Friday talking with Lucas Scheffel, a comic book creator from Australia, who also happens to have a Master's Degree in American History. Lucas was making his 12th appearance on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. We covered a lot of topics and it's always fun to have him on. You can watch it on our twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it now, or watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PDT.

The big goal for the week was the newsletter, which we finished and sent this morning. We may not have all the subscribers we'd like but we try to be consistent. The newsletter covers all things Powers Squared and The Blade of Miracles. I've given up asking you to join the mailing list, so you're left on the outside regarding The Hound Dogs' Howl.

Work continues on the next issue of Powers Squared. The first eight are colored and lettered and the next six have been drawn with work on pages 15 and 16 this week. But the issue won't be coming out until next year.

No word from SDCC about tabling. I did reach out to them and ask if I could find out where we were on the waitlist. They did answer back but, of course, didn't answer my question in the least: "Thank you for reaching out and letting us know you'll be able to take any last minute openings. If we have something for you, we'll contact you." Do they work for agents, as that sounds like a form letter, I may be reading it wrong, but I'm not confident at this point. Still, I feel like I have to be ready. I've reached out to our printer about getting books ready, but we're not getting the proofs until Monday, so a big order, just in case. Got to cover my bases.

No new review from me this week. Things sort of got away from us this weekend. Saturday night we were cooking out and making smores, so a movie wasn't really in the cards, though we sort of had A Hard Day's Night on; what's more patriotic than that? The Wednesday Game Day review on Trophy Unlocked, was Paul's review of 007 First Light. The Saturday Morning Review was Trevor's review of John Wick: Chapter 2. And we had a surprise Sunday morning review of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, also written by Trevor.

I did get a chance to work on Blackmail and I'm sort of happy to say I'm almost done; two more chapters to go. I'm at 88,612 words. I'll be finishing it this week. Sorry to see it end in a way.

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

A Week in Writing #615 - Blackmail (Second Draft) Done

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

Well, the headline is that I've finished a second draft of Blackmail. It's the latest in a series of unpublished novels I've written with main character J.D. Barrister, a Los Angeles based private detective. In this book, J.D. is recently married to Dr. Leanne Wilson, who is also two months pregnant. They attend a fundraiser for victims of the L.A. fires at the home of her ex-husband, actor Terry Wilson. Their marriage ended due to his infidelity. It is at the event that J.D. finds out that Terry, preying on her desire to make him happy, took a series of nude in public photographs of her before and during their marriage. He claims there are two volumes of photos and he offers to give one back each time J.D. does a job for him, rather than publish them, which would be embarrassing and bad publicity for her practice.

The first job is to find a woman that it turns out Terry had underage sex with a few years prior following a convention in Anaheim. J.D. manages to track her down to a small town in Michigan, where she's attending college. They meet and he finds out Terry has been paying for $20,000 a month to keep quiet about the incident. Making contact with her gives J.D. the first volume of photos, but to get the second one, Terry wants J.D. to kill her and record the killing.

I don't know how that sounds to anyone, but if you have comments, please feel free to leave them. It's currently, 88,451 words long and I'm going to give it another go through, as I've changed some actions and want to be sure they all line up.

But rather than start in on that right away, I picked up another story I had started. J.D. is hired to find a runaway who has been missing for 15 years. I was about 20,000 words into it before I decided to work on Blackmail. It doesn't have a title yet. I've started reading through it, finding a half started chapter in the middle of what I've written. I think I know what I was intending to do, but it's been several months.

We ended up having to watch our scheduled Friday night movie on Saturday night, Mortal Kombat, prior to seeing Mortal Kombat II, today. Not a good movie for me to review, so nothing new from me this week. I did finish my review of The Wind, if you're curious, but no date for release. The Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked this week is Paul's Second Opinion Toy Story. Hint: there's going to be more Toy Story content in the weeks to come on that blog.

