Con Job
- Ron
- 11 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Con Job
A few weekends ago I was at GalaxyCon Raleigh, a four-day event that usually runs the same weekend as Comic-Con International in San Diego (and still most often referred to as SDCC). I’ve attended probably 25 SDCCs, but I haven’t visited since the pandemic. At some point, I’ll likely visit again, but it’s a long way to go; a lot of time and effort for a show that has evolved into an event where you have meetings to simply set up future meetings. It has huge promotional value, of course, and artists in particular can do very well financially setting up in the ever-shrinking Artists Alley. But it’s certainly no longer the comic-centric extravaganza it once was. And that’s fine. SDCC has grown as mainstream pop culture has embraced comic and genre culture. The rest of the world finally caught up with comics, and it can leave comic people feeling a little like strangers in what they thought was their own land.
Raleigh was big and crowded … and did I mention four days? That’s a LOT of show, a day more than the usual three-day events. By the third day, you’re usually tired and winding down, but at a four-day show, you’re gearing up for the busiest day of the show. I appear at a lot of GalaxyCon shows because they treat creators wonderfully, taking great care of us, providing the best green room on the circuit.
I do have a convention representative who books my shows, Jim McLauchlin at 7 Lafayette Speakers Bureau, which maintains a roster of about 20 creators, including pals like Dave Gibbons, Mark Waid, Kevin Nowlan, Darryl Banks and a lot more. It’s not one of those large-scale agencies that sets you up and then scoops up a percentage of the table sales, it’s a little more old school, and that works fine for me. Jim books the shows, handles the travel logistics, invoices for fees, and acts as an all-around concierge for his people.
Since I’m often asked how appearing at a convention works for creators, here’s a glimpse what’s it like on my side of the table at a show. While I can tell you how things work for me, keep in mind that everyone has different needs, different deals.
For me to appear at a show, the convention provides (and books) airfare, hotel, and table space at the event, and transport to and from the airport on both ends. For most shows, I receive an appearance fee as well. I realize I’m very fortunate to be in the position I’m in, and I don’t take it for granted.
Generally, I fly in the day (or evening) prior to the show, drop stuff at the hotel, meet up with some creator friends and try to go see something of the town – museum, attraction, sporting event, something. For a three-day show, doors usually open Friday afternoon. I usually don’t set up my table early, I’ll arrive maybe 30 minutes before doors open. I generally travel pretty light to shows, bringing some books for table sales, a batch of Mystery Boxes (which, yes, you can buy here on the website), signing pens, and a pop-up banner if the show does not provide signage.
Once the show’s open, guests are essentially on duty: signing, selling, chatting, posing for pictures. The job is to send away everyone who visits you table with a good experience, hopefully a good memory for them to revisit. You do end up having the same conversations, answering the same questions, telling the same stories. And that’s okay. That’s the duty. Being on this side of the table is being an ambassador not only for yourself, for your “brand,” but also comics in general. Be nice, be engaged, send people away happy.
Of course, all of that can be pretty exhausting. Writers and artists are generally people who spend most of their time by themselves, creating. To go from that to a convention center with a lot of people, sometimes tens of thousands of people, is one extreme to the other. Being “on” for long hours over three days is a grind. But the experience is also energizing, getting to meet people for whom your work has some meaning, even made an impact on their lives. That’s special.
As I mentioned, GalaxyCon shows have legendary green rooms, with a rotating bounty of food, snack, and drinks all day. Creators and celebrities mix pretty freely at GalaxyCon shows, and everybody enjoys the same amenities. That’s not the case at some other shows, where comics people are shunted to their own lesser space, and not allowed into the “good” green room. Obviously, treating creators as second-class citizens does not go over well, and word travels quickly in the comics community. No one is expecting Michelin star cuisine, but if you’re told you can’t eat the same deli sandwich as a C-list actor who appeared on a couple seasons of a CW show, it can be a deal-breaker.
After the show, it’s usually dinner and drinks with creator friends from the shows, a moveable feast that’s repeated from con to con. Some creators are social animals (me), some retreat to their rooms to recover or work on commissions and/or a deadline job. To great extent, after or even during a convention is not a rewarding place to get work done. I can work on the plane to and from a show, and be quite productive. But once I’m in town, it’s a fruitless endeavor because I have no interest in being someplace new and just seeing my hotel room.
