Category: Rants

Being new to the whole “publishing a novel” thingy, I’m still and repeatedly baffled by the “trad-pub vs. self-pub” battle lines. Ever since I began querying agents, not a week has gone by that I haven’t seen one side condescend to the other and/or blow a gasket over perceived condescension. It’s simultaneously entralling and baffling.

The most fascinating thing about the whole debate is that 99% of the time, the humongous corporations that “back” either “side” sit back and say nothing, while the individual authors go at each other’s throats like roosters in a cock-fight. The popular voice of traditionally published authors decries self-publishing and berates Amazon as an evil, monopolistic giant, while the popular voice of author-publishers rails against the draconian, iron-fisted author-shafting of the Big 5 Publishers.

What amazes me the most is that no one really sees how alike these arguments have become. None of these authors seem to take note of how individual authors aren’t only putting down one another for their choice of publishing path, but rushing to the defense of *multi-billion dollar corporate entities*. News flash: Corporations don’t give a flying fuck about individuals.

One of the most common condescensions is to put down an author’s choice by “warning” them against how badly screwed they could be by the machine they’ve shackled themselves to. And the arguments sound so fantastically alike, that I just watch and wonder if authors in these arguments realize they’re making the exact same argument from only slightly different angles.

My first experience at a comic book convention was in Portland, Oregon, within a few weeks of the launch of Image Comics. The show took place in a gutted department store at one end of a mall, and five of the six Image founders were in attendance (they were sans Erik Larsen). I can trace my hardcore comic fandom directly to that show, and to my overwhelmingly positive experiences meeting Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and Marc Silvestri. Spawn #1 had not yet released but I was a huge fan of McFarlane’s Spider-Man, and when 13-year-old me got to tell him so, he actually pulled me behind his signing table and talked with me for 15 minutes about comics, the Blazers, and Spidey. It was a formative moment for me.

In the late-80’s and early-90’s, meeting creators from your favorite Marvel and DC books was not an easy endeavor. The guys in charge of some of the most iconic characters of all time were cloistered and egomaniacal (from a fan’s perspective), and experiences like my moment with Todd McFarlane were almost impossible to track down. Back then, when San Diego Comicon was still actually about comics, creators never really seemed to be encouraged to engage their fans on a personal level. Even this experience, I believe, was only possible because the founders of Image were already trying to change how the industry worked.

I began to understand why these experiences were unavailable during a trip to a comic book convention at Seattle Center when I was in high-school, in (I think) 1994. It was a tiny show, occupying only two rooms, with a smattering of artists and writers around the edges signing autographs. I had sketches done by Dan Norton and Joe Benitez, milled around the back issue bins, and finally – after waiting what seemed like forever – got to meet and get a signature from Walt Simonson.

As I neared the front of the line, it was obvious that several of the people in front of me were comics dealers. Every one of them had stacks upon stacks of comics for signing, including multiple copies of the same book, and manners were nonexistent. Mr. Simonson was visibly frustrated. The straw broke the camel’s back with the guy in front of me, who plopped down a stack of easily fifty-plus books, and began smarming at Mr. Simonson as though the two of them were on the golf links together.

In one of the most memorable moments of my life, Walt Simonson stared this guy down as he jabbered, stopped him from talking with a raised hand, and said “Excuse me. When did I give you leave to address me in the familiar?” He then took the top book off of this guy’s stack, signed it, replaced it, slid the entire rest of the stack to the side, and waived me up to get his signature.

This, for me, encapsulated everything that was wrong with the comics industry in the 90’s. At age 16, that moment changed how I looked at the books I bought and read. Over the next couple of months I completely changed my buying habits, shifting my entire mentality away from seeing comics as collectibles, and seeing them now as entertainment media.

At all the comic book conventions I had attended throughout the 90’s, I walked away with maybe 15 signed books. At that time, conventions that weren’t NYCC or SDCC were dealer’s shows, populated entirely by comic book shops and collectors plying their wares, with the occasional small group of creators as a draw for fans to come into a giant comic book flea market. I had very few positive experiences with creators after the one with Todd McFarlane, mostly because the creators I was meeting desperately wanted to be interacting with fans, and most of their interaction ended up being with people trying to make a quick buck.

We’re going to skip a few years, because in 1996 the vast majority of my comic book collection burned up in an apartment fire, and I bailed on comics entirely until the middle of 2002. Once I was back into comics, I found a dearth of local comic book conventions. I’d been to a few smaller ones like the Walt Simonson was at, but nothing really compared in scale to the larger ones in New York, Chicago, or San Diego. Talent didn’t really come up this way, so I pretty much gave up on the idea of getting anything signed again or interacting with my favorite creators in any meaningful way.

