SUPANOVA and Convention Tips!
This weekend April 22-23 at the Melbourne Showgrounds
Once more unto the breach…
I’ve been attending Supanova conventions for the better part of 20 years, and it’s always a pleasure and a privilege to be invited to be a guest in Artist’s Alley.
This year, my convention table will be flanked by PHANTOM writer/artist Matt Kyme, and none other than DC/Marvel superstar Tom Taylor! There’s also a murderer’s row of other local creator including Mike Krome, Mark Raats, Jon Sommariva, Jamie Johnson, and one of my favourite people - Dean Rankine.
I’m disappointed to not have gotten KILLEROO: OLD MAN RUFUS completed in time for this show, but I did get an ashcan sketchbook made which will be available at the show at seven bucks a pop.
(But as I said in my recent kickstarter update - if you backed the OMR campaign with a physical pledge, one of these books will be included upon fulfilment at no extra cost.)
It’s always a good idea to have a couple of brand new items available whenever you attend a convention… which is one of the many tips and tricks I put together for stall-holders (a link to which is included a bit further down this update).
NOTE:
I will be wearing an N95 mask for much of this event.
I’m one of the few people that still wears these masks on public transport, at the supermarket - wherever there are large groups of people. Please don’t take any offence to this, and understand that it’s not YOU that I’m worried about having the virus - it’s everyone else.
I actually go back a long way with Supanova…
(cue the flashback fade-in)
Back around 2000-2001, I was a young web designer working in the CBD of Melbourne (before the ‘bubble burst’), and one of my hobbies at the time was running a website called OZCOMICS, which was an early comics news site, that consisted mainly of one of those old-school message boards, which brought a lot of Australian comic creators and enthusiasts together.
This was before social media existed.
No facebook, twitter, instagram, none of that. Yep, I’m that old.
Through that message board, I got to know quite a few folks in the community, and I think through Tim McEwen I was put in touch with Daniel Zachariou - who was planning to run a comic convention called COMICFEST in Sydney. Given my expertise in web design, I came onboard to assist the launch of this event via a new website.
COMICFEST ran for a couple of years before it was rebranded to SUPANOVA (to become an event that represented more than just comic books).
I remained part of the website team for a few more years before moving on ( I took a bit of a sabbatical from the whole comics scene for a few years), but it was a pretty amazing time of my life. Some of the great memories include interviewing Brian Michael Bendis for an hour in a Sydney McDonalds (he had only just started Ultimate Spider-Man at the time), and having dinner with some amazing creators, including one of my childhood heroes - Marc Silvestri! I also got to commission some of these artists to draw Killeroo too.
Since relaunching Killeroo around 2010, I’ve attended many more SUPANOVA events over the years, and have been proud to see how the event has grown to become one of the premier events in Australia. I’m forever grateful to Daniel and the team to be a small part in it.
(flashback fade-out)
Lastly, if you’re new to attending conventions as a stall holder, I wanted to reshare some tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the last 20 years:
Hope to see you this weekend at Melbourne Supanova!
SUBSTACK “NOTES”
As you might be already aware of, Substack has launched a very twitter-like interface called NOTES, and it works very similarly to that platform in that you can interact, share notes and it’s another way to interact with creators.
I’ve dipped my toe in so far:
…and will give it a try and see what kind of response I get, to see if it’s worth developing further. Take a look and see what you think!
POST-CREDITS SEQUENCE
(with apologies to Ryan K. Lindsay, whom I shamelessly stole this section from).
HOUSE MOVE
I’ve mainly been settling into my new home over the last couple of weeks. It still looks like the inside of a storage unit at present as there is still a lot to unpack. And frankly, I think a lot of it won’t get unpacked - the rental market is so tenuous at present that I’m hesitant to get TOO settled in yet.
FOOTBALL
I’ve been getting into the footy a bit more this year, as Essendon is looking a lot more promising and having some great wins so far. I’m not getting too excited (still very early in the season), but it’s nice to have something else to focus on for a few hours. And I find listening to the radio broadcasts while drawing quite enjoyable. I might even go to see a couple of games live this year, though I’m still a bit cautious about COVID-19 in large groups of people (as mentioned previously).
MOVIES / TV
I don’t watch much commercial television these days, but I’m always onboard for LEGO MASTERS, and so far this has been a lot of fun. Without spoilers, I am very happy to see who got eliminated last night tho.
Both PICARD and MANDALORIAN season 3 have been fabulous, and I’m hoping they both stick the landing with their final episodes. There’s a lot of fan service on display, but I have to say that in this instance - I’m fine with that.
And I have to say that I really enjoyed SHAZAM 2, which had me in tears at one point. I’m not really sure what people’s expectations were, but for me this matched the tone of the first film perfectly.
What have you been watching lately?
Leave a comment and tell me :)
-Daz