Submet Industries

A complicated pop culture construct made from podcasts, words and gnomes, based in Edmonton, AB.

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Room with a Vue

September 29, 2015 /

I should probably start by saying that I am grateful. I really am.

Last week, it was revealed that Variant Edition has been voted the 3rd Best Comic Shop in Edmonton by readers of VueWeekly – which is a pretty huge deal for a place that’s only been open for five months. If my sense of history holds up, this hasn’t happened for any of the other shops in Edmonton, and I am both excited and humbled by the whole thing.

That said, I have been confronted with my feelings on the whole voting process that Vue’s Best of Edmonton awards are based on. While working for Wizard’s Comics, I was always upset when the highest we would climb was this very spot. I would grouse and grumble internally and externally. It doesn’t mean anything, I would moan. It’s all just a popularity contest – it isn’t an actual reflection of the customer base. And let’s be honest here: it isn’t. It’s a great award, but I can guarantee you, getting those votes mean absolutely nothing in relation to a shop’s sales or full customer base. Like I said before, we’re five months in, and I’m 100% sure we aren’t the third top grossing shop in the area.

Now on the other hand, the award really does measure something important: a person or business’ connection to their audience – or to over simplify, it measures quality rather than quantity. If these awards were all about quantity, chart toppers would be a litany of large box corporations and entities – but of course, they are not. And if I’ve learned just one very important lesson over the few months this business has been running, it’s never about the quantity of your customers – it’s about the quality, and the experience that you share with them. It’s about connecting in some way, and bringing a smile to their faces. It’s about seeing these wonderful people almost every week, because they enjoy your business and the way you’re presenting it.

For some, that’s not a good measure of Best – but for me, that’s more than enough. Variant Edition is the third best comic store in the city for connecting and engaging their customers. We care about them, and they care about us, and when you’re running a small business, sometimes that’s all you need to keep your engines running as the hours continue to pile up.

So again, I would like to say thank you to everyone who frequents Variant Edition, and who voted for us this year. You’re amazing, and you keep us going – and we look forward to serving you and being a part of your pop culture experiences for a long time to come.

MEANWHILE…

This year’s Edmonton Expo has finally wrapped, and with it, a whole lot of work. I hosted three panels over the weekend (and I thought they all went rather well – I’ll probably have a recap up somewhere in the next few days) and handed out a few business cards to people that I haven’t seen since leaving my old work. There’s always a lot of rumours when it comes to the how, when and why Variant Edition became an ongoing concern (and I will definitely talk more in depth about that some other time), but suffice to say, I wasn’t thinking of opening a shop when I handed in my resignation, nor when I left. I was actually going to do some freelancing for a while, and see how that went – but other opportunities came up, and I honestly found myself missing comics retail more than I had thought I would. Anyway, the long and short of that is, for many people, I just disappeared from their lives without so much as a note, everyone expecting me to be quietly writing for the internet or what-have-you – and honestly, it was nice to see some of those old faces again. I hope that a few of them were happy to see me too, and might check out the store in the near future.

And speaking of the store, yesterday was our big Indigenous Representation Panel. Tomorrow, we’re releasing the audio. I’ll definitely be linking to that on this blog, but for now I’ll just say that I’m eternally grateful to the panelists (Richard Van Camp, Patti Laboucane-Benson, Kelly Mellings and James Leask) for participating. It was a great discussion, and I’m just glad to be a small part of putting something like that together, and getting it out into the world.

And with that, another day wraps! Tomorrow… stuff? Things? Honestly, I’m still catching up from the weekend, so we’ll see. Until then!

Low Content Day

September 28, 2015 /

Trying to stay off of the internet ahead of the store’s big Indigenous Representation in Pop Culture event tonight – and honestly, to let all the Spider-Mable of the day wash over anyone. Anything I have to post as a person or as a store can take a back seat to these more important conversations. I’ll be right back to white male-ing all over the place tomorrow with my privilege, dumb comments and opinions, and the season of promised content will continue apace.

And Many More…

September 27, 2015 /

September 27th.

Four years ago, on September 27th, I was working. Or I was at home, depending on the time of day. Regardless, I was existing and not doing much more than that. A few weeks before, I had resigned myself to being alone. At the time, it wasn’t a resignation, but a decision – a conscious choice that kept me from feeling so lonely. And it worked. I was… content. I had a decent life. Good job, good friends, nice place to live… it was good.

Then came October 1st. On October 1st, I was invited to my buddy James’ house to watch that year’s Doctor Who finalé (the end of the sixth series). I went, dressed as the 11th Doctor as a bit of a laugh.

About an hour or so after my arrival (I had gotten there fairly early, I believe), this woman walks through the door. This… instantly charming and beguiling woman. I stop dead from across the room when I see her. She’s taking off her shoes. I yell a greeting (probably too loudly) and she turns her head and… I see her hesitate slightly, and smile. She returns my greeting, quieter.

