And so while I don’t care about whether I’m old or not, I do care about youth subcultures. I’m a product of them, I propagate their ideas, but I am no longer young. Until recently I was correcting friends and family who were telling me that I was old that — actually — I had one more year of youth. For years I’ve been saying that 37 is officially old. Because it’s not really mid-30s, is it? It’s more… late 30s. And late 30s, let’s face it, is practically 40. Which is old.

However, I was wrong. For me, at least, 36 is old. It’s all about The Dad Voice.

We had a kid last October. At first, I confused The Dad Voice with The Paranoid Voice, the overly cautious killjoy of an inner voice I often ignore without consequence. But recently I’ve been realizing that The Dad Voice is right. Like, all the time. That little voice that says you shouldn’t leave Sidney sitting on the couch? Whoa — there she goes — caught her just in time. That voice that says maybe it’ll annoy Susan if you start moving desks around in the middle of the day, maybe you should ask her first? Yep, that was something that totally could have been avoided. That voice that says, maybe you should have some lunch before you start losing your mind?  Yes. Eating makes everything OK again.

As you see, it’s sometimes kid-related, but not always. It’s a broader shift in my mindset that’s making me more conservative.  I’ve always felt that babies are the most conservatising force on earth, in that they give you a reason to care more about security than freedom, and now I’m seeing it from the inside out.

I am already following The Dad Voice without question. Which is disturbing, but change often is. On the pro side, being well clear of the 18-34 demographic causes most ads to fall laughably short of their target. Less energy spent being infuriated means more energy to feed Sidney.

Salgood has made a trailer for the graphic novel, check it out below.

That video (part of my Pleasure Circuit Overload series of vids about videogames) has gotten a ridonkulous amount of attention for what it is and it seems to keeps bumbling into places it doesn’t belong. (CTheory? The New York Times? Whaa…?)

But just so my head doesn’t inflate too much — I didn’t win the Shuster award for best comics writing I was nominated for last week. My new pal Cecil Castellucci won it for her excellent P.L.A.I.N. Janes graphic novel about a clique of nerdy girls transforming their town with art-terrorism.

Undeterred, I’m diving into researching and writing a new comics project, Time Management for Anarchists: The Comic. Which is gonna be drawn by Marc Ngui, the genius behind the My Trip avatar skins (pictured below).

It seems random, but everything in my life connects if you have enough time and graph paper to map it out.

Top: Canadian Tourist skin. Middle: Attack Mime skin. Bottom: Street Priest skin. Created by Marc Ngui for My Trip to Liberty City.

It’s a good excuse to interview one of the founding sponsors of the AGI project, Jon Mak, a Toronto game designer who Newsweek dubbed a “wunderkind”. His abstract videogame Everyday Shooter came out for the PS3 and now it’s available on the PC — if you’d like a chance at winning a free copy, leave a comment in response to the MP3 interview I did with him below. In it Jon explains why Guitar Hero is fun despite being a sucky game, that he learns best through failing, how he made ES while working part-time for money thanks to context switch, & how the work gets better the more you take away.

I’m doing a launch for Therefore Repent! in a party room on  Sunday with theculturalgutter.com, and doing these three back to back panels:

How I Did It All Wrong And Got Published Anyway
“Mom’s favorite aphorism was ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ How you can learn from published authors’ mistakes (and unexpected successes) and tighten up that learning curve. ”
Saturday, 1:00-2:15 P.M.
Capitol B
M: Eileen Gunn, Kathy Steffen, Jim Munroe, Jeannie Bergmann

Here’s Where The Story Ends
“Maureen McHugh’s novels, some say, don’t have proper endings; others think that since life goes on past the end of the novel, the ending’s a matter of the author’s choice. We’ll discuss where to end a novel, how much denoument to give the characters, and other questions of wrapping things up.”
Saturday, 2:30-3:45 P.M.
Wisconsin
M: Jim Munroe, Ellen Kushner, Rachel Swirsky, Maureen McHugh, Paul Stevens

