Baltimore Comic Con: Small Publishers

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - Hello and welcome to Comic Culture.

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

We're coming to you from baltimore Comic Con.

On this half hour, we're going to be taking you on the convention floor to show you fans, guests, artists, editors, the whole megillah at one of the best Comic Conventions in the country.

I'm with Tom Mandrake.

Tom, you have worked for independent publishers, you have worked for the major publishers, and you have also been an academic teaching the next generation of comic professionals.

So in your, I guess, path between getting started to getting into the classroom, what have you sort of picked up that's enabled you to maybe do things a little bit better as you get a little bit older?

- Well, working at the Cubert School has helped me keep that a fresh perspective.

I think one of the things that's true, maybe not with everybody, but with a lot of artists, is that we're by nature reclusive.

We want to get in the studio, stay in the studio and hide.

And that's not necessarily a healthy thing.

So getting out as an instructor one or two times a week, working with other people is a positive for me.

It used to be that all the publishers were in New York City, Marvel was there, DC was there, and you'd walk your work in, you'd hang out with editors, other writers, artists.

You push your work or find new projects by being in person.

It's not true anymore.

DC doesn't really even have offices anymore.

So that's made it even worse for those of us who are in essence just willing to hide from the world.

So being at the Cubert School has been a real benefit in that respect.

- And you started working on, I know you worked on "Batman" at DC.

Then you worked on, I think it was "Martian Manhunter", and then "The Spectre".

So is it something where an editor sees something in your work and says, you should be working on these sort of spooky, scary, heavy shadow books?

Or is it something where you're just like, that's the sort of assignment that I love?

- Well, DC offered me "Batman".

And that was 1985.

"The Spectre", which came after several other projects that at DC, John and I actually put a proposal together for that.

They didn't wanna do "The Spectre", so when we asked for "The Spectre" and we put that proposal together, they're like, "Nobody wants "The Spectre"."

So it was our idea to do that.

And they were like, "Oh, alright."

And it turned out to be a success.

We were right.

And that was the same thing with "Martian Manhunter".

John and I picked both of those projects out, and even though DC was not particularly interested in either of those characters at the time, that's what we wanted to do.

So they weren't asking us for that.

We were chasing those characters.

Very different than having them say, hey, why don't you do this project?

- And I guess my last question's going to be, you started as a penciller/inker.

And I'm just wondering, when you are working, are you doing complete pencils and then doing the inks, or are you sort of leaving things loose and hoping things are gonna snap together when you're putting the pen or the brush to the page?

- I love that, hoping that things are gonna come together.

That's actually really good.

So because I, most of my own stuff, almost always, I'm a pretty loose penciller and that's because I know what I want to have happen.

And yes, sometimes there are happy accidents and sometimes there are little disasters, but it's never so bad that you can't resolve it.

But I do love to ink my own stuff and I tell my students, "Lay out storytelling, that's the hard part and the most important part," because this is after all about storytelling.

It's not about pretty pictures necessarily.

It's about reaching the reader through narrative storytelling.

And then penciling is laying it out or getting the structure underneath it.

But for me, the inking is the icing on the cake.

It's the thing that I love the most.

So that's the fun.

After all that hard work, I want to be in therem playing with the ink line.

So that's why I like to do the whole thing, all the artwork myself.

- For three days, Baltimore Comic Con drew tens of thousands of fans to Baltimore's Inner Harbor district.

Convention organizers did their best to fill Artist Alley with an amazing variety of artists, writers, and publishers from all genres.

I'm with John Fleskes of Flesk Publishing.

John, you're at Baltimore Comic Con.

What is it that you hope to achieve this weekend?

- Well, when I come to the shows, for me personally, the thing that I love the most is being able to meet people who have either supported us over the years or maybe somebody new who's never seen what we do before.

But I get so much satisfaction out of someone who comes up and says, "Oh, I bought one of your books and I loved your books."

And we never come here to make money.

We come here really just to meet people.

And it inspires me because like a lot of artists, I'm not an artist, but we work in a solitary, closed environment for months at a time.

And sometimes I just don't know how people react to this stuff.

And just feeling that energy and that encouragement from people and also being able to communicate with them how much I appreciate what they've done for us.

Because when someone buys a book that allows us to make another book.

So that's really what gets me excited about shows like this.

- And I see that you've got books with some great artists.

How do you sort of forge those relationships so that they are willing to trust you to publish their work?

- That's a great question because for a lot of people their artwork is like their children.

It's a very personal thing and they wanna protect it.