Until Emerald City Comicon came along.

I didn’t attend the first few years of the current incarnation of ECCC. They were held at the Qwest Field Event Center, and I didn’t really hold out much hope for them being any different than the shows at Seattle Center had been. The first time I attended was in 2008, the first year they held the show at the Washington State Convention Center, the same venue where PAX Prime is held. They occupied only two halls in the WSCC, and one of those halls was solely for the queue. In spite of the (comparatively) small size, one of the things that struck me about ECCC was the atmosphere.

Around half, if not more, of the space they occupied was dedicated to Artist’s Alley. Yes, there were exhibitors in the hall – all the local comic shops were there, a couple of video game dealers, and small booths for Dark Horse and Image – but the real focus, it seemed, was on small tables where creators could interact with fans. Due to my prior experiences, I was really wary of this setup. I expected a bunch of money-grabbing dealers surfing around tables full of grumpy creators who just wanted to go home. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

Fans were respectful and engaged, and because of that creators were all in fantastic moods. I met and spoke with Bill Willingham for the first time, having only just begun reading Fables. I had started collecting the Invincible hardcovers, and got to chat with both Ryan Ottley and Robert Kirkman. I was introduced to Greg Rucka’s work at that show. It was the most fantastic comic-book convention experience I’d had since I was 13 years old.

The size of the show worried me at the time. Having seen so many other shows come and go in the Pacific Northwest, I was worried that ECCC just wouldn’t last, and that it was as big as it would ever get. The shows in 2009 and 2010 were about the same size, but the attendance had doubled, and blew my expectations right out of the water. This show was here to stay.

In 2011 I’d been doing the After The Fact podcast for about two years, and decided I wanted to do a comic book podcast using the same format. I cemented the plan after recruiting Andy Podell, whom I worked with at the time, to be the co-host. Andy was already a pretty regular cast member on ATFP, so when I say “recruited” I mean that I walked up and said “Wanna do a comic book p-“ and he’d said yes before I ever finished the sentence.

We recorded Episode 0 of Trade Secrets at ECCC 2011, and the con has been an integral part of our show ever since. After that first year we decided to get a table at the show, an investment that has been paying dividends ever since. I’m not gonna lie – I’d pay for this Artist’s Alley table every single year for the sole purpose of having a designated place to sit at the convention.

Emerald City Comicon has exploded in size since I first attended in 2008. The attendance has grown from 10,000 to almost 70,000 in that time, and the physical floor space has increased from one part of one hall to the entire WCCC and a few surrounding hotels. And yet, in all that growth, the convention has still maintained that amazing atmosphere, a feeling that encourages one-on-one interaction between comic book fans and the creators of the work we love so much. Yeah, there are more exhibitors and media guests, but more than half the show floor is still occupied by simple six-food Artist’s Alley tables where some of the biggest names in the industry still sit down and sign books and take duck-face selfies with people who love their work (I’m lookin’ at you, Kelly Sue).

This convention is directly responsible for our continued devotion to Trade Secrets. We’ve developed relationships with several creators whom we’ve had on the show, mostly at ECCC. Even outside of Trade Secrets, I’ve had the chance to have some absolutely lovely conversations with some of my favorite people in the industry. And you just won’t find that kind of interaction anywhere else (especially not at SDCC).

I know, I know. Now I’m gushing. But let me be frank here for a minute:

Comic book conventions, when I was growing up, were not positive experiences (for the most part). I’ve had terrible run-ins with creators, dealers, and other fans, and some of the shows I attended were downright scummy. With the exception of that one experience with the Image creators, the majority of my con experiences were awful – and even at that show the good was balanced by a terrible run-in with Rob Leifeld that sparked enmity in me that stands to this day.

For me, Emerald City Comicon has turned that all around. In the last few years I’ve managed to get well over a hundred signatures from my favorite creators, and every single one of those came with a personal experience, if not a longer conversation, with that person. It’s one of the most fantastic shows in the industry, and one that has given me experiences I’ll never, ever forget.

Thanks, ECCC. See you next year.

I didn’t think I’d ever write a full post about this, but it really irks me and I have to get this out.

I love my Kindle Paperwhite. It’s the best reading device I’ve ever held. The light is amazing, the text is nice and crisp, and now they’re coming out with a refined version that solves some of the minor problems with the current-gen version that might actually get me to upgrade.

