Amazing Arizona Comic Con: Guinness Book of World Records Attempt

A few weeks before I was to attend Amazing Arizona Con, I was invited to participate in a "Guinness Book of World Records Comic Book" event while I was there.  This project, spearheaded by Jesse James (who runs Jesse James Comics in Glendale), Shawn Demumbrum (publisher and writer at SpazDog Press), and of course creative space provided to us on the con floor by AAC director Jimmy Jay.   

Our goal was to break the record for "most contributors to a single book" and "shortest time frame" to do so.  I was intrigued and needed no more convincing: I wanted to be a part of this.  I got my scheduled time from Jesse (9:45a) and, since I didn't have a table this year, this allowed me into the convention hall before the general crowd and made my way to the back of the hall. I got my stuff prepared, "clocked in" (by signing into a log book) and got ready for whatever they set in front of me. The idea was simple: each writer, with the exception of the first, writes 2 pages that are face-to-face.  The artists are then handed a page of script with a panel circled that they are to draw - just one panel: portrait-oriented.  4 panels to a page and each panel has to have some text (sound FX counted).  Each panel has to be inked and have some color (even if it's just highlights).

Since I was early, but not first, I was handed page 2 of the script with panel 2 circled.  I set up my phone so I could watch the clock: I had a fairly generous 15 minutes to do a single panel with at least one color accent.  Not a problem: I've done more with less time...on occasion.  After placing my 1" margin on all sides of the paper for cropping, I set to work drawing two fairly simple characters exchanging money and two lines. That's it. I was pretty much done just at the tail end of the 15 minutes. I called out that I was finished and the artist next to me looked over: 

     "You need a color accent."

Oh, NO!! And my 15 minutes were up! Great, I'm going to disqualify us right out of the gate! Luckily, I overheard someone saying "The 15 minute time limit is just for scheduling purposes, it isn't necessary for our record." I breathed a sigh of relief.   I tossed my color accent in (heavy non-photo blue pencil) and "clocked out": proud that I was a tiny cog in a giant, creative machine of awesomeness.

I wandered around the floor a bit, circling back to the table every 10-20 minutes to see a new group of artists and writers, scribbling and typing away.  I even made sure to make my way back and take pictures of my friend Jenn while she drew her own panel.  After a while, I started to feel like I could have taken a bit more care with my panel.  Just as panic and doubt started to settle in, optimism piped up: "At the end of the day, you are part of something *GREAT*." And I carried that with me for the rest of the day.  Even if nothing had come of it, we took up an incredible endeavor.

Sunday morning I woke up to a picture on my Facebook feed of a stack of printed comics and the preview words: "Ladies and Gentlemen, mission accomplished."  ReadyComics had worked incredibly hard to make sure the books were printed and ready for sale on the floor that day.  A majority of the sales would go to Hero Initiative, which is an organization that "creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work.".  The final count on the book was 101 artists, 1 cover artist, 12 writers, and 2 editors.  We were going up against Kapow! Comic Con who had 61 contributors in London, UK in April of 2011.  Along with myself, artists including Eric Mengel, Steven E. Gordon, Val Brazier (née Hochberg), Deryl Skelton, Jeff Piña, Andy Bohn drew their single panels to the scripts penned by such writers as Kyle Higgins, Tom Hutchinson, Eric M. Esquivel, Brian Pulido and Ken Kristensen and edited by Shawn and Jesse. We had completed the creation of the book in 11 hours 15 minutes and 38 seconds.

A sense of pride welled up in me. Not only for myself, but for every other creative that got to be a part of this moment. 

I got into the convention hall and, shortly before I had to be at a panel, I saw some of my artist friends carrying around the printed book. I was told that they were at Jesse James' table and I had better go quick because they're selling a lot of them! I made it over as fast as I could and picked up 3 copies (each artist would get their own comped copy eventually, but I couldn't wait!).  After my panel, I set on a goal: get as many of the artists and writers to sign one copy of this book.  I was having the writers sign the cover and the artists sign their panels inside. I also wanted to make sure to get Rob Liefeld's signature since he was nice enough to do the cover.  Obviously, he is the only artist that would sign the cover.  

