Washington State Summer Con 2024 Recap

Hey, this is Tom Zoller, creator of Long Distance

and Warning Label, and you are listening to the

GeekCast Radio Network. Unleash the geek in you.

This is Kevin Conway, and I am the goddamn Batman.

This is GeekCast Radio and it's episode 338 as

far as I know. I am of course TF2 and Mike. Joining

me once again for a Comic Con recap is Christopher

A. Morton. Hello, sir. Hello. Greetings and salutations

from the west coast of Tabtopia. Well, there

you go. And Mr. Mackrowder. Hello, sir. How are

you? I'm doing wonderful. It's nice and chilly

in my room. Yay, same here. If it ain't below

69 degrees, there's a problem. And today we've

got a bunch of con catch -up, no mustard. Because

these guys have been doing a lot of cons since

the last one we did, which was episode 36, which

was last year? I don't even remember. It's been

a while. Yeah, it's been a while, but it's okay.

Probably would have been Rose. Had something

probably. Let me look really quick here. So what

have you guys been up to? How many cons have

you been since then? Not a lot actually. We didn't

do fan expo this year. We've been... Busy getting

ready for a trip ourselves to go to scotland

so all money has been kind of reserved for that.

There you go. Yeah three sixteen was fan x portland

nbccccccc twenty twenty three we did the two

for that's right. So since uh march of twenty

twenty three how many cons have you guys been

to. We we did rose we always do rose and then

we did well if you see see then we would have

done. Yeah we did summer con last year and then

we did rose and then we did summer con this year.

Yeah we actually skipped emerald city this year.

I'm pretty good i'm in bed and are the. It's

in its new complex switch it's nice i mean it's

pretty but. I just didn't have the pull of celebrities

that SummerCon has been able to create. They're

not only getting celebrities, but they're getting

whole cast panels together for their con, and

they organize it so much better. The way they

broadcast it, the way the website is designed

for what's a newer con on the circuit, they've

far surpassed Emerald City and Rose City Comic

-Cons in their presentation layout. And their

gets their their celebrity lists are pretty impressive

Compared to Emerald City. I like Emerald City

will maybe get a bigger named actor But they'll

face the entire con around that one person like

Hayden Christensen or something like that where

Here they they're all over the place. They'll

get the entire cast voice actors of like one

piece. They had SG one Um, uh, the, the full,

like Christopher Judd, Amanda tapping, they,

they were just all over the place and they didn't

care. Yeah. Uh, so it, it branches out to a lot

more fandoms. How old or young is SummerCon?

It's a relatively new con. I want to say what,

we missed one year. We missed one year. We missed

the first year and then we've been to every single

one. This is number seven. This is number seven

for them. And they have just organized very well.

The layout isn't bad either. Last year, the downside

of the con is they had a special ticketing for

big panels. So once you got in the con, you had

to register for the panel for a placement. And

that got a lot of blowback because just That's

the way cars are done. Everyone does the cons.

They know first come first serve to the panel

when the panel opens up. So they actually took

a step back from that this year, which I'm really

happy they listened and they decided to revert

that idea. So it became a first come first serve.

They turned the main stage a little bit. I like

the better layout of the main stage. Everywhere

we sit in there, you get a good view. It was

much, much easier to get into. I said, you get

panels coming in. To recap on some of the panels,

we have the voice actors from Clone Wars. We

practically have the two actors for all a bad

batch. This is pretty much Baker does all of

them. Of course, Demon Slayer was voice actors

all came for that because that's now gotten big.

Yeah. They had several of the voice actors from

the Justice League Unlimited show up, which was

pretty cool. Got to listen to a few of them.

Smallville. All showed up. Tom Welling had to.

He was only there for Friday, I think, because

he got the flu. So he had to cancel the rest.

But everybody else was there. And then since

an anarchy in the bias, man, they they pulled

those TV show actors in and they were there.

And there was some cosplay of that running around.

And then I have to mention, which we're going

to talk a little bit more about this, the whole

voice panel of Hell of the Boss. Which is primarily

published from the own animation studios, which

just exploded thanks for the full release of

the new has been hotel on the Amazon Prime. Oh,

very cool. Very cool. Coming up right this year.

It hasn't happened this year yet, right? You

know, I don't tell came out the first of the

year in March. It turned out very good. One of

the episodes actually released on the day that

they were doing their panel. Oh, for hell of

a boss, it did. Yes, that was OK. That was hell

of a boss released an episode while they're doing

the panel. Everybody's like, what? Even I was

like, wow, what thing is they they kind of launch

and release their episodes kind of randomly.