But there’s one thing that really fucking pisses me off about the way Amazon advertises the Kindles: their portrayal of the battery life. Here’s the chart they show on the Kindle Paperwhite product page (which can be found HERE):

There are a great many things wrong with this chart. They’re comparing one unit of measurement (weeks) to a completely different unit of measurement (hours), which is a violation of Bar Graphs 101. They’re also applying a different set of criteria to the bar for the Kindle than they are applying to the other devices, which makes this bar graph so misleading as to be useless.

Their criteria for the laptop, tablet, and smart phone is straight up battery life: turn on the device and wait ‘till it dies from use. There is no “per day” qualifier applied like there is to the Kindle. If they applied the same qualifier to the other devices – 30 minutes of usage per day at mid-level settings – here’s roughly what the chart would look like:

The chart looks much the same if you take away the “30 minutes of reading per day” criteria and simply list the Kindle’s battery life by the hour:

Look at the charts above. They still look phenomenal compared to other devices. 28 hours of battery life is spectacular for a handheld device.

Avid readers – those who would be most concerned with the battery life of their e-reader – read far more than just “30 minutes per day”. Using myself as an example, I generally use my Kindle between 1-2 hours on an average day, and as much as 6 or 7 on days when I’m really in the mood to just curl up and read.

Furthermore, many Kindle Paperwhite users report much higher battery life figures than what Amazon lists at their settings, with some with some users reporting as much as 47 fucking hours at Amazon’s settings, and 13+ with every single thing turned on at full blast.

And those figures tend to jive fairly well with my experience. I rarely remember to turn wireless off, and I always have the light set to 24 (the highest setting) and I can usually go about a week or so before having to charge. And that’s with about 2 hours of reading per day.

What aggravates me the most about this whole thing is not only that it’s misleading – it’s that it’s pointlessly misleading. Isn’t twice the battery life of any other device enough? Why make us jump through hoops to figure that out? And once someone actually does the math and figures it out, we (read: I) end up almost feeling disappointed that it’s actually “only” 28 hours – even though that mentality is preposterous.

But it’s bred of the original misleading chart. I’m sure they constantly wow people with that “8-weeks” figure, but it’s fucking frustrating to a guy like me that actually pays attention. I immediately see “weeks” compared to “hours” and the qualifier at the bottom and think “Hm… I wonder how many hours that translates into.” And then I do the math. And then I get pissed off at the misleading nature of the chart. And then I write a ranty blog post about it.

For fuck’s sake, Amazon, stop using this bullshit apples-to-oranges comparison. Ugh, that’s not even the right metaphor. Stop using this crates-of-apples-to-individual-apples comparison… oh, for fuck’s sake just stop being needlessly sleazy about it, okay?

On Memorial Day I left for a road trip that lasted nine days. Before leaving, I made big claims about writing blog posts or doing a video blog of the trip, and all of that fell apart in the face of long drives, other obligations, and, well… Vegas. I wrote a few notes while I was gone, though, so I’m going to try to piece together the trip in a few blog posts now that I’m back.

In late 2003 I learned how to play poker. The game changed my life in no small way, as I wrote about in My Journey With Poker. The natural progression, of course, was a desire to finally see Las Vegas. Prior to playing poker I had little interest because I wasn’t a gambler. I don’t play craps or roulette, I don’t like other table games like Blackjack and Pai Gow, and I absolutely can’t stand slots. Vegas had the same vague appeal it has for almost anyone looking to get away and see the opulence of it all, but poker put it in a new light.

It took me a few years to get there; my first trip to Vegas was in 2008, when my wife took me for my 30th birthday. We went with another couple and had a great time doing every touristy thing we could think of. We walked everywhere, and visited every casino from the Mandalay Bay to the Stratosphere. To this day, the only strip casino I haven’t at least walked through is the Palms.

Being in Vegas for the first time was an awesome experience. The places that were legitimately nice – the Bellagio & the Wynn, for example – were beautiful and elegant. The fake re-creation places like the Venetian and the Paris were fun to behold and, to some degree, laugh at. The over-the-top cheeseball places like the Luxor and Treasure Island were hilarious, and the rest of the strip was… well, at least I didn’t catch anything.

We took a trip to Fremont Street for a night and had a great time. The Fremont Street Experience is kinda cool for what it is, and seeing the places that gave Vegas its start was definitely worthwhile. For me, the best part was stopping in to Binions (even though it’s not called that anymore) to see the WSOP Hall of Fame. That is, after all, where it all began.

We walked and walked and walked, visited Hofbrauhaus for some awesome German beer and food, and went to Delmonico for one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in my life. It was a great birthday trip, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience out of Vegas. Coming away from that trip I still looked at the city through rose-colored glasses, tinged by the excitement of everyone else I knew who loved going to Vegas. I couldn’t wait to get back.

