Today is the launch day for San Diego Comic-Con 2022, the show’s long-awaited return to in-person conventioneering at the San Diego Convention Center after two years of pandemic-created Comic-Con @ Home programming.
StarWarp Concepts won’t be part of the festivities—in fact, we haven’t attended Comic-Con since 2005 (it’s just too expensive to exhibit there, what with cross-country travel and shipping, not to mention exhibitor and hotel fees)—but that doesn’t mean you can’t experience SWC’s sort of scaled-down version of the big show right here!
In 2020 we instituted “Comic Conventioneering at Home”—our way of providing some con-related content during the virtual editions of SDCC and New York Comic Con that ran that year and in 2021. Folks are always stopping by ’Warp Central but not everyone might have seen us conventioneering, so, I thought, why not just make it a regular thing here at the SWC blog in the summer and the fall to coincide with those shows?
So with that said, you want vendors? Our webstore is open 24/7, so at any time you can order our amazing titles that range from comics and graphic novels to fantasy and dark fantasy novels, and from Illustrated Classics to nonfiction books about gaming and comics history. Not to mention Pandora Zwieback T-shirts and art prints!
Convention giveaways? Our Downloads page has a bunch of free stuff—Pandora Zwieback wallpapers for your smartphone and computer; full-color-comics; and book samples.
Artists Alley? Our Gallery area—think of it as an online artists’ alley—features two sections, The 13 Days of Pan-demonium and Visions of Lorelei, both containing original renderings of our two best-known characters by a host of artists from indie and mainstream comics, including such notables as Mike Mignola (Hellboy, Cosmic Odyssey), Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), Teri S. Wood (Wandering Star), Neil Vokes (Tom Holland’s Fright Night), Frank Thorne (Red Sonja), Louis Small Jr. (Vampirella), Dave Simon (Ghost Rider), Chris Malgrain (The Formidables), Bill Ward (Torchy), and Joseph Michael Linsner (Dawn/Vampirella)!
And while we don’t have online panels, we do have links to interviews with authors Steven A. Roman (that’s me!) and Richard C. White:
There’s my appearance on the YouTube series Indy Comics Explained, hosted by J.D. Calderon, in which I discuss my history as a writer, editor, and publisher, touch on my work for fellow indie house Oniric Comics, and promote SWC and my latest project, the nonfiction comics history From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures.
As for Rich, last year he was a moderator and guest for Shore Leave 41.6, the online iteration of the annual Shore Leave sci-fi and fantasy convention, and you can check out both of the author panels he appeared on, courtesy of Shore Leave’s YouTube channel: “The Movies/Shows That Influenced Us,” with fellow Star Trek scribes Greg Cox and Robert Greenberger; and “How Did I Get in This Mess?,” with Keith R.A. DeCandido, Christopher D. Abbott, Robert Greenberger, and Joshua Palmatier, and moderated by Howard Weinstein.
(Rich also slyly worked in a plug for his nonfiction writers guide, Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination—now available in hardcover!—which has become extremely popular with roleplaying gamers and gamemasters, and is currently being used as a textbook in the Interactive Media & Game Development program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worchester, Massachusetts.)
So even though the StarWarp Concepts crew isn’t in sunny San Diego, at least you can have a con-like experience from the comforts of your home!
(Banner photo © 2004 Steven A. Roman.)
