Thursday, May 1, 2008

Double "S"

We live in an era when movie trailers have trailers. The tease keeps starting earlier.

Speaking of earlier...

Boys of Steel will now be at Comic-Con in San Diego
at the end of July—yes, the book itself. The release date was moved up from August 26 to July 22—probably because of Comic-Con.

I, however, may not be there. It looks unlikely that I'll be able to go to all the events I had originally planned to attend this year. Comic-Con is probably the easiest to cut because
I'm confident the book can trumpet for itself quite capably there. Most fans need little spiel to interest them in Siegel and Shuster, and those that do will be ably served by Random House.

Three years ago, I was first struck with a guerilla marketing idea for Comic-Con. I envisioned producing T-shirts and handing them out free at the entrance on the first day. Limited run
—when they're gone, they're gone. The purpose of the shirts would not be to spoil fanboys' perfectly accurate Ferro Lad costumes but rather to direct people to Boys of Steel at the Random House booth.

I did not want the T-shirt to feature the book cover. Instead a symbol had popped into my head, something that would grab attention from down a crowded aisle, something familiar yet new, a tease. So scroll down for my tease of the tease:










Even though these shirts would not be for sale, even though I'd happily print a small disclaimer on them, even though only a small quantity would be produced, the lawyer friends I consulted about this image advised against using it.

What do you think?

2 comments:

Bob Buethe said...

Cute idea... but I'd be afraid to wear a shirt with an "SS" emblem because someone might think I was endorsing the Nazi Schutzstaffel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS

Marc Tyler Nobleman said...

Thanks, Bob. Yes, someone else made the same comment to me privately. But then, wearing an S alone could make someone think you're a huge Seattle SuperSonics fan. :) Possibly a less serious misunderstanding...