And so building that relationship, having their trust is something that I honor because I know how close they are to it.

So in regards to building that relationship, all of the artists I've worked with, I've gotten to know personally from coming to the shows.

Like Baltimore, which is a really good intimate show.

You meet them over the years, you talk to them, maybe you get to know them a little bit better.

And we just go from there.

The first artist I ever worked with, the first who agreed to work with me was Steve Root.

And that gave me a lot of confidence because wow, here's this idol, this person who I've loved since I was a kid reading "Nexus".

And he wants to work with me, this is incredible.

And then I met Mark Schultz, and Mark Schultz agreed to work with me.

And then Gary Gianni.

And then it just kind of gets to a point where I have to turn people down all of a sudden.

So it's just a slow process over the years.

And fortunately we've made connections and I really cherish and value the relationships.

And that's always been the number one thing for me in business.

If you don't have that great relationship, it's really not worth working together.

- And if the folks watching wanted to find out more about Flesk Publisher, where can they find you on the web?

- Oh, we're at fleskpublications.com.

And really easy, we have videos on YouTube.

We also have our Instagram and Facebook like everybody else, or they can just send us a message and we'll get back to them if they have questions.

- For small publishers like John, attending a convention is a great way to connect with new readers.

That was the goal of Daron Bennett and Ahoy Comics.

Daron, we're at Baltimore Comic Con.

What is it that you do for Ahoy and what does that mean when you get to a convention?

I'm the production coordinator for Ahoy, and basically I'm in charge of making sure the books get to where they need to be, dealing with the printers and the distributors, and also dealing with moving the books from our warehouse into the convention center and making sure the books get to the fans on time.

- So during a normal production, let's say of "Captain Ginger" that the great June Brigman works on, what do you do to make sure that the books get to the catalogs so the retailers can order them so that the fans can read them at home?

- So what I'm in charge of is making sure that we are working with the solicits and everything to get to Diamond and to lunar.

Those are two distributors, and to our direct market.

And also working with Simon & Schuster to get into the book market as well.

And so we'll make sure to coordinate any kind of upcoming sales, promotions, and everything like that for books like "Captain Ginger", "Second Coming", and "Edgar Allan Poe" and our new series, "Project: Cryptid" as well.

And so we wanna make sure that those books are coordinated with our distributors so that they get to the stores on time.

- And I know that it is tough to break into the market as a new company.

And I know Ahoy has been around for a few years, but is it still a struggle to make sure that retailers know about your product and are willing to order it?

- Oh, definitely.

One of the challenges that we see is awareness.

And so that's why we try and do shows like this.

So we interact with some of the local vendors and they get a chance to see what we have on full display and they get the chance to talk to us in person.

So we can kind of talk up our products as well.

We do have an outreach program headed by Ed Catto, and he goes to different stores in different regions, speaking with the vendors and different retailers to let them know exactly what we have to offer and sort of exchange ideas between the retailers and ourself.

- And the last question is, you are here as an exhibitor, but you're also a fan.

So do you ever get a chance to slip away from the booth and maybe go see an artist that you always admired or maybe dig through a long box?

- Oh yeah, yeah.

That's one of the best things I love about shows.

Seeing other people's creations and enjoying them myself.

So I'll go into Artist Alley and speak to some of the artists there.

Seeing new talent emerging, that's always something that I'm enjoying because like you said, we're all fans first.

And just getting a chance to see comics from the perspective of other people is just something that we can all benefit from.

- It's not easy being the new guy, especially when you're starting out in a crowded market, but that's what Carl Choi of 247 Comics is doing.

- Carl, you are at Baltimore Comic Con, you have a new imprint that is representing... Well, Sean Chen is one of the artists that you work with.

So how did you get started?

It's a crazy time to start a publishing company.

- It is crazy time, but also the perfect time.

I work in mostly film and TV and I noticed when I went out to look for original IP, a lot of it fell under the movie studios.

And so I want to give opportunities for independent creators to partner with us to do something great together.

- And in the process of doing this, I mean, obviously a comic fan is one thing, but a comic pro is another.

So how do you sort of cross into that, make the connections and have people say, you know what, I'm gonna give this guy the opportunity?

- I don't know, I feel like comic pros are also comic fans and you kind of have to be like a super fan.

Cause for me, comic books saved my life.

I moved here from Hong Kong at a young age and basically I didn't know the culture, I didn't have any friends.

And I found a community and I found a culture in comic books.

So to me, in a way, now seeing the business as it is, I feel like it's been long neglected by technology.

And so I feel like there's a big opportunity for us to do something a little different.

