New One Step article up at Newsarama today:
One Step 14: Post San Diego Comicon 2006

Yesterday I SLEPT… like way crazy slept. It was a bit scary.

I went to bed around 3am after hanging out with friends downtown. I woke up at around 11am, stumbled around for a bit and ate a bit, then went back to bed for another 4 hours. I didn’t actually “start” my day and do any work until after 5pm. I thought I’d be up all night but I actually went to bed around midnight and woke up at 9am, getting my body back on a normal sleep schedule. My body pretty much shut me down for the day, no negotiations or second opinions.

Today I’m plugging away on projects, trying to make up for the week away.

Looking at when I posted that pic last night (4:15am), I had to chuckle. I didn’t get to sleep until 5:30am.

Last night I went up to the Udon studio and we did a full convention post-debrief. What companies we met with, what potential projects are coming and what we want to do in 2007 and beyond. When I got home I could barely sleep. The body was destroyed but my brain was in overdrive.

I can easily say that the meeting last night has made me more excited about what I’m doing than almost anything else since I started working at Udon. If even 1/4 of the things we talked about come through we’re looking at a blitzing year of client work and creative projects. The owners all seemed focused in the same direction and looking for the same goals. Morale and trust seem to be at an all-time high. It’s kind of freaking me out.

I’m hoping to have some announcements before the Canadian National Comic Expo. Cool crazy stuff that makes my inner Jimbo squeal like something that squeals in happiness.

Sketching last night and felt like drawing Esurio from Makeshift Miracle in a more exaggerated style than the one that’s in the original comic story. Afterwards I scanned it in and rendered just the flesh parts for the heck of it:

My sense of structure and confidence of line is so much better than when I did the original story. It’s neat revisting those characters with what I know now.

San Diego this year seemed even more hectic than usual.

The crowds were massive (rumours are swirling that it swelled to over 140,000 people this year), the heat was intense and our booth was hopping. Being aligned with Capcom’s big booth was the right move for us and the sales we made are a testament to that. Our typical set up of having artists almost constantly on hand sketching and greeting the fans is always a big draw.

I felt great about repaying Howard Tayler for his kindness several years ago. Howard (the creator of the thoroughly enjoyable Schlock Mercenary) gave me a fantastic place to stay for my second Comic Con experience in 2003 and when he asked if Udon had any extra hotel space this year, I was happy to offer him up a spot.

Monday – The night before we left for the show I crashed at the Udon studio so I’d be there to grab our ride for the red eye flight time we booked. Erik’s gushing about the glory of the Nintendo DS Lite finally broke my resolve and I scoured Richmond Hill for a store that wasn’t sold out. Finding one in a Zeller’s store right before they closed, I went back to the studio and proceeded to geek out on Mario Kart and Bomberman into the wee hours before finally crashing for about an hour.

Tuesday – Zombie-like shambling our sleepy selves onto the plane after some last minute extra packing, we flew to San Diego giggling like children as a bunch of the Udon-ites played DS via wireless multiplayer. It made the flight zip by in no time.

After checking into the hotel, we split into different groups to get our booth set up done. I went down to the convention center to secure the crew’s exhibitor badges while Erik and Omar proceeded with Operation: Tables & Chairs – Comicon wanted to charge us over $1000.00 to rent furniture (8 chairs and 3 tables) for our booth, but Erik was smarter. We bought brand new tables and chairs at the nearest Staples for about 1/3 of the price.

After getting the booth all set up, we relaxed the rest of the evening and crashed out.

Wednesday – Grabbing a full breakfast, we finished doing all of our set up at the con and then got ready for the madness that is Preview Night.

Preview Night slammed into us like a wall. Tons of people came by looking for our convention exclusive products as well as sketches and signatures. Even though the con was only open for 3 hours, we did extremely well sales wise.

After the show wrapped up, Erik and I went to the Quebecor party for some sushi and drinks. Just sitting down felt amazing after running around so much. By the time the party wrapped up I was exhausted, so we grabbed a bike cab and went back to our hotel to crash exhausted again.

Thursday – The first full day of the show felt like an ordeal. Thursdays are normally light since the locals are at their jobs and what-not, but you wouldn’t have known it this year. The crowds came in thick and the place was abuzz.

After the show wrapped up we had dinner with the execs at Capcom to talk about the future. It’s going to be a crazy year. That’s all I’m gonna say about that. 🙂

Friday – More sales, more insanity. The gang next to us at Sabertooth Games were nice enough to let us use their Visa machine, which gave us a huge advantage compared to most booths at the show, bringing in a boatload of sales.

That evening I was supposed to hook up with Kandrix and Laurie for dinner, but ended up sidelined and taking care of work stuff instead. Afterwards I hit the bar at the Hyatt hotel (which is infamous at the con due to its proximity to the convention centre). I expected to meet a couple friends there, but ended up running into a pile of people and partying it up. Thankfully I was taken care of by Mike and Janet Lee after the damage was done.

Saturday – Saturday is the Comicon equivalent of an A-Bomb. Once the crowd is able to flood past the front area of the show, it’s an absolute blitz. Before the hall gets opened they have massive jet-engine-sized air conditioners making the place up like a fridge. By the time the crowds are in full swing it’s like a sauna and you want to puke from the heat. Every other day of the show I want to explore – on Saturdays I’m thankful to be behind the table.

