Apr 13-15 2012

6appearances,

Nov 12-18 2012

6tour,

I think there’s a problem of context with a lot of the conversations about pricing of comics. People can agree, maybe, that $4 is enough to repel a casual consumer, but that doesn’t mean that $3 will attract them. It’s not a magic switch that reverses polarity.

All you’ve done, hopefully… is made a tenable entrance point. So that if (and that’s a REALLY big if) you are successful in engaging curiosity for the story(s) you’re trying to tell, you don’t scare your audience away at the door.

You’re removing a barrier. That’s not the same as building a bridge.

We need to focus on the bridge.

6comicsmarket,

if you’re american, to get to istanbul you need a visa. maybe even if you aren’t. for $20, not lira, not euro, they put a sticker in your book and then they stamp it.

it’s a big airport, very clean, the van that picks us up has captain’s chairs that face both ways. the route’s ornate, bright. the parapets of mosques seem to grow out of the land on their own. it’s an abundant crop. on either side, glowing. old walls that arch across the road. our driver, with a mustache no less stunning, has no idea where he’s going.

every few blocks someone on the street points us further toward a finish line. the hotel is out of keys, so we share one. it’s 10pm, but we’ve only got like 50 hours here, so we immediately set to wander.

the city’s wide awake. turkish delight hung in windows like treasure. public washbasins on almost every block. empty tea glasses everywhere, abandoned. we eat meat and lahmacun, like turkish pizza. it’s enormous and less than half the price of my beer. the dollar’s strong enough, here, but i try not to measure costs by the exchange. were i paid in turkish lira, maybe it’s more than i’d like to spend.

the next day we do the things you’re supposed to: the hagia sofia, the topkapi palace, the blue mosque. we eat the worst food we’ll eat in this country- a tourist spot near the egyptian obelisk. the table’s set in advance, the food tastes like it’s been sitting there. the guide suggests we add some salt: “to make it more delicious.”

we walk the grand bazaar, people try to sell us things. more than a glance at a lamp in a store and you’re staying for some tea. istanbul’s like a giant kaleidoscope. there is no dearth of stimulus. giant structures composed of tiny shapes. my friend blair sends me to find the medusa’s head, and we do. it’s in the cistern, under the city, older than everything. it’s dark and exceptional, submerged in water. it’s full of fish.

we see the city from the water. the scale is overwhelming. every mile is like a new kind of city. all of it moving.

at the dock, an old couple run a tiny food cart. i don’t know what they’re making or how to ask for it, but i get the point across in clumsy pantomime. everyone’s drinking cold yogurt, but i haven’t yet got the nerve.

we meet yidiray, in taksim, the square dense like an eternal parade. he takes us to GON https://twitter.com/goncizgiroman, a modern comic shop that would be right at home in brooklyn. from there an old hotel for a drink, looking down over the river. i talk and drink too much.

we wander through the square, eating meatballs and doner and wetburgers. we eat a giant baked potato. i try the yogurt. we climb a tower.

we circle above the city, clockwise. running out of time.

6turkey, travel,

there’s an ongoing debate, for a bunch of years now. there are numbers that circulate every month, inaccurate numbers, people track them, people use that flawed “data” to comment on what they see as the progress or decline on the list. a lot of comics professionals are against this, for a lot of reasons. in my case, for my books, the books i personally share copyright on… my reason is, and no offense to anyone out there: my income is none of your business. just as your income is none of mine.

as anyone who knows me knows: i’m pretty open to debate. and i’ve welcomed a counterpoint on this, any number of times: “why do you need to know?” and the best response i’ve ever gotten… really the ONLY response is: “because we want to.”

and then we go around a bit, comic pros point out the numbers are flawed, then: “well, if the numbers are flawed, why not post the real numbers?”

and my response to that is usually something along the lines of: if someone says they’ve got a picture of your privates, would you drop your pants to prove them wrong?

SO: while no one has been able to express a positive thing that comes out of these numbers, beyond traffic to the websites that talk about them… let’s talk about a negative consequence.