When a con is winding down on Sunday, it’s usually off to the airport for the flight home. I almost always fly Delta, so a Sunday night connection in Atlanta or Detroit, or maybe LaGuardia in New York City, is inevitable. Sometimes logistics dictate staying over Sunday and flying home Monday, but generally I prefer to get home and start the week fresh.
Balancing convention appearances and the work is always a juggling act. Too much of one takes time away from the other. Some creators set up at a show virtually every weekend, and I understand it’s often out of financial necessity. That’s a grind I’d never want to undertake. God bless the ones who do it.
One show a month is a pretty reasonable schedule for me. But it doesn’t always work out like that, especially when you factor in any international appearances, which are obviously tough to turn down. I try not to do shows on back-to-back weekends, but again, sometimes opportunities dictate otherwise. Earlier this year, I did shows on four consecutive weekends, which was truly nuts, but they were all places I wanted to visit. I got through it, but I was worn to a nub by the end of it (and then had to hop on a plane the next day for a California trip). At least I piled up the frequent flyer miles.
Four more shows left for this year: Baltimore, Belgium, my local Albany Con, and finally Grand Rapids, Michigan.
More X-O Manowar
My pal Bart Sears and I teamed up for a story in the X-O Manowar: Black, White & Gold anthology. These days the Valiant Universe is being run editorially by Alien Books, and I believe distributed into the direct market by IDW. Our story will be in issue #1, due out in shops on Oct. 21. The lineup for the first issue looks like this:
"Memento" by Ron Marz and Bart Sears
"Visigoth Therapy" by Peter Milligan and Sebastian Cabrol
"Routine Containment Operations" by Dan Abnett and Sid Kotian
"The Day Off" by Kevin Roditeli and Javier Ortiz
As you probably surmised, the artwork for the stories is presented in black, white and spot gold. My time writing the X-O Manowar series for Valiant was all too brief, as far as I was concerned. I enjoyed the character, the concept (“Conan in an Iron Man can”) and my collaborators. But we were publishing two X-O issues a month, so it was taking up half of my monthly schedule, since my realistic limit was writing four issues a month.
Then I got the offer to write the Marvel vs. DC crossover, which was obviously not a job I was going to turn down. Something had to go, and X-O seemed the obvious choice, since I had a feeling that all was not well on the business side of Valiant. That turned out to be true, and Valiant eventually fell apart. But I was sorry to have to step away from X-O and always wanted a chance to revisit the character. Well, this story was my chance, and it was only fitting to have Bart on the art chores again. Hope you like it when it hits.
Making History
I’ll also have a story in the Vagabond: Nowhere Man anthology put together by my friend Charlie McElvy. The concept behind Vagabond is that of a (seemingly) immortal warrior, told in episodic tales down through history.
My story is a Western, with some stunning art by my friend Will Conrad. Will and I had been wanting to work together for a while, and we hatched the plan for this story while we were both guests at a comic con in Atlanta last year (in between visits to the Georgia Aquarium and an MLS soccer game at Mercedes Benz Stadium right next to the hotel). We wanted to do the story in gray tones, to give it a throwback feel, and Charlie graciously agreed.
I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy writing short stories. It forces you to focus, to trim any extraneous elements that would be more viable to fit into a standard-length issue.
As of this writing, there’s a little more than week to pledge to the Kickstarter campaign. It hasn’t met its goal yet, so I hope you’ll give some consideration to supporting it:
Surf’s Up Again
Marvel announced an Epic Collection, “Temptation,” that collects the last of my Silver Surfer run, specifically issues #93-#102, plus (I assume) my Surfer lead story from Cosmic Powers Unlimited #1. The volume won’t be released until January, 2027.
The Penguin Random House listing can be found here:
Green Lantern’s Light
Last but not least, the guys at League of Comic Geeks asked me to write something about Green Lantern as the “Lanterns” show drops on HBO Max. (Or is it back to just HBO now? I can’t keep track.) For the piece, go here:
I watched the first episode of “Lanterns,” and generally enjoyed it. I’ll have more thoughts, of course, once we get a few more episodes in. You never judge a book by reading only the first chapter, and that’s how we should treat episodic television. But obviously I hope it’s a big success and spawns a few more seasons.
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