So you really never know when one's coming out.

So having a release while the animation panel

is up there and they're like, well, we can talk

about it a little bit, but we don't want to spoil

anything. And it was one of the songs that released

in the episode because every episode has a song

and it's the amazing song. The one thing Vivian

has gotten right in her works is she picked up

a really great writers for her music, for the

dialogue. It's fantastic. And she got a she's

really nailed it down when it comes into more

musical comedy. And that's what helped a lot

with Hasbin Hotel. When she got into Amazon Prime

to do that, they actually brought in the chief,

all the voice actors from the premiere. They

brought in Broadway actors because there's a

lot of music in it. So they wanted the Broadway

actors to be able to sing those parts as her

character. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Very

cool. But that was great to see. I mean, pull

these kind of panels in from all about, you know.

How does it become more not comic cons anymore

in which I am almost personally in Matt kind

of agrees to me they need to stop using Comic

Con as the moniker for these events because it's

pop culture. That's all it is. It's a pop culture

car. I had a brain fart there for a minute, because

I'm looking at the website and I'm like, wait

a minute, June, isn't that? Oh, yeah, it happened.

Whoops. Yeah, get back. And by the lock, it was

even that hot. It was actually comfortable. The

first the Saturday when we when I first got there,

there was no breeze and I was like, this is going

to be miserable. But luckily, the breeze picked

up and cooled it down really nice. So outside

of the first couple of hours on Saturday of it

being open, it was it was a really good weather

pattern for us. So should we start a big negative

that we saw in this con right away, Matt? I think

we should. The artist Alan, artist Alan. We have

to so the one big thing about come across me

love Matt and I for years worked in the artist

alleys and this was always a great artist alley

the whole lower level one of the buildings packed

to the brim with a lot of independent artists

phenomenal They reduce that by fourth this this

year. It was a quarter of the size of what it

was Tiny artist alley. In fact, we found artists

friends that were rejected who've been with this

con for a very long time. Rejected their tables

trying to get into this con, which is one of

the few times I've heard cons rejecting artists,

especially once I've been established. The owner

of the con, it seemed like any way that he sold

out to a group called Sketch Artists Group, and

they have some great Talent for sure but that's

all he really booked was that that company and

all of their artists and then a smidge of local

artists like the press the and emberland that

are well known in comic books for decades though

like you're not gonna say no to them but independent

artists cheap artists something that a kid can

afford. uh you're not you're not walking up to

otley and getting a seven hundred and fifty dollar

head sketch like yeah yeah i mean i i was able

prices were much better than this con for more

sketchy yeah agnes uh i can't remember her last

name but she works on teen titans ghosts my little

ponies care bears and then like dc power girls

or something like that And she is a sketch artist

person, and she was doing water colored covers.

Amazing stuff for like 70 bucks. Totally affordable,

at least in my eyes. Maybe not so much for the

anime crowd that usually don't have like two

pennies to rub together. But like I got a Bagley

head sketch for 100. Bagley was the creator of

Spider -Man 2099, Miles Morales. And. Carnage

you worked on the carnage book and he was doing

head sketches for a hundred bucks so that was

kind of nice to see some of those big name artists

drop their prices down because there's people

like otley for seven hundred fifty dollars you

can get a head sketch. I think you're talking

about is most likely agnes garbowska blonde tiny

little thing i wouldn't. I don't know if you

had a picture pulled up or something. But she

was fantastic. If anybody comes across her at

other cons, you should go talk to her. She was

very friendly. She does time lapse videos to

go with your sketch cover. So she sets up her

phone and records her doing the sketch. And then

air drops it to your phone so you have a time

lapse video of her fast sketching everything

with your one -of -a -kind piece of art. I thought

that was really cool. Ugh, what a dream. Chris's

schmurses. But yes, Ina Skarbowska is who we're

talking about here, folks. And yeah, she's very

awesome. And doing time lapse, that is so cool.

