2 Hour Drive

Well, I’ve come back from San Diego after attending Comic-con 2005. I’ve got to admit, although I enjoyed being there, it really wasn’t as great as how I hear people make it sound. However, I wish I did have a camera cause I saw some cool people and things, from Jhonen Vasquez to Optimus Prime taking up a real big section of the exhibition hall. I also got Gabe and Tycho to sign my sketchbook as well and saw Ale Garza yet again behind a table in all his glory. The panels where the best things from what I could tell, I liked seeing how they brought an episode of Teen Titans and Avatar to life. I got to play some check out the new Zelda game and watched some sneak peeks of Superman and Aeon Flux. The hall there was so damn big it takes around 30 minutes to get from one end to the other with all the people traffic.

One of the cool things I saw was that the Nick booth was taking pitches and looking trough portfolios to hire people and maybe start business relationships with new artists and writers. I was too late for the portfolio reviews so I decided to take a chance on the pitching. They liked the general idea I had but it wasn’t organized and they also we’re not looking for that type of show at the moment (they want animal related shows, no people). And since I never pitched a show in my life I asked them for tips and help on how I should present an idea and such. So now I know what I have to have ready for when I present it again under Eigomanga and Smorgasbord.


The rest of the time I was there I was taking care of the business I was there for. I talked to David about the fact that now that DDP (not Diamond Dallas Page) is going to publish Rumble Pak & Sakura Pak starting from #1 again January 2005. They’re basically going to re-make the first couple of books with the new artists they got now and (still not too sure about this part -->) get drop some of the artists who aren’t good enough to compete with the other bigger books like Viz or Tokyopop’s line of American manga. David decided to redo much of his comic now with newer and better art and then will hand it to me and I'll insert all the screen tones and grayscales. I’m going to keep going on Powercrest and bust my ass harder to finish it up early before November. Austin assured us that we are both a safe bet and when the book gets republished we will be 2 of the comics in it (How cool is that). I’m not sure about Sakura Pak’s line enough to say anything (Don’t worry Cathy, you’re a safe bet too or else he wouldn’t have signed you).

Since we have 5 months till publication, we better get things done and organized, Devil's Due is going to put some ads in their comics and anime related magazines, books and other media I presume to promote Eigomanga's books. Austin (not entirely sure) told me and David that we'll be helping out in that area as well. At this point I was pretty damn excited because my stuff is eventually going to be shown in magazines and such and a load of ideas where popping in my head for layouts and designs for magazines, posters and moving media designs. Then I went over with him about the cartoon we are going to present under the Eigomanga title (it wouldn't work well as a normal nick cartoon but there a good chance it can work under an eigomanga/nick title) and he started telling me about how now Cartoon Network is looking from stuff from them too. I gave him the rough script and sketches for the characters so he could read it over a little more and get a better general idea of what the story is about. What I have to do now are some character sheets and some storyboard for that same script Sisco and I wrote. Unfortunately he and his mate had to jam afterwards to head back to San Francisco so we didn't into too much about the cartoon only that he is going to help us present it. Since that was the main reason I was there for and had done what I was there to do, I headed back to Jose's house (I forgot to mention that none of this would have been possible without Jose's hospitality) afterwards and just crashed asleep.



Wow, that was a pretty long ramble wasn't it? But yeah, I'm still kind of tired right now but since I had some time to kill I thought some of you might be interested in what went down this past weekend. Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit anywhere else other than the convention. I wish I had more time because it was also my first time in San Diego and I kid of liked the area and wanted to visit a little more. But yeah, I left from San Diego earlier today and dropped off some stuff at home and headed to work. And now, my break is over so back I go.