SDCC@Home - Saturday: Surviving COVID as a Creator, Advice from the Writer's Guild and the most LIT AF Virtual Movie Party Ever !!!
Joseph Watkins’ ID Badge
SDCC@Home provided an experience unlike any other. Sure, it wasn’t at San Diego, but they went above and beyond to still provide an entertaining experience that offered the masses who couldn’t go or those who will never go, a glimpse into what makes this convention fantastic. I know, the cosplay was minimal and for what its worth, they didn’t have to create a virtual experience, yet they did and for that, I think it’s only fitting that I thank them in my own way!!!
SDCC didn’t just deliver, it brought a new perspective into the realm of pop culture via the virtual experience. Many would have overlooked the panel aspect of this con, but, for me, with these precious jewels that SDCC was dropping for free, I would be a fool to not pick them up.
And it is here that Saturday’s journey led me into the outer realms of pop culture. No artwork or funding projects this time. This journey focused on the financial aspects of being an artist and how I’m able to keep my profits in the age of COVID.
“Hustle or Die”. This seems to be the mantra for all creatives @ SDCC. In my opinion and that of SDCC, understanding the finance - business side of marketing your products is a sound way to keep your revenue flowing.
Broke, COVID and the Forbearance Game
As a creative myself, I never took the financial aspect of pop culture into consideration. I always thought that if you drew or build something and sold it, you would make a profit and that’s it. Yet as time passed, I noticed how drawing, building and creating not only generates income, but questions arise from it. The question of ownership rights; who gets the royalties; what percentage? Those questions always seem to come up with the people I associate with and while that is very critical for any creative, that wasn’t the purpose of this panel. What was important here were the financial challenges of just staying afloat to pursue your craft in the COVID ERA. Karen Martin from the the princess project moderated a panel of financial experts and creatives and they explained what you should do financially in this pandemic age. As the pandemic hit us hard AF, the finances of many creatives were, for some, scattered to the four winds and as we hope to go back to the days of yesteryear, it looks like the financial evolution of our income will forever be changed.
Eric Atilano, a mortgage broker from C2 Financial provided a gem in regard to understanding your options in regard to applying a forbearance to your mortgage, car note or credit cards:
For homeowners:
Eric Atilano aka Wolverine
(A) “For those with income still - If you’re getting an income, please do not go into forbearance. It’s not going to be a beneficial aspect to your [financial] profile. It’s not a benefit to tell lenders that you can’t pay this debt.”
(B1) If your income has taken a hit, forbearance may be a qualified item for you, but be very, very careful what you forbear on, okay? Let’s say that you have enough in savings, and you got a little bit of a side project, so you only chose to forbear your auto loans or some credit cards, but you want to refinance? Those two are really going to kill the ‘refinance option’. You got to think like an ‘underwriter’ okay? What you need to know in owing your home [and] maintaining the ownership of your home is your affordability window okay?
(B2) A lot of home owners in America right now are being squeezed very, very, tightly because of this pandemic and because of the unemployment and all the other ingredients that are very, very face forward on us right now, don’t feel alone. Just know how to strategically place yourself in the right position.
(B3) If you do take a forbearance, its not going to be a negative on your credit score, but it will add to the size of your loans, so if you owe like $300K on your mortgage and your monthly payment is like $2500 a month and you forbear it, it’s going to add $2,500 a month to that $300K balance, so every two months its five grand and every four months its ten grand. Think about that, think about how important it is to put that money aside. Now let’s say you get your job back, months from now and you’re like, ‘oh, I was on forbearance for six months’, well guess what, when you sell the home, you’ve just given up a ton of equity because of those payments [because] it had to absorb right? So you need to be conscious on how you play that game….
Financial debt is no laughing matter, especially in the age of COVID. As I ride around my area, I see multiple businesses closed with the ‘For Rent’ sign becoming a franchise. Additionally, I also see homes for sale everywhere, with 4 to 5 homes on the same block for sale. This panel was definitely a necessity for my well-being and for those who think forbearing is the way to go.
Finance for Creatives, Moderated by Karen Martin - SDCC International
The Advice from the Writer’s Guild
Writing is complex and full of criticism, yet the technique to become a better writer is all around. From social media channels to YouTube to LinkedIn groups, the craft of writing is essential for telling stories in almost any platform in pop culture. From movies to video games to novels to comics, writing is the all-encompassing skill that makes creativity in pop culture possible. After all, understanding Spider-Man is impossible without a proper dialogue and story line.
Tricia Narwani, editorial director of DEL Rey Books, interviewed some great writers to offer their viewers words of wisdom on becoming a writer, improving your abilities and/or for those seeking advice on improving their craft. The panelists included an all start line up that some of you might be familiar with:
Kevin Hearne, author of The Iron Druid Chronicles
Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching
Micaiah Johnson, author of The Space Between Worlds
Sarah Khun, author of Haunted Heroine
Josh Malerman, author of Malorie, the sequel from the critically acclaimed novel and Netflix movie, BirdBox.
Each of their experiences varied, but the love they had for their craft was ever present. From watching the panel, they were in their own lane as they discussed the rules and regulations they adopted that guided them to their status. They were very straightforward about their words of wisdom and did not hesitate to be vocal. For example, author of Hunted Heroine, Sarah Khun, explained how her wisdom varied being a woman from a marginalized community:
Sarah Khun
“I thought about this a lot, because I, you know, I want to take this very seriously and I think that the best advice I’ve actually gotten was to stop taking every single piece of advice I heard; whether that’s online, in person, whether it’s at a convention or conference, whatever it is.