I don't know what that is yet, but my goal is to figure it out with the community.

- And is 247 going to be a print book or is it going to be online or is it gonna be a combination of the two?

- Combination of the two?

I mean, obviously I mentioned technology.

That's gonna be a big part of our DNA.

Number two is gonna be community.

And then three is really figure out how to help our beloved stores stay alive.

Because to me those are like the churches to our comic book religion.

And so I think for us it's really figuring out to give back.

And so obviously here at the Con we're not selling anything outside of Sean's work, but if you help us with this Kickstarter campaign and just follow our campaign, we'll give you sticker, we'll give you comics, we'll give you pins.

And so for us, I really believe that it's more of a giving community and culture that we want to create and hopefully we'll all figure out together.

- And I'm assuming you have sort of like a master plan of where you're going to be in a year, two years, five years.

So are you thinking beyond the projects, the current projects?

And are you thinking about maybe reaching out to different creators?

- We have 15 creators working with us right now with 10 projects.

We have 26 finished issues.

Some of their names are Justin Jordan, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Brian Chang.

All these guys have worked on some of the biggest projects out there.

But for us really we want to be the number one destination for readership.

And what I mean when I say readership is the highest volume of engagement when it comes to page count as well as time spent on our site.

So that's our goal.

And if we could accomplish a goal in the next three to five years, I'd be a happy man.

- Carl has an ace in the hole, writer/artist Sean Chen, a comic creator with a storied career and pedigree.

Sean, you are known for your work at Marvel, at DC, but you're with another publisher here at Baltimore Comic Con.

So what is it about 247 that made you want to get involved?

- Well, I think the lifecycle of most comic book artists, you kind of start out, the goal is to get into Marvel or DC.

So once you're in there for a while, I think something that's good to do is kind of rotate out and get some new blood in there.

And Marvel or DC is kind of a young man's game.

It's where you really learn your chops and really grind.

So once you're out of that, since they own all those characters, you take your experience and you actually kind of create your own stories and characters.

So that's what this 247 Comics kind of affords me.

- So you're known for your super heroics work, but is there another type of genre that you're looking to maybe scratch an itch?

- Yeah, superheroes is kind of the thing that Marvel and DC do, and they do it very well.

And that stuff works really well for comics visually, and it's a great kind of stories for comics.

I'm more of a science fiction guy, so my story is science fiction.

And you can have, since it's so saturated out there with superheroes, there's also even talk of superhero fatigues because of all the movies.

So science fiction seemed to be the new frontier that is kind of less tapped.

So that's kind of where the direction of my story is going.

- And what is your current project that you are most excited about?

- So what I'm doing now for 247 Comics is a comic called "Evermind".

And it's a story that I came up with and it's a science fiction story.

It's kind of in a dystopian future, a lot of heavy things.

And it's a very nuanced story that has a human component to it.

So it's not just robot and spaceship battles, it's really a story about a father and a daughter and their relationship.

I think it's a very exciting story and it's different from their typical superhero fair.

- What I really like aboutscience fiction is that you can look at contemporary issues in a futuristic way and the audience isn't necessarily aware that you might have a message in there about the world.

Is that something that you're kind of maybe sneaking in, the vegetables in the chocolate pudding?

- Absolutely.

So yeah, I think it's a good way to kind of to make a statement about the world.

In fact, all writing is like that.

Every writer deep down inside is trying to make a case for how people should live their lives.

And it's kind of told through a story form.

So my story is a lot about being very careful about trying to achieve greatness at any cost.

And so the protagonist is a highly flawed character and then I kind of put him through his paces and you can see what happens if you kind of make the wrong decisions in life.

- Stranger Comics is another small publisher with star power, but not from the world of comics, as I learned from Darrel May.

Darrel, we're at Baltimore Comic Con.

Why are you here?

I'm here because I am the art director for Stranger Comics and we love coming to Baltimore to sell our "Niobe" comics as you can see here.

Baltimore's always been good to us and this is a creator Comic Con.

I got to talk to Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson.

I read her book when she killed Superman, when Walt was doing "Thor".

So for me, as a comic creator and as a fan of the genre, this is the show to be at.

What can you tell us about Stranger Comics' titles?

Stranger Comics main title is "The Untamed", and that's where Niobe is first introduced, and Niobe is the face of our franchise.

So the one that most audiences I've heard of is Niobe, because we had Amandla Stenberg, little Rue from "The Hunger Games" co-write that with Sebastian Jones, my business partner, when she was just 15 years old.