Spent an evening resizing pages for the next two issues of Powers Squared. It's not work I like to have to do, but someone does. We still need to file for copyrights, perhaps next week, and then decide on a release date. We did hear back from the Copyright office about their turning down our months-old application, can we can simply register them separately. It made sense to us, but we had to ask.

Work continues on the next issue of the book, "Aroma Therapy, Part 1". Our artist is working on page 11, so I'm hoping her work wraps up in a couple of months and the issue will hopefully be finished two months after that. Our colorist is about a month behind the artist and the letterer a month after that.

Our podcast this week, was "(The Rest of) The Fourth Doctor". We had very recently finished watching Season 2 of the Tom Baker series, which was the only one we hadn't seen. This gave us a chance to finish off our discussion from before. You can listen to it on our website, watch it on our twitch.tv channel for the next few days, or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) at 2:30 pm PDT on Wednesday. Our guest next week is comic book writer David Blake Lucarelli (Tinseltown, The Children's Vampire Hunting Brigade). We'll go live at 6 pm PDT next Friday at twitch.tv/powerssquared. Be there and Be Squared.

This is newsletter week, so a lot of my attention will be putting together The Hound Dogs' Howl. You can always subscribe, for FREE, at https://mailchi.mp/9b9f918f79af/m1hbvbxiyn. It comes out on the first Sunday of every month, and is different from this blog, if you've ever wondered.

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

A Week in Writing #608 - Always Looking Forward

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

I'd like to think that I'm always looking forward and trying to make this better. Some of that comes with my own writing, and the future of Powers Squared. The latter was the point of our most recent podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. In our latest episode, Paul and I discussed possible future storylines for the comic book, including the current issue we're working on. If you're curious, you can watch it now on twitch.tv, or listen to it here, or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday, April 15 after 2:30 pm PDT.

Speaking of the current issue we're working on, our artist had some trouble getting started, equipment malfunctioning, but has pretty much completed the first two pages and it's good to see pages coming forward.

I'm still working on the edits of Black Mail. I don't know if you've ever had this happen to you. I'm working on the book and the days of the week don't work out as well as I had hoped. I'm going to have to make some adjustments. I thought about moving the start of the book back a day, but I decided that wouldn't work out any better, so I'm going to have to make changes at the end to match. So more rewrites than I expected. Based on edits, the word count has actually dropped slightly to 87,543.

I finished a new review for Tol'able David (1921) for Trophy Unlocked. While I usually don't know when a review will go up, I'm lobbying for November 21, which would be 105 years since it's original release. This week, the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

Next week, I'm going to continue working on edits for Black Mail and hopefully reviewing more pages for Powers Squared.

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

A Week in Writing #607 - Newsletter and Blackmail

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

As I wrote last week, this was newsletter week, so I spent a good part of the time working on that. In addition to the usual, the feature on twins was about the Starn Twins, and some unauthorised usage of our images on X. Here comes the pitch, if you'd like to receive that, it's FREE and you get a digital copy of the first issue of Powers Squared, that comic book I keep mentioning over and over. To be added to the email list, you "enroll" at the fictious college where much of the action takes place, San Romero Commnunity College. There is no further obligation and we send one, maybe two emails a month, and that's only when we release issues. End of pitch.

Besides that work, I did make progress on the edits and rewrites on Blackmail. It's never as much as you want, but I'm up to page 222 of 406, and the word count is now at 88,143. Slow work but it's coming along.

I'm finishing a review of His New Job (1915), Charlie Chaplin's first short at Essasnay. I had recently purchased a remastered set of his work at the studio and time was short last night. Information on it is scarce and I had to rewatch/skip through the short to make sure I captured everything. Most synopses I found are basically extended log lines. As always, not sure when that will come out.

There were two reviews on Trophy Unlocked this week. The first was a Wednesday/Game Day review by Paul of Super Mario Galaxy for the Switch. The Saturday Morning review was Paul's of George of the Jungle, the live-action remake of the animated cartoon.

