Emerald City Comicon returns to Seattle this April 7th through 10th. Nerd For A Living will be presenting two speaker panels at the show!
Emerald City Comicon is the premier comic book and pop culture convention in the Northwest, taking place in beautiful downtown Seattle, Washington. In 2015 Emerald City Comicon soared to 80,000 people over three days and featured hundreds of comic book guests, celebrity guests and more! With the 2016 show expanding to 4 days, it should be the biggest ECCC ever, and Nerd For A Living will be there providing programming.
If you’ll be at the show, don’t miss our two Saturday speaker panels, featuring some amazing guests! Details below!
Marketing (Isn’t) Magic: Promoting Your Art Without Selling Your Soul
Saturday, April 9th, 2016 | 1:30-2:30pm | Room T301
As a busy creator, marketing and promoting your work can be a daunting task. This accomplished group of professional artists, creators, business owners & marketers will share valuable anecdotes & advice on how to build an audience for your art or small business online and on-the-ground.
Moderated by Adron Buske (Host of the Nerd For A Living Podcast), panelists will provide tips for creating your brand, online and event sales/promotion, managing your social media channels, crowd-funding, and more.
Featuring Jaimie Cordero (CEO & Glitter Jedi of Espionage Cosmetics), Danielle Davis (Founder & Chief Casbah Rocker of LadyKiller Marketing & PR), and Jen Vaughn (comic book artist & colorist – Avery Fatbottom: Renaissance Fair Detective; Archie Comics).
Click here to add this event to your ECCC calendar.
How to Be a Nerd For A Living: Discovering Careers in Pop-Culture
Saturday, April 9th, 2016 | 5:15-6:15pm | Room T301
Do you want to build a career in the ‘nerdy’ industry you love, but you’re not sure where to begin? This panel of professional ‘Nerds for a Living’ will share advice and insights into a variety of careers that exist within comics, gaming, animation, film, and more.
Learn how our guests got their start, and get advice on what it takes to create a path to the career you want from guests Jaimie Cordero (CEO & Glitter Jedi of Espionage Cosmetics), Dane Ault (artist and founder at Monkey Minion Press), Janet Lee (comic artist – Return of the Dapper Men; Lost Vegas), Samantha Kalman (game designer, programmer, and artist – Sentris), and Kevin Konrad Hanna (film director, Clockwork Girl).
Moderated by Wendy Buske (Marketing Director for Nerd For A Living).
Click here to add this event to your ECCC calendar.
Guest Bios
Dane Ault
Dane Ault is the co-founder of Monkey Minion Press, with writer Ashlie Hammond. They are a married team living and working in Portland, OR. They believe that fun, accessible, geeky art might not change the world, but it couldn’t hurt. (And it might help.) Dane is an artist and graphic designer. Monkey Minion Press produces art prints, T-shirts, greeting cards, kids’ books, and much more.
Monkey Minion Press recently had a smash success Kickstarter campaign for their book Eureka: The Art of Science, which funded over 400% of its original goal.
Listen to the Nerd For A Living interview with Dane & Ashlie.
Follow Dane Ault & Monkey Minion Press
- Follow Dane on Twitter: @monkeyminion
- Like Monkey Minion on Facebook
- Check out the Monkey Minion website
- Follow him Tumblr
Jaimie Cordero
Jaimie Cordero is the CEO / Artistic Director of Espionage Cosmetics, an all nerd, woman-owned business based in Tacoma, Washington, creating make-up for nerds, by nerds. Founded in 2011, the company has seen enormous growth in the niche nerd market. Espionage Cosmetics has expanded from a living-room operation to a Tacoma-based studio space with 8 full-time employees, several part-timers and an army of interns. Bi-monthly product launches and fully produced ad campaigns pour out of the studio manned by a full-time wardrobe master/cosplay expert, an interns and conventions coordinator, and Jaimie. Her business card says Glitter Jedi.
Espionage has recently opened their own physical storefront, The Geek Boutique in Tacoma, and the bi-monthly subscription box service, Boom!Box.
Listen to the Nerd For A Living interview with Jamie Cordero & Espionage Cosmetics.
Follow Jaimie Cordero & Espionage
- Follow Jaimie on Twitter: @TheGlitterJedi
- Check out the Espionage Cosmetics website.
