Broken Frontier

I’m writing these words at literally the last minute, finishing up this column at T-minus three hours until the guest lecture occurs. As I mentioned last week, I have three guest speakers—Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, and Matt Kindt—coming to participate in a panel discussion on their work in the medium of comics. The lecture takes place today (Friday, April 2) at 1 p.m., and, as the hour approaches, my nerves are getting the better of me.
I really have absolutely nothing to worry about, I know. I’ve been preparing for this event for weeks on end, and everything has been taken care of. Again, last week I outlined exactly how I got these three comics professionals to travel all the way down to my tiny little town to speak. However, getting them to come and speak was just the tip of the iceberg. Even interacting with them to make sure they all filled out forms for the school, got issued their checks and had driving directions—that stuff was easy compared to all of the other work I had to do to get this event underway.

For example, events such as these are not successful without publicity, so I had to spend some time getting word out about the event. Luckily, I was not alone in this task, because my school has a woman on staff who is the Coordinator of Public Information and Marketing. Essentially, this job title means that she directs publicity for the school, so all I really had to do was call her up and talk to her about the event for a good twenty minutes. She then got the word out to the local papers in the form of a press release, and she put information about the event up on the school’s website.

But these press releases were really only one aspect of the publicity I had to do, and the newspapers that received the information could then choose to use the story or not, depending upon how slow a news day it was. I couldn’t rely on press releases to do the job alone, so I had to create some eye-catching informational fliers to hang around town to help get the word out. This task was made a bit more difficult by the late addition of Paul Hornschemeier to the lecture line-up. I had the fliers done at that point, but his joining the panel forced me to scrap the original flier and create a new one. Still, even creating these one-sheet ads was relatively simple. The only really hard part about it was finding artwork that was representative of the work of the speakers and would also intrigue people who saw it enough to get them to come.

Once the fliers were complete, I had to get them seen. Of course I plastered the school with many of these fliers, lining the hallway with the ads so that students couldn’t help but notice them. The ones that were hanging in my classrooms I even pointed out to my students, as I offered them extra credit if they attended the lecture and wrote a brief report on it. I also sent several fliers out in the mail to every comic shop in a hundred mile radius, hoping that their customers might be interested in attending. Some fliers also went out to the art and English teachers of area high schools in the hopes that they would bring their classes as part of a field trip.

The only real cost of all this publicity was the time it took to get it done. Copying the fliers (twice) was free; the colored paper I used was paid for by the school. Even the postage itself was covered by our mailroom. But additional monetary costs were raised in renting some equipment for the event. Reserving the auditorium for the lecture was free of charge, and the school’s video projector (which we’ll use to display the speakers’ artwork) cost nothing to use. However, the auditorium has no built-in sound system, so I had to requisition microphones and sound equipment, as well as pay a technician to set it all up for me. Plus, I’m told I have to compensate the custodial staff for setting up tables before the event and taking them down afterward, as well as for any cleaning they might do. When I add it all up, I’m about a hundred dollars over budget on this event.

Luckily some of the other people I’ve got helping me today are volunteering their time, so I won’t be taking a hit to my wallet for their services. I was able to convince my wife to help out today, despite her lack of interest in comics. She’ll be videotaping the event, and a co-worker will be using my digital camera to snap a few shots during the lecture (some of which you’ll get to see next week). My office assistant will be getting paid to be there, greeting people in the lobby, but her salary comes out of the school’s pocket, not mine. Finally, the four students who are serving as ushers accepted compensation (read: bribes) in the form of some extra credit.

The other difficult part of preparing for today’s lecture was deciding the topics of conversation. As moderator of the panel discussion, it’s my job to keep the conversation flowing; I need to give the panel members questions that can get them to really go into detail on their craft rather than just answer yes or no. I also have to try to ask questions that are, of course, educational (since this is a lecture) but also entertaining. A lecture such as this is completely unsuccessful if it is dry, so I have to try to keep things interesting.

I will, of course, start off with introductions of themselves and their works. As my long-time readers would expect, I’m going to be working in some comics advocacy into the program. And what better way to start off than by talking about the stories they tell? Besides, there will be a book signing at the end of the lecture, so perhaps I can help the speakers make some sales, too.

I will also ask that most general of comics advocacy questions: Why tell your story in comics and not another medium? What do comics have to offer that other media do not? I’ll also try to get them speaking on how they deal with people who are skeptical or look down on their profession, since that description would suit most of the audience members quite fittingly.

I’ll give them some general publishing questions, such as what it’s like to work on your own on a story versus collaborating with a partner. I might also ask them to explore the differences between self-publishing a comic and working with a publisher. Some general artistic questions will find their way into the mix as well, things such as how they decided upon their art style and which artists influenced them the most. Finally, I’ll be leaving some time at the end of the lecture for the audience to pose some questions of their own.

I hope that the audience has some questions for them, that they enjoy the lecture, and get something out of it. I hope that the speakers make some sales off of this event, and that we can convert some people into new readers. Next week I’ll let you know how it all turned out and if those hopes were fulfilled.