I bounced around the con hall semi-sporadically trying to gather as many signatures as I could, attempting to use the daunting list on the inside cover as a "checklist" of sorts. At one point, I happened to see Rob Liefeld chatting with someone at their table. I waited patiently as I *hate* bothering the guests during their time on the floor.  After a moment, he looked to me and I asked, "Are you going to be doing signings today?" He looked down at my book and reached for it and the Sharpie I was holding "I can sign that right now for ya." I thanked him and shook his hand.  I'm usually fairly collected around guests, but just in case, I wanted to step away with my dignity in tact before anything "fanboyish" was said.

At last count, I finally got 8 of the writers and 68 of the artists to sign the book and I got to meet some new creatives and talk to them for a second about their work. Some of the folks involved were *big* pulls (Marc Silvestri of Top Cow even contributed a panel), some will be "big pulls" before we know it.  I definitely plan on carrying the book with me to different cons and sketch events so I can get the signatures of everyone involved.

I contacted Shawn Demumbrum about some of the final details of the book:

RD: What were the two records we were attempting?

SD: "Fastest time to produce a comic book" and "Most contributors to a published comic book"

RD: What is the difference between something being considered "published" or "unpublished" for Guinness?

SD: Guinness requires "verified sales" of 400 copies...each copy has a numbered Attempt sticker for easy registration

RD:  OK. And the "most contributors to a published comic book" record is still weighing on having 400 "verified sales"?

SD: Yes. We have to submit all the evidence to Guinness.  We will be submitting our evidence package in the next two weeks and Guinness can take up to 8 weeks to verify.

RD: Did you have a different mindset going in than when you did other books or did you just treat it like any other project?

SD: Jesse and I originally talked about this two years ago with a plan to host it at Phoenix Comicon. I backed out with a few weeks to go. I couldn't wrap my head around the logistics to make it happen. I had two booths at the con and Jesse was Manager of Comic Book Programming. This had to be the only thing we worked on if we did it. I was having panic attacks just thinking about it. I told Jesse I couldn't do it. 

    He approached me again four months ago after we put the Jack Kirby Tribute book together in less than two weeks. His ability to work with guests and my production skills seemed like a good fit to try to tackle this project. We starting planning this four months ago. Jimmy Jay lended his support. He gave us space, tables, electric and access to the hall before and after hours.

    First, we looked at the record holder. Kapow! had 3 panels per page and 20 pages. We knew we would need to increase that. I've seen 4 panel per page books. It seemed like a good standard. If everything stayed the same, we would barely beat the Argentina record by 2. 80 artists, 1 writer, a letterer and an editor. We wanted to make it tougher for someone to break. We increased the page count to 25 pages, lessened the burden of the writer by breaking it up into 2 page increments (except for the first writer who wrote 3 pages). Because it was a giant continuous, organic, spontaneous adventure instead of something that had been plot out in advance or headed by a story runner, it added some complexity that most attempts might have difficulty duplicating. Every writer had to read the pages before him before he could start. Jesse got busy recruiting people we knew and people who would be at the show. He had around 50 people by Thursday night and started recruiting the rest at the show. We had a few people who turned us down and even a few who laughed in our faces. We knew if we could do it, even if we didn't break time that fans would be clamoring for autographs of the participants on Sunday which was why ReadyComics was so important. We brought them in early in the planning. We wanted to have printed copies available on Sunday for people to purchase and we wanted to have proceeds benefit the Hero Initiative, a charity important to the both of us. Anthony, at ReadyComics, told us that if we could have the print ready files to him by midnight Saturday, he would get us the books by Sunday when the show opened. He worked his butt off and the books look great. Even though it is only 28 pages, this is the biggest and most complex publishing project that I've worked on. Everything could have failed if everything didn't fall into place. Lao-Tzu said "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." I give Kyle Higgins a lot of credit. If he hadn't started writing that first page, the book wouldn't have been done. Everything else was momentum.

 By the time of this writing, I've had almost a week to think about my experience, and it boils down to this: To be a part of something of this magnitude is humbling. it acted as a great equalizer from aspiring, small press creators to the big, heavy-hitting names in comics.  The trappings of the industry fell away and we were left with a gathering of creatives that just wanted to do something awesome!  I'm honored to have my name printed among these folks. Big thanks to everyone involved with this monumental endeavor!  If you'd like to pick up a copy, they are available through Jesse James' eBay store here!

