Tree City Comic Con Recap

So the Space Balrog's and I were at Tree City Comic Con in Boise Idaho - Boise being the adjusted french name for LeBois = River of Tree's. We had a good time! I sold the most books out of all of us on Friday and the least on Saturday - go figure. Apparently Idahoan's wanted more horror on Friday = Weird Tales of Horror and Space Eldritch, and more fantasy on Saturday.



Here is a shot that Jason King took of me when for about 5 seconds I thought our panel had been cancelled and I was shouting "CON!" as in "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" until James Wymore said we were still on - I had no idea that Jason was capturing the moment = priceless.



There were a fair amount of celebs at the con considering it was pretty small - just a few thousand. Here is me with Angie Everhart. I put my foot in my mouth telling her I