I think that a positive attitude is so very important when it comes to cultivating a successful webcomic. Having a positive attitude comes from understanding when there are things that you cannot change and working around them rather than hitting them in the face with a tunafish.

For example – I was on a panel several years ago with another webcomic artist who was totally angry that her friends were not reading her comic. She stated that if she found that a friend of hers hadn’t read her comic in awhile she ceased being friends with them because in her opinion they had abandoned her. She then expressed anger that Penny Arcade didn’t reply to her email when she asked them to post a link to her comic.

She went on to spit hateful fire and venom about this so loudly that the entire audience was turned off because of her negativity. It backfired, and I haven’t seen her since on the convention circuit.

Your friends and other comics in the scene are not necessarily your target audience. I am friends with people who never read comics. They know that I draw a comic, but they just don’t enjoy reading any sort of comic.

This is OK.

As far as the big comics go – most of us veterans know each other and respect each other very much, but we just don’t have time to read everyone else’s comic all the time.

This is also OK.

No one but me is obligated to read or promote my work. I really appreciate it when people read me and post links to my comic, but I consider it to be a bonus.

A relaxed attitude is a must if you don’t want to scare people off. Not everyone is your fan. They might still be your friend. This is all OK. It’s physically impossible to be universally liked. Accept this and move forward. A positive attitude is so very important when it comes to being a brand that people feel comfortable around. Forcing people to do things they don’t want to do never works, anyway.

While you are busy being nice, you are creating real connections through friends in the scene who are more likely to be able to help you when you need it. Just remember to help them if you can in the process to get a combo bonus of comics fun!

The Field of Terror is located in East Windsor, NJ.

This guy at the front was hilarious:

I guess a girl he knew was here tonight so he chased her into the Port O John and waited outside while hitting it with the basebell bat:

After this she ran out screaming and he chased her across the entire field HAHA.

The Field of Terror has 3 attractions. The Haunted Hayride, The Haunted Corn Field and The Unknown Haunted Barn.

The Hayride:

Here is a scene from the hayride:

The hayride at The Field of Terror was actually the weakest and least scary hayride I have ever been on. I hope they completely redo it. They had a few good effects on the hayride, like a giant spinning cylinder, but the rest was a bit boring. The scare actors just jumped on the back of the cart and stared at us. It was a bit of a letdown, but it was a nice day out so we enjoyed the stars and atmosphere.

However, The Haunted Corn Field and The Unknown Haunted Barn more than made up for this.

The Haunted Corn Field:

The Haunted Corn Field was a really long trail! There were so many unique scares here! They had a guy on stilts on top of a school bus! They had you go through boats! they had all kinds of crazy haunted structures! Wow! I have never seen any of this anywhere else! I was impressed.

The Unknown Haunted Barn:

The true surprise was their haunted house – The Unknown Haunted Barn. I have never EVER IN MY LIFE seen anything this unique. They had things you had to crawl under. They had things that created optical illusions – you had to figure out which hole in the wall was your escape route and crawl through it. They had all kinds of crazy rooms that were built by hand. I would come back here next year just for this house! I always talk about loving The Bates Motel for it’s great house – but this house is also great and they seem to have built most of it by themselves from their own imagination! There were almost no generic stock props here that I could tell. You really should go here to check this out! I did get one photo when it wasn’t so dark. This guy got up and chased us with a baseball bat:

Even though I was not fond of their hayride, I would definitely return here. I really liked the unique scares and the insanity that they thought up. They didn’t just think outside the box when they were making the DIY scares – they lit the box on fire and made you crawl through it. I like to see this kind of creativity – it is really the spirit of Halloween in my opinion.

The most fun I had in Orlando for haunt season 2010 was definitely at Busch Gardens Tampa Howl O Scream. If you can go to this one, I highly recommend it. I have already reviewed their Alone house, but here is my review of the regular event.

Click each photo for a larger version!

Posters:

A giant display of TVs at the front:

BGT impresses me on a few levels. I dig the creative implementation of haunts, the welcoming atmosphere, and the fun things you can do on Twitter and Facebook while you are daydreaming about actually going to the event. It is really a triple dose of fun for my brain. The them this year was a serial killer rocker chick named Sylvie and her band, MyX. I initially wasn’t sold on the concept of a rocker chick serial killer, but later changed my opinion. This concept may not sound like the scariest thing ever, but I thought it it actually worked. It was a very unique angle and a refreshing break from all of the normal cliches of Halloween. How many freaking insane asylums, ghosts, zombies, and thanksgiving turkeys on stilts have you seen? A lot! I welcome a curve ball as long as it has a comprehensive story. If Sylvie didn’t have a sizable story behind her, I would gladly complain about it – but they certainly delivered the goods in terms of an immersive world, fun things to do and cool things to read. This makes me even more excited to see what kind of icon they will dream up for 2011! It’s genuinely unpredictable! How cool is that?!

Houses:

MyX Revenge Rocks: was a new house for this year.This was Sylvie’s house. I actually didn’t find this one to be very terrifying, but I did find it to be a lot of fun. It was set up like a concert venue. You enter through the side door next to a ticket scalper and get into more than you bargained for when you are chased by the band’s crazed and bloodthirsty fans. The set pieces were AMAZING. AMAZING!!!! Even though it wasn’t very scary it was just..oh my god awesome.

Taste of Blood: A Different Vein: This house was OK – it was better than last year’s version. I don’t know why, but that’s just how it felt to us.

Nightshade Toys: Son of Nightshade: This house was amazing last year and it was just as amazing of not more so. This is clearly one of the strongest houses. A finale where you are chased by fat men in tutus with chainsaws is particularly disturbing. I always love the hallway of besty wetsy dolls that inevitably pee on you..but you don’t know which one will! (This is a benefit to having a haunt in Florida – you can use water!)

