The idea with this blog was initially that I had a lot of fun stories that I wanted to share. A lot of what I thought would be amusing anecdotes, that I hoped others would also find enjoyable. And as I wrote, I started thinking about including my creative process. And soon, I just started jotting down anything that came to mind, so long as it involved my love of comics, or my production of them, or attempts at getting into this industry.
And of course, another incentive was, I looked at it as a potential marketing gimmick, to get more people to my website. It was another attempt at diversifying my product to attract new potential enjoyers of my work. With all the name dropping I could do in this blog, I hoped it would generate links at search engines, and spread more of the word about ME. It would sell me as a product, so that if people bought other products by me, it would help them feel more invested and personally involved.
I had tried so many ventures at this point – publishing comics, publishing trade paperbacks, publishing big comics, publishing little comics, going to conventions, doing book signings, placing advertisements, sending out promo posters, doing web bulletins and mailings and personal emails, going to stores and introducing myself – but nothing seemed to help my work catch on. So I looked at the blog as yet another marketing tool, yet another idea to throw at the wall in the hope it might stick. If you trying throwing enough things hard enough…
There were a few initial sparks that got the juices flowing for this project. When my wife and I had gone to the Bristol Con in 2005, my wife had sent an email to friends, when we returned, about our trip. She mentioned some of the professional connections we had made, and the fun we’d had, such as hanging out with Simon Bisley. There were particular stories such as this that we would share periodically, and so of course this got me thinking about doing some documentation of my own.
Elizabeth’s summation of cons to her friends inspired me to write a sort of diary-style recap of our trip to the Baltimore Con, back in September 2005. I hand wrote a few pages about that convention, while on the airplane, flying back from the trip. She sent another email out about this trip, and I compared my notes with hers.
But the idea of documenting my comics career (or lack of), and publicly posting it as a blog for all to see (and hopefully enjoy, and make me a BLOGGING STAR!) hit me like a brick while at Orlando’s Mega-Con, the night I had dinner with Al Feldstein. We had set up the dinner, and we went back to our hotel to drop our stuff off, and I was so excited, I called two of my friends to tell them I was in Orlando and having dinner with Al Feldstein, in the moments before we stepped back out to eat. I was so excited, I was beside myself.
And right there, in the hotel, I was telling my wife, I really should start writing all this great fun stuff down that we’re doing. All the crazy and interesting experiences we’ve had. And she said she thought I should. And one of the friends I called that night said I should. And that trip I began typing all the experiences that came to mind into my computer.
I consulted my “appearances” list at my website, and then created multiple documents, each one titled for the particular convention. “Orlando 2006.” “Baltimore 2005.” “Wondercon 2006.” “Wondercon 2005.” “Wondercons before I began publishing comics.” “San Diego 2005, 2004, my first in 2001.” And memories would just flood me, and I would be clicking from document to document, furiously typing to get all the memories down into one or the other as I was remembering them. When I wasn’t with my laptop, I’d be jotting down notes of events that would suddenly come to me.
I went through Elizabeth’s letters to friends, to see if they didn’t jog memories I’d forgotten to put down. I went through photos we’d taken at different conventions, and those photos brought back memories. “Oh yeah, we were with this person on THIS year’s Wondercon. For some reason I had thought it was the year before that.” Or I would go online and research a particular con on a particular year, to see who the featured artists were, to make sure it was 2003 and not 2004, for example, when I’d had an exchange with that person. I expect some of my reminiscences aren’t wholly accurate, year by year – I was writing back experiences from ten years ago sometimes. And certainly it’s important to use a flair of theatricality, drama, exaggeration, or whatever as you go, to keep the stories interesting.
So I guess the genesis of this blog was about bragging to more friends, in a way. About all the fantastic luminaries in the industry I’ve met, and the interactions I’ve had with them, fun, humorous, and even embarassing. So as I say, I started typing entries into my computer that evening of our dinner with Al Feldstein, February 25, 2006.
I entered the mad compilations of experiences at hotels, on airplanes, at my day job when there was a break, at night before bed, during the day before work. Whenever I could fit some time in, or whenever reminiscences came to me. This was about eight insane typing months.
I finally began publishing them a couple months before posting my Dick Hammer web comic (which was in December of 2006). So you can see I’m just trying as much as I can to diversify, diversify, diversify. C’mon, stuff I’m throwing to the wall, doesn’t anything want to stick?