Yeah. Except for Matt. Yeah, she doesn't like

apples. She does have an Apple phone. She has

an Apple phone and like a droid or something

like that. So depending on whose phone, like

what type of phone the person has, she'll film

it with whatever phone. That way, it's easier

to communicate between the same things. Well,

the Apple phone that she does not like decided

to like freeze up or have an error. So I did

not get one with mine. That's okay my friend

said she got got one done and then they are dropped

that airdrop worked so you know what they say

folks. You buy an android because apple i mean

adam and eve ruined everything with an apple

i mean come on. Oh, man. All right. What else

happened at SummerCon this year? So let's talk

about panel review because it's very important

about how the one thing I like about the Comer

Cons is panels. I did the panels. It was my little

thing. We caught the panel for the bad batch.

Fantastic job. It was beautiful. Well done. I

thought they had a very good organization for

the announcer who walked them through it. which

which is very important because if you get into

there you need someone to control the flow of

questions and you so you can get into the very

interest of why the people do what they do and

how great it can be so we get to all these now

the best one i've ever been to now it was the

head star headliner of the summer con which was

john cleese and people don't know who this is

this is a actor who spans decades, a British

actor. He has been in so many pieces and you

probably all know him from, of course, Monty

Python and the work he did with the Monty Python

troupe. Well, the most recent, if you are a younger

person, is probably going to be Nearless Headless

Nick from Harry Potter is probably the most geeky

thing that he's been in that younger people would

know. And for us old hats. The best he ever did.

The best thing he ever did was faulty towers.

Oh, God. And he got talking about that. It was

great. First of all, when he gets up there, standing

ovation. I mean, this is the guy when it comes

to comedy and acting, he's a legend. So big standing

ovation. Very nice man. When he even walked in,

he's just the British gentleman all the way.

So he gets up there. And the announcer was trying

to lead this discussion. That was not going to

work. He pretty much shut the guy down. He's

like, I'll take care of this. I'm not my first

rodeo. So he leads the discussion about his history,

some cool little tidbits and all that. And it

just listening to him was fantastic. Really goes

up to the questions and to people line up there.

And I love it because, you know, a lot of times

people will get to the podium and they're going

to tell some life bit. know how you affected

my life and my life was this and blah, blah,

blah. He shut them down as soon as they started

on that rant. He was like, I'm old. Get to your

point or get out. But it was like so pleasant.

Like you couldn't walk away mad. It was just

really pleasant. So he really kept the people

down to their questions and he would tell them

off. But it was fantastic. He went over everything.

So that was the highlight. One of the best panels

I've ever been to. I was on this guy's every

word when he was speaking. It was and the stories

he told and the the hijinks he used to do when

he was younger to other actors was fantastic.

So as we go throughout the day with the last

panels, we end up going to is the hell of a boss

panel now. Very much. That gives it away. I'm

very much into the what Vivian history in between

doing two of her major works in the same world,

one doing a a twenty three running on Amazon

Prime. Helen Boss is still privately produced

on YouTube and she's doing a fantastic job. And

that voice actors are great. But when they got

to the panel, one one of the worst panel leads.

What's his name, Matt? Ming from Comic Book Men.

Oh, I hate that guy. Yeah, so yeah, this is right

there starts off because he doesn't know how

to lead. I've never seen him in all of my Comic

Cons. See him do a good panel. Oh, he's terrible.

He's terrible. Right off the bat, not even going

into the history of going into, hey, you're working

for an independent. You're not connected to any

major studios. And you're doing very well. I

mean, they're there. This has been an explosion

and they've been out for a couple of years. But

the cosplay is just all over the place. Honestly,

I don't think he's ever seen an episode. I don't

think he has either. But he really opens it up

to question. There was a mistake right there.

Number one, which derails this because everyone

that rushed up there were 13 year old girls.

Yeah, like every single one. Girls and there

was guys but they had no sense of questions asked

they just wanted to hear these guys spit out

profanity No, that wasn't the only thing if so

and so and so and so got in a relationship How

would that be every single one of them every

single? one of them it was like live action fan

fiction by 13 year old girls it was bad i mean

i got maybe i mean within five minutes everyone

but me bailed i was hoping for some direction

in this panel and it just got worse and just

like you're not telling anything productive about

what they're doing or how they're getting to

the point where they're at, or an independent

artist got to this point, you're just letting

these voice actors go up there and try to steer

these 13 -year -old fantasies, and it got disturbing.

I was truly utterly disturbed. One, they're talking

about things you shouldn't talk about, so bad

on the voice actors for just letting these people

get them into these positions that have to talk

the way they talk. I had to leave. I mean, it

was one of the worst panels I've ever been to.

