Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

Last weekend I was off to Chicago to attend one of the biggest comicons in the country, Wizard World. I went to promote The Magic of Eyri (give out cards, pins, etc) but not to sell copies. I enjoyed selling copies at Motor City Comic Con, but doing the same at Wizard World wasn't really in the cards (this time).

The Girlfriend and I took a bus and a train there...which was an experience. We had to stand on the bus for a bit (we actually had seats, but offered them up to a pair of young kids with their parents) and thankfully had seats from Lansing to the train station to Battle Creek. The same could not be said of a few other individuals. At least three other people had to stand the whole way. This happened the last time I took a bus, way back in college. I don't get it. With computers and such, you'd think they'd be able to keep better control of this. And even though we had seats, the Girlfriend and I didn't get to sit next to each other. The same went for the train -- thankfully no one had to stand, but we didn't get to sit next to each other until the guy next to me got off at a couple stops after Battle Creek.

The problem with the train is that you don't have assigned seats, so you just sit wherever -- and to make things more complicated, everyone wants to sit alone, so you have a bunch of single seats scattered around the car. That's a bit of a pain when you are traveling with someone else.

Seating issues aside (which struck us again on the way home) the train wasn't that bad. Oh wait. I forgot about the delays. Yeah, those sucked. We were two hours late getting in and coming home. Lovely. But we had been warned by friends about that so we were prepared. But the biggest pain about the trip? I caught a cold of some hellish nature Thursday morning and it lasted until we got back Monday night. Best way to ruin a trip? Get a cold.

Fever. Night sweats. Fatigue. Vomiting. These are all great additions to any getaway. And the worst part? It prevented me from meeting Stevie Wonder AND Obama. Yes, you read that correctly. I could have met a music legend and a Presidential candidate. Stupid cold.

Picture time!


We stayed with a friend of the Grrlfriend (who was a great host) and she works for the Obama campaign downtown. We got to meet her at her office and got a tour of Obama HQ. Sorry, I didn't take any other pictures, I didn't think it'd be cricket.


This li'l fella was at Wizard World by the Far East Monsters booth (I think).


They had Rock Band and Guitar Hero III set up for any one to play at Wizard World. One of the guys in my group even sang for a bit. If I wasn't feeling like death I might have as well.


This tee shirt amused me, so I snapped a pic of it to show to Grrlfriend's friend. I thought of buying her one as a thank you gift, but they were sold out on Sunday. Turns out she couldn't really wear it anyway, since it isn't 'official.'


This thing is the reason I couldn't really make phone calls in the lobby: the gadget keeping it inflated was LOUD. They had a booth there to promote the latest Futurama DVD and you could spin a wheel to win a copy or something else. I gave it a try and won a tee shirt! Neat.


I met Max Brooks, author of World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. Nice guy--he was a big fan of my shirt.


I also met one of my favorite comic book writers, Warren Ellis. He was the guest of honor at the con this year. I think he's trying to kill me by looking at me here.


I didn't have anything by Warren when I jumped in line (it was nearly empty, so I just went for it--and it was free) so I had him autograph a page from my moleskine book. Probably not the best choice and part of me wonders if he took offense to that (I doubt it though). We exchanged pleasentries and I moved on.


I attended the late night reading/Q&A with Warren Ellis Friday. Rather, I stayed until my cold forced me to leave. Ugh. I enjoyed what I was there for though. It ain't every day you get to listen to a guy while he smokes and drinks whiskey and Red Bull at a podium (the event was dubbed "performance art" so he could get away with it).




I walked by the DC booth and saw that some of the artists there had taken to doodling on the paper top. Don't know who did what, but liked it.

I tell ya, doing a con when you have a hellish cold that sneaks up on you ain't fun. This weekend certainly didn't go the way I'd hoped, but I made due and had fun. I quickly realized that trying to sight see in Chicago and do the con at the same time ain't the way the go. The real champ of the weekend was Chicago's public transit. I could just walk to the train and take that to the con or take it to down town. Easy. It'd be really nice if cities in OUR state would do something similar. Can you imagine how nice it'd be to take a train to and from all the Detroit suburbs?

I did buy some stuff at the con too (my other reason for going). Mostly trades. Got a couple Hellboy trades and a couple by Doug TenNapel (one of them however, Black Cherry, I wasn't that happy with). I also bought a few early Bone back issues and a Hellboy special issue that was an exculsive at another con. I could have got the Complete Bone trade for only $20 (normally $40) but I didn't feel like hauling it around all day (kind of regret not getting it though).