We often recount this moment. It seems like something out of movies – eyes meeting across a crowded room, and your heart skips a beat. It almost doesn’t seem real, but… it happened. Wow, did it happen.

I spent the night trying to cooly talk with this woman. I may have been (absolutely was) tipsy and so I definitely stumbled a bit. I remember thinking once if she was laughing with me, or at me. There was always a warmth to our interactions, and in hindsight, I know my brain was playing cruel tricks on me, second guessing smiles, and looks. This beauty of a woman. Surely, she couldn’t be interested in me?

After the party concluded, I drove her home. As I attempted to muster the courage to ask her out on a date, she very cooly and confidently beat me to the punch. I immediately agreed to the standard “we should meet for coffee or something”. After driving home, I knew leaving it so nebulous would drive me crazy – so I messaged her immediately, and somewhat excitedly, to say that I was completely incapable of playing it cool, and that we should absolutely meet as soon as possible. Thankfully, she felt the same way.

And so began our story. Two nerds making our way through space and time together, trying to be cool, failing miserably, but doing it together in our own wonderful and dorky ways.

Four years ago today, Danica was out having a party with friends – beautiful. Confident. The woman of my dreams who I had yet to meet. Today, I am lucky enough to say that we will be spending the rest of our time together.

My lovely Danica. I love you so and I always will.

Happy birthday, love.

Somehow Better

September 24, 2015 /

So somehow, Variant Edition was voted Edmonton’s third best comic shop by Edmontonians – after just five months of being open. That’s… that’s pretty cool, considering how many stores are here. Next year, the goal is to be number one. It’s going to be hard, because the two sitting at the top are both well known and established in this city – and they do a lot for the pop culture community. I mean, there’s absolutely a reason why they are number one and two. But goals are always good to have, and sitting at the top after a year-and-a-half would be pretty cool.

Anyway, what else has been happening… um… well, as of when I’m writing this (mostly in advance, with room for touch-ups later), I’m just wrapping up the first week of content in this “season”, and starting on the second. There are a few bits that have already been written for other weeks, so that has me feeling pretty confident. I am not used to that feeling.

Being me, I’m already thinking about how the second and third seasons of content will go, and I’m hoping to be able to include some original fiction as part of those runs. That would take a lot of pre-planning though, because the schedule already fills itself nicely, and the break I’m planning in between seasons isn’t really long, so much as it’s timed so I don’t fall behind. I will probably always be making content, and skirting deadlines. So that will be interesting.

I really do want to get done at least one story starring the detectives I built for a NaNoWriMo a few year’s back. I’m happy with the characters, just not with the first mystery I want them to solve. I have solid mysteries planned for future cases that they solve, just nothing that screams “pilot” – though I’m edging closer and closer to a traditional A+B=C noir story with character traits I’ve given the two leads shading the story in different ways. We’ll see how that goes.

MEANWHILE…

Over at the Something Different blog, we’ve started up our Pod People feature – which showcases podcasts that we’re into. This time around, we talk about Karen Unland’s great Seen & Heard in Edmonton podcast, which focuses on Edmonton based digital content creators. For more, just head over to the post, or just go to Karen’s website.

Also out yesterday was the newest episode of Yegs & Bacon, where Danica and I talk about all of our store events (so many), and our favourite comics that are hitting the stands this week.

STAY TUNED…

In a few short hours, you’ll be able to listen to Danica and I slur our way through the newest episode of Doctor Whooch, posted right here at Submet. We’re heading straight into Series 9, and talk a little about our experience watching the finalé to Series 8 in the theatre with a large group of fellow Edmonton Whovians. It was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow will feature the wrap up of this first week of content, and a new feature over at the Something Different blog called 5 for Friday – which is the only weekly feature that has been added to my content schedule. Everything else functions on a strange and wonderful sliding timeline of my own mad concoction. I would explain it, but honestly, it barely makes sense to me. So. 5 for Friday. A weekly set of links to five things happening in comics, pop culture, or Edmonton in general. Ideally, all three, but we are beholden to the tides.

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you tomorrow.

With a Bang

September 22, 2015 /

Well, the week certainly started off with quite the burst of content. We’ll get to that in a bit, though.