And as the art director of the company and as an artist, we felt it was one of the best things we could do because we had a young black woman writing the comic is to hire a young black woman to draw the comic.

And that's my friend, Ashley A.

Woods who's based outta Chicago.

So that's our number one book.

But Niobe is through and through in all of the comics that we do somehow, like in "Dusu: Path of the Ancient", she's not in it, but it's a story about her tribe she comes from.

So like the Marvel universe, we have reoccurring heroes and villains.

Niobe's footprint and thumbprint is all over it.

Just like "Spider-Man", "Captain America", you name it.

- And you're at a convention like this, it's an opportunity I guess for you to meet potential new readers.

So what do you do during the normal three days of a Con like this?

- I sell, I sign and I sell some more.

I usually don't get a chance to get out and stretch my wings, but for instance, one of my favorite podcasts is Cartoonist Kayfabe.

Ed and Jim are right over there.

So I got to go over there and take a selfie with them, send it to my buddy from kindergarten and say, "Guess who I'm hanging out with?"

So little things where I get to say, "Hi, Chris Claremont" as he walks past my booth.

That's fun for me.

But for me, this is a business.

I have to kind of stick here and sell my books, meet fans, sign books, do the whole nine.

So when I get a quick little minute, I'll go run over to say hi to somebody that I recognize.

- And if the folks watching wanted to find out more about Stranger Comics, where can they find you on the web?

- Just head over to strangercomics.com.

We're on Instagram, Facebook, all the different social media platforms, but stranger comics.com.

Just Google Niobe and you're gonna see our press releases that we had.

We closed a deal with HBO many years ago trying to get this off the ground to be made into TV shows and movies.

So yeah, just Google Niobe, that's another way of finding us as well.

- For some exhibitors like Jay Stilipec, Baltimore Comic Con was an opportunity to reach people who share a love of comics and roleplaying games.

Jay, you are at Baltimore Comic Con and you've got a really interesting product that you are offering to cosplayers.

Can you tell us a little about it?

- Absolutely, so it's called Better Backstories and it is basically a deck of cards that give you little prompts and ideas to create a backstory for a character.

That character can be used in a role playing game or in creative writing.

I had one guy, he had two years of writer's block, he bought a deck, used the cards, and ended up writing a 40 page short story that weekend.

It's great for Dungeon Masters who need a quick prompt to create some details on an NPC that the players encounter in their game or for just creating the entire backstory of your big bad evil guy at the end.

- And you mentioned that you are involved in cosplay.

So when you are at a convention and you see other cosplayers, is it an easy in for you to tell them, I can help you?

Or is it something where they're maybe a little bit protective of their great character?

- Oh, well, I mean most cosplayers are actually cosplaying a preexisting character, but those who do an original character, it's nice to be like, "Hey, have you ever thought about adding a little bit more detail to who they are and where they came from?"

And sometimes they're like, "I just created the look."

They didn't really think of the backstory, right?

Like who were their parents and how were they raised?

So sometimes they appreciate the extra little oomph to give them some inspiration.

- And I know during the pandemic a lot of new players got involved in role playing games, "Dungeons and Dragons" and that sort of thing.

So has that been something that you've been able to tap into?

- Oh, absolutely.

With people getting more and more into role playing and "Dungeons and Dragons" from the pandemic, I myself started doing a DnD for beginners, which I invite mostly children, but also adults who have never played the game but have always wanted to play the game into a safe space where I give them a character, I give them some free dice, we run 'em on a little two, three hour adventure, pausing anytime they have a question, saying that there's no tricks.

And then give them some details on how to play the game, but very basically.

And many people have either continued playing the game on their own or they've come back to later sessions and some of them even formed parties that ask me to run future games for them and I get paid.

Now I'm a professional dungeon master.

- And if the folks watching at home wanted to find out more about your product, where can they find you on the web?

- They can find me betterbackstories.com and better backstories.net or backstories22 on Twitter and Instagram.

- Baltimore Comic Con is a major convention, but organizers kept the local flavor.

There were vendors and exhibitors from across the region like Sharon Vanblarcom.

What is Farpoint Convention?

- Farpoint Convention is a 30-year-old local Baltimore area convention based around... We started as a Star Trek convention as you can probably tell by our name.

But right now we are sponsored by a local nonprofit called The Farpoint Foundation that supports creators in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, comics, anime, and horror.

Our work is to support the creators in these fields to explore their own abilities and also share what they do with others.

And so our creator guests come in and they are able to exhibit what they do and they also provide education and information to people who want to be creators.

You know, whether as a profession or a hobby.