Our thanks to Shawn for sharing his time with us and congratulations to everyone involved in such an amazing project! 

Big Dog Ink Does Special Signing!

This past Saturday, Jesse James Comics, a premiere comics book store in Glendale, AZ, was invaded by the some of the most outstanding artists and writers out there also known as Big Dog Ink. Set against an abnormally hot September desert, things inside the shop were even hotter (but in the good way). Armed with an arsenal of brilliantly colored banners displaying the best of BDI’s comic creations Ian Snyder, Natali Sanders, Jenevieve Broomall, Wayne Gardiner, as well as writer and publisher Tom Hutchinson came to rock the place. 

One thing I noticed right off the bat. This team doesn’t take anything for granted. They were not only more than willing to talk about their creations, they were also visibly engaged with the fans. I think when you are a collector or just a casual reader and you are sitting back hoping to meet some of these people, you always kind of hope they are genuine. Big Dog Ink is all that and more. 

I was fortunate enough to pick up Issue 3 of Ursa Minor and even had a choice of covers which is usually the case at a place like Jesse James Comics. Unfortunately I waited too long to get the now legendary cover by Natali Sanders, Teachers Pet. However, there were plenty of other amazingly pieces, Jenevieve and Natali both had jaw dropping prints on hand. 

Jesse James Exclusive Cover by Ian Snyder

There was a nice crowd in the store when I got there which speaks to the support not only that Jesse James Comics gets, but that BDI has established through hard work and excellence. In addition to the signings, it was an amazing time overall. They even had Knightingale writer Wayne Gardiner there as well as Knightingale and Kaeli Hunter for fans of BDI’s newest creator owned book. Special thanks to Jesse James Criscione and Tom Hutchinson for getting this together. This might sound cliché, but it’s true so I get to say it. Comics have a future…and Big Dog Ink is sounding the charge. 

--Jess Hurley-- 

Mark of the Pterren #1

I usually start out my reviews with the publisher's description of the book. However, I'll be honest and tell you that I had to turn to my good friend Google to find much of anything for this book. Sadly, I didn't find a synopsis so you're stuck with me telling you about the book in my very own words. Don't worry, I promise it shouldn't be too painful...fingers crossed...

The Good : This story intrigues me. Why, you ask? The lovely lady on the cover over there is the narrator and through out this first issue, she fills you in on the history of her race, the Pterren. She tells of how the current king came to power and hints that..no she states that she intends to go up against him.

The Bad : As with anything, there is a down side to this book. In this case, it's a two part issue. The first issue lends itself to the second issue. The lines on the artwork are especially thick and when you combine that with the fuzzing of those same lines..well, it took away from what might have been rather nice artwork. My other problem with the art work came in the faces. There seemed to be a lack of detail and definition in some of them.

The Summary : All in all, this is a good book. The history leads me to want to know the present and then the future. With any luck, future issues will have a better printer and we'll be able to find out what happens when our heroine confronts her king.

For more information on it, check out their Facebook page. For information on how you can purchase a copy for yourself, either leave them a message or drop the letterer, Andy Bohn a message. His was the only fan page that I could find.

Our thanks to Jesse James Comics for sharing this book with us. All thoughts, comments and opinions belong 100% to the reviewer.

Monkey in Space

"Monkey In Space is a semi-weekly web comic about a womanizing, drinking monkey named Tip, a worrysome janitorial robot named Socket and the hot alien bounty hunter, Chica. It follows their misadventures on the run from the villainous Tri."

-- Except, Monkey In Space is also a print comic book, collecting up the first 49 web comics!

The Good: I love the artwork in this book. It's just...fun. It's not overly complicated but it's well drawn and the colors just make it come to life. Tip, while a womanizing, banana drinking money is just so much fun for me to read. He has a careless attitude and you can't help but shake your head at the predicaments that he finds himself in. Yet, you can't help but love him.