So I went from a major high to a super major

low within a span of an afternoon. It was terrible.

And that left our taste in my mouth walking out

of that. Yeah. You guys ate some churros and

then left. Yeah, it was good. It was really good.

Parking was another issue on that place. We had

some problems with that. I really hope they listen

to the people and review their entry spots on

the map and their parking. But yeah, that was

the major downside. So the panels, we had a good

mix. I caught four in the show, so it was nice.

I like the area some of them because they're

smaller than the ice and open air and that's

what are the nice about this car it's open air

so it allows a lot of more room for people to

show up you don't know the thirteen year old

girl you're not yes it'd be the odor in this

car was a lot on the low level or what's that.

Yeah except all the thirteen year old girls are

the ones that go to. Anime cons that that's the

one of the things of me and Chris saying that

they really should stop calling them comic book

conventions because they're more like anime cons

and pop culture cons than they are comic books

anymore. Yeah, true. I feel like this was for

them the awkward teen stage of comic book conventions.

Like they had really good ideas. They just didn't

have enough filler to make it be whole. Because

this is done at the Washington State Fairgrounds

in Puyallup, it is a massive complex of buildings.

Good use, small use, big use, a plethora of different

ones. They had the video game area on the opposite

side. Of the fairgrounds great building for it

the the video game thing was was great they had

a. Like a theater set up there too but you had

to take golf carts out to it because it was so

far removed and there was nothing in between

where like the panels were at the center of the

con and artist alley and then you get in the

golf cart and drive to the other side to play

video games. So that was a little awkward. And

then they shut down that shuttle service on Sunday,

like an hour and a half before the con ended.

And one of the parking lots, like Chris was saying,

was out in that wing. And so anybody that was

in the main area had to walk all the way to the

other side to get to their car. Because they

didn't want to shuttle people over to the video

game place because they thought it would be hard

to get them out once you know nerd settle in

right. Right now and even telling them like my

car is over there like i just want to leave i'm

not playing video games i just want to ride to

the green lot because i'm fat and my knees hurt

and they were like nope can't do it. Well, this

is the first time they use the only had blue

lot before. So there's only one inch out. This

is the first time they actually spread out to

three different lots more on the west side. It

was just weird because they've never really used

the west side of the convention center. Yeah,

so this was the first time they used it. So they

got a little bit of working to do for that So

we'll see what happens. Like I said, it's the

awkward teen years of just being gangly and your

body's not filled out now that they've spread

out and They have a blueprint for it. I'm hoping

next year. It'll be fuller Like maybe they'll

expand artists alley, please for the love of

God expand artists alley Yeah, but like last

last year they just stuck the the 501st in like

a park Like they gave them a tent and said here

you go this year they were like you know what

that was really messed up that was terrible everybody

hated it here's an actual building for the five

oh first and all the star wars voice actors and

we'll just have a star wars building and that

was great. That was great for everybody. I walked

over there. The building was cool. It wasn't

like a swamp like it was in the tent the year

before. So there's always growing pains with

with cons. You kind of got to give them a year

to like, okay, what did go what went wrong? How

can we fix it? The only thing that that is every

year a problem is they have the worst line management

at any con I've ever been to. There's just ungodly

huge lines that nobody tries to wrangle and they

get in the way of people they block artists from

their booths so people can't go up to those booths

because the line is so long that it's just oh

this is just part of the line cool maybe somebody

will buy something while they're bored standing

in line like i said maybe next year they'll fix

that oh they're never gonna fix the line problem

i just hope that you know they Have better moderators

for the panels. Um, yeah, I have maybe a timekeeper

or something, uh, a cattle prod to electrocute

anybody that brings up fan fiction. Um, you know,

yeah, but we can look at more. So as his con

ends, doing the changes, let's touch bases. What's

coming up next was for us, as we get back to

Scotland, we have less than a couple of weeks.

We're writing University Comic Con. And i want

to highlight the difference between what summer

car is doing for gas and what rose city is doing

for gas. One rose city doesn't really build handling

gas. Like summer condos summer condos for fandom

grabs a panel of everyone they can from that

fandom and rose city doesn't do it as much to

get one or two from the fandom but that really

try to focus getting a full group now one of

the headline people that i actually appreciate

is simon pack. He is coming in for this comic

con. I think just like most comic cons, he's

going to be a main headliner. He's just established

in this realm. So I'm really excited to see his

stuff. He is ranked like third on their panel.

