Supanova Saturday

Been Supanovaring this past weekend at Sydney Olympic Park. Turned up at about midday and took a look around the Dome pavillion. Not really interested in the cosplay or the wrestling, but really interested in the creators. Had a great chat to Nicola Scott (DC's Birds of Prey) who is looking particularly fine, and who is as thrilled as we are about the casting of beautiful and brainy Aussie model Megan Gale as Wonder Woman in the upcoming George Miller directed film Justice League based on the DC comic series. Caught up with Jason Paulos of Rat Race Comics and picked up his latest Eeek! anthology of "sixteen tales of groovy horror to chill you to the marrow!' Chatted with Marcelo Baez of Diabla fame who Jozef and I voted as having the friendliest smile and most welcoming manner in the entire convention. His sci-fi and children's stuff is exceptional – check out Little Hammer Studios. Tad Pietrzykowski of The Dark Nebula – one of the most dedicated and hardworking writers we've come across – took great delight in exhibiting his new range of graphic novels with sales coming thick and fast on the first day of the event. Caught up with cartoonist Steve Panozzo from the Australian Cartoonists Association who was as energetic and enthusiastic about his craft as we have ever seen. Got off to a shaky start with the seminar session for creators on Book Proposals for Mainstream Publishers which Julie was presenting with literary agent Brian Cook, only because we had to swap venues just as the session was about to begin and we lost about 15 minutes of speaking time under an already heavy time constraint. However, the second room was even better than the first – nice lighting, more intimate and classier. Thanks to the wonderful Tim McEwen who got us organised (for the record Tim we'd love this room for whatever ASA Comics/Graphic Novels Portfolio session we have on offer in 2009). Julie did her very first Powerpoint Presentation which worked quite nicely (next time the audience will get some more fancier special effects!) The audience was great but we ran out of time for questions so if you want to ask any or want a copy of the notes, please email us at: blackmermaid@blackmermaid.com. No time for schmoozing after the presentation as we stayed and watched the Will Eisner doco, which heightened our respect for the master himself and his contemporaries and has prompted us to seek out more of his work. Good day on the whole.