Our podcast this week, was our 23rd Comic Book Club. Due to mis-scheduling, Julia wasn't able to attend but our former artist, Rachel Wells, joined in on Volume One of Void Rivals, written by Robert Kirkman, and illustrated by Lorenzo De Felici, & Matheus Lopes. You can watch it on our Twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it here now or wait to watch it on our You Tube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PDT. You might want to play it loud, as our microphone isn't doing well and we need to replace it.

Powers Squared is going through a bit of a lull as our artist had to replace the pen she uses, so not much to report there on the new issue, Aroma Therapy.

We've applied for Artist Alley at the next WonderCon in 2027. Our past experience with Small Press left a bad taste in our mouths that still hasn't gone away. We think we'd do better where there are people around. We'll see how it goes, though I'm not crossing my fingers.

Next week, I'm hoping to work more on Blackmail and a script idea I have for Powers Squred. We'll see how it goes.

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

A Week in Writing #606 - One Day WonderCon

 

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

Since we weren't tabling at WonderCon, not that we didn't try, we attended the Con on Sunday. And even though we weren't selected, there were plenty of empty tables abound. Sort of makes you think they don't want you.

From an attendee point of view, there seemed to be fewer people. I'm used to the chaingang two-step of Comic-Con, so being able to take full strides at the Con was nice, but it told me that attendance appeared to be down. However, fot those we talked to in Small Press, the Con seemed to be good for them. I think I mentioned this before, but we'd like to attend in Artist Alley, rather than Small Press, since that seems to be more our speed. Not that we'd make any more money, but maybe not lose it as fast.

Did attend one panel about pitching board games.The takeaways: Structure the Pitch from the top down. Pitch - What it's about, then the unique selling points and then key information: audience, age range, components, player count, how long to play a game and MSRP. Basically, provide as much info in as short a time as possible. Fun fact, if your manufacturing costs are say $10, the MSRP will be $90 to $100. Generally, you're looking for a MSRP of $20 to $25 for a mass retail game.

What you should bring with you is a prototype of your game, a sales sheet and a 3-6 page pitch deck, though the latter wasn't required by everyone. There was even the suggestion of a 30 second sizzle reel, but again not universally required. Also, don't worry about the art because it will be changed. Games are also broken down by time spent playing, from 15 minutes (lightwieght) to 1 hour (middlewieght) to several hours (heavyweight).

On the subject of cons and comic books we did release the 27th issue of Powers Squared this past week. "Billy and Raven: Life on the Road." In this issue, we spun off two characters from pervious story arcs, Billy O'Shea and Raven, the Yatagarasu who granted him powers. They're trying to stay off the grid, and away from villain Dr. Atlas, as long haul truckers. In this issue, they find that life on the road isn't without troubles. Hope you take a shot on it. You can find out where to buy it (print and digital) here, or take a preview of the issue here.

I spent most of the week working on Blackmail. I'm trying to review the pages before going through the notes at the keyboard. It's interesting to me that sometimes I'll still make more changes. I did have a moment yesterday that I think improved the book, but only took a few keystrokes to do it. This is a detective story and one of the people he interviews was interesting but the reason for interviewing them was sort of week. But I realized I could move a couple of sentences around, add a few and then they were more of a possible witness. I don't know about you, but I love moments like that.

No new movie review from me this week, as we were sort of getting ready for WonderCon and I wouldn't have time to watch a feature. I did finish mine for The Lady Refuses. But there were two reviews this week on Trophy Unlocked. Wednesday was game day with Trevor's Second Look - Starlink: Battle for Atlas (+ DLC), The Saturday Morning Review was also Trevor's TMNT (2007).

The podcast this week was a look at the films that have been nominated for Best Animated Feature through the years. Paul and I don't always agree with the Oscars choice. You can listen to it here, watch it here for the next few days (though it's in three parts) and watch the complete version on our YouTube channel starting on Wednesday at 2:30 pm. The reason it's in three parts on Twitch, is that a malfunctioning Smoke detector went off twice during the podcast. I had to get on a stepladder and disconnect it.

