Preview: "S.O.S." - Video 7 of 8 & Booktour '09 Kickoff!

"S.O.S." can be found on page 93 of "Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology" and is parody piece commentating on the topic of outsourcing. Visionary Raju "Bobby" Raval, founder of "Superhero Outsource Services" aka "S.O.S." provides a "super" support system for the thrifty Superhero in today's tough economy -- eliminating the costly hassles of sidekicks or extra team members.

Keep an eye out at the end for a certain ill-tempered, cowled knight - whose mood can be best described as "Dark" when Bobby Raval accidentally steps into the frame. Written by Tanuj Chopra and drawn by Alex Joon Kim, this wonderfully satirical piece is one of the many examples of how SECRET IDENTITIES highlights relevant, world issues by sometimes taking it to the absurd.

This ends the preview trailers from me personally and was the one I had the most fun with. I kept crackin' up finding little places to slot in gems like adding the explosion during the whole 'cut the red/blue wire exchange', the cheesy yet appropriate Falcon Crest theme and then elevator music over the "Please Stand By" still.

And then I just went to town and got myself hoarse doing the whole shouting match at the end. It's not in the book but I kept staring at that last Batman panel I chose to end the video with and kept debating with myself: "Should I?" "Naw." "It'll be funny." "But it's not in the book." "Oh screw it, what the heck..."

You can see in the end credits the "movie magic" behind it. Basically I just printed out the panels, taped the Batman one to a dresser and Bobby onto a ruler (making him into a puppet to 'walk in'). I'm sure Greg Pak (from the last video) or Youtube's HappySlip would know how to really animate folks walking in -- but alas, I've got the editing software that came with my 6 year old computer. I'm pullin' out all the tricks Robert Rodriguez style!

I also had to make up for our big botch in the book -- we somehow left out artist, Alex Joon Kim's bio in the contributor's section! Anyway, check out the last preview next week when co-editor Keith Chow pieces his story -- "Peril" together! Then the fllowing week, I've got one last big 10 minute documentary to air that will delve into 95% of the book's stories and origins from interviews with the editors themselves.

This Monday, we kick off our booktour in the mid-west and share this thing face to face with actual copies of the book for the first time! Stop by if you're near!

Mon, March 30:

4:30pm - VONS Comics, West Lafayette, IN.

7:30pm - Purdue University in Fowler Hall, West Lafayette, IN

Tues, March 31:

7pm - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Noyes 100, Urbana, IL.

Wed, April 1:

1pm - Challengers Comics, Chicago, IL.

4pm - University of Illinois at Chicago

Thurs, April 2:

7pm - Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

And then from Apr 3-4, we'll be making an appearance at the MAASU Conference hosted by the University of Michigan with 600 stand-ins.

We made these cool postcards that also double as masks to stand in for us in our absence. Wish we were there to see 600 people walking around wearing these things! But maybe at this year's comic con in San Diego!

Here, Avery models the front and back of these wearable postcards.

Btw, I didn't even tell her to pose that way for the first shot -- scary.

Then this shot of me is when all the fun pictures and excitment of smelling the shiny postcards died down and I slowly realized that I'd have to personally assemble and attach the elastic bands to six-hundred freakin' postcards!

Here's the completed batch before they were shipped out to Michigan. Wear them well next weekend, MAASU!

My hands have now contracted a very rare type of carpal tunnel syndrome classified as "Guerilla-Marketing-itis".