Dallas Comic Con

Last weekend Lizzie and I went to Dallas Comic Con! It featured almost the entire cast of Firefly with photo ops, autograph signings and a reported 60K projected attendance. It took place in the Dallas Convention center and upon arrival on Friday night we headed straight for the dealers room. My first impression was confusion. The pace was huge and under construction and well, there wasn't but a maybe few thousand people there total. The dealer room was quite large, think Gencon sized for those con going readers and I noticed there was a ton of kind of Fan artist style vendors. Of course they had all the regulars which was great but it was interesting to see that there were a ton of booths with custom t-shirts, art, and stuff that was basically unlicensed material that I guess falls under the "parody" section of copyright law.

Don't get me wrong, it was really cool and most of the stuff was well done. It was just different from what I'm used to. The likes of William Shatner, Stan Lee, and Nathan Fillion were guests of honor here. So it was no joke.

We attended the Nathan Fillion Q&A and the Firefly Q&A and both were so fun! It was so cool getting to hear almost the entire Firefly cast speak. Really, most of them seemed shocked that so many people still care about the show. That panel alone had 4500+ people that packed the room. Lizzie got her picture with Nathan Fillion which was a huge bucket list thing for her and it was so awesome seeing her get to meet him. We also met Tate from the movie make-up show, Faceoff. He was insanely nice which made us even bigger fans. We had a blast all weekend, ate good Tex Mex and enjoyed everything about Dallas and the con. (We even got Han Solo frozen in Carbonite ice trays!!) This was one for the ages. I love traveling with Lizzie, we always have a great time wherever we go, but this was just wonderful nerdy indulgence around every corner.

Lizzie and I at the Red Carpet

Lizzie with No Face

Lizzie with Tate from Face Off

Nathan Fillion at his panel

Fireefly cast at their panel

Ghost Busters!!!

Lizzie with Fluttershy

Cool Dragon Lady

When L. Ron Hubbard Came Down from Outter Space

I'm not sure how to even start this... So much has happened that my head is spinning, quite literally at times. I was home for three days after Toronto and I was back on the road heading to Atlanta for Dragon Con. We arrived around 9:00 on Thursday evening where we went directly to Pre-reg to get our badges... Of course they closed the line so we were out of luck. After a quick recovery pint, we were back at it exploring the calm before the storm in the D*C hotels. You could feel the buzz in the air. The lobbies and halls were full of people ready for 4 days of fandom and general insanity. Friday we woke up super early and got our badges then I bolted back to the room to get ready for the "New Voices In Steampunk" Panel where Kimberly Richardson, Emilie Bush, Clay & Susan Griffith and I talked about Steampunk and read sections from our novels. Despite my general dislike for reading in front of a crowd, I pulled off my section without too much of a hitch. The panel went wonderfully, with everyone chiming in on the different aspects of steampunk and steampunk literature. Good times with amazing people... I really can't ask for much more.


Decatur Book Festival On Saturday I took off from Dragon Con to brave the sun in Decatur, GA for the Decatur Book Festival. Thirty thousand people converge on this book fest for all things literary. I was at the Echelon Press booth and holy cow, it was amazing. And for the first time in this blog's history, you get to see a video of me all giddy as I sign someones Kindle... Under Charlene Harris' autograph by the way.


After the fest I went directly back to Dragon Con where we hit the party scene trying to get pictures of the lunacy and generally people watching. There's nothing that can overwhelm the senses quite like Dragon Con. Despite my lack of energy, it was an amazing time. I got to hang with a lot of friends and met a ton of good people. Can't wait for next year! Speaking of good friends, Bill Harris is an amazing steampunk gun maker with his company, The Venusian Airship Pirate Trading Company. He made 2 guns which he debuted at Dragon Con from Thomas Riley. Here's a picture of Cynthia's yet unfinished revolver from the beginning of the book. Thanks Bill! You rule!


