3Q3A 016
Road House was underrated.
This is a comics-related newsletter, so this is the space where I’m supposed to give an update on the San Diego Comic Convention. (Real groundbreaking idea there, I know.) If you weren’t aware, this was the first Comicon since 2019.*
*EDITOR’S NOTE: Obviously, they canceled the 2020 and 2021 shows over the stress about figuring out what was happening in the Gene timeline and whether or not Jeff was going to blow his cover! Better Call Saul Mondays at 9 on AMC! Followed by Patrick Swayze in the 1989 classic ROAD HOUSE! American Movie Classics….Y’know like Road House.
I won’t bore you with stories about how great it was to see people in person again (at least from the bridge of the nose up) and how exciting it was to have our first 3W3M booth up and running (You can see some pics HERE if you missed my mid-con update).
But while I’m not boring you with stuff like that, rest assured it was all true!
The highlight however was the event that made us the most nervous…our first-ever Founders get-together with the 3W3M team.
The skittishness was not because we weren’t 100% positive you are all beautifully sophisticated patrons of art and science with working credit cards. Of course, you are! I mean, look at you!
No, the skittishness was down to the fact that we weren’t actually sure anyone was going to show up after the always wild Saturday night of the con. But you Thwimmers did not let us down! One thing that apparently connects us all is the love of free food!
So the Sunday of Comicon got off to a terrific start thanks to the couple dozen founders who stopped by the rooftop patio of a joint called Rustic Root near the convention center. We broke bread, eggs, coffee and avocado while discussing comics, film and sundried other topics for about 2-3 hours. Hickman even moved around the crowd, working the table like a newly married bride at the reception!
The 3W3M community is certainly a broad and interesting one. This has quickly become an event I’m looking forward to doing more in the months and conventions to come.
I also want to thank Thwimmer Mark Di Gino and his wife Monica for taking a couple pictures near the end of the event. (Sorry we didn’t get a picture with everyone. I just didn’t think about it until it was too late.)
Anyway, it was an absolute blast. Can’t wait to see more of you as the 3W3M keeps chugging across the world!
GOOD THINGS HAPPENING TO GOOD PEOPLE
-Very cool to see my old friend Phil Jimenez (certainly best known for his work Team Titans) winning an Eisner –alongside my old partner-in-crime Kelly Sue DeConnick -- for their amazing Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons. If you haven’t seen Phil’s acceptance speech, you should go find it.)
-One of my favorite people on earth Pornsak Pichetshote and artist Alexandre Tefenkgi won an Eisner for the gripping and revolutionary graphic novel: The Good Asian. It’s easily one of the best reads of the past year. Pornsak came into the comics industry as an editor but that has somehow not held him back!
-And finally, winning big was James Tynion who won a well-deserved award for Best Writer and who runs a popular newsletter here on Substack. I’ve never met the guy (so I can’t swear he falls into the “good people” category mentioned above, but he seems nice!), but he’s very good at his job and I love seeing a local guy do good! Go check him out if you haven’t.
If you want more info on the Eisners, go check out Heidi’s annual write-up on Comics Beat. She’s the best at it:
https://www.comicsbeat.com/sdcc-22-2022-eisner-award-winners-top-moments-and-more/
REWARDS UPDATE!
Lots of good news on the rewards front.
FOUNDATIONS - These are printed and at the distribution site ready to head your way as soon as everything else is printed and we make the trip to the distribution center to sign everything. A few lucky subscribers even stopped by the 3W3M booth to pick up their FOUNDATIONS copy early. If you are interested in doing the same at C2E2 or ECCC, they will also be available there.
SOURCEBOOK – Printing continues on these. As I’ve discussed here, these are being printed at a very high quality, so each stage has required more time and hands-on approval than we first realized. However, we are still on track to be done this month and then we will begin signing and shipping out to you along with the other rewards in September.
MEMBERSHIP CARD - Some cool news is headed your way later this week. Basically, we are doing something much better than what was initially promised and intended. Stay tuned.
No Qs this week as we need to go prepare for C2E2 (plus I just received a new top secret document from Al Ewing that I need to read! Shhh.), but, as always, leave them below and we will get to them next time.
And keep a look out for more news as the week goes on as well as the ongoing look at the individual chapters of the SOURCEBOOK we’ve been publishing.
Viva Templar!
Stephen W.
08/31/22
I signed up as a Founder after sitting in on the panel at SDCC and I just finished reading through the backlog of posts and comics. Everything looks great and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next, but I do have 1 very random question that occurred while I was reading The Lab comic - is there any sort of life-extending technology available? The Highmaster makes the comment that its been "a lifetime" since any progress was made when he's telling Taxe why the experiment is being shut down, and I initially took that as just a turn of phrase, but on looking back at the art, Taxe does not appear to be significantly younger in the panel showing the initial success, which would be odd for an amount of time passing that would be described as a lifetime, even if its just being used metaphorically. Which then got me thinking that since the cycles are apparently hundreds or thousands of years long, some sort of life-extending/anti-aging tech would be a way to follow certain characters throughout more of that timeframe. Its definitely a minor point, but I'm always a lore-junky for stuff like that and I figure what's the point of having access to the creators and developers like this if I don't take advantage of the opportunity to ask, right?
It looks like the unofficial Discord was deleted by the owner. Any plans to start an official one?