Sunday, September 15, 2013

Salt Lake City Comic Con

Salt Lake City Comic Con broke opening weekend records, far surpassing the expected number of guests--and I was one of the lucky 50000-80000 people that I have heard made it there on Saturday. I've seen lots of numbers thrown around at just how many people were there, but all I know is it was A WHOLE LOT!

I went with the intention of handing out business cards (which I did) but totally got sucked into some fan girl moments. I must admit there was no one I wanted to meet enough to pay 30$ for a picture with. I'm the type that would rather spend the money buying something tangible...like the next season of Superman Lois and Clark. Still I got to "see" Dean Cain, Dirk Benedict, William Shatner, and more so that was fun.  But what I really liked was meeting authors and artists and having one on one conversations about the craft.

The other thing I loved were the panels. The first one I went to made the whole experience worth the drive. Aaron Patterson spoke on self-publishing. I went because many of my clients are choosing that way and I wanted to have some insight to give them. I have been very anti-self publishing for a long time. It was for people who couldn't get published the traditional way (because they were not good enough). I've read plenty of self published books to prove that. But over the past year I've seen more and more good books finding their way into the self-publishing market, even some big time names, and so I decided to give it another chance. I'm glad I did. I will write more on what I feel is involved in GOOD self publishing and who should be doing it later, but for now, just know, it is not something to be laughed at anymore.

My favorite discovery among the booths was an interactive comic book called Anomaly. It will be coming out in a few weeks, and if you like comics, or heck if you are like me and really don't care for them that much, and you like electronics (iPads, Tablets, phones) then you have got to check it out.

Below are some pictures (that I didn't have to pay for, thank you very much).  My favorite was a family of Whedon fans. I had to get my picture with Captain Mal and Captain Hammer (20 years later :)).