Does It Have to Get Boring Before it Gets Good?
Do you suffer from zombie fatigue? Are you getting superbored with superheroes? Excellent books like World War Z and Soon I Will Be Invincible seem to be the exception to the rule of endless zombie and superpowered crap being produced — but are they? Or does there have to be a pop culture saturation of a certain kind of genre–a laying of the groundwork–before we can get the kind of detailed and finessed dissection and resurrection of tropes that these books pull off?
Saturday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Assembly
M: Liz Gorinsky, Jim Munroe, David Schwartz, Nicole Bunge, Ellen Datlow

TORONTO, ON - April 30th, 2008 - For Immediate Release

Infest Wisely, a lo-fi sci-fi movie about chewing-gum delivered nanotechnology, is coming out on DVD May 15th with a launch screening at The Royal Cinema.

The movie was shot in Toronto for $700 by seven directors, each contributing one episode to the intertwining story, all written by indie producer Jim Munroe.

“It’s been all over the continent at this point,” said Munroe, “We were flown out for the world premiere at a hacker convention in Las Vegas, it was shown under a bridge at a bike-in in Montreal, it was screened at a new media festival in Vancouver and a political science fiction conference in Chicago. But this will be the first time since the sneak preview that we’ll be screening it in Toronto, and we’re super excited it’s showing at the Royal.”

The Royal, one of the last independent cinemas in the city, is a College Street institution that was recently saved and renovated back to its art deco glory. “There’s nothing like seeing a movie in a theatre,” said Craig Macnaughton, who co-produced and directed one of the Infest Wisely episodes. “The lights go down, the sound of the people around you… it’s a great experience.”

But the creators haven’t limited the movie’s distribution to theatrical screenings. Thousands of people have downloaded the movie via BitTorrent and podcast from www.infestwisely.com. Then why bother with a DVD version? “It’s kind of funny — it’s costing twice as much to press the DVD as it did to shoot the movie,” Munroe pointed out, going on to explain that sponsored screenings allowed them to raise the funds required. “But as a physical object it gets out into the world in a completely different way, and to different people.”

Munroe has released videos via his website and on disc and so has a basis for comparison — in fact he’s worked in so many formats and mediums he’s been dubbed “a pop culture provocateur” by the Austin Chronicle. “It was also fun to get to include director’s commentaries from everyone.” The audio track includes do-it-yourself tips and tricks from each of the directors, who all have different takes on indie filmmaking.

The DVD is being distributed by KRK Media, based out of Waterloo, ON with over a hundred retail clients across Canada. “They really understood the spirit of the project,” Munroe said. “They distro a really eclectic mix — everything from B-movies like the Troma films to docs like End of Suburbia to arthouse movies that don’t get wide release. Since Infest Wisely is somewhere between B-movie and arthouse, it’s a good match.”

Thurs. May 15, 9pm
The Royal (608 College St, Toronto)
$10 admission or $15 admission and DVD

REVIEWS

“Infest Wisely is a great lo-fi sci-fi nanopunk flick” -Wired.com

“If only there were more people like Jim Munroe making movies like Infest Wisely.” -The Globe and Mail

“The film is chock full of interesting ideas and images.” -The Toronto Star

For more reviews: http://infestwisely.com/news.html
For more background: http://infestwisely.com/about.html
For the trailer: http://infestwisely.com/trailer.html
For the presskit: http://infestwisely.com/presskit.html

CONTACT

Screeners available upon request.

Doing market stalls probably won’t make you rich or sell a truckload of books. Our best market day ever made about $750, mostly we make a lot less than that. Beer money, really. But even if you don’t sell a lot you’re still spreading the word and marketing your product, which is important in the long run. We learned what kind of markets work for our particular books and what sorts of places just don’t. The only way you can figure this out for yourself is by getting out there and trying different markets. Here’s some tips for running a successful market stall.