Yeah, a big name website right now. Yeah, right

now they're all Star Wars. Yeah, so. Well, they

brought Breaking Bad, but. You only got all the

supporting characters in Breaking Bad. You didn't

bother to bring the big guy himself, which is

yeah. Yeah, but you don't want to have. You don't

want to have the big guy and I don't know about

that, but yeah, looking through Road to City.

You got. Anakin and Ahsoka. Mm hmm. They're the

leads. Yeah, you get. rise darby christian yeah

so from our flag means death it's like the whole

cast of that yeah and the one thing i have an

issue with whoever is doing their website i understand

it may only have had a few things here to list

but you list star trek shot of the dead hot fuzz

and the world's end You could have replaced hot

fuzz or the world's end with mission impossible

for Simon Pegg I mean after all he is Benji and

mission impossible. Damn it Yeah, no shot of

the dead is a good one I mean, that's a cult

classic on top of a lot of a lot of less but

But that's what I'm saying. You can have Star

Trek. You can have shot of the dead You can replace

either hot fuzz or the world's end. Yeah, replace

one of those two with mission freaking impossible

because that's better. The Blue's Clues is actually

getting a lot of traction getting all the guys

from Blue's Clues up there. But yeah, Matt has

some stuff that now that we have confirmation

of the Star Wars groupings, there's a couple

of things we need to get signed there now. Yeah.

I was hoping to just go and enjoy and like maybe

get some signatures from comic book people. But

Rosaria Dawson does not come this way and she

is gonna be there and a stoker just came out

with their her own stand alone comic book this

last week not this week last week. Asoca came

out. Granted, I don't have the first appearance

of Asoca. I wish I did, but that's a very expensive

comic book. I was going to get her, and then

I'm assuming that they will probably also get

the voice actor. I forget what her name is. It

starts with an E. You mean Ashley? Oh, God. Eccleston

or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

yeah. I hope they get it. I would love to get

both of them to sign. Issue number one of a soca.

I just think that would be kind of a fun book

to to have graded in my collection That and I'm

a huge a soca fan. So That's gonna get a little

bit a little bit Expensive, I think I looked

it up yesterday and she's a hundred and twenty

five dollars for a signature And before the entire

internet gets mad at us, it's Ashley Eckstein

Eckstein. Okay You know so as much as I would

love to see and how cool it is to see Rosario

and Hayden I honestly wish Hayden was paired

up with maybe Obi -Wan? Yes, and then have the

two Ahsoka's be together as a set Yeah You and

McGregor again, my brain is much folks. I can't

think of stuff today. It's so hot over there.

You're cooling your brain down. It's just not

it's not there yet. Oh, not there yet. And that's

if Hayden Christensen shows up. Yeah, he has

he has a reputation, let's say, of canceling.

They never really give a reason. But you're like

i haven't seen them in anything for a while so

it's not him shooting something they tell you

when the actor sick and they didn't say anything

so. Where is he and it's like the day of it's

always like the day of every time i've ever gone

to emerald city except once did he cancel the

day of and everybody was super pissed. So you

might want to hold off on getting those autograph

and photo ops taken with Hayden Christensen,

because who knows? He might not show up. Rose

City is September 6th through the 8th, 2024.

Yep. Yep. Very cool. Very cool. Is that it or

is there one more for the rest of 2024? Is Rose

City kind of the last stop before everybody hibernates

for the winter? Besides Retrocon, which is November,

I think. What? Retro game yeah the video game

that's end of september. End of september we

might pop in on that one that's a lot of fun

for portland what was really big into our retro

gaming and we have a lot of pinball museum places

we have a lot of big arcade. Location so the

retro con here is really great music have some

major tournaments. I like tetris tournament from

the west coast will be here so those are kind

of fun to go watch will probably pop in on that

very cool very cool alright is there anything

else you guys would like to talk about as far

as convention wise is there anything else. One

thing i will say about the washington state summer

con they had a lot of food options which is usually

not the case that cost and some of it was questionable

there was one place that. It seemed like everything

that came out of it was gray, so we did not go

there. But they had a lot of different types

of food that you weren't just shoveled down with

like corn dogs and hamburgers, that there was

options. And that was very refreshing to be able

to get options at a comic book convention. So

that was really cool. I absolutely loved it.

