Ridiculous Opinions #227
So, today I am attending Storm the Block, which is a comic convention that is really about artists and comics. It’s a kind of promotional party for Sandstorm Comics. Some of you may or may not know that I have written a comic for Sandstorm called Four Frontiers and yesterday I got to see the first, official preview of the comic. Here’s a picture:
I’ve been talking about this book for the last year, so it’s nice to see an actual, physical copy of it, even if it’s only a preview copy. Sandstorm wanted something to give away here at Storm the Block, so they printed up these preview issues as a teaser and to build some momentum for when the actual book gets published in the spring. One side of the book is in English and the other is in Arabic.
Anyway, Sandstorm has spared no expense when it comes to this festival. It’s an outside festival that is housed below the Yas Creative Hub, which is where the film companies and other creative media endeavors are located. Storm the Block is sponsored by TwoFourFiveFour, a media company that houses Imagenation, which is one of the companies that produced Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.
That’s probably more information than you need, so enjoy this look at my booth here…
And here is the entrance:
That’s Yas Creative Hub in the background. There’s a giant screen on one of the buildings that occasionally has a video of me in silhouette on it. So weird.
I’ll end this short newsletter here with the surreal moment when I met the Chairman of the UAE Department of Culture and Tourism, HE Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak. This is the man who is behind not only Storm the Block, but the Louvre, the Guggenheim, Warner Bros. World, Ferrari World, and pretty much every cool thing that exists in this city. Here he is reading my book. Notice how dignified he looks and how I look like I just got off the couch, wiped the chips off of my chest, and swallowed a rather large bite of my sandwich to greet him…
Classy, Randall.
Not pictured are the eight cameras that were filming us the entire time, or the gigantic screen that was broadcasting our exchange back behind us. If you’re here, come by and get a free book.
