WhiteFire Comics

WhiteFire Comics at Hal-Con 2016 photos and review.

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I had a big goal this last year to shrink my booth and make it portable and scale, I think the mission is accomplished, It was tight behind but I pulled it off!

After a few years of setting up shop at Ottawa Comic Con I had decided it was time to mix things up and try a new convention. My new challenge? Take on the biggest geek-fest in the Atlantic provinces Hal-Con, which just happens to be located in my home province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The “Hal” part of Hal-Con is a take on the the city I was born in “Halifax”. I planned for a year with the task shrinking my booth to not be as grand(but still cool) being critical, then invested a ton of time to get 3 of my comics published. After teaching a local print company about color calibration, I was armed with the “The Forsaken Future” number one and two and a flip comic of “Gabriel – Hand of God” and “Quint”, To get me to my promised land I rented a Grand Caravan as my trusted warhorse and loaded my gear, and hit the road. The sixteen hour drive from Ottawa, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia went well as we broke the trip up with with what seems to be the most popular stop-over spot of Edmustron, New Brunswick.

I ended up with a great deal on a Hilton Suites & something in Halifax that was blocks away from the Scotiabank Centre, and after transporting my gear. Finally I got to setting up my booth with the help of my sister and nephew…then I noticed something was missing at my booth… The power outlets to plug in the 47 inch TV. I had just lugged cross country with a huge stand. It was the main reason I had drove(16 hours each way) over flying(1.5 hours each way). I had confirmed I as suppose to have power via email multiple times, so I continued to set-up with my side-kicks help(suspecting villainy). Then stalked Hal-con staff and tracked down someone in “charge” (power joke) not it was no it was not Electro!. The all powerful one told me I would have power by the morning and refuted if I will not have power “please let me know so I could remove the TV from being in the way”, as it was tight behind the booth(and I am a heavy weight not a lightweight), I then again was promised I would have it. The morning of the convention came and guess what, I had no power. This was very disappointing as I had put great effort to get the TV to the convention and significant effort in to creating a slide show(that nobody would see). I counted on the TV to create interest. Of course the Hal-con staff member explained they had unexpected issues and then added a Canadian “Sorry” multiple times. All good!   Continue reading →

A cheap way to create your own card set using Vistaprint and a paper trimmer.

I am always looking for different ways to do things, this week I was exploring how I can reprint or create a new WhiteFire Comics card set. I ended up finding a cheap way to do this by using Vistaprint and a bit of elbow grease on a paper trimmer. In a nutshell, what a discovered was that Vistaprint has an oversized postcard that can be print on thicker stock and on these oversized postcards you can fit 4-up standard collector cards(2.5x 3.5 inches).

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What the front page looked like in CorelDRAW X7 4-up. The lines through the middle are the cuts I had to do(they have arrowheads). The other cut-lines are done by Vistaprint.

Here is a breakdown of the process…

  1. Create your cards and art in a layout software, I use CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7. Keeping print bleed in mind. Link to what bleed is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleed_(printing)
  2. Layout your cards to the Vistaprint oversized postcard size of Width 2135×1535 that includes the bleed. 4-up see the graphic. You will need a back and front graphic/page.
  3. Go through the Vistaprint process and make sure to upgrade to the paper stock.
  4. Once you receive the order you cut the postcards into four typical trade cards. In my case, I used a paper trimmer I bought at Staples years ago.
  5. BLAM! Now you can make your own card sets and print low numbers or high numbers of sets as long as you don’t mind doing some cuttings.

Continue reading →