I thought it was fantastic. I mean, it is one

of the best cons when it comes to food on site,

because it's fair style, since it's been out

in the fairgrounds. Even one of our acclaimed

Northwest companies, Pontoponto is there. Yeah.

Original corndog, baby. And that's exciting to

see that kind of connection to the Northwest

being at these Comic -Cons, because... That's

a downside like when we went to our Immel City

Comic Con is you bought you built this great

brand new building, but you never structured

the food section very well around it, which,

you know, these are businesses that could stay

open even after the cons are gone. And I've always

complained of these comic cons. They don't have

enough coffee stands. I mean, we're in the age

of people addiction to caffeine, but they're

the slowest coffee lines. And all you see is

like, you're throwing money away. You need to

push people through that preset drinks. Don't

make a lot of options. They'll make their choices,

but get them out, get them in, get them out.

And they just never give enough coffee options

at these places. It's better at SummerCon. There

are a couple of coffee, but not very many still.

It is a little kind of weird that that opportunity

for money spending is because people aren't spending

a bunch of coffee. They might be able to buy

stuff at the con, which is kind of cool for the

vendors. But, you know, it's just the way the

Comic Cons are nowadays. They don't think past

that part. And Road City is no better. They're

in a predicament where even last year they had

one of theirs, they had a restaurant and they

were closed. But down by Artis Alley, that that

restaurant was was shut down last year, which

was really weird that, you know, 50 percent of

your main restaurants in there were shut down.

Yeah. So it ties it up there and they only had

three coffee spots around there and those are

always packed. Yeah, the Starbucks is lying around

the building at Rose City. Every year for the

entire length of the con there's never a slow

moment at that starbucks during the con. I can't

manage spending hours of your time at comic con

in line for coffee it's just want to bring your

little expresso machine and what i've seen the

sketchbook artist or an independent artist aliyah

is not there a little food options there and

i've seen a couple of the south start selling.

Next in small drinks at their booth yeah just

how to some of the cost. Because I know table

costs are being going up suddenly and making

that kind of money is not as known or seen as

much anymore like back in the days. I mean, we

get a booth and Matt and I help manage a booth

and we walk out there with quite a bit of change

every day. Yeah. You don't see that as much anymore.

It's one thing I would really like to see again,

because some of the coolest people I've ever

met were at comic book conventions. You used

to have like massage therapists sending up booths

and artists and celebrities would walk over and

get on their table and get like work done because

they hurt themselves or they were just stiff

from doing autographs all day. And there was

more of a community with it. Now you have to

be a big name artist because if you're a small

time artist, how are you affording like a $500

artist alley table? Yeah. Like you just can't

do it. Me being a massage therapist now, I would

maybe break even if I opened up a table there.

If you're a small independent business, you can't

go experiment with comic book conventions like

that. You have to be bigger than a small business,

which just kind of sucks because... The community

of comic book conventions can be really awesome

yeah it's hard to break in when you're a small

business once you broken and obviously you have

connections and all that works but. Small business

in this country is getting hammered unfortunately

yeah i mean chris chris has a children's book

that he put together. There is no way chris would

ever be able to. Get that book out there Outside

of having a friend that already has a table set

up. Yep There's no way that he could be like,

you know what? I'll sell the books or like maybe

ten bucks a book the tables a hundred bucks So

I have to sell at least ten books and then the

rest is all profit that that's doable now fine

Like I need to sell 50 books. Oh I can't know

that that might be all I sell for the entire

time And honestly, when you're there, you end

up buying other people's works too. So you're

just making your cost being here much more on

top of hotel food. Yeah. It gets, it gets a high

level of cost just to operate. But that's why

I work on trying to buy stuff from these local

artists like Thomas with warning label. Yeah.

You know, I mean, he's come out and hopefully

he's coming back for Roast City this year. because

i actually have a gargoyles blank cover that

i really want to get a moose gargoyle done on

and i saw he recently was over in somewhere on

the east coast and he actually did a gargoyle

piece and i'm like well that she's doing it because

i can't find any disney artists coming to did

gargoyles so i'm gonna get thomas i'm gonna actually

commission him to do a piece for me Tom Zoller.