FULL DISCLOSURE: i like the guys at ifanboy. i like a lot of what they post, i like them in person. i’m using this link as an example, because it’s new.

today ifanboy posted basically their version of a deathwatch list:

http://ifanboy.com/articles/cancelpocalypse-whos-next/

TO BE CLEAR: NO ONE AT MARVEL HAS ANNOUNCED THEIR CANCELLATION OR EXPRESSED ANY DANGER AT ALL TO THESE BOOKS.

but if you’re an ifanboy reader: what does your new list potentially accomplish? let’s say you were on the fence about trying any of those books… why would you want to invest in a book that your favorite comics site has made a case for the demise of? comics aren’t cheap, the economy’s in the toilet… if you’re looking to save some money, what better place? they’ve done the math for you, right?

what’s the harm in that? well, maybe the speculation itself helps to lead those books down the road to cancellation. in an industry with contracting numbers where folks are already very cautious about buying books they think “don’t count” in a line’s continuity, your speculation for kicks based on murky arbitrary sales “data” maybe has the added bonus of a causative effect, creating the reader insecurities that lead to the effects that you’d “predicted”.

and between the books on that list there are probably upwards of 30 people drawing an income. about half of which are probably working FULL TIME on those books at longer than normal office hours (often 7 days a week) with no other source of income.

so we’ve already established: i don’t know what the upside is. but the downside? someone’s reward for working every day of the week? you get to help them lose their job.

6comicsmarket,

shout out from the great john hodgman:

“One major exception=@ivanbrandon’s MEN OF WAR. That’s something I would share with ANYBODY.” -john hodgman

https://twitter.com/hodgman/status/127766054603730944

6works,

4:30-6:30 PM Sep 21, 2011

6random,

7-9 PM Sep 21, 2011

6random,

i wanted to take a minute to talk about tr!ckster this year, about why i invested so much of my attention to it, about why i think it deserves yours.

i’ve been at the san diego comic con for over 10 years now. it’s been an immeasurable part of my professional life… it’s in a lot of ways my comics mecca. that first year, standing in that place… it’s impossible to express how it felt. the inspiration. it was my first comic convention ever & it was ENORMOUS in every way you can measure. it made me shift gears, from what i’d been doing in my life. made me decide to invest all my energy to get to a place where i belonged there.

and that was many years back, it was less than half the size it is now. unrecognizably different. my first year was the last year of an era… the beginning of a rollercoaster. the next year it would catch the attention of hollywood, moreso than before. the next year and on it saw exponential growth that they’ve been scrambling to keep up with. it grew until they had to tear down the walls, literally, and make it bigger. and when it filled that new space, it spilled over into every part of the town.  and it’s growing still.

maybe the comics side didn’t grow fast enough to keep up. the focus shifted to movie premieres, parties, celebrity interviews. people lined up outside in tents to meet the cast of twilight. these days, the hotels are full of the people who make movies. the comics people now commute, often from many miles away. it was like our neighborhood had been gentrified. we couldn’t afford it anymore.

this year, some friends of mine started a thing across the street. TR!CKSTER. small at first, but loud. it would focus on comics and art. i didn’t know what form it would take, i didn’t know if it’d win or it would lose. but i went all in. i felt like i had to.

for the first time in years, i spent absolutely no time on the convention floor. no signings, no wandering. i looked inside, once, and decided to do things differently this year.

TR!CKSTER would get all of my attention. a kind of investment, maybe.

and it was a great success. it seemed to overflow, people painting, drunk literally and figuratively. people talking about the things they were excited about. about MAKING THINGS. not about selling them.

it ran 6 days, and at the end i was honored to be a part of the grand finale, the best time i’ve ever spent in front of an audience. a bunch of writers, sitting on bright orange couches, talking about stories.

if you were there this week, i thank you. if you weren’t, maybe next year you’ll be sitting here like me, just having basked in a long crazy moment, excited, inspired.

i’m taken back to that first year, leaving comic con, wanting to be part of something big.

 

6random,

starting tonight i’ll be in san diego for comic con. i’ll be doing VERY few appearances, but you’ll probably find me wandering TR!CKSTER fairly often.