- Like Espionage on Facebook.
- Follow Espionage on Twitter: @EspionageMakeup
Danielle Davis
Danielle Davis is the founder and chief Casbah rocker of LadyKiller, a marketing, PR, and event company in Seattle, WA. Danielle is a marketer, publicist and entrepreneur with a career spanning gaming, tech, pop culture, comics, music, and Hollywood. She has a particular focus on comic-cons and gaming conventions. She founded Ladykiller in summer of 2013, to design and execute transmedia marketing campaigns as well as producing live events to promote and represent a wide variety of brands and talent. Ladykiller’s clients and partners include The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Nerdist Industries, Tom DeLonge (Blink 182, Angels & Airwaves), Marvel, Oni Press, LootCreate, NerdHQ, Wacom, and Welcome to Night Vale.
Along with business partner Jeremy Morris, Danielle is the co-founder of I Heart Comic Art, an annual benefit event in Seattle’s Capital Hill, dedicated to promoting and encouraging local indie comic artists and providing artist grants. She also serves as a juror for Indiecade: the International Festival of Independent Games.
Through Ladykiller, Danielle leads a team of marketing and event specialists. She travels all over the country – and sometimes outside of it – with her clients.
Listen to the Nerd For A Living interview with Danielle.
Follow Danielle Davis and Ladykiller
- Follow Danielle on Twitter: @LadykillerDD
- Follow Ladykiller on Twitter: @LadykillerRocks
- Like Ladykiller on Facebook
- View Ladykiller’s page on LinkedIn
- View the Ladykiller website
Kevin Konrad Hanna
Kevin Konrad Hanna is an American film director, writer, and artist best known for directing the animated film, Clockwork Girl, based on his graphic novel of the same name.
He has worked as director and art director for Disney, Google, and Popcap.
Kevin is also the art director for the recently announced Plants vs Zombies Heroes. Kevin is scared of snails.
Follow Kevin Konrad Hanna
- Follow Kevin on Twitter: @frogchildren
- View Kevin’s FrogChildren Studios website
Samantha Kalman
Samantha Kalman is a game designer, programmer, musician, and consultant devoted to playfulness, inventive mechanics, and persistent meaning. Currently she’s exploring the affordances of VR, including immersion in impossible spaces and relationships with enchanted objects.
Her past game projects include her own experimental musical puzzler Sentris, which she funded through Kickstarter and released on Steam in August 2015. She also made contributions to Gravity Ghost by Erin Swink and the upcoming Sea of Solitude by Jo-Mei interactive. She was QA Director for Unity while they were still a scrappy startup, and helped thousands of other game developers bring their projects to life. She also spent some time at Amazon, where she built interactive prototypes to explore UX for Fire Phone.
Follow Samantha Kalman
- Follow Samantha on Twitter: @SamanthaZero
- Check out Samantha’s website
Janet K. Lee
Nashville-based Janet K. Lee is the artist and illustrator of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel Return of the Dapper Men, as well as the Wonderland Alphabet, Marvel Classics: Emma, Marvel Classics: Northanger Abbey, and Lost Vegas. She was also a contributor to Womanthology: Heroic.
Self-taught, she developed her layered art style after her son was born because it was portable and dried before a toddler could get his hands into it. After achieving critical acclaim as a gallery artist, Janet made her first foray into illustration with the Twitter serial, Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome by New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis.
Listen to the Nerd For A Living interview with Janet.
Follow Janet K. Lee
- Follow Janet on Twitter: @Janet_K_Lee
- Check out Janet’s website
- Shop her Etsy store
Jen Vaughn
By the light of the sun, Jen Vaughn is a narrative designer for Glu Mobile on the Nicki Minaj game, a past narrative designer for the new Plants Vs. Zombies: Heroes and former marketing manager for Fantagraphics Books.
By the glow of the moonlight, she is on the coloring team for the new sexy Archie, a cartoonist of the Cartozia Tales anthology and recently finished a travelogue for ComiXology and Mental Floss about French convention called Angouleme called JENLAGGED. She’s currently working on a one-shot by Ryan K. Lindsay.
Ask her any questions about going to the Center for Cartoon Studies or living in Vermont under Bernie Sanders’ reign.
Follow Jen Vaughn