Next weekend, I’m going to be taking part in this year’s 24 Hour Comics Day challenge – which means I’ll be attempting to create 24 pages of a comic – story, art, lettering, the whole works – in just 24 hours. I’m notoriously bad with these challenges (see any comma all NaNoWriMo attempts) but I think doing that in a room full of people is going to help. I have a vague idea for what I want to do, and that takes the form of a webcomic I may or may not start running early next year. I always have ideas for various bits of fiction floating around in my head, but never the time or the means (or let’s face it, the discipline) to see those ideas through. Can this work? I… I really hope so. I’d love to have a way to release various pressures by retreating into a world that I create and control. We’ll see how that all goes, though. It’s not as though I’m not attempting to spin a million plates all at once as it is…

HIT THE LINKS

As promised, yesterday was a pretty big day. First up, I posted a brand new edition of The Retailer’s View over at Comics Beat – and this time, I started talking about the various ills associated with variant covers.

In the current order book, Marvel alone are offering 134 variant covers (this doesn’t include a few announced retroactively, which I’ll be adjusting during the final order cut-off period). Each and every one of these variants comes with a qualifier. Sometimes you just need to order ten copies of a certain book to get the aforementioned cover. Other times, you have to order 100. Then there’s the ones where you have to exceed 150% (or whatever number they’re using) of a different comic you ordered in order to unlock a particular variant. After you meet that qualification, you can order whatever you want. You just have to spend a lot of money for that “privilege”. The problem with that is simple: whereas the variant should be treated as the means for a customer to further connect with the product, it’s usually treated as collector bait, or worse: blackmail.

You can read the full article here where – yes – I explain how I can be so against variant covers and call the store I co-own Variant Edition. Because you know someone was going to ask.

And speaking of Variant Edition, the new season of blog content running there began strong with our regular Incoming post, and a brand new edition of #PickThree, where I find a comic series that intersects between Pushing Daisies, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Pride and Prejudice. I’ll give you one hint, and one hint only: it’s a super weird love story. Go ahead and take a look.

STAY TUNED…

The store is announcing our next two Gender Is Not A Genre events later today, and they are pretty rad. Oh, and ahead of our big Geek Swap next weekend, Danica has a great post going up about some easy steps to take towards decluttering. So many things. SO MANY THINGS!

Also, hey! Want to find Variant Edition at this weekend’s Edmonton Expo? Wellll… you can’t. Sort of. We don’t have a booth this year, but I will be moderating a couple of panels and will be doing some brief loops of the convention floor before getting myself back to the shop, for work purposes.

Season 001

September 21, 2015 /

Things are about to get a little crazy here.

I’m trying something new – though honestly, I’m always trying something new. I’m really into plans, but no so into seeing them through. I’m wondering if I can change that. Over the next 13 weeks, I’m working on a schedule. I’ve planned out my writing, worked ahead slightly, and (hopefully) built in some time for it to all fall apart. My biggest problem has been the fact that I always want to do too many things – and once the deadlines for those things start colliding with one another and compounding, I usually just wipe the slate clean and walk away. Again, there is a chance that this could happen again… but I really hope not. At 30, I want to be able to get my things done. I want to be able to write and feel that jolt of creativity when words start flowing onto the page. I want to chase that high that I get when I hit the post button, and see people react to the dumb things that I said.

Anyway, for the next little while, you should be seeing a lot of words from me. The schedule I’ve built will hopefully keep the workload down (I might talk a little about how I built the schedule after the “season” concludes… if I get there) and keep the content coming. The best laid plans…

Make sure to check back here periodically for updates on what’s happening, and other various shenanigans.

Stay tuned…

Morning

August 21, 2015 /

Spending some time before the drive to work doing something other than endlessly scrolling through social media feeds. I’m afraid I’ve become a bit of an addict, and that’s one of the prime reasons why my productivity is far lower than I would like. I could blame it all on work, but I should be accounting for my downtime as well.

Cloudy out today, which should be good for a bit of reflection. I’m staring at a stack of unread comics, and man, some week sits just the most daunting thing. I love the medium, and I always will, but my capacity for intake seems to be narrowing. I still check out as much as I can each week, but I find hate volume is getting to be a bit much – and with comic companies continuing to ramp up production on volume, that doesn’t look like it will end any time soon. Over the next week, I’ll be adding more subscription titles to the Variant Edition website. Last month there were roughly 80 new selections. This month looks like more of the same.

What I really want to do is take a day or two off just to decompress and read some comics on my own terms. I want to read this week’s issue of Island and write that article about its format that has been stewing in my brain for a full month now. I want to catch up with Copra and see what madness Michel Fiffe is dropping on everyone now. So much to do and… Let’s face it, lots of time to get it all done in. I just need to buckle down and stop mindlessly floating through tweets.

More to come.

Nothing In Particular

August 12, 2015 /

The goal, of course, is to write something every day (that isn’t posted at or for Variant Edition) but that probably won’t happen for a while. So instead, I am starting at “post three times a week”, and going from there.

I’ve nearly missed my second self-imposed deadline. These are how these things tend to go, honestly.

01. There’s a brand new episode of Doctor Whooch out tomorrow, which will almost definitely not be safe for the family to listen to. I mean, it never is, but just putting that out there for whatever reason.