The Bad : Due to Tip's nature, this is an adult book. Now, normally I wouldn't hold this against a book except in this case, the title and the cover were like pollen to a bee when it came to my kids spotting this book. I had to run some quick interference. Also, while the inside cover of this book promises the first 49 web comics, the comic numbers only run up to 48.

The Summary : If you're a grown up who loves misbehaving monkeys, hot alien bounty hunters or funny little robots, you're going to want to check out this book. It's my great hope that there are many more books in this series. The comic does continue on as a web comic, but if you're like me, you're horrible at remembering to check in on your favorite web comics. When I get the opportunity, I always go after the books when they're released.

Now for the fun details...If you want to catch up with the adventures of Tip, Socket and Chica, head on over to the webcomic. If you want to touch base with the people involved, I recommend the Monkey in Space and Sideways 8 Studios Facebook pages.

Once again, our thanks go out to Jesse James Comics for giving us this book to review. All thoughts, comments and opinions belong 100% to the author. 

Knightingail #1

"The adventure begins here!  This all-ages fantasy-adventure tells the story of Eloa, a Forester princess born with healing powers and how she becomes Knightingail – the leader of the seven tribes of Aeonius and controller of nature itself.  In this debut issue, Eloa confronts her father about the secrets he’s been keeping about both her mother’s death years earlier and his interactions with a Dracon spy!"

When I first saw this book, my inner girl squealed. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I saw the adorable redhead on the cover and went ooooh..this is a book I want to read. Of course, that same inner girl scoffed at the high heeled boots. She's still of the opinion that no self-respecting forest type heroine would wear boots like that. You just can't convince her that forest societies would have a good cobbler.

The Good: This book is a lot of back story which carries you right until the end of the book and leaves you wanting to know what happens not only next but in the past with Eloa's mom. The artwork is on the cartoony side but don't let that fool you into thinking that it's not fabulous. It is wonderfully executed and the easy style just pulls you further into the story.

The Bad: I had to look really hard to find a downside to this book. The only thing I could come up with is really kind of silly, but here it is. At the beginning of the book, Eloa (now in the form of Knightingail) is 31. Yet, when speaking to Kaeli, she speaks as if she's closer to the 16 that she is in the rest of the book. Yep, that's all I could come up with.

The Summary: This really and truly is a book for all ages. My inner girl loved the artwork and the fun. As an adult, I could relate to the frustrations that Eloa is dealing with at the age of 16. While I wasn't a princess dealing with counsels at 16, I had similar problems within my own family. This is another book that I can't wait to see the other 5 issues in this series.

If, like me, you want to read this whole series, you're in luck! This title was recently picked up by Big Dog Ink! Rumor has it that they will be releasing all 6 issues in one trade paperback. We only have to wait until December. This would make a fantastic present for anyone under the Christmas tree.

Don't want to wait until December to learn more? Check out their website or Facebook page.

My thanks go out to Jesse James of Jesse James Comics for this book. If you live in the Phoenix area, this is where you should be finding your comics. He's a major supporter of the Indie comic industry as well as the locals involved in the industry. Even though he gave me a copy of this book for the purpose of this review, all thoughts, comments and opinions belong solely to me.

C2E2 Day 3 : The End Has Come (and a really long drive!)

Sunday, bloody Sunday...See? Inner dj is still on! There was no blood, I swear! Ok, there might have been but it wasn't real blood! It was makeup blood and it wasn't on me! There were tons of cosplayers with tons of fake blood on them. I don't have any pictures, so you'll just have to trust me that it happened.

I woke up waaaay too early this morning. It was probably close to 2am before I went to sleep and I woke up probably six times overnight and finally gave up and got up at 8:30. This meant that I was packed up and checked out of the hotel by 9am. After a quick stop at the gift shop for a couple of shirts for the boys, I dragged a luggage cart upstairs to the room, packed everything on it and then dragged it alllll the way out to the van and loaded it up. I caught the 9:20am shuttle and was at the convention center by around 10:30. Then, the great hunt for an atm machine began! I couldn't believe it, but a Sheraton hotel didn't have an atm on site and I didn't want to walk 2 blocks down to a gas station so I figured there'd be one at the convention center. There was! Except the first one I tried was plum out of cash! Luckily, someone told me where there was another one, so I stood in line at that one and pulled my spending money for the day.

