Geek Syndicate
SDCC Exhibitor Tip
32
If you’re going through a bad patch of sales, the worst thing you can do is slump into a corner and look beaten. Inside you may be dying, but a smile and friendly face keeps people coming, even if they’re not buying. This is especially true at the super friendly SDCC, where many people will make eye contact and ask how you’re doing.
Another thing that became clear is that people still really don’t know what “adaptation” means and thus tend to treat you as the poor kid hanging on to the *real* creators. As time went on, the conversations were becoming startling similar: Customer: “Oh, so what do you do?” Me: “Well, I’m the writer and co-creator of this,” *I point to Magic of Myths. The customer nods with interest* “I edited this,” *I point to Tick Tock IPA*the customer then smiles and nods* “and I adapted these two books.” *I show them Clockwork Watch: The Arrival and Breakaway. The customer looks at me as if I’ve been talking in an entirely different language.* Customer: *puzzled* Oh. One classic moment came when I explained to one rather blunt customer who asked what Yomi and my roles were before signing the books. Upon learning that I was the adapting writer and editor and Yomi was the creator, he thrust the books at Yomi and said: “YOU sign these.” I was starting to feel a bit like Banky from Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy, who was the butt of many a joke for being “just an inker”. “Oh, you trace…” *look of pity* By the end of the day we’re both battered and bruised from exhaustion, but have enough time to do a couple of on the spot video interviews about Clockwork Watch and being a black comic book creators from Britain. Fun stuff, although we also hope that we won’t be edited in a ‘Rock Bottom’ style from the Homer Badman episode of The Simpsons. If our clips end up as ‘Yomi Ayeni and Corey Brotherson: Portrait of an Ass-Grabber’, we’ll be consulting our… ah, who am I kidding, we’d probably love the publicity. “Sweet sweet caaaaan.” One final note of the day, which turns out to be painfully prophetic. We met up with an old Birmingham writer mate and fellow Aston Villa supporter, Ben McCool (Choker; Pigs; LOOKOUTS), who introduces us to a cool friend of his, who works for Seagate. That’s Seagate the back-up storage company. You can probably see where this is going. We have a quick chat about how backing up data is important for creative people and set up some future plans. A few hours later I spill a sizable amount of water on my laptop, killing it almost immediately. Thrills and spills at Comic-Con. * Sigh. *