Ridiculous Opinions #163
I am currently sitting in the Sandstorm Comics booth, where I have been planted for the day. Sandstorm Comics is the first UAE-based comic company. Last spring, they opened up for submissions for their first batch of comics and I was one of the writers that was chosen for the project.
Over the last six months, I have been writing a graphic novel for them called Four Frontiers. Basically, it’s the story of an organization that has been created to deal with the strange and unusual circumstances that arise from portals to other parts of the universe that open up in various places around the world. Basically, it’s a fun, adventurous romp around the world to deal with all kinds of weird events.
That was the original pitch that was presented to them and I began writing it in September. I finished the whole thing in about a month (140 comic pages, 198 script pages). We went through a couple of months of editing and finally ended up with a lean 120 page graphic novel. Now, we’ve got an artist and a concept designer on the book and it looks like things are happening. Once I get the approval, I’ll send some concept art your way.
But the weirder part of all of this is that I am now sitting here at the Middle East Comicon. You may think, “There’s a Comicon in the Middle East?” and I have to admit that I thought the same thing. But it turns out that, yes, there is a Comicon based in the Middle East, and yes, it’s actually huge. I came yesterday to visit and check out a bit of the booth and there was an endless stream of people flooding through the gate and that was a Friday afternoon! Now, it’s Saturday morning and I am expecting even more people to come through.
It’s also strange because there’s a giant LED screen in the middle of the booth that not only shows concept art from the comics, but also a documentary that they filmed in November about the start of the company. It’s pretty disorienting to see a six-foot tall version of your fat face on a big screen behind you. Everyone kept saying, “Look! There’s your part!” and all I could do was cringe.
So, I have arrived and am prepared to talk to people and draw a few sketches for the kids that make their way through the door (though there are not many…it’s mostly teens and young adults). It’s interesting to me that I have come all the way to the other side of the world to end up doing this, but here I am!
(Keep in mind, I am writing this prematurely, because you never know when these things will fall apart…such is the way of the world).
I will give you more of an update in a future installment, but today begins my very weird day at a comic convention in the United Arab Emirates. It is a testament to the very simple notion that you never know where life is going to take you in the grand scheme of things and that you should always be open to new and unusual experiences. Let’s see what happens!