My second trip came a few year’s later via a lucky opportunity. My wife’s work was sending her there for an event, and if I could get myself there I could stay in her hotel room, so I jumped at the chance. We stayed in downtown Vegas – for one day in the Plaza and three days in the Las Vegas Club – so we were able to see a lot more of Fremont street. I played poker at the Golden Nugget and the Venetian during the day and hung out with Christina at night.

The first thing I noticed on my second time around was the weather. Our first trip had been in February, so it was in the 70’s and overcast most of the time. That kind of weather suits me just fine, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest and being a lover of rain and clouds. This trip was in July, and the first time I came out of my hotel at 10am it was already 90 degrees, on a day that would top out at 103. That kind of weather, if I might be so bold, can eat a whole bag of dicks.

Wandering around Vegas this second time was a very different experience. Having been there before and seeing almost everything on the strip and in downtown, a lot of the veneer of the place had worn off. Once you get a chance to see past much of the distraction that Vegas is built around, you start seeing the underlying structure. And holy hell, that structure could use a good cleaning, and perhaps a strong disinfectant.

I had a similar experience going there my 3rd time, when my wife and I stopped there for a couple of days to go to the Classic Gaming Convention as part of another trip. The CGC was actually pretty pathetic, and that trip was short, but I was there with my wife again which always makes Vegas better.

The beauty of being in Vegas with my wife, though, is that we both enjoy making fun of stupid shit. So wandering around the casinos and seeing some of the terrible things that they do to attract people is really fun with her around. We have similar tastes in food and entertainment, so going out for some beers or getting an awesome steak are great experiences with her, and we would fill the time in between with sarcastic humor.

This last time in Vegas I went by myself. I was lucky enough to meet up with a friend from my home poker group while I was there, but he wasn’t playing in the WSOP and he wasn’t there the whole time I was. I did spend a lot of time my last two days there alone. And it’s possible that being there alone has a lot to do with how my opinion of the place has shifted.

Driving to Vegas is definitely something I’ll never do again. I drove down via I-15 from Utah and out the opposite way through Barstow & Bakersfield, and it’s one of the worst drives I’ve ever undertaken. It really adds punctuation to Reuben’s quote from Ocean’s Eleven “I’m sure you can make it out of the casino. Of course, lest we forget, once you’re out the front door, you’re still in the middle of the fucking desert!” Never, ever again.

Wandering around the city alone – or even with my friend – gave me some time to really notice the Vegas around me. The artifice of the place really got to me this time, for some reason. Having traveled to Paris last summer, seeing the fake Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas really struck me as more stupid than funny this time. Before, it was just a kind of neat replica building. This time, it felt almost like an affront to the real thing (which is how I believe real New Yorkers must feel, to a much more acute degree, walking through New York New York).

Packed on top of the artifice of the buildings was the pervasive artifice of the people. I saw more women in little tiny dresses and four-inch heels than I can count, and not a single one of them looked like they wanted to be dressed that way. And the vast majority of the guys who were out in slacks and a tie looked pissed that they couldn’t get into Tao wearing cargo shorts and a wife beater. You should win a jackpot in that city if you can find a single person with a smile on their face who isn’t either drunk or part of the hospitality industry.

Above all else, the thing that got to me this time was the smell. There are very few places on the strip that don’t smell either like a) boiling asphalt, b) cigarette smoke, or c) raw sewage. And if one of those smells doesn’t get you, it’s likely you’ll get a nice whiff of someone’s sweaty armpits, or the bleachy chlorine smell of the Bellagio’s fountains. Inside the buildings you can get away from most of the smells as long as you’re nowhere near a casino floor, and even then it probably smells like cleaning agents or cheap air freshener.

I’m very taken aback by how much Vegas as a place bothered me this time. I already knew that the activities available to me were limited. When I left the poker table each day, instead of feeling like there were a world of possibilities in the town, I felt… stranded. Between the heat and the people and the smell and the fakeness of it all, I just wanted to be anywhere else. And, when I think about it deeper, the only thing Vegas has to offer me is poker tables and tournaments – which is awesome – but when I’m away from a poker room I just want to be back in my living room.

It’s hard for me to justify going to a place where I’m forced to distract myself from it in order to enjoy myself. There is a chance that I might be convinced to go back someday and give it another shot, and perhaps making the trip with friends or my wife again could be enough to make it worthwhile. I would definitely go back to play in the WSOP – if I can ever pull together a buy-in – but I’d do the trip much differently. For now, though, I think I’m just done with Vegas.