Next week, more work on Blackmail, and it's newsletter week as well, so I've got my work cut out.

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

A Week in Writing #592 - The Holidays Are Coming

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

Sorry to borrow a line from that terrible AI Coca-Cola commercial, but I'm sure the sentiment existed before they used it. The truth is Christmas will be quickly upon us. I hope yours is happy and safe.

Even though it's the holidays, we are still releasing one issue of The Blade of Miracles, #10, on Christmas Eve and on Kindle on Christmas Day; couldn't be helped. It could be considered a very last minute gift or a diversion if needed. You'll be able to find links to it at The Campus Store on our website.

We're still getting pages from our new artist for Powers Squared. Not only is she good, but she's quick and, as I said last time, it feels like it's a comic book again.

We talked about that change, as well as other events for Powers Squared and The Blade of Miracles, on our podcast, which comes out on Christmas Day. Called Powers Squared 2025 Rewind, the podcast can still be watched on our twitch.tv channel for the rest of the week, listened to here, and watched on our YouTube channel on Christmas Day after 2:30 pm PT.

No new review this week from me. Last night, we went to the mall, as a sort of tradition. Our shopping is complete, but it's nice to walk around and see what's what and say hi to Santa, if not sit on his knee.

That's not to say we don't have reviews. This was a big week for Trophy Unlocked, which celebrated it's 15 year and nearly 1700 reviews of movies and videogames. The anniversary post was Paul's review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009). Prior to that, on Wednesday was Trevor's review of Tron RUN/r. Yesterday, the Saturday Morning Review was mine for O. Henry’s Full House (1952). It's an anthology film of the writer's work and includes "The Gift of the Magi", which seemed appropriate for the season.

Work continued on Blackmail. I'm now up to 71, 343, so with everything, I did get in over 1000 words this week. I also continued going through older books and looking for descriptions of one of the main characters. However, with one book, The Runaway, I found that the chapter numbering made no sense, so I had to go back through it and renumber them, which wasn't hard, but just time-consuming, and a little embarassing as well. Not sure what happened there.

This coming week, I'm hoping to get more work in on Blackmail. There is also our own made-up holiday, "Movie Day", which is the day after. We still believe in physical media, so we spend a day watching some of the new titles we've just received. I'm sure you have your own way that you spend your time with family and friends.

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

A Week in Writing #586 - Getting Close

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

We're very close to announcing a new artist for Powers Squared. I believe we're just down to the contract and I've asked a lawyer friend of mine to review it to see if we need to make any updates to the terms. The artist seems anxious to get going, too. That would be big news for us.

We signed up for Pasadena Comic Con next January, so I hope if you're attending you'll stop by and say hello. More details to come as we know them. I did some ordering over the weekend to get prepared. I'm not one of those creators who has a thousand copies of each book in the garage.

Our guest on Friday was Chris Ayers, a character designer/art director and the creator of The Daily Zoo, which he's been doing now for 20 years. Really nice guy and I think it was a good interview. You can check it on twitch.tv/powerssquared for the next week, listen to it here, or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it on our YouTube channel.

Sometimes nailing down guests is a little like herding kittens. We're still working on someone for next week, I won't say who, but it's finding a day and time to do it that's the issue, I think.

In honor of Noirvember, my review for Odds Against Tomorrow was the Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked. We're still going through The Batman serial, two episodes left, but I am working on a review for Blind Spot, a film noir I caught afterwards. Seeing as this is Noirvember, I suspect more of my backlog will appear.

I did some more work this week on Blackmail. I finished the next chapter and started a new one. I'm trying to show the character's attempts to balance his professional career, as a private detective, with his personal life, which includes a pregnant wife and a young child by another woman. I know I don't usually write much about my stories here but I thought you might find that interesting. Oh, and the case he's working on involves his wife and her ex-husband. The word count is now 65,570, so we're like a 1000 words a week, rather than a day.