Then, it was back up to the floor to make my first purchase of the day. It's pretty rare that I purchase review items, but something about this had caught my attention and I decided to take a risk on it. What did I buy (once I tracked the guy down...) ? I bought this:

Image snagged from www.turbopizza.com

It was about 11:20am by that time (yeah, it took me a while to find that atm and then this guy!), so I decided to go sit in line for the one and only panel that I attended this weekend. Of course, I got up there and realized that it was only 11:25 and the room had another panel in it for another 20 minutes! So, I sat down on the floor and got comfy up against a wall with another girl. While sitting there, I snagged these pictures with my phone:

As you can tell, there were a lot of kids waiting in line to attend the Imperial Academy. I don't know who the folks in costume were, but they were great with the kids who were waiting. 

Now, I know you want to know about that bag. Isn't it fabulous? It has My Little Pony on one side and Hello Kitty on the other and it is HUGE! I actually snagged one later in the day. One of the shops was giving them away free with purchase. It turns out I didn't want to purchase and another couple didn't want the bag which worked out really, really well for all of us. 

Once the previous panel was released, my new "friend" and I headed in to listen to Dirk Manning. I guess I hadn't read the description very well in my exhausted state the night before but it was still a really good talk on working with artists as a writer. I wish Michael of Dead Factions had been there. I think he could have gotten a heck of a lot from it. I'm not going to give away any spoilers but I might write up a post where I cover some of the highlights.

I really need to start taking better photos.

After the talk, I headed back to the floor. I stopped and talked with some of the great people that I had met the day before. I even had one really cute guy tell me that he wished he'd known I'd been on my own for dinner because they would have asked me along. That made me feel pretty good. I made my way back to Artist Alley because I'd missed it the day before.

I had a lot of fun talking to people and then I came across Virgil, of prior WWE fame. He kept me there talking to him, mostly because I had a press badge, I suspect. I'm not going into a lot of what he went on about, but let me tell you folks, if you have small children, keep them away from this guy. I don't care if he does teach at a private school one day a week, his language is not anything your kids need to hear. Honestly, his ego is something the rest of us could do without too. That's all I'll say about that. The guy was arrogant beyond belief and I was sooo happy when I managed to move on.

The rest of my day was taken up with moving from table to table, talking to people. I love meeting new people and had so much fun talking with different people. I'm only disappointed by two things. The first is that I didn't get to cover all of artist alley. That means that I missed getting to see Art Baltazar again. The second is that I didn't get to meet Jesse James of Jesse James Comics. I did, however, blatantly steal his picture from Facebook. Wanna see? I stole it just so I could say booo, I didn't get to see this man!

Oh my gosh! I almost forgot to tell you who I did get to meet! I got to meet Mr McFeely from Mister Roger's neighborhood! He was so nice and we stood there talking for a few minutes. Then, he gave me this:

 Isn't that fantastic? Yeah, it's the only celebrity autograph I brought home for the weekend, but I think it's the best! I'm not much of a squealing fan girl but yeah, this makes me go wooo! hehe...

Sadly, before I knew it, the time had come from me to leave the land of omg awesome comics and entertainment folks and head back home.

Another shuttle, train, shuttle ride and I was back at the hotel and started the long drive home.

The GPS helped me to tour Michigan and I finally rolled in around 1am early Monday morning. Would I do it again? Hell yes. If I'm not on the press list for next year, you will find one majorly sulking reviewer here. I might be getting hooked on cons because I'm already mega excited for Phoenix in May. I'll be there Thursday-Sunday so expect another series of con posts after that trip. Between now and then, keep your eyes open for review posts and the standard life of me posts. Life keeps rolling along, even when I get to go pretend I'm real press for a weekend.

Thank you to C2E2 for believing in me, Big Dog Ink for hanging out with me, to the many vendors/exhibitors/artists who are taking a chance on me and lastly to Justin and Eric for not only believing in me and pushing me, but for keeping me company on those long train rides. I wish you could have been there with me, but we'll all be together in Phoenix next month and I can't wait for all the hugs and loves from you and from other friends who will be there, as well.