Oh and I bought Grrlfriend a Godzilla figure. She loves that Gojira.

Yes, the Stanley Cup visited the Michigan Capitol Building last week and thankfully I was able to get a picture of us together--without me having to wait hours in line. I first saw the cup during a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame many years ago and then once again during the Stanley Cup parade in 2002.


Stanley's Wrangler--sadly it wasn't the dude you see in all the commercials and such.


Stanley on camera in the secret video room (aka "The Bat Cave") where I work.


Stanley on another monitor. You can really see how bent up the top part of the Cup is--it just doesn't look right.


Stanley on public display in the rotunda of the Capitol.


The end of the line to see The Cup. It snaked around a bunch of times inside too (which made getting around for my daily duties interesting), it was very lengthy--which made me happy. I didn't really expect too many people. Sadly, not everyone got to get their picture taken with it. Stanley is on a tight schedule and they packed him up promptly when the time came. I had a friend in line who was only about ten people away from seeing it and spent easily over an hour in line and didn't get a picture taken with the Cup--but I did hear that they lined everyone up on either side of the hallway and slowly walked the Cup down so everyone could at least see it.

In other news, I went to Wizard World over the weekend in Chicago--and well it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Catching a cold on Day One of a five day trip ain't fun. Details later.

Motor City Comic Con was a successful adventure for me. I got to see some old friends I haven't seen in long while, sold 3 books, traded 2 and made some great contacts. Oh and Erik Estrada winked at me.

I was upset because my order of 500 promo cards did not arrive from Lulu.com by the time I left for the con, and they still haven't come yet! Looks like I'm gonna have to do something about this...Anyway, picked up Lovely Assistant Thursday night and headed down to Novi Friday morning. We grabbed a quick lunch at Twelve Oaks Mall before heading over to the Con to set up. Checking in was a breeze, thankfully. However, locating my table was a bit of a challenge. Lovely Assistant and I spent ten minutes walking around trying to find it before another artist said "You look like me ten minutes ago!" he then quickly pointed out that our table numbers were written in chalk on the floor under our table. D'oh.

Lovely Assistant and I at my table.

We set up the table and got to work trying to sell books. Thankfully we were across from the guys and girls of Comics Obscura, an indie comic done right here in Lansing. I had requested to be by them in my table form/contract and thankfully they were able to make that happen. Woo hoo! And to my right was artist/writer William Messner-Loebs, who I didn't know much about until Jay from Comics Obscura told me he worked on The Maxx--which I didn't really read, but I watched the cartoon of it on MTV religiously. After learning that, I chatted with Bill about it and sure enough he worked on cartoon a bit. Neat!

The Comics Obscura booth.

Didn't sell any copies on Friday, but Saturday I sold two (joking over dinner that my sales increased by "200%") and I sold one on Sunday. But I traded a couple of copies--I gave one to Tom Sullivan, the special effects genius behind Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2--too of my favorite films. I went up to him and said that I was a fan of his work and wanted to give him a copy of my book. He gladly accepted it and the people in line behind me were amused to see Tom getting an autograph for a change as I signed the book. I wanted to buy one of his prints (see photo) but he wouldn't have it: "No,no--it is my gift to you!" He's a very nice guy and is very appreciative of fans. I just think it is really cool that someone who worked on the Evil Dead series has a copy of my book.

My autographed Tom Sullivan print--I gave him a copy of The Magic of Eyri, so he gave me this.

My other trade was to Star Wars artist/Michigan native, Katie Cook (aka smarbaby ) We've talked a bit online prior to the Con and I told (warned) her I would stop by her table on Saturday. During one of my other visits to her table I asked her if she'd trade a sketch for a copy of the Magic of Eyri, and she had no problem with that. She did a great sketch of Boba Fett for me (see photo) and an amazing little sketch card drawing of Godzilla for Lovely Assistant (and she let me take one of her pre-made sketch cards too!). I am in awe of her skill, especially when I watched her do the sketch card of Godzilla and how it only took her a few seconds. Amazing. She had a big weekend herself, when she stopped by my table she told me that the 501st made her an honorary member. Very cool (I told her how jealous I was).

The sketch I got from Katie Cook in exchange for a copy of The Magic of Eyri. Neato!


The sketch card Katie Cook whipped up for Lovely Assistant. Awesome!


Another sketch card that Katie Cook let me have because she's super-cool.