Yeah, I know Tom. Yeah, I talk to him every year

he's at Comic -Con. He's phenomenal. He's a great

guy. And if I'm spending money, I backed all

his books. And in fact, he was from the show

where I got to know his work because I knew him

from the top 100 comics. When I saw a warning

label going through, then you interviewed him

and you talked to him a lot. And I got to know

him more at Comic -Con. Great. Artists and phenomenal

writer one of the few that really does both writing

and artwork, which I very much respect because

that's very hard Yeah, it's been oh man. Oh God

next year will be ten years since I did the first

interview with no way Yeah, so I'm looking at

right now September 12 2015 And then he came

back two years later in June of 2017 for Warning

Label. Yeah, as soon as, like, I was all in on

Long Distance, and I have a whole history, I

can do a whole podcast by myself just about that

book. And we have. But yeah, Warning Label, when

he released that, I was like, is this? He's done

it again? Yeah, holy crap. And then he's got

his Cupid Cupid's arrows series. Yeah, Cupid's

arrows. I need I need to look into that more.

But you bring him back to talk about that one,

because that that is a great. Yeah. Yeah. I got

the newest book he just kickstarted. I just got

me in for a second book. Oh, wow. Very cool.

Yeah, I love Tom. Tom's amazing. And I do want

to mention another artist that you'll see in

my Comic Cons is Alex Rachel and Jerome, who

do Beyond Western Deep, a great anthro comic

that I followed for years. I backed their works.

Are they going to be here this year? No, because

they just got done with their Kickstarter and

they're moving on. But what's cool is they actually

created an eight bit 16 bit video game that was

really fun to play. When you bought it, you get

this little code to download this little 16 -bit

game. It was like playing your old Nintendo.

I loved it. So supporting these artists is very

important. And that's why I think the sad part,

seeing SummerCon reducing the local artists stuff

for more corporate people is a really tall, tall

sign of a bad direction for any kind of Comic

Con, Pop Culture Con direction. Rose City is

still pretty good. We still have a very large

artist alley. A lot of local artists are still

involved with it. And I'd like to see that continue.

I really don't want to see these cons start dropping

in. Now we do. There are some other comic cons

in Oregon, event cons in Oregon that we'll probably

go see. I'd love to go see what was the current

for Valis Gaming Con. The game. Corvallis gaming

con. It was just Corvallis gaming con. Yeah,

I believe so. Stuff like that. We like to see

some of those more. There are no local areas

to help promote that. And that's the important

part to anyone in any region. You got a lot of

these gaming cons popping up there because they're

trying to get away from the corporate vibe to

do more focus on the artists themselves. And

you'll find it in these local libraries. It's

important to check those out. Buy from these

people. You don't need to buy a ton. Just buy

something small. Enamel pins. Pins are cool.

Yeah. Just little things to help small businesses.

It's a community and it unfortunately is kind

of going away from that. And also usually when

you want to go with the big corporations, that

means unionizing and healthcare and they still

don't have that for artists or anything. So there's

really no The only people getting rich are these

corporations. It's not the artist that's actually

producing anything. And we know that firsthand

because Matt has been, has a lot of friends,

much larger artist friends with these larger

corporations. And we've heard those sides of

the stories and it is heartbreaking for the creations

they put out for us to love and appreciate where

they just don't see the benefits from it. Uh,

in the long run. Yeah, absolutely. It really

just... Support your local artists, folks. I

mean, yeah, support the national ones, too, but,

like, the local artists is really how things,

you know, get taken off. Like, that's what we

need right now. We need... In Hollywood, in general,

but, uh, in comics and in other things, like,

in order to get us new things, you have to support

the new people. you have to support the people

that are breaking out or just starting out and

kind of things and once you do like if you like

I mean I can look at it right now and tell you

exactly when I first uh because it was my buddy

Jesse Jackson who does Set Lusting Bruce and

Perfectly Good Podcast right now he's the one

that turned me on to Tom Zoller because he interviewed

Tom I believe on Set Lusting Bruce at one point

or another if I remember correctly And, uh, yeah,

he turned me on to that and he said Jesse talked

to me about his first series, Love and Capes,

but for me, long distance is what, and I mean,

just listen to this, folks. While stranded in

an airport, Carter and Lee meet and hit it off

immediately. Problem is, he lives in Columbus

and she lives in Chicago. Can they manage to

have a relationship separated by 300 miles, a

time zone, and an entire state of Indiana? Like,

I mean, how do you not want to read that comic?

If you get Thomas back on your podcast, I want

to be there for it. I really love your talent.

Okay. His works are great. Yeah. Like I said,

I got a, I read like the first couple of chapters

of Cupid's arrow. Zeroes, I believe is plural.

