By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/15/2016
With convention season swinging in high gear with C2E2 this weekend, followed by WonderCon, MoCCA and ECCC, let’s review a little bit of convention exhibiting basics, shall we. With the flood of smaller shows, the economics of attending have to be examined closely. If you’re a writer, even more so. Matt Hawkins is the […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/19/2015
Many people ask me, “Why don’t you do a podcast?” and I reply, “I do!” It’s called More to Come and it’s produced by Publishers Weekly. This week, I chat with Matt Hawkins, president and coo of Top Cow. Matt is more than just an inimitable Facebook poster (if you’ve read his stories about standing in line at the grocery store, you know what I mean.) He’s also an industry veteran who’s seen the highest highs and the lowest lows, and in this talk he dishes on the early days of Image and much more.
He also gives small publisher’s perspective on the recent discussion of page rates: basically these are low margins we’re talking about.
It’s something I’m sympathetic to even though it makes things rougher for all of us. It’s a big problem for the entire industry and it will take a group effort to change the status quo.
As a sidebar, here are links to the free #1 issues of a bunch of books Hawkins talks about in the podcast:
Tales of Honor Bred to Kill #1
Top Cow has always been very aggressive about free samples of #1s; it’s a tried and true method to get more eyeballs.
Disclaimer: As you can see if you look around, Top Cow is an advertiser for The Beat, however no promotional considerations were made for this post.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/5/2015
Written by: Bryan Hill, Matt Hawkins
Art by: Isaac Goodhart
Colorist and Editor: Betsy Gonia
Letterer: Troy Peteri
Publisher: Top Cow
Strange small towns commanded by dogmatic despots have long been a staple of post-apocalyptic fare like The Walking Dead. So when Postal #1 opens on a church sermon delivered by a preacher waving a gun at a man who is bound at the foot of the altar, it seems a familiar scenario. Perhaps this is what the comic wants us to think, lulling us into a false sense of narrative security to contrast with it’s intriguing final pages.
The sermon is cut short by a turn of the page and text that reads: 24 hours earlier. We are in the town of Eden, Wyoming and at it’s post office we meet Mark: a mail carrier who takes his job very seriously, with ritualistic attention to detail. He leads us through his day, which apparently includes transcribing letters that are damaged at his mother’s behest, calling it “policy.” Somehow I don’t think the USPS would agree. In this case, Mark transcribes a damaged letter that implicates a shady Eden resident in a drug operation. Wanting to “help” the man, Mark ends up stumbling right into the middle of his meth lab.
As the issue unfolds we meet a host of characters that border on cliches: A tall, “injun” man who speaks in an accent straight out of a John Ford western; the beautiful, sad, yet caring waitress who Mark yearns for; a cantankerous chef who only speaks French. Those cliche’s grind to a halt when we meet Mayor Shiffron, who also happens to be Mark’s mother. The Mayor lays out some of the rules of Eden to an overly muscled white-power newcomer and they aren’t exactly what you’d expect. This piqued my interest. The Mayors tense, cold relationship with her son was also a surprise. By the time I reached the books’ ending which recalls the strange, small town of Twin Peaks, I found myself wondering what the next issue would bring.
Postal #1 offers well-rendered characters, different in their build, height and affect which are colored nicely. The gray and pastel palate gives the effect of isolating the town, making it feel as if it exists outside of the world we know. The end of the book includes a dossier on the important characters we’ve met so far and provides some further clarity while also expanding the mystery of Eden. If Postal #2 avoids the pitfall of piling too many mysteries on top of each other, it could prove to be a solid new series.
As someone who does the programming side of things, #3 is definitely something to take into consideration. If you have an artist or author guest who has a strong table presence, don’t take them away from their table at a time when people will be shopping. If the con tries to schedule you then, ask to have it changed and explain why.
If the con has a preview night, especially with little programming happening, make sure you are ready to go and at your table when people are let in. For people who go to a lot of programming, a preview night may be the only significant amount of time they spend in the exhibitor hall.
Last year, I saw our local comic con schedule a writer/artist on a panel pretty much the entire evening on preview night so he had very little chance to be at his table. Definitely not something I would have done.
I find that if I offer to do nude sketches of comic book characters, they will pay me a large amount of money and then I don’t actually have to draw any comics.
When a friend drops by your table to chat, make him welcome but insist on serving customers while he is there; on the opposite side of things, when you visit your friend’s table, don’t block the front of the table, and do let him conduct business while you are there. If it gets busy, go for a walk and come back to talk to him later.
It’s perfectly acceptable to hire someone to watch over your booth. I was a booth sitter/babe for a bunch of webcomics back when they were booming (2006-09). It let the artists get away for a while, eat, smoke, pee, shop, or do a panel and keep their booth going.
The last point is a big one. Over agressive sales pitches are going to guarantee that I, while being polite, will thank them for their time and continue on my way. If you are fun to talk to I guarantee I will give your work a look see.