Next week, I'm hoping to wrap up the contract with the new artist; work on prepping for the next few releases of The Blade of Miracles; finish my reivew of Blind Spot; and to work more on Blackmail. Let's see what gets in the way.

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

A Week in Writing #585 - Newsletter and Dodgers

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

Not the biggest Dodgers fan, not into baseball in general, but I like watching the World Series. Last Monday's game nearly did me in as it went 18 innings and sort of threw me off my routine and sleep, at least for that day. We ended watching most of the games, so everything was a little delyaed on those nights.

Still, got the newsletter done and out and that was the project for the week. For the most part, it writes itself, as it's a collection of things we've already done and most of the sections are standard, though there is new writing as well, including a Heard on Campus (it is supposed to be the school paper), a recommendation, and a highlight on twins. If you're curious you can always subscribe. And this is not a substack asking for money; our newsletter is monthly and free.

On the Powers Squared front, I think we're getting close to signing a new artist.

Four reviews on Trophy Unlocked this week and none of them mine, which is okay. Wednesday was Game Day with Trevor's look at Little Nightmares III. That was followed on Thursday with Paul's review of Fobia, Vol, 1, a horror anthology by Derrick Acosta of Mega64. Friday saw Paul's review of Silent Hill f  and Saturday Trevor's review of Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.

No review this week from me and we didn't even watch any of The Batman serial that we've been watching. Blame the Dodgers for that, too, going into extra innings and all. We had just come from watching Back to the Future. My sons have loved the movie, but had never seen it in a theater. Hopefully, we'll get back our routine next week.

Our podcast this week was Halloween-themed. Since it was to air, originally, on Halloween, we decided to reminisce about past Halloweens, which was really fun. You can watch it for the next few days on our twitch channel, or listen to the audio here, or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it on our YouTube channel.

Once again, no new queries from me and, surprise, surprise, no responses from agents either.

I did some work this week on Blackmail. I thought of a plot point that would allow me to make the story more interesting and still add to my word count, which is at 64,583, still 15,000+ short. As always, I want to work on it more.

Next week, it will be back to Standard Time and I hope the switch goes well.

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

A Week in Writing #583 - The Time Had Come

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

Well, things finally came to a head this week and I fired the artist on Powers Squared. It was not something I wanted to do, but after two months and no finished pages and two weeks and no response to a direct message, I didn't feel like I had a choice. It was time to move on. We're in the process of looking for a new artist and hopefully we'll find one soon. There have, so far, been only four artists to draw the book, which isn't bad for 28 issues. One drew five, another drew four, this last one did only one and one aritst drew 18 issues in all.

On this week's podcast, Paul and I discussed horror movies, in time for Halloween. I figured if we did it on Halloween it would be too late. For me, watching horror films after Halloween is a little like watching Christmas movies in January; the season has passed. You can still watch it on our twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it now here, or wait and watch it in all its glory on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here. The choice is yours.

Next week's podcast should be a preview for the next issue of Trevor's book The Blade of Miracles, #8, "Mordred, Part 1". There is also a new review of the book for your perusal. And the peek-of-the-week is from that book as well.

Speaking of horror films, or more like Gothic Science Fiction, we attended a screening of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein this past Saturday. I was anxious to see it because I had read the Mary Shelley novel and had high hopes del Toro's version would be a closer adaptation to the book than Universal's Frankenstein (1931) had been. My review will go up next Saturday, so you'll have to wait until then to know how I feel about the new movie.

In the meantime, Paul's review of Tron: Ares went up on Saturday on Trophy Unlocked. And on Game Day Wednesday, Trevor's review of the PC game Tron: Catalyst was featured.

I also did some prelimary research on the Batman serial we're watching, though we didn't watch any this past Saturday.