(at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center 200 Harbor Drive, Suite 120) feel free to come and say hi if you see me, whether or not i’m signing.

here, however, is my official schedule:

TUESDAY NIGHT 7/19/11:

TR!CKSTER OPENING PARTY 5PM-12AM (at TR!CKSTER)

http://trickstertrickster.com/2011/07/day-one-doors-open-at-500-pm/


THURSDAY 6/21 4-6pm

signing at TR!CKSTER

SATURDAY , 7/23/11 12:45-1:45PM

DC PANEL: DC: THE DARK AND THE EDGE (ROOM 6DE San Diego Convention Center)

SUNDAY, 7/24/11, 1- 3 PM

SYMPOSIUM 7: WORLD-BUILDING and the IMMACULATE REALITY (at TR!CKSTER)

 

6appearances,

ladies and gentlepeople of the internet:

in just under 2 weeks i will be in san diego california during the SAN DIEGO COMIC CON. however: if you’re looking to buy a book/shirt/whatever from me, if you’re looking to get something SIGNED, you will mostly not find me on the convention floor.

as of now, the majority of my appearances are planned across the street at TR!CKSTER. what is TR!CKSTER? well, i’m attaching a link, so you can read the list of amazing things it is. the short version is: there will be alcohol there. there will be MIKE MIGNOLA there.

i hope to see you there, too.

http://trickstertrickster.com/

6appearances,

haven’t done an interview for a while. here’s the first one to come out of my new book SGT ROCK and the MEN OF WAR.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=32952

6works, DC,

MYKONOS

start with mykonos, give it a leg up in a single way: chronology. rather talk about santorini. so: keep in mind things get better after this brief interlude.

the food was on average triple the price of the food we’d eaten in athens + about a third as good. the beaches are nice, if you’re into the sort of spring break drunken dancing on your table scene, mykonos is for you.

we stayed in a small hotel called AEOLOS and they were enormously attentive and friendly. that was one of two of the highpoints of this adventure: the second: renting an ATV and riding it up and down the hills of the island. the ways to and from places constituted one of the best times i’ve ever had. the places themselves? there are better places.













SANTORINI

on the other hand, on every other hand: santorini (thira) was exactly what you’d want out of a greek island. santorini surrounds the volcano that birthed it, an island of volcanic rock from one of the biggest eruptions in recorded history. that volcano has since taken back some of the homeland it created… the hand that giveth covers your house in molten rock. at the red beach, for example, you can lie out on red sand under the carcasses of the homes the volcano swallowed in one of its later outbursts.

you can see the volcano from almost anywhere. when we get there, we stare out at it to excess, through a sun that sets in a kind of red i’ve never seen. a kind of red my camera doesn’t even know how to process. we stare until the wind picks up and we realize it’s time to sleep.

we sleep in a cave, humid and cold. we sleep spectacularly.

the food here is great. fresh and creative. we eat tomato fritters and mussels and octopus. we dip everything in olive oil, every place we go we drink house wine that varies between 2 bucks and five for a jug. bottles of water. bread. yogurt. i find a gyro place so good i take my last bite and order another round like it’s a beer.

we rent a car and drive to red sand and black. there is no house music anywhere. fresh fish, fried cheese. we climb the mountain to pyrgos, i drive stick up a hill and surprisingly never get stuck or hit by a van. above the city there are doors on almost everything. some that seem to lead to nowhere.

at a restaurant, the owner asks me to sign a note to his daughter, to encourage her to seek out a life in art. on the back of a business card, i write: “be great”. she’s in the place for it.

6greece, travel,

we left paris really early. too early. after a month, it’d started to stick. half asleep in the taxi, to ORLY airport, where i’d never been. sleeping halfway, trying to read… landing in athens.

in the car, on the way: it doesn’t look like any given thing. i’ve been a lot of places, and it doesn’t look like any of them. but it feels it. it feels like NY in the 80s. there’s not a surface in this place that isn’t marked up. through the streets, the bakers in carts, the junkies drag along in daylight, sleeping halfway…

athens has seen better times. but it’s also seen worse. you get a lot from a place that isn’t at its best. you get to see what a place IS when it’s got nothing to hide behind. athens is a real city. ornate in all the wrong ways, the ways i like. at our hotel, we’re surrounded by flyers, pasted and taped over others. physical things or ideas, sold on every surface. protest, shouted out in paint. we walk out toward the city’s center, in daylight, the eyes of the city following us like shadows through shifting sunlight. we eat more and better than we have any right. meat and vegetable of every kind, yogurt, bread.

here’s the thing: in NY, they serve gyros made of LAMB, but not here.