• Get the word out. Help promote the market or zine fair and let potential customers know you will be running a stall. You can do this by your email list, posting it to your blog or making an event on myspace/facebook. The more people who know what’s happening the busier the event will be.
• Make your table pretty. We have a tablecloth and spent a few bucks at the Reject Shop buying plate holders to display our books. Take a look at the table from the front when it’s set up to make sure it looks appealing to passers-by. Keep tidying your table so it looks neat all day. Free cookies or lollies will draw people to your table.
• Be friendly. You have a better chance of selling stuff if you engage with the people who stop at your stall. Start a conversation, ask a question or make a comment about a particular item that they are looking at. This was quite hard for Locus at first because we’re not super-salesy people, but after a few goes we got much better at doing it and now it comes naturally.
• Keep starting conversations. At a non-book market or zine fair, people often won’t even stop to look at your table; books aren’t for everyone. This is when initiating a conversation is really important, because once they know that the books you have are recipe books or graphic novels or a literary magazine, they might remember that they have a niece’s birthday coming up and she’s into that sort of thing.
• Have one or two lines ready to describe your stuff when someone asks ‘what’s this?’. This can be surprisingly tough but after a while you get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. For example, with one of aduki’s books, Stick This In Your Memory Hole, we mention the cultural commentary aspect of it rather than drop the P-bomb (politics); with Mini Shots it works best to open by saying it’s a new concept magazine series rather than that it’s a short story magazine.
• Encourage people to pick up your books and flick through them. Again, something might catch their eye. If they buy, give them a fresh copy that hasn’t been thumbed through by a hundred people.
• Offer a discount. We sell all our stuff cheaper than retail price at markets and zine fairs. Tell people that everything is on special or put the old price and the sale price on clear display. Even if it’s only a buck or two, it can help to sway a decision to buy.
• Take loads of change. It’s the one commodity that’s always in short supply at a market and you don’t want to miss a sale because you don’t have the right change or have enough change. A receipt book can sometimes come in handy too.
• Keep a tally of how many of each item you are selling. If you have a busy day it’s easy to forget exactly how many copies of a certain zine or title you sold.
• Have small items for sale. Locus make badges to sell for $1 or $2. Many people just don’t buy books or don’t have the $10-20 cash on them to buy your stuff, but will drop a few coins on a little item that catches their eye. We spend our badge money on lunch or use it to cover stall costs.
• Have a business card, flyer, free chapbook or magazine (Emily uses aduki magazine, Lisa uses business cards) to give away. Again, people might not buy your book there and then but might be interested in finding out more. Giving them something with your web address means you might make a sale further down the line.
• Have a signup sheet. If you send out email newsletters have a sheet so people can put their email address down if they want more information.
• Have a variety of things for sale. If you’re an individual with one book, team up with someone else or stock other titles if you can. Having a few things to look at means people will spend more time at your table and there’s an increased likelihood that there’ll be something they’re interested in.
• Charge a commission. If you do stock someone else’s titles, don’t be shy to arrange a commission or fee with them to help you cover costs. After all you’re the one doing the work on the day.
• Take food and water. It can be surprisingly tiring standing around for hours talking to people and selling your stuff. If you don’t know what’s going to be available to eat, take food so your energy doesn’t flag halfway through.
• Keep track of what you sold versus what you paid for the space. Some markets are free, which is great, and others are cheap but may be quiet. Paying $50 for a table at a busy inner suburban market might seem like a lot, but if it’s really busy or an affluent area there’s a fair chance you’ll make that money back. Know when to give up though – if you’ve been to the same market two or three times and had a dismal result, it’s fairly likely it’s just not your market. Likewise, if you find a good thing stick to it.
• Don’t lose heart. Some market days are awful and you can sit for hours without selling anything. Other days you don’t cover costs. Doing markets with someone else is always a bonus in these situations, because they will help keep your spirits up (and watch the table if you need to go pee).

Sticky took the pictures. More indie press news and tips at Emily and Lisa’s blog.