Death Row Vengeance: No Escape: This house was another just OK house, but they did something really cool in here. They had a guy mimic a cheap animatronic electric chair prop, but surprise – the prop is not a robot – it’s a REAL GUY!

Trapped in the Walls: Ghostchasers: This house is always pretty cool. They added a part outside of the house where you can see that a paranormal investigator is researching in the house. I love me some atmosphere and storyline so I was totally into it.

DEDer: Extreme Rush: The sorority house is always cute, but it is more of a “look around” house than a “run for your life” house.

Deconstruction: The Doctor is In: This is another one of the strongest houses! A plastic surgeon has gone wild! It was pretty scary and a whole lot of fun.

Scarezones:

Most events seem to have cut back on their scarezones. Most events suck for this reason. BGT does not suck. They not only had many well-defined scarezones, but they actually had MORE SCAREZONES than were listed. YES. Scarezones really are the heart of the event. They may not seem super important, but if your scarezones suck it will drag the atmosphere down. Let me tell you about this awesomeness:

Xtreme Fanatics: This was an area of bloody Hot Topic punk people who would chase you about.

Road Trip: Some college students break down and are chased by werewolves. The best thing about this one is that they either ask for help or try to save you ask you get chased .Was immersive and fun!

Crazed Love: I LOVED THIS ONE THEY HAD CHICKS WITH CHAINSAWS THATS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Spiders and Snakes: They had a spider queen sitting on her throne here, giant spiders, and people running around screaming because they were being eaten alive. There was a guy on a slingshot type device. It was fun.

Light of Doom: I actually don’t really remember this one? I think we went through it – it was rather understated.

Bonus Secret Scarezones:

Gravediggers: We happened upon a random area with zombie gravediggers! None of these bonus scarezones were on the map so that made it a big surprise!

Clowns: There was a secret area with insane clowns! One guy here was so funny..walking next to us, “Hey buddy, so DO YA LIKE CLOWNS?!?!?!”

Slider Zombies: BGT has freaking free ranging zombies that are equipped with metal knee and hand pads that will run and drop to their knees -sliding at you while making sparks. THIS IS FREAKING AWESOME OMG.

Stilt monsters: I have no idea what these guys were but they were both adorable and awesome.

If all of these bonus features weren’t enough, they also had a special area where these two fellows would crack jokes at passers by – just like Stadtler and Waldorf form the muppets! This was really fun!

Of course, Sylvie and MyX were performing on the main stage throughout the night.

The concert ends when she finds a victim and kills him:

Here are some shots of the gift shop:

Here is the Blood Relations show:

I found Blood Relations to be very fun – they basically joked on pop culture and had characters like Lady Gaga and Tiger Woods. Gaga kept stealing things from everyone else. I heard that this show was actually written my Michael Roddy this year – he is the person who used to run most of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights and write their Bill and Ted show.

We did all of the coasters that were running, but did not have time to see the Fiends show or go to Club X (bar and photo op area). Usually 1 day is fine to see all of HoS, but if you are doing the Alone house like we did – it is best to note that you might need more than one day to absolutely see everything.

I’m already ready to go back in 2011! I think I am going to invest in an external speedlite so help my camera work in the darkness.

The Corner of Chaos is a rather nice farm haunt that is located in East Windsor, NJ. They have 3 attractions: The Barbaric Barnyard, The Trail of Treachery, and The Wooded Wasteland.

They say that they have another attraction – The Chaotic Carnival – but I think they were referring to a handful of scare actors walking around near the lines and the bonfire in the center of the field. That’s not really an attraction in my opinion.

Was this haunt good? Again, this is a farm haunt, so it’s not going to be comparable to the big theme parks, but I still thought it was a lot of fun. First we did the Wooded Wasteland. This was a toxic mine from the 1900s. They do pulse you here which is awesome. Pulsing is when you only let a few people in at a time so that you are not close to other people.This means that you will wait in line for a significant amount. They let small groups in only once every 10 or so minutes. Still, we managed to be behind the one group of girls who were so stupid that they managed to even screw this up. We actually ended up passing them because they had stopped to engage in an AIM conversation or something on their mobile phones. Some people need to be kicked in the ass and these girls were on that list. I was glad to pass them. It didn’t seem that the scare actors were doing much to make them keep moving – in fact I think one guy was having a fun conversation with them. WTF? Still, The Wooded Wasteland was very fun, aside from these annoying cows.

The Trail of Treachery also had a significant wait due to pulsing, but some scare actors were there to entertain us. I found that the employees here at this haunt were very friendly and funny. The Trail went through a corn maze that had some unique props like TVs and things – most notable was the girl in a white dress that was crawling around like the girl in The Ring. The poor girl was probably so sore every night because she crawled for a very long distance chasing us! It was really scary, though!

The Barbaric Barnyard was rather fun. They were playing really loud Arch Enemy through most of it – so they have good taste in metal. This was probably their best attraction. It starts out as a barnyard area but you end up going through a few different areas including a pitch black house and a backyard full of bizarre people.

This haunt is definitely a fun time. It isn’t massively groundbreaking, but it definitely delivers what it says it does and has some unique scares. There aren’t many photos because unfortunately this place is not very photogenic. The signs are a bit too dark to show up without a flash and all of the props are actually inside the attractions and not out where you can photograph them. I hope that they keep building on this because I had a lot of fun.

Do you guys read Wapsi Square? Well, get your butt over there because I am this month’s Wapsi Girl – In my profile that is up right now I talk about overcoming hardship and all kinds of stuff here.

READ IT! :)