So young people that are looking to make the arts a career, they get information or even just people who are into it as a hobby, but want to be better and do better because there's so much creativity in these areas in general because it's all work of the imagination.

And our gaming creators, our cosplayers, our writers, our artists, they're so generous about sharing what they do and how they do it.

And it helps fans who are...

Some of them come in and think, I might want to do this, but I don't know how.

I don't know how to put a podcast together or an independent film.

And how do I get these projects off the ground?

And so they hopefully get some knowledge and try to...

It's all about making the world a better place.

Just beauty and art and creativity is just always needed and appreciated.

- It's tough to do a podcast, it's tough to write your own or draw your own comic.

So it seems like you're providing people with an avenue to achieve that maybe through small steps or however you're planning to do this.

Talking to a professional or something like that.

So in doing this, what have you discovered about running an organization like Fairpoint where you're able to now maybe do something different that you haven't done before?

- Definitely have learned from everyone we talk to because our attendees and our guests give us ideas.

They come, we invite someone and they say, "I'd like to do a panel on puppeteering."

They talk about either the history of puppeteering or making puppets.

And this is a program topic that I wouldn't have thought of.

I'm not a puppeteer.

But yet there is so much of an interest in puppeteering, especially among people who are fans of Disney and "The Muppets" and other, and "Sesame Street", anything.

All of us have grown up with "Sesame Street" and puppeteering.

And so their ideas feed what we want to do and we really appreciate how supportive our guests and our attendees have always been throughout the years.

2023 was our 30th anniversary convention and it's been quite a ride.

[laughs] - For me, one of the joys of going to a convention is walking through Artist Alley and seeing what the pros are working on.

Artists spend a good part of their day drawing commissions.

One of my favorites to watch is the maestro, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, the artist behind many of DC Comics' iconic characters.

Here he is sketching Wonder Woman.'

[upbeat music] While Jose keeps things low key at his booth, some artists have a support team to keep things running smoothly.

I'm speaking with Jason Shachter.

Jason, you are one of the organizers of Sequential- - Essential Sequential.

It's a mouthful.

- It is.

- Yeah.

That's why we did it.

So people would hopefully remember and get tongue tied.

- So what is it that you do to help artists and get them to Cons, and I guess represent them in their maybe art sales?

- Well, we're an agency that helps manage their appearances at conventions so that all they have to do is show up with their drawing utensils, interact with fans, and then go home.

So everything else we do here, we publish prints through a Marvel signature line, which is an official license of Marvel.

We set up all the commissions, scanning, travel arrangements, merchandise, as well as art sales.

So all the art that they produce, for the books we'll have up on Essential Sequential for sale for the original art community that likes to collect those collectibles.

- So there are a lot more conventions than there were in the past.

So I'm imagining that especially in the post-covid era, there's a lot more demand for the big names that you represent.

So are you going to a lot of conventions across the country and is it exhausting?

- Yeah, you know what, I kind of miss covid cause I enjoyed staying in my pajamas for a year or two.

But we miss the social interaction.

Most of these guys work from home in their own studio by themselves or with their family so they don't get much social interaction.

And this proves to be kind of a fun outlet that they can spend with their comrades to share stories and see each other work, which is always great.

But yeah, I think the advent and the introduction of the Marvel Universe cinema has changed the whole landscape.

There's now more fans just coming here to see what it's about.

A lot of those fans didn't even know that comics existed or where the story stemmed from.

So you have Arthur Adams and Chris Claremont who basically created most of the X-Men that you'll see today.

And once they connect the dots that, oh, this is the creator that developed and made that character, there's an interesting connection between those fans.

- And it's gotta be tough for you because you've gotta go to all these conventions, whereas one of the artists might not have to go to everyone.

- Yeah, it hurts your feet.

I think as we were talking before, the concrete floor here is very not forgiving.

So yeah, develops back problems I think over the years, but it's a lot of fun.

The days go by quickly watching these guys work and draw and interacting with fans.

Cause at the end of the day we get to hang out with fans who were just happy to see here and interact with these guys.

So the whole experience is actually a lot of fun.

But it gets to be tiring cause they're 12, 15 hour days.

But no, it's worth it.

It's better than than digging ditches somewhere in the humid heat.

So I really like what we do and how we're able to interact with the artists and fans.

And then also now with our partnerships with Marvel and the other publishers.

- We've run out of time for this half hour of Comic Culture.

Join us next time for more from Baltimore Comic Con.

Until then, we'll talk to you soon.

[upbeat music] Comic Culture is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

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