Wow, what a week! Before I go on, I want to encourage EVERYBODY to go and vote for who should be in the top 3 contestants at AT&T BLUE ROOM. Watch videos of those pitches and vote there!

Thursday was the big day for everybody– I was an “off camera” judge and a lot of the contestants didn’t know I was even in the room, but I like to do my work that way, and after seeing the heat lamps beating down on Scott, John and Donald, I’m glad I wasn’t sweating it out up there! I sat and took detailed notes as each contestant pitched their project. Let me add in here, it was really nice to meet John H. Williams (creator of Shrek) and Donald Faison (Dr. Turk from Scrubs!). Donald is a really avid reader, and while he was surely brought in to lighten the mood and joke around, he KNOWS his comic books FOR SURE. At lunch I had a geek moment as Donald and I were talking about both of us playing the RPG “Heroes and Vigilantes” ages ago. Anyway, really down to earth guys there, and Scott Rosenberg’s mind is always spinning seeing angles on stories or where something could be 5, 10 years from now.

Picking the top 10 was hard. There were many solid concepts to choose from, but we did our job and came down to the top 10 you can see up there at the link.

I’ll interject a cool geek moment here. At one point in the middle of the pitches a little entourage of people come in to check things out, they don’t know who I am of course and I don’t know who they are, but I discover from a whisper from Scott’s assistant that these folks are from Endeavor Talent Agency. I thought, well, they’re probably here for Donald Faison, but it turns out, Platinum is signed up with them. I saw the main guy motion to his friends who walked in, he was pointing out the standees and saying “Look! Look, there’s Hero By Night, that is cool!” —- Now the reason that was cool to me was, I could just imagine people blowing smoke up my butt about how great HBN is or how they want to sell it, but seeing the genuine semi-private passion they had and knowing about it, I could tell they REALLY dug it, and that made me feel good.

The Platinum Studios party that night was held up on the roof of the Marriott at a club called Altitude. That place rocks. I was so happy to see how far we’d come from just a year prior, and that these 50 finalists were all in as much of awe as I was about how big the contest got this year. It always felt like something special to me, but this year was even moreso. I was being shuffled around the party to meet different important people and sponsors, and they introduced me to the Endeavor agents who I had seen earlier in the day, and their enthusiasm for meeting little old me, the creator of Hero By Night, felt good. Not “go to your head” good, but good. The main guy asked where I lived– Pittsburgh says I, and he jokingly asked if I would always like to live there. “Hey, if the offer was good enough I could convince my wife to move out!” I joked back. Another agent asked me if I had any other ideas or comics, to which I replied, of course I do, but Hero By Night is my primary focus for now. I want to build him up into a legend, and that can take some work and time. Wink.

So, I guess word had spread around the party that there was talk of a Hero By Night tv show in the works, which I cannot confirm or deny, but many people were gauging me for my reaction to see if I was excited and this was the general honest to goodness reply I gave to most everyone: I draw comic books. I mean, I’m not a dummy, I know how to write movie scripts and pitch, and I know how all that works, but my passion is drawing the comics and telling the stories here. If I’m paid to do that, I’m more than happy because that’s always been my dream. TV? Movies? SURE it’s exciting, but I’m leaving that WORK to the pros. I’ll be happy to help out in ANY way I can to make HBN a success anywhere it goes, but the heart of that is the comic book and I have to keep that beating first and foremost. I’m very lucky to have a partner like Platinum who would keep me in on the loop creatively or let me control the vision for the stories. They have my back, and that’s why I always have theirs. Just like in a bar fight! Right!?

I’ll never let any of that success go to my head, although I can see now how some creators would probably get lazy and enjoy it too much or get some giant ego. Forget that noise. BUT I can tell you that it’s a little mindblowing to think that one year ago, I was here doing my own comics in semi-obscurity, and now I’m being represented by the same people who represent Ben Affleck and Adam Sandler. Uhm…. yeah. I have an ongoing book coming out, and crazy buzz around the comicon about it just by word of mouth. What a crazy year, huh?

And again, I have it all to thank to the COMIC BOOK CHALLENGE and Platinum Studios. So go vote for this year’s top 3, and help kickstart some other careers!

Oh, I also did the Jim Lee Poker Tournament thing. I suck at poker, that’s for sure. At one point in a round, I just tossed my cards in to fold, but it was out of turn and the guy next to me scolded me a little to wait- I was like, “oh, I’m not use to that.” — “What kinda poker do you play?” he says…. “Pittsburgh Poker” says I…. He asks what kinda poker is that? I said the kind where when we get dealt a bad hand we throw the cards at each other and say “F@ck this game!”

Got to meetup with Adam and Wiz while I was out there. Good guys. Scary talent. Last I heard, Adam Black was lost in Tijuana - — I also got to meet Nate Piekos in person, but didn’t have time to hang and get food with him. Next time Nate! I spent late Saturday night at the Hyatt lobby with old friend Dan Taylor and his girlfriend. It’s good seeing old friends.

Wizard World Chicago is in two weeks. See any of you there?

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