Steampunk Tales #8 Steampunk tales is an online digital short story magazine full of some of the newest steampunk writers. I have a story in the latest issue called "Double Crossed at Gray Raven Mill". This story was born at St. Louis' Steamposium to benefit Cystic Fibrosis research. The good, Baron Bon Bar won that auction and well, 5 months later I'm happy to say, it's out! Check out this issue with my story and other stories from Cindy MacLeod, and G.D. Falksen here: http://www.steampunktales.com/

Next up I'm heading to The Bookmarks Book Festival in Winston-Salem, NC this weekend which should be an absolute blast. I don't know my booth number yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to find me. Come and say hi... I should have the new Sky Pirate Patches available. If you mention this blog I'll give you something for free. There's so much going on it's hard for me to keep up with it. Seriously, things are crazy. In addition to all the writing and traveling I'm doing for Thomas Riley, there are super secret things in the works as well. I'll give you a hint on one of them... My Gencon/Origins/Megacon friends will be super excited about it.

Gencon

Gencon was honestly a last minute thing. I'd heard of it for a while now but I never grasped how big it really was. Thirty thousand gamers and pop culture fanatics descend on Indianapolis for not only "the best four days in gaming" but also the largest four days in gaming in the world. While attending Origins with the Frenzy Universe we were told over and over again that we simply have to attend Gencon.


At the last moment there we were, off to Gencon.

First off this con is much like a mini San Diego Comic Con but with a much heavier focus on gaming. Seriously, if you're into games especially table top and RPG, this is the place for you. Most of the time, the isles are packed with people where moving is difficult. If you have agoraphobia or Enochlophobia well, you might want to stay home. I arrived on Wednesday night and by 9AM the next day we were off and running at the booth. Once again the amazing ladies at Frenzy Universe had me at their booth. They're kindness and help means so much to me. I could say thank you a million times to them and it wouldn't be close to enough. The coolest part is that you'll never have a bad experience with Frenzy Universe. They're bent on providing the best shopping experience and best products out there. If you don't know already, I highly recommend them. In fact my favorite outfit came from them! Sorry if I talk about them all the time but they're seriously that awesome.

So what can I say? Even for an author, Gencon was amazing!I debuted the brand new Dreams of Steam Anthology from Kerlak Publishing which my story, Engine 316 is included. All my copies sold out by mid day on Saturday. I was 6 copies away from selling out of Thomas Riley as well. Super good con and wonderful people as usual.


In addition to the Frenzy Gals, I got to spend time with wonderful romantic steampunk author Elizabeth Darvill, Fantasy author Stephen Zimmer and Horror author Michael West.


Four day cons are a tough gig but they're also fun as can be. Gencon this year came with another bonus as I was interviewed for Dragon Talk Radio by Jon Klement on the first night of the con. Take a listen to the hour long radio show HERE


Ok, ready for fun pictures?

Here's an awesome working dog that allowed them to put goggles on him. He really would have sat there all day. Awesome dog!


Wil Wheaton loves a good hug.


So this guy walks by the table and starts freaking out. I wasn't sure why until he informed me that his name was Thomas Riley. Too Fun!



Felicia Day


This group always finds me at cons and I love them for it. Especially since they dress up differently each time.


Weird but awesome. On my way home I passed this. Who wouldn't want a pirate ship as a playhouse?


Next Up:
I'll be in Memphis TN this Saturday signing Thomas Riley at Hastings at 2PM, then I'll be signing at Books-A-Million in Souithaven MS on Sunday at 2PM. If you come and mention this, I'll give you a high five.

San Diego Comic Con 2010

I'm a six year veteran of the San Diego Comic Con. We originally went on kind of a whim to see some weird new media things and wow, who would have ever expected that it would have turned out to basically be the new red carpet?

So this year the Good Ensign and I trekked off to San Diego, checked into the 500 West and lived out five days of "do whatever the hell we want" while being surrounded by every new scrap of movies, tv, art, comics, fandom, media and insanity that dares to show it's face in 2011. As per tradition, we went directly to Fred's (A chain tex-mex place) for celebratory beer and Chicken Chingaderas. That night, we were into preview night, roaming the seemingly endless yet familiar exhibitor hall in search of new goodies. Put it this way, the street signs outside of the convention center were written in Klingon. Really:


Despite going every year, it's hard to accurately describe how massive and crazy Comic Con is. Think 150 thousand people and all of them are trying to get your attention. Then think it's somehow even crazier than that. This is not a place for those with Agoraphobia or Enochlophobia.

So Thursday we hit the exhibit hall again with fleeting plans to attend any panels that day. That's how it usually goes down. We plan to do a bunch of stuff but it never happens because we're doing something else. That evening we attended the art toy company Munkey King's party at Bar Basic which is always a fun event featuring pop artists doing live paintings and beer. Can't forget the beer. Here's a lame picture of Joe Ledbetter doing the live painting.


