Fantasycon & Westercon Recap

I've shared a lot of these already but just going to put them here too for fun and a little more comment.

The Westercon 67 logo a Barsoomian landscape complete with a Thark and steampunk Porter Rockwell was done by the fantastic William Stout! More on him in a little bit...

Here I am signing books and having some good laughs with friends, Carter Reid (Artist extraordinaire of my Whispers of the Goddess cover, Space Eldritch 1 and 2, and the forthcoming The Mad Song and other Tales of Sword & Sorcery! I was on a couple of panels with him at Westercon and he is hilarious! Next is Dave Butler a phenominal writer and friend!, Nathan Shumate standing - he is behind Space Eldritch and designing my Bless the Child and Weird Tales of Horror cover, Seated is new fantasy writer and myth master B. Daniel Blatt, he does a wonderful reading of Beowulf in the original Old English!

 I met Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, very nice guy, I got to spend a bit of time with him in the morning before panels, talking writing craft etc. He has some great stories...

Had real good times with Larry Correia, dinner etc talking shop and all sorts of hilarity ensued. His fans seem to think of me as a mini-me ---- That I could do without. But in relation, I was asked last minute to go and guest speak at a fantasy comparison panel at Fantasycon across the street from Westercon (two cons going on side by side at the same time) I wasn't on the guest list so when I went over there I told them I was Larry Correia and the old lady at security beamed happy that I had shown up. Larry laughed when I told him how I got through security, and asked if I would be interested in completing the next three weeks of his book tour for Monster Hunter Nemesis!

Met Ksenia Solo (Sy-Fy's LOST GIRL) She was very nice. I've met starlets who felt like they were doing you a favor -she was very down to earth, I've only watched the first season, but always enjoyed her on the program. I asked what her next projects were coming up and she said she couldn't say, hope its something cool.

My wife was excited about the Regency Dance Recital at Westercon hosted by Mary Robinette Kowal, I'm more of a Sword & Sensibility kind of guy but my wife had a lot of fun.

I've been a fan of Donato Giancola for a long time, love his work, I got a small print of the cover I have for an edition of Lord of the Rings and had him sign a pair of Red Sonja cards. He even showed me a new Red Sonja in progress!

Brom is another artist I have been a fan of for a good long time, so excited to meet him and get Snakeheart! I've been enchanted by this painting, but didn't want to buy And Their Memory Was A Bitter Tree, so much better to have a limited edition signed print!

 There were an awful lot of cosplayers, here is one of the better ones I saw.

 Huge smoking dragon in the central hall.

I finally got a big signed print of all the Space Eldritch contributors! Thanks Carter!

Another great artwork I grabbed by the phenomenal Eric Velhagen of Morgoth vs Fingolfin.

 And now some William Stout who I realized after seeing him around the con, quite a few times - that I love his art and made it a point to get the Kong print and his book titled Inspirations, he did a custome signature and it is full of pulpy goodness!

I got a copy of my friend Nathan Shumates cartoon book, and he customized the front of all them with different cartoons, he did a pic of Dave Butler riding Larry Correia in Dave's,(Larry signed that one too!) when I asked what I wanted, I was still gushing over William Stouts pinups and dinosaurs so he merged them for my copy.

And Carter Reids, Undeath and Taxes has become my kids favorite book I brought home out of all of them including signed books by Larry Correia, Dave Butler, Carter Reid, Nathan Shumate, Sara Seeley, Peter Beagle, Mark Ryan and Peter J. Wacks- Bloodletting,    I sold a few books, made a lot of new friends - too numerous to mention everyone, it was a blast of a weekend - can't wait for September's Salt Lake Comicon!