Quite recently, Danica and I (but mostly Danica, because girl is organized) plotted out the rest of the year’s shows and realized we should be putting a game plan together for episode 075. I may or may not have committed myself to writing some Doctor Who fan fiction. This is my life now. It seems to be pretty strange and utterly wonderful.

02. Obviously, the store has been taking up quite a bandwidth lately. A quick look at our brand new events page will show you that we’ve been quietly putting together quite a few things together, and that… that takes time. Don’t get me wrong: I’m loving every second of it, but man, there’s so many things to do when you actually own the shop. I didn’t quite realize it because the owners of the store I used to work for didn’t seem to do much of anything. I’m still not exactly sure how they get away with that, because I’m roughly 100% sure they’re not doing that work at home. So.

03. Danica and I will be moving back into Oliver after taking some time to not pay rent while the store got up on its feet – and honestly, I can’t wait. Our current commute is a solid hour one way, which eats up a lot of time – especially when you’re working every day of the week. Getting into a better rhythm a lot closer to the store is September’s goal. The remainder of August is trying to get some habits formed, so that I can start September with a solid base. We’re going to see how that goes.

04. I really, really, really need to write Comics Beat articles again. I’m still getting two or more ideas a week, but then I just putter around when free time emerges. Because hey – did you guys know Marvel’s upcoming Invincible Iron Man #1 already has pre-sales of over 300,000? Well it does, off the back of several initiatives that are surely going to over extend a few comic shops. I’m genuinely concerned about how sustainable these initiatives are, and there’s a lot of meat on that issue. But time. TIME, you guys. You might be sensing a theme here.

05. Finally – the 15th episode of Yegs & Bacon has gone up over at Variant Edition. If we’re very lucky, and nothing explodes, there should be a nice landing page for Y&B by this time next week… but no promises. Anyway, listen if you want to hear us make pretend a morning show in the podcast medium, like real adults with a business. Because you guys. We are real adults with a business.

Until next time, gentle readers.

Elsewhere: Sense8 and Humanity in Storytelling

August 10, 2015 /

Over at the Something Different blog, I finally found an excuse to talk about Sense8 – because I’ve been waiting quite a while to try and dig through my feelings on the show. Turns out, I liked it.

The show is about eight people, coming from vastly different circumstances, learning that they might be quite a bit different from other humans in a very significant way. Working with that basic concept, there’s a shadowy organization that seems bent on tracking down and eliminating this “other” for whatever reason. Those are the broad strokes. The fine detail comes when the show dips into the lives of these characters, and pulls out some wonderful stories. I will note: the show doesn’t invent the wheel by any stretch of the imagination. All eight stories are filled to the brim with story progressions that you expect to find in each style of story being told. A thief pulls a big score and ends up having to settle a perceived debt. A cop attempts to take the law into his own hands and finds himself pushing up against the organization that has defined his life. A safe romance becomes boring, and a new, exciting prospect seems promising, but a little scary – and so forth. But what the show lacks in raw originality, it makes up for by being one of the most humane look at life that has appeared in almost any form of media in years.

For more, just head over to the full post. And hey, if you’ve watched Sense8 and have some thoughts, I’d love to hear them too. Comment below or hit up my Twitter or something.

30.

August 2, 2015 /
  1. Day two of being 30 and I’m already exhausted. This is life now. Everything is crumbling. Tell Danica that I always loved her.
  2. But of course, it’s not as bad as all of that. Yesterday, we worked at the shop (because of course we did) and then Danica took me for eats at Canteen – one of our favourite places in the city. The food was brilliant as always (any place that can prepare lamb well for a reasonable price is aces in my book) and the company was dazzling so… all in all, a great birthday.
  3. As the store enters it’s fourth full month of being open, Danica and I are making another big change – we’re heading back into the city into a brand new apartment. We’re both really excited about this – and will be right back in the Oliver neighbourhood, right close to the store. It’s going to be so nice to do away with the hour long commute that we currently have going. It’s nice living out of the city, but the lack of free time has been taking it’s toll.
  4. Had a visit from my mom and sister on Saturday, and they brought with them six boxes of books and comics that I still had left at my mom’s place. We had been meaning to go back and clean them out for a while, so it was nice for them to arrive – though a little strange to get a box of memories delivered to you on your 30th birthday. I’m pretty excited to go through some of them and relive some memories from my youth.
  5. The month will be filled with writing. Have a new task app that seems to be pushing me forward in all the right directions, so hoping I can stick with that and keep things moving. With any luck, I’ll nab enough free time to talk about that this week – but I also want to write up roughly 6 retail posts for Comics Beat as well, so there’s that. Hopefully something will get done this week. We’ll see… we’ll see…
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