More work on Blackmail this week, but more like editing, though I did add a chapter. The word count is now 61,671, so some movement forward on that. This Tuesday past was my wife's birthday, so I took the day off. Since it was raining, we sheltered in place for half the day and I was able to get some work done on the book.

No new queries this week. I've got to get back on that horse soon.

The next week, we'll keep working on finding a new artist and I hope to get in more writing on Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #576 - A Much Better Week

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

I feel like I'm finally getting back in the groove, so to speak. While I could have done better, I think I'm feeling good for the first time in about a month.

I'll start with Blackmail, which I usally end with. Previously, I had been waffling about getting started on the next chapter, which I can now report I've finished. Word count is now 52684, which is going in the right direction.

Our podcast was also about books, or rather our 20th Comic Book Club. Of the other members, outside of the Hankins family, only one attended, Rachel Wells. We discussed Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Rather than live, we had pre-recorded it a couple of weeks ago. You can listen to it here or watch it on Wednesday after 2:30 on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared). The next book, in case you want to read along, is Grommets, written by Rick Remender and Brian Posehn.

We also recorded a new taste test video on Saturday night and put it up this afternoon. Paul taste tests three unique Mountain Dew Flavors: Baja Blast (Taco Bell), Mango Rush (Little Caesars) and Purple Thunder (Circle K). You can find it here.

Wrote a new review this weekend for Thunderbolts*. It came out in May, but we waited until it was on Disney+ to watch it. I would imagine the review will be up sooner rather than later. My review of 3 Bad Men was the Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked.

I did some preliminary work on the newsletter this week, writing the twin profile piece, and some other odds and ends. That comes out next Sunday, so there is still time to sign up for it, which you can do here.

Our artist has contracted COVID, so I'm not sure what the status is for the next five pages. Our colorist has completed the first four pages of the issue, as well as the covers for the third trade.

We do have a new issue of Powers Squared coming out at the end of September, our 26th, "The Great Escape", as well as the 7th issue of The Blade of Miracles, "Vivienne". So another big month for SRCC Press.

So, hopefully more on Blackmail, finishing the newsletter and working on other projects (maybe even a new query) are on the horizon for next week.

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

A Week in Writing #575 - A Few Setbacks But Getting There

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

A few setbacks this week and it's really no one's fault but mine. Let's start with the query letter. Yeah, that's right no queries again this week. Partly it's because I was still messing around with the synopsis in the query letter. I'm trying to condense, what I think is a complicated plot, to as few paragraphs as I can, while still getting the main parts of the story across. It's still six paragraphs long, so I need to keep working on it. I've also decided that with summer coming to an end, I'm going to put off more queries until after Labor Day. It'll give some more time to work on the query.

The other setback has come with the pages of Powers Squared that I spent several hours reshaping. I decided on my own that I had set the margins too wide, so I'm going back and trying to amend them each slightly, about a quarter inch on all four sides. I know I'm putting off the query to the distributor but I want to put the best foot forward since I may only get one bite at the apple.

On the subject of Powers Squared, some progress but no new pages since the last batch last month.

Our podcast this week is a preview of Trevor's 6th issue of The Blade of Miracles, which is dropping on Wednesday, August 27. Due to delays, I'm not sure if the print option will be available when we want it to be, but I don't think it could be helped. We didn't even have a copy of the book when we did the podcast, which I think is the first time ever for On the Air With Powers Squared. You can listen to it here or watch it on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here. The book will be availbable through The Campus Store on our website, where all the previous issues are available as well. (Yes, that's a hint)

Coming up soon is the next newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, but I believe I've got another weekend to go before that's due. We publish that the first Sunday in every month, so I have until the 6th of September, but I should probably start on that soon. But there will be a Bark heralding the new release.

My review of The Fantastic Four: First Steps was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. It's about a month old by now, but we've got to slot them in when we can, including going to the movies. Even though we had watched the other films, this version came out the weekend we were tabling at SDCC, so we had to put it off.