The amount of stars on the floor this year blew away previous years. Sure you may bump into Glenn Danzig or Seth Green but this year there were tons of people signing in the exhibitor hall. Here are just a few I could get pictures of:

Danny DiVito


Chevy Chase


Seth Green


Bill and Sookie from True Blood


Michael MacDowell


Warehouse 13


We also caught Penn & Teller's panel on performing together for 35 years. Pretty awesome. The level of general fandom is off the charts. People camped out just to get into panels and I don't mean just super big panels like Big Bang Theory and True Blood, I mean like for everything. Here's people at 1AM camped out for the Supernatural panel and Smallville Panel. As for us, we waited 3 hours for the always amazing Mythbusters panel. Great stuff as usual. Funny, exciting and brilliant!


Of course there were the fun crazy people in costume. If you can think of a costume, it was probably there. Here's a VERY small sampling of what was there:
Captain America (With a goat for some reason) was protesting the idea that Comic Con might move to Anaheim. I didn;t have the heart to tell him that I think I heard that San Diego already signed an extension to keep the con there...


Kitana (Mortal Cobat)


Cobra Comander (Now with 200% more henchmen!)


So we're already looking forward to Comic Con 2011 (Hopefully no one will get stabbed in the eye next year.) Until then, thank you San Diego!

Next Up:
I'll be at Gencon selling Thomas Riley at the Frenzy Universe Booth and as an added bonus I'll have the first copies of the Steampunk Anthology "Dreams of Steam" in which I have a steampunk story called Engine 316. See you in Indianapolis!

Origins Columbus OH

Sorry, this is a late post about a con that happened the last weekend of June. I got caught up in preparations and travel to CONvergence and didn't have time to properly report on Origins.

My last minute move to Origins was facilitated by the wonderful ladies at Frenzy Universe. This may seem a bit like a Frenzy Universe commercial but that's ok because they are that awesome. I'll explain later.

I've never been to a primarily gaming conference before and I've never been to Columbus, OH before either so off I went. Let me tell you gaming cons are long. Four days of vending is a really long time. The Frenzy Gals gave me a section of their booth which was absolutely perfect. I was on a corner and hopefully helped draw people in to the area. Does this sound like I'm complaining? I promise I'm not at all. The entire con was really great. I met a whole new demographic of people and sold quite a lot of books!

The Frenzy Gals and I made it extra fun by gathering people at the booth for a candy toss and then a Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament for all that attended. It's actually a pretty amazing sight to see 60 people all playing Rock-Paper-Scissors at the same time. We were also assited by musician Kara Markley. Here we are posing infront of the TR banner. Check out her band/modeling facebook here.


Being in Columbus was also great because I got to visit my friends Laura and Scott at the Rivet Gallery. They were awesome as usual and took me out to the Surly Girl Saloon which I totally dug because of their quirky food and wonderfully varied beer selection. Speaking of friends, I was surprised when old friend from the band days and bad ass artist, Jacob Walker showed up at my table. So it was super great to catch up with him over a few beers as well. If you're into gaming I met some nifty game makers Justin and Anne Marie from Fireside Games who were there selling and nominated for an Origins Award for their game Castle Panic.
Also, you have to love the fandom and random kookiness... Me with the doctors. I guess I looked like I needed medical help.


So Origins was a huge success and I hope I can go back next year as it was a blast all the way through. I'm going to take the rest of this paragraph to fill you in about the Frenzy Universe. First off this company has the coolest, quirkiest and most unique steampunk and Victorian clothes, accessories, novelties, and artifacts that I've seen in a long time. Secondly, the women that run it are amazing people in every way. They're kind, straight shooting and a lot of fun. I encourage you to check out their website HERE. If you'd rather see them in person, I'll be at Gencon in Indianapolis with them the first weekend of August.
I have to give a bunch of love to everyone at Geek Details as well. I met the owners in St. Louis and they've been such fun friends. Check out their site for handmade geeky goodnes. I ended up buying a lot of prints from them.
Here are "I Love Thomas Riley" Buttons they made as a surprise and below is the owner, Amanda with her son.



I can't leave you with out this little gem. I was going to the bar when I saw a strange sight. Well, it may not be a strange sight for some cons but this was unexpected nd funny. Click on the picture of the hotel hallway below and look closely. I guess someone had too much to drink.