Tag Archives: conventions

This Weekend: Kill All Monsters at SpringCon

I’ll be at SpringCon this weekend with lots of Kill All Monsters books and prints. If you live near enough to plan to travel there, you probably already know about SpringCon, but just in case you don’t, it’s a fantastic, two-day show that’s all about the comics.  Guests this year include Jeff Parker, Adam Hughes, Bill Willingham, and a ton of other great creators. My wife, Diane will be back too, making everyone’s faces more superheroey or Pokemony or whatever else people want to put on their kissers.

One of the things I’m most excited about is that I’ll be on a panel with my pal Otis Frampton and a couple of guys I haven’t met in person yet, but am looking forward to getting to know: Erik Burnham and Anthony Hary. Here are the details:

Sunday, 1PM to 2PM: LOCAL BOYZ MADE GOOD! 
Meet a crew of hot local creators on their way up and discussing how they got that way. Featuring Otis Frampton (Oddly Normal from Image), Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters), Anthony Hary (Fifteen Minutes), and Michael “Kill All Monsters!” May!

So if you’re in the area, come by and say hi. And if you’re there on Sunday, please come to the panel and ask hard questions like, “Who would win in a fight: Skullbot or Mechagodzilla?” Then I’ll ask you which Mechagodzilla and we can have a whole conversation and totally take over the panel. It’ll be fun!

Kill All Monsters was at C2E2 and FCBD

Jason sets up for C2E2

Jason sets up for C2E2

Convention season is in full swing and I apologize for not doing a better job of updating where Jason and I will be attending with Kill All Monsters. I’m going to get better about that.

We were both at C2E2 a week ago and that was a great success. Jason and I talk all the time, but it’s rare that we actually get to see each other and hang out, so that was lots of fun. And of course there were a bunch of other friends to see, both old and new, whom I don’t want to list because I’ll forget someone important. We sold a bunch a books and talked to a lot of kaiju fans, all of whom never fail to humble me with their vastly superior knowledge of giant monsters and robots. All in all, a great weekend.

Free Comic Book Day at The Source Comics and Games

Free Comic Book Day at The Source Comics and Games

And then this past weekend was Free Comic Book Day. It was a family affair for me with my son and I selling Kill All Monsters comics while my wife did all kinds of nerdy facepainting from superhero logos and Pokemon characters to full-blown Spider-Man masks and zombie makeup. That’s her setting up behind me in the photo above.

We were at The Source Comics and Games, which has completely figured out how to win at Free Comic Book Day. They turn their store into a mini comics convention, not only giving away free comics, but also having a huge sale and inviting local cosplayers and creators to come and be part of the festivities. It’s grown bigger every year and this time the line at opening was unbelievable.

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What you don’t see in that picture is that the line continues to wrap around two more corners to the opposite side of the store. There were tons of people and Kill All Monsters sold really well. In fact, from a sales per hour standpoint, it did even better at FCBD than at C2E2.

So thanks again to The Source for hosting a great event, and thanks to all the customers who came by and chatted and/or bought a copy of KAM. It was great meeting you all.

Next up will be SpringCon and I couldn’t be more excited! More on that later though…

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SpringCon killed all the monsters

SpringCon was great last week. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s the larger of the two Minnesota conventions put on by the wonderful folks of the Midwest Comic Book Association. FallCon is a one-day show in October, but SpringCon runs Saturday and Sunday, usually in May. The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area has a great comics scene and the MCBA goes out of its way to treat creators like royalty, so there’s always a lot of participation. Both conventions are fantastic, family-friendly shows and highlights of my year.

My wife was out of town for a friend’s college graduation, so David and I hung out together all weekend. David made the second issue of Hulkasaurus, his series of mini-comics about his own giant monster, and I had several copies of Kill All Monsters left over from C2E2. KAM did very well and I sold out early on Sunday.

David sold most of his copies of Hulkasaurus #2. A couple of other friends of mine were also exhibiting with their kids who did very well all weekend. It’s great to see children getting into making art and comics so early, and even greater to see the local community support them so much.

David had an iguana puppet at his table, which is the model for a giant monster in Hulkasaurus, so he had a great time using it to attract people to the table. Or just playing with friends:

As usual, we sat near Grant Gould who’s always amazing with kids. He and David did an art trade, with Grant’s drawing one of David’s favorite characters and David’s drawing something Grant had mentioned earlier: a dinosaur/scorpion hybrid.