I also finished a review for Smart Blonde, the first in the Torchy Blane series from Warner Brothers from 1937. It was on TCM recently, so I recorded it. When I told a co-worker about our DVR he sort of looked at me like I was a dinosaur, but it's a usually reliable way to record movies, etc., that you're not going to see live. Draining it is another story, though.

And finally, Blackmail the current book I'm working on. I'm having a little trouble picking it back up again. It's not writer's block, but rather rethinking how I want to pick up on the story. I've started it a couple of times but end up back at zero before I get too far. I think though I know how to get it going again, so hopefully more to report next week.

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

A Week in Writing #573 - Another Down Week

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

I seem to be racking up disappointing weeks here. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm pretty sure it's time, or lack thereof.

On the accomplishment-side of the equation, I did rewatch Brother Orchid and write the review. As always, I don't know when it will see the light of day. That doesn't mean things haven't been busy on Trophy Unlocked. My review of the new Superman movie went up on Wednesday. Saturday saw Trevor's review of Freaky Friday, and then today, his review of Bad Guys 2 went up. Soon, there will be his review of Freakier Friday, which we watched this morning. I also started working on one for The Gangster, another recording from the last Summer of Darkness on TCM.

We also discussed movies on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. Paul and I reviewed the summer movies, or the few we wanted to talk about, as there were like 139 films that will have come out between the beginning of May and the end of August. There are several which we think are better to wait for streaming. You can listen to the podcast here, watch it for a couple of days here or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it here.

In the meantime, another video went up today on our YouTube channel, Paul's SDCC 2025 Vlog. After about 20 years of SDCC, we got to experience it from the other side of the table. Paul talks about how that went from his perspective. You can watch it now here.

One of the outgrowths of Comic-Con is that we might have found a distributor. However, I'm going through the .pdfs of our remastered first five issues and there are a lot of changes as far as placement that I need to go through. By that, I mean the margins, which for some reason are really off. I'm going back and trying to correct them before moving on with pursuing the distributor, as they want .pdfs. I've done one issue this afternoon and will keep working on that.

We also registered the next two issues of Powers Squared, #26 and 27, for copyright, so I have to update them as well before getting test printings done. It never seems to stop.

No queries again this week, as we spent some of that time inviting people we met at Comic-Con to be guests on the podcast. So far, the only one to come back to us is David Petersen, the creator of Mouse Guard. This would be his second time on the show. Stay tuned. We're also trying to line up a Comic Book Club session as well.

I did some work on Blackmail this week. Still editing. I'm not really happy with one chapter, so I'm going to work some more on it before moving on with the book. I'm a couple of hundred words south of 51,000 with 80,000 a minimum.

This week, I've got pages to realign, as well as a review to work on. I'm sort of promising to do a new query and to work more on Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #571 - 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 #569 - 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 #567 - Three Down (Well Almost)

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

The three down are in reference to my queries for Past Present. One rejection came in this week, ironically, the last query I sent out was the first rejection I received. I won't go into what it said, but safe to say it was a form letter; what else do you expect these days from agents, other than no response at all? I wonder how many form letter emails I'll receive which will include "...please forgive me for responding with a form letter."

The first one I sent, in late April, has over-ripened into a DNR, as it's been two months. And the second one I sent is a few days away at best from spoiling as well.

And, to top it off, no new query this week. I spent most of Thursday night either getting ready for the trip I mentioned last week, or waiting to talk to the artist who did our podcast this past Friday.

Speaking of On the Air with Powers Squared, Julia Canon, our artist/colorst, hosted the show, bringing in her own guest, Kevin Krust. If you have a good memory, you might remember that we had Kevin on as a guest many moons ago, OAPS # 231 - Attempting to Impart Wisdom, She brought him back for OAPS #305 - The Return of KevinKrust...Hold the Krust. You can listen to it here, or watch it on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT. And, if you act fast, you can still catch it on our twitch channel but only until next Friday.