You know, when I first started writing, I was very sort of devoted to the idea of doing things “right” [air quotes], like learning how to do things right and so I really sought out advice and I looked for it everywhere, I was really thirsty for it, kind of every, every level I went through and what I eventually realized is a lot of people giving advice, and this is not saying all people or to cast shade on those who do, but it’s sort of presented in this way, where it’s like I did ‘X’, therefore if you copy my path exactly, you will also have ‘Y’ results and I think as we all know now at this point, most creative industries don’t work that way. If you do ‘X’, you might not get ‘Y’ result; you might get a completely different result, you might get no result at all and I think this is especially important for those of us who are writers from marginalized communities….taking advice from white writers; me, moving through the industry is obviously not the same. So, a lot of that advice is not going to apply the same way, it might not even apply at all. Once I figured that out, I did not have to actually take every single piece of advice that I got, I felt much more free and much more able to let in the things that were actually going to help me.” - Sarah Khun
When one is grinding away at their craft, grabbing advice from everywhere is essential, but as literary companies use implicit bias when choosing authors for their next great American novel, the advice you receive from someone who is ethnographically different from you could be a gift or a curse. For African-Americans in the publishing ecosystem, that could be the difference between getting published or not. If you do however, receive advice from an author that’s culturally or racially similar, the outcome may be a little bit different and may make the goal line so much closer to access.
For example, unrelated to the panel; Kerri K. Greenidge, author of the book; Black Radical: the Life and Time of William Monroe Trotter, stated that on her journey to publish her book, she ran into a lot of opposition in which publishers stated that she would never get that “book published and no one was going to read a book that didn’t have white people as a protagonist” and they also stated, “who was going to read a book about a Black man that nobody had ever heard about”? Undeterred, her success was contributed by the assistance and advice of her Black female colleagues who steered her in the appropriate direction to success.
Aside from that discussion, the panel also brought awareness to the craft that made me realize that as a writer, it’s necessary to know yourself and when you express yourself in writing, you are giving a piece of your values, your integrity and your soul and when advice is given in regard to it, its important to use selectivity in choosing what will work for you and what needs to be eliminated.
Even if that advice comes from a literary great.
Authors on the Best Advice Ever !!! - SDCC Moderated by Tricia Marwani
Saturday’s Lit AF Viewing Party…
‘Drank’
When COVID hit, the virus ruined everyone’s pockets, especially those who were ready to attend San Diego Comic Con to buy awesome swag, get signatures and party like it’s 1999. Well, SDCC 2020, staying ahead of the disease, decided to do things a little differently and incorporated a series of movie panels to the loyal followers, who wanted to hang out and party…Netflix, Disney+ and Funimation style. And let me tell you….I HAD A BLAST !!! Learning from zoom and other virtual conferences prior to, the event planners @SDCC thought ahead and placed guardians in the panels to keep the movie watching experience to a safe level.
Saturday’s movie exploits were awesome. Apps were discovered, alcohol was consumed and no one went home drunk…..because they were already home…HA. Many movies were seen, but the movie that got the crowd hyped, in my opinion, was Thor: Ragnarök and it was here that my movie watching colleagues and I came up with a ‘drafted cast’ of an ‘alleged’ new Marvel Universe Movie: Valkyrie.
Marvel, I hope you’re reading this…. and like it…
Thor: Ragnarök
Armed with my beverage, SDCC used the group movie watching app, SCENER, to bring us together at film Panel 2 to enjoy the funniest Marvel movie in the universe (my opinion); Thor: Ragnarök or as I call it, the Odd Couple. As we were in our localized environments, we, in our own way, contributed to the laughter of the film by offering our opinions, thoughts and theories about the movie. Moderated by Comic-Con’s own: ‘Wendy-Comic-Con’, she hands down, provided assistance in making sure the crowd talked and operated in a PG/PG-13 manner. Also present was, ‘cci-films2’ as they assisted as well. The security was excellent and everyone felt safe and comfortable at home.
As we started to drink our make-shift shots, we called out the famed lines and it was during the fight between Valkyrie (played by Tessa Thompson) and Loki (Tom Hiddleson), that the famed scene which depicted the fall of the Valkyries…..
…inspired us to cast the females for The Valkyrie Movie. We didn’t have a release date, we were just having fun with it, but then the group started calling out some serious talent and what turned into fictional fanfare, turned into a movie that could possible happen:
Valkyrie Cast:
Tessa Thompson Charlize Theron
Michelle Rodriguez Stephanie Beatriz
Zoe Kravitz Willow Smith China Anne McClain
Uma Thurman Amandla Stenberg Keke Palmer
Anna Kendrick Keira Knightly Gal Gadot
The list kept getting bigger and bigger; so much so that the moderator, ‘Wendy-comic-con’, placed a few names in the mix as well. This was a great experience and as the buddy comedy came to an end, all I could think about were the final days and hours the con had left. Another highlight of the movie party was when Captain Marvel entered the chat during Avengers: Endgame. I’m not sure if she was really there, but during the movie, ‘Wendy-Comic-Con’ said that Captain Marvel entered the chat and with my enthusiasm loaded fingers, I shot her a text thanking her for standing up for diversity in pop culture.
I’ve never been to SDCC and when I was given this opportunity to see it virtually, I didn’t hesitate to attend and take full advantage of this event. While I can’t speak for my other writers or attendees, I had a blast and this was definitely a con event I will never, ever forget. Thanks!!!
SDCC@Home Rocked!!!!
Catch you in 2021!!!