Alvin and I dashed out after the show to head to the CBDLF Texas Hold’ Em Poker game. It’s an invite-only event and there’s a swack of major comic pros, editorial staff and major retailers who take part in it. Erik scored me an invite last year and I figured I’d try my luck again and do some networking at the same time. Last time I came in 19th out of 40 people; this year I was 13th. Not too bad.

Sunday – Sunday was pretty good -Wrapping up the show with last minute sales, saying our good-byes, getting swag and breaking down the booth. Dinner with the Udoners and Gail Simone was really nice. Afterwards I grabbed the artists and we hit a few bars for some karaoke and dancing. It was a nice release from the stress of the show.

As always, we talked to companies about opportunities and if even a quarter of the things set into motion become reality, we’ll be in good shape. More big name companies seemed to come to us this year, which was good. The overall scope of the projects we’re looking at seem bigger and more expansive, which is also good – More diversity, bigger budgets… it’s all really neat and I hope things go through.

I got congrats from quite a few people about the Makeshift book, which was flattering and cool. It’ll be even cooler when it’s physically in my hands though. Right now it just feels premature.

I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since I got back. My internal clock is a bit squirrelly and I have a lot to take care of here.

Tonight the Udon crew might be getting together for a victory dinner and a post-mortem on what we did right and what wasn’t up to snuff. Doing that while it’s fresh in our minds is always good.

I’m hoping to get some people out this weekend for a post-San Diego get together. It’s funny that the show is so big that you can’t even see the people you want to. Ideally we’ll be able to get a bunch of the Toronto comicers out to have some fun.

I know I’d intended to post during Comicon, but this year in particular ripped along at such an incredible rate that I didn’t get the chance. I came in yesterday evening and when I finally got home I well and truly collapsed into bed for a much needed rest. I’m teaching in a couple hours and am currently trying to pull my head out of the “go back to bed you fool” brain goo that’s currently surrounding it.

The show kicked ass, but it was exhausting.

Details and photos coming later on.

The day before the Udon crew heads out for San Diego Comicon. The biggest comic convention in North America – here we go again. 🙂

All the companies have gone quiet as they do their Comicon prep. All the deadlines extend past this week as everyone knows there’s no point in having things due while the “Big One” is on. Each year I meet more people and feel like I’m actually a part of the industry tornado. Between the Newsarama articles, the many Udon books and the upcoming Makeshift Miracle book I’ll have a lot to talk about and some extra visibility, which feels kind of cool.

Speaking of the book – I finished reformatting/relettering page 77 last night, which is good. It’s taken some long days but I have less than a hundred pages of the main story to go. It’s getting a bit faster as I discover better ways of doing it and keeping everything organized. The pagination (figuring out which pages are odd/even/etc) seems straight forward so far, but I’ll know for sure when they’re all done. The clarity of the high resolution line art versus the low rez web ones is such an upgrade… at this point I’m glad I didn’t just blow up the small size version and jury rig it, even if it’s a ton of work.

Locking down the cover price has been tough. We’re not sure what the orders will be like and the book size isn’t quite normal… cheaper may mean we move more copies but it could still make less money overall if it’s too low.

How much is a 8.25″ wide 5.25″ tall 200 page full color soft cover book worth?
You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. It’s mostly rhetorical.
It’s harder to figure out when it’s your own material.
We’ll nail it down.

I’ll have my laptop with me at the hotel and they have wireless internet as far as I know, so expect some show reports and photos during the week.

I checked out Spamalot tonight and had a really good time at the show.

The play is an adaptation of Monty Python and The Holy Grail, so I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t be able to match the humor of the original movie. Luckily it has a zaniness all its own and even the parts directly lifted from the film flow quite well from song to song. It works even when they incorporate “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian into it as a major song number. The set pieces, the kooky animations and the biting humor is sharp throughout.

It just opened yesterday night so tickets should still be available if you’re interested in pretending you’re a cultured theatre-goer while enjoying being a big nerd at the same time. 🙂

The original version of Makeshift page 37 is one of those pages that makes me cringe every time I see it:

Colby’s run looks incredibly lame and the whole page looks rushed because…. well because it was. I really like the face in panel 2 but the other two panels just drive me bonkers. When I started figuring out how much work would be involved in remastering the pages for print, I knew I’d have to change that page or it would drive me crazy forever.

Figure drawing, a better understanding of dynamic movement, more time and stronger draftmanship… here’s the results:

And here’s the new version of the page as it will be in the book, complete with better lettering:

Obviously the other pages won’t be as drastic as all that. 🙂

Nominations for the ENnies went up yesterday and Udon has a couple nods:

Best Cover Art: Mastermind’s Manual – published by Green Ronin (Art by Udon’s Chris Stevens and Omar Dogan)
Best Interior Art (Honourable Mention): Exalted Comics – published by Udon comics (Art by Udon’s Noi Sackda, Greg Boychuk and Roberto Campus)

The mighty San Diego Comic Con is next week. This will be my fifth one in a row, so it’s exciting and yet “normal” at the same time. Right now we’re busting away on preparations, so it’s a busy, busy time at the studio.

Check here for a rundown of the special stuff we’ll have at the show!

For those of you attending, you’ll be able to track me down at Booth #4145 – the Capcom/Udon big booth area.

In the grand scheme of the massive San Diego Convention centre, here’s where we are:

We’re surrounded by video game companies and right along one of the main lanes, so it should be hopping.

Come by, say hello, get comics or other books signed and watch our crew draw for fans.

Also, anyone know a good karaoke place (private rooms or public karaoke) near the convention centre?