Despite being out of town, there was a new review on Trophy Unlocked, Trevor's review of to a T. Since we weren't home, no Friday night movie, no Saturday night movie and no new review from me. We'll have to correct that in due time.

Even though I was away for part of the time, I'm now up to over 47,700 words on Blackmail. I did have an idea for it, so I'm going to add a bit at the beginning of the book to, hopefully, set up the subplot of the book. So for a short week, I managed to write nearly 4000 words. I'm impressing myself with that.

For the coming week, I've got a newsletter to write and a new query to make. I'm also having an issue with the copyright office, which I need to address. Oh, the fun never stops.

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

A Week in Writing #566 - Gearing Up for Summer (New Issues)

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

By gearing up for the summer, I'm not talking about repacking the tents but rather working on what needs to be done during the summer months ahead. We took a step in that direction this weekend with some podcasts we shot.

Our ode to the start of summer was the Friday podcast, or "Jaws 50th Anniversary Sharktacular", that we did on Friday night. With the official start of summer comes the summer blockbuster and many credit Jaws with being the first. Paul, Trevor and I spent the time talking about the film, and our impressions, etc. You can listen to it here or wait to watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 PDT here (more podcasts below).

Separate from that, but connected, was a special Friday morning review of Jaws by Paul on Trophy Unlocked published to commorate the anniversary. And even the Saturday Morning Review was Jaws-themed, with Trevor's review of the game, Jaws Unleashed (2006), in which you are the shark.

And if that wasn't enough, we shot two more podcasts on Saturday afternoon with Julia Canon. The first one we did won't go up until the 4th of July. We do an occassional Comic Book Club and not everyone could make the meeting. The four of us discussed Usagi Yojimbo Volume 39: Ice and Snow by Stan Sakai. So, forget about that one for a couple of weeks.

It's the second one that will go up immediately; a preview of the two books SRCC Press is releasing on Wednesday, Powers Squared Issue #25 and The Blade of Miracles #4. Julia was part of the former but not of the latter, so there are really two podcasts put together with some clever editing by Paul. It's called: "[Secret Episode] OAPS #304 - SRCC Press Double Feature! PSQ #25 + TBOM #4 Preview". This is also available to listen to here and will also be available on our YouTube channel on Wednesday but at 2:31 pm PDT.

I would be remiss not to talk more about both issues. Powers Squared #25, "Yuki-Onna" was written by Paul as a companion to Powers Squared #24, "Gashadokuro", which was written by Trevor. Just as that first issue dealt with Eli on his own fighting an evil yokai, "Yuki-Onna" finds Marty in a life or death battle with a yokai known to suck the life force from her victims. The artwork was by artist Julia Canon, colors were by Jennifer Moreno with Trevor doing the lettering.

The Blade of Miracles is Trevor's 12-part epic adventure loosely based on the Arthurian legend. In the fourth issue, "The Black Knight, Part 1," Lancelot returns to his hometown of Benwick in search of Excalibur, only to find it in ruin. Who would commit such a terrible deed and why? In addition to writing, Trevor also illustrated and lettered the issue with Paul serving as editor.

Both issues will be available starting on June 25 through The Campus Store in both print and digital formats.

No new review from me this week. On Friday night, we watched Mission: Impossible 2, which I wasn't going to review, but because there was a lot written about its similarities to the Alfred Hitchcock film, Notorious, we rewatched that film. I had reviewed the film on the blog about 14 years ago, and I'll stand by what I wrote at the time. I did go back and add some images that we weren't adding to reviews at the time.

About 1500 more words this week on Blackmail, so for anyone counting, it's up to 43,806 words.

One new query this week, and while none have come back as rejected, one is about to DNR itself in a couple of days. They all go ripe after 8 weeks and this one is about to hit that mark. Would love to hear from an agent out there.

Well, that about does it for me. One note, I'm spending time with my wife's family this weekend, so next week's may be delayed a day, so bear with me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.