Getting my book in the hands of people like Katie and Tom is a good thing and that is why I don't mind trading with them (or even just giving it to them--the trade part was a bonus). I should have given one to Bill as well or even Guy Davis (another comic book artist/Michigan native). Next time. But the mini-pins were a success, I only have 3 (out of 40) left. Not bad. And if I had put the rest on the massive freebie table at the front of the con, they would be gone. I got a lot of people to come up to my table and to talk to me because I had a sign that said "Free Buttons and Candy" (I gave out Air Heads, which I had Lovely Assistant cross out Air and write Eyr on each of 'em).

And my other bit of guerrilla marketing was that I had a couple proof copies of t-shirts with the cover art (and the website on the back) that I don't really wear, so I threw those on the freebie table as well. They were gone moments later. Bingo bango. All in all, it was a fun weekend. I sold books, which was nice considering I wasn't on panels or anything like that. I don't know yet if I'd do this again, because I had more than a few people look at my book and say 'OH! It's a novel...?" and were surprised I was there promoting it. Oh well. It certainly didn't hurt any to be there.

Bonus Pictures!


Cloud from Final Fantasy VII


Joey Pants left early on Saturday and didn't stick around all weekend :(




This Jawa costume was pretty great.


Vader telling me to stay off his lawn.

That's right kids, I'll be at Motor City Comic Con all weekend! I'll be a guest there and I'll be selling copies of The Magic of Eyri for a special Convention Only price. So if you're in the 'hood, swing by and say hi. I'll have free mini-pins and Air Heads candy at my table.

Learn more at: http://www.motorcityconventions.com/motor_city_comic_con/

In other news, my promo cards from lulu.com didn't come yesterday so I WON'T have them for this weekend. I'm all kinds of pissed off about that.  I only have about 50 cards left, which should be OK...but having a fresh batch of 500 would have been nice *grumble* I blame the pokey process that lulu.com uses for ordering said cards. They should really stream line it. Watch, I bet they'll show up today, but I won't be there to get 'em. Grrr. So I whipped up some proxy cards last night before getting on the road. They ain't that pretty, but it is better than nothing. Gotta make due "Adapt. Improvise. Overcome," as Dad likes to say.

My order of 40 mini-pins through CafePress is seven days late. I need these bad boys to give out at Motor City Comic Con next weekend. Needless today, when I got home today and they still weren't here (should have arrived on the 2nd according to my email) I was not a happy camper. But, one quick phone call to CafePress later and they have re-sent out my order and upgraded it to One Day Shipping. I should get this new batch by Tuesday. Phew. However, I'm never using their Economy Shipping again.

They also said that if I do in fact get the original order to just keep it as a "thank for shopping with us." Bully. That would be kind of nice, to have an extra 40 buttons to give out after this little fiasco. The original order was sent out on the 23rd of April and whenever I went to check the UPS tracking info, it said none was available. Grrr. Thankfully it looks as if this situation has been taken care of and it should all work out in the end.

The only other thing I gotta worry about is if my promo cards (all 500 of 'em) I ordered through Lulu.com get to me in time. I did tell them that I needed 'em by Thursday after I emailed them back about making a few changes, so hopefully I don't hit any snags there. If it came right down to it, I'd rather have the cards than the pins. They are more useful. But then, if I don't get my cards I can always improvise something at the last minute before leaving for the con. It'd be like taking your cousin to the prom: it wouldn't be pretty, but at least you wouldn't show up empty handed. While I like getting those cards through Lulu.com, the process through which you get them is a tad clunky.

First you order them. They, usually the next day or so, they email you and ask you what you want on them. You send back the info and then, usually a day or so, they email you back what they came up with a soft proof .PDF to approve. If you don't like it, you email them back and say 'hey, change this.' Up until this time, they used the same layout for me each time and it was great. But it looks as if they redid their design because the front and backs are different. Plus they put the link to my book on lulu on the front and back cover . While that's nice,  "www.magicofeyri.com" looks a heck of a lot better than "http://www.lulu.com/content/572500" and I don't want people to go right to my lulu page. I want them to go to my site, look around and hopefully get very convinced to buy the book.

Sigh. The joys of self-publishing.

In a little over a week I'll be at Motor City Comic Con (16th - 18th) trying to sell copies of The Magic of Eyri. I still haven't got my mini-pins from CafePress yet, and I'm getting very annoyed. I just better get 'em before next Thursday. The same goes for the new batch of promo cards I ordered from Lulu. Srsly. I'll be very angry if I don't get my promo materials in time for the Con.

In some other, much better news, I sold a few copies online over the past couple weeks. Three to be exact. This puts me at 117 copies sold. Neat. One was bought on Lulu and the other two through non-lulu channels. I know one was bought through Amazon because my ranking dipped a bit one day.