backing up a bit: the first thing i ask when i see my friend vasilis, 2 years later than the last time… out of nowhere i blurt out- what do you call greece in GREEK. it never occurred to me, and suddenly it does… “greece” doesn’t sound very greek.

elláda, he says. how is it possible this country has a real name i’ve never heard? i struggled just now, writing the name above, of athens, which is really athína. i wonder why some places get to keep their names and other places the world has a nickname for, more familiar than reality. what to call it? what they call it? what you’ll all understand?

a little research shows the name “greece”, maybe came originally from the illirians, who later colonized italy. it occurs to me that maybe gyros met the world a similar way, like a game of telephone. maybe through turkish immigrants… in greece they’re made of pork. why would pork become lamb except filtered through a muslim culture? maybe NY’s greek restaurants aren’t all that greek. (my evidence is circumstantial but with ouzo it works for me.)

and the pork… i can’t express how much better it makes the thing. spinning there, behind the counter… the pork glistens like a trophy. not like the american lamb, dry, charred (which works in a pinch, late at night, don’t get me wrong).

vasilis texts me at 2 in the afternoon. he’s just now awake, he’s moving, he says: “from ghetto to less-ghetto”. he’ll see us later, he has a place in mind, exarchia. vasilis asks if we’ll meet him there. he says 10, we tell him we’re due to be up at 6am. our verbal compromise: 9:30.

the internet says exarchia’s a place where the police won’t go unless they have to. their presence, in recent past, leads to riots. there was a 15 year old boy who died. there’s a lot that’s happened in this place.

a couple years back, because of all of this: the US government put out a warning: american citizens should avoid this place. this all centers around exarchia square… in one piece, a man talks about being bitten by a dog. cherry on top.

but that’s not the funny part. we steel ourselves, we walk out to find this place: and we realize we’re IN it. we’re staying in exarchia. we’ve been walking up and down the place all day.

the square’s a block from our hotel. and in the center you can see what it is, you can see the tension. but the circumference is coffee and terrible music. commerce. in all the countries i’ve been, i’ve never seen such a rough patch of land enmeshed so thoroughly with capitalism. lounges, pizza. somewhere: foreigner is blasting from a bar.

vasilis shows up with norzine a little after 10:30. i drink a bottle of ouzo, watching the chemical reaction as the ice dissolves in tendrils, hanging in the glass like a jellyfish. i fall and hurt my leg worse than ever. both sides swollen and black. we talk about everything… he’s drawn a lot more than i’d have guessed. a lot more than most.

his passion’s as infectious as his frustration. he’s got a lot of things to say on paper. he’s impatient with the paper itself. with the printers. with the process.

we spend the next day at the ruins. i think all the wrong things. i take a lot of pictures, inch by inch, most of which i hate. my threadbare tigers, the soles rubbed bare, slip and slide on the marble. my leg throbs, a dull pain growing underneath.

when we get back to the hotel, there’s a warning: the city’s on strike. we’re not leaving in the morning. we’re stuck in athens. there’s no one to take us out of this place. more than one person says: plan to stay there a while. says vasilis: you may see some shit, tomorrow.

the protests start a block from our bed. they’re 10 blocks gone before they grow into riots. the teargas (israeli, we’re told) fills every picture all over the world. on every corner of this neighborhood, riot cops with helmets and shields. down the street, there are handmade flaming barricades, to keep them out.

the tension’s in the air like weather. shifty eyes. no one looks happy. everyone looks ready for something worse.

down the street we walk into a store where a smiling old man imports cheese and wine and goods from crete. he serves us shots, cheese, he smiles like no one else we’ll see that day. he won’t accept payment. we don’t understand what he’s saying.

we spend the night looking at art, eating pastries, sitting in a new apartment, forbidden from the balcony. i get to see all the new art vasilis has produced. one thing’s called ELECTRONOMICON. vasilis wins.

they give us pastries for our trip. in the morning we’re loaded onto a ferry and we sleep all the way to mykonos.












special deleted scene: we went to a japanese cooking class that consisted mostly of watching 2 people cook from a distance and then eating what they’d cooked. the food was terrible, but we got to watch the teacher go pound for pound drinking kirin beer with a pregnant student.

6greece, travel,

this is getting ridiculous

6random, travel,