So, I keep getting asked what I thought of Wizard World Anaheim. It was awesome. I had never been before, and it lived up to all its expectations. I mean, I didn’t go in expecting a San Diego situation, which was probably smart of me. I think the ambiance is a lot more chill (if that makes any sense).It gave me a chance to do what I do best – talk to creators. I’m a huge supporter of creator owned work, and to have a chance to really get into it with these guys was an incredible opportunity. I’d like to share a couple of these with you all here at Comic Impact.
I think I’d be crazy to not be inspired by Daniel Corey and Anthony Diecidue, creators of the newly released Image title Moriarty. At their table, I was able to have a conversation with them about their new book. It made me happy to realize that they started the same way all creators do – with a great concept and a few pages. They took the “do it yourself” route. These two are phenomenal, because not only did they self-publish Moriarty before it was picked up by image, but they’d done this all with their book Prophet. I think it’s awesome to look at that story and know that any time now, a creator owned comic can take off into the mainstream world. I stole this picture from Daniel Corey’s facebook page, because of how unbelievably happy he and Anthony Diecidue look in it. Oh, and a bit of news, the first run of Moriarty is officially sold out. Congratulations!
My other major conversation happened with David Server and Jackson Lanzing of Freakshow. They had a very different road to getting their work published, but equally difficult. Like all good duos, these two have a long friendship and just happen to work well together in the business world. They got very lucky in finding one another, and had a couple different ideas to get started on their road to publishing their comic. After a few conversations, they decided to go with Freakshow and started hashing out the script. Once that was done, they started doing what all good writers do, they shop the idea around. They took it to various Cons and just tried to get their idea out there. Finally, after a lot of endless searching, they found a match in Ape Entertainment. Another step forward was finding the artist, and they were able to do that after an array of tries and falls.
Talking to these people really inspired me as far as comics go, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to pick their brains. I think that we tend to think of mainstream comics books first, because they are pushed and pushed at us by everything from mainstream media to just simple numbers. I want to remind everyone that making their own stuff is awesome. All the stories tend to be a bit different, but they have the common element of commitment. Everyone I talked to knew they were in it for the long haul and kept at it. Now, they have their books selling out or being featured on creator owned columns. Wizard World Anaheim provided the perfect low key environment to talk to actual creators long enough to really get a sense of how they got where they are. I look forward to going back next year and picking a few more brains!
Susan Damon
Susan@ComicImpact.com