In addition to talking to people – and I know I’m leaving out so many of them; I’m sorry – I bought a bunch of comics of course and a couple of pieces of art, including this Godzilla silhouette by Jennifer Menken.

One final memory of the show was how humid it was. We had unseasonably hot weather at FallCon a few years ago and it was appropriately dubbed SweatCon. This year, I thought that MoistCon would be appropriate until the torrential rains started coming down on Sunday and it turned into something more like HurriCon.

Not that that “dampened” anyone’s fun. It was a great time and thanks again to the MCBA for hosting!

Kill All Monsters at SpringCon

As I mentioned yesterday, my next convention appearance will be at SpringCon in Saint Paul/Minneapolis. That’s always a fun, creator-focused show with lots of opportunity for fans to interact with legendary talent from the Golden Age to today. This year’s group includes people like Howard Chaykin, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Phil Hester, Dan Jurgens, Ryan Kelly, Pablo Marcos, Ron Marz, Amy Reeder, and Trina Robbins.

There are also lots of great, not-as-legendary creators from the thriving local scene, which is where I come in. I’ll be there with some copies of Kill All Monsters and some great prints that Jason made of the book’s wraparound cover. Mark your calendar!

So, how was C2E2?

C2E2 was amazing. It was great to hang out with Jason in person for the the first time in a few years. It never feels like it’s been that long, because a) we talk quite a bit online, and b) that’s just the kind of friendship we have.

Kill All Monsters did extremely well at the show. We almost sold out of our supply, but still have several for SpringCon on the 18th of this month. I’m a little concerned about selling out early at SpringCon, but we’ll see how that goes.

To clarify: these were a small run of print-on-demand copies that we printed just to have at conventions a little ahead of the official, retail edition. The official version will be printed on an offset press in large quantities for shipment to stores and Kickstarter backers. In terms of content, the two editions are identical and neither are marked to make one more special than the other. The only difference will be a slight upgrade in print quality on the offset version. The POD version looks great, but the offset version should look even better. The only advantage to the POD is getting to hold it in your hands a little sooner.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of this. We’re not trying to pull a fast one on anyone and want everyone to have access to exactly what they want as quickly as we can get it to them.

We talked to a couple of retailers at C2E2 and were pleased to hear that it’s not just our local shops that are ordering the book. We also had a lot of readers stop by to tell us that either they’d already backed us on Kickstarter or had heard about KAM online. Even people who didn’t buy a copy right then were very complimentary and it was just a really pleasant experience meeting so many comics fans. I’m usually running around covering panels and talking to publishers and creators during C2E2, so it was a change getting to sit still and just meet readers for three days. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Kill All Monsters at Emerald City (and other updates)

Jason is at Emerald City Comicon this weekend and he has Kill All Monsters! ashcans and prints (color and extremely limited edition black-and-white) with him. You can find him and KAM letterer (and awesome writer of his own stuff) Ed Brisson at table F-10 in Artist Alley.

As long as we’re on the subject: if you haven’t Liked the KAM Facebook page yet, you totally should. Whenever we hit a Likes milestone, Jason draws a random name and then draws a KAM picture for that person. The one above is the most recent.

It’s been a long time since we’ve updated you on the comic, so let’s do that, too. I’m currently writing the last chapter, but we’re already deep into plans for the return of KAM. I can’t say much yet about what that’ll be like, but I will say that there will be another print version before we relaunch the digital version. Not another ashcan, but that’s all I’ll say about it for now. We’re way excited.

Limited edition Kill All Monsters prints debut at Image Expo

This weekend is the Image Expo and Jason will be there with these nifty, extremely limited edition Kill All Monsters prints. There will also be a color version (I’ll show you that tomorrow), but this is not just a black-and-white print of a color file. Jason personally toned and gray-scaled these, so there are quite a few differences between the two versions.

In addition to matching Jason’s black-and-white work on the actual comic, these are cool because he’s only printing 50 of them. If you’ll be at the Expo, you can find Jason at the New Reliable Press table (#306), which is also the home of Kill All Monsters‘ awesome letterer, Ed Brisson.