But I haven't kept up with it, so I need to go

back and reread those. His concept is unique

and it's beautiful. And that's what's so great

about it's something you don't see other people

writing. It's not another vampire story or another,

you know, sci fi story with the same kind of

plot line he has. I've never seen a storyline

based upon what he has created. And it's a lot

of artists on the works when he hit some of these

secondary artist sites that i love to see him

at these cons where they can afford a table and

meet the fan base. What i just started reading

was how to be a werewolf and that comments been

around for a while but it's a phenomenal story

you catch right away another one i just got tied

up with was timber lane. Which is another comic

that I'm actually patreon to that one right now

because I love it's a beautiful story with beautiful

artwork and it's Independence and I want to do

more to support that wrong side is another comic

that I back up gonna Matt last time maybe because

a lot of these are anthropomorphic comics. It's

the one that's Yeah, furry comics, but very lover

But it's still Yeah i do have a budget every

month i put aside ten dollars a month and that's

for patreon to a lot of these smaller company

people that they're doing the work that they

believe in a pretty great pieces of art my two

nieces who are growing up they're young ladies

now they're great artists and i'm encouraging

please create stuff get it on the web let people

appreciate it because it's one thing in this

world we can't appreciate work out there and

not just stupid ai work No, we're not gonna.

I think all three of us. I think all three of

us can agree. AI needs to be used by humans.

It does not need to replace humans. Exactly.

I will say that the last last year we were seeing

AI artists at these cons. I have not seen any.

Yeah. They stop that out. They they stomped it

out. The cons did a fantastic job of rooting

those people out and keeping them out. Yeah,

you know, progression of some of your major pieces

on how you designed it, you drew it and you designed

it and built it from creation up. If you couldn't

prove so many pieces of your artwork that you

created it, you weren't allowed in the con. That's

good. Honestly, that is very good. And that's

one thing I think we should highlight here is

that when you're going to conventions and you're

an artist, you need to actually be an artist

and not just use chat GPT to do whatever or use

whatever rotten apple device you prefer to use,

etc. Or even the Android devices. No, no, no,

both, both sides. But like, you know, it's not...

It's a fun thing to think about into whatever,

but that to me is not... Art to me is someone

like, specifically to comic books, since we've

moved into that realm. You sit down on whatever

your, you know, you sit down at your desk or

whatever, you have a piece of paper or whatever

you got, you start drawing. If you have talent

enough to draw, you draw it. And someone in the

case of Tom Zoller, who does everything, he draws

colors, letters, all of it. You know, you do

all the work. You then make the thing and put

it out there. You don't just punch in a bunch

of commands to a computer or whatever and say,

here, make this for me. That's just... Look,

I'm one of the laziest people you'll ever see.

I will most of the time take the easy way out

if I possibly can, but at the same time, I have

scruples enough to know that I'm no artist. I

have no talent when it comes to that, specifically

to drawing, coloring, etc. And, like, yeah, no,

you need to actually have the talent to do it.

You don't need to just sit here and poke buttons

on a computer or whatever to, ugh, AI. I prefer

actual intelligence to artificial intelligence,

thank you. Let me know when you post. What? What'd

you say, Matt? Let me know if you find either

one. Well, you know. Alright, anything else for

conventions or comics, guys? Nah, I think we're

pretty good here, folks. Yeah. Alright, alright.

Well, that's gonna do it for this episode of

GeekCast Radio. I have no idea what's coming

up next. Where do the people find you guys on

social media? Chris, then Matt. Mostly it's gonna

be me. You'll find me at the podcast calm. I'm

very active. We're trying to get back on track

after 15 years We took a big high years and life

changes, but we should be getting back on there

it can also find us an indeed podcast on Facebook

and Come check us out. Say hi and if you really

want more things for be creative from a different

point of view, but let us know Me you can just

find me on Facebook and you can hit me up on

there and Either did talk comics massage whatever

it is so you can bullshit with me on there. We

are all the socials x facebook instagram. Please

all the ones that matter sort of kind of we've

been there for fifteen and a half years or so

i'm i'm at tfg would like most places instagram

it's tfg on my presents. As I said, next time

I have no idea what's coming up here on GeekCast

Radio. We just did the 15th anniversary episode

last episode, and we just relaunched the website.

So brand new website, geekcastradio .com. Go

over there, check it out, and unleash the geek

in you and we will catch you next time.