This is a quick wrap-up of Wizard World Chicago 08.  Whew.  Great show, but very different than 07.  The main difference (and what a difference it was!) was that this year the show was in June, not August.  Next year it goes back to August, so maybe it will return to the way it was.  Anyway, it seemed like there weren’t as many big stars at the con.  No Terry Moore, Frank Miller, Stan Lee, or (I believe) Alex Ross.  Artist alley was a bit more sparsely populated, and fan attendance didn’t seem as heavy.  With the weak economy, and the passing of Michael Turner, it made for a much more somber, thoughtful con experience.

That having been said, we were very busy, especially on Saturday, and we sold most our copies of “Johnny Saturn: Synns of the Father,” as well as many single issues, calendars, and Ogre Ale bottles.  We met some important people, and I’ll have more about that in future blogs as plans take shape, and we did two podcast interviews.  Benita was filmed for a local TV station while spinning, and she spread the word far and wide on the fiber arts.  We both passed out scores of free black & white Free Comic Book Day editions of Johnny Saturn, and we’re out of those now.

Having been a member of the indie comic scene for some years, I would like to say that you could never find a sweeter, more creative, more intelligent, more passionate community of people.  I’m proud to be among them.  After preparing for this show for so long, I’m truly sorry to have had it come and go so quickly. 

I would also like to share my admiration for Benita, who has truly become a mover and shaker in our Studio, and our well-spoken envoy to the community at large.

Scott.

Hi, Folks!

This is the Comic Related interview we did with the friendly and indie-friendly Chuck Moore.  We share this show with several other fine folks, including good friend Tom Stillwell, and Warrin Ellis.  Enjoy!

I got our Johnny Saturn Cafe Press site integrated with the blog tonight! You can find all fourteen cool items under the Cafe Press Swag page under the Store. My personal favorite is the Johnny Saturn mug, which is quite large and great for my morning (and all day long) coffee. I wore the Johnny Saturn black baseball hat, and several of the shirts, at Wizard World Chicago, and so did Benita–We were stylin! While the store in general is not set up yet, and probably won’t be fully functional until next week, the Cafe Press store is primed and ready to go.

So far, during the set-up and fine tuning of the site, I haven’t advertised. That’s about to change. Johnny Saturn has been running on the web for years, but I used to take the scattershot approach–I hosted the comic in up to four places at once, and I spread myself around various websites, forums, and social networking sites. This time, it’s different, because I’m pulling everything together under this single site. The old business plan worked fine for a long time, but the web changes often, and webcartoonists have to remain flexible. I’ve been doing a webcomic for long enough that at one time or another I’ve probably made every mistake that can be made–luckily, I’ve learned a lot along the way, and done my fair share right things too. I guess it’s time to level-up.

More tomorrow!

Scott

Hi, Folks:

This is my first episode of Super Tuesday, where I tackle superheroes in other media, not just comics.  This is a big topic, because we are subjected to superhero imagery on billboards, television, at the grocery, and just about everywhere else that features pop culture and marketing.  This week is more an overview of what I intend to cover.

Movies: With the power of Netflix, I intend to watch every superhero movie ever made.  Really.  Will this render me insane?  Well, the movie “Batman and Robin” could well do it, really.  There have been quite a few comic related movies I’ve missed over the years, such as Elektra, Punisher, Hulk, and Spider-Man III, so I’ve definitely got some catching up to do.  If you want to check my pulse for where I stand on comic movies, here’s a short top list of mine:

Live Action: Iron Man, Mystery Men

Animated: The Incredibles,  Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Television: Heroes, M.A.N.T.I.S.

Video Games: I can’t comment, because I’ve never played a video game before.

Superhero Webcomics: This was a pretty hard list to gather, and I’m sure I’ve missed some, but these are the webcomics (besides Johnny Saturn) that actually feature superheroes:

Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Dasien

Evil Inc.

Gaming Guardian

Lightbringer

Local Heroes

Magellan

Mindmistress

Neighborhood Watch

Point Guardian

Shades

Sidechicks

Stealth

Superfogeys

Tales of the Zero Men

Union Der Helden

Unstoppable Comics

Vanguard

Webcomics can come and go pretty quickly, and it’s not always easy to find them, so this list should change often.  Of the above list, my current favorites are Sidechicks and Evil Inc., but that could change because I haven’t had the chance to read many of these yet.

See you next Tuesday for more!

Scott

Friend and Sketch Magazine editor Bill Nichol’s put me in the Sketch Magazine Spotlight at this link. He wrote:

One of the best things that happened over the weekend of Wizard World Chicago was meeting Scott Story and his wife Benita. Scott’s a waaay talented guy who’s plugged into a lot of things. If you read his article on Sketch Magazine a few issues ago, you hopefully learned a few things as I did!

You ought to check out his webcomic Johnny Saturn! Here’s a page from it!

Also, I’ve been informed that Johnny Saturn is reviewed in the latest issue of the Comic Buyers Guide! I haven’t read the review yet, because I don’t have a copy of the magazine in front of me, but I’m certainly looking forward to it.

Scott.

Story Studios

3.99@, color, 28 pages@, available now

Writer and artist: Scott Story

Reviewed by Kurt Anthony Krug ***1/2 in Comic Buyers Guide

For an independent comic book, the art, story, and even the colors in this mini-series are high-quality.  You’d swear this title were published by one of the larger companies instead of by Scott Story and his wife, Benita.

Johnny Saturn is a Batman-esque hero who dies at the hands of Dr. Synn, his arch-nemesis.  But death is only the beginning for both Johnny Saturn and Synn.  Character profiles bookend each issues.

Story said he was inspired by Watchmen and Frank Miller’s work on Batman and Daredevil.  There’s also a dash of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City and Neil Gaiman, as well as DC-Wildstorm’s Apollo (as seen in Story’s Utopian) and Midnighter.  The pacing remains excellent throughout, and the art is consistent, not to mention consistently good.  If you read only one independent title in the next month, make it Johnny Saturn.

This is an audio interview I did with John of Fistfull of Comics and Games:

[audio:ffocag_log_317_saturn.mp3]

Here’s a picture of Scott taken by Gary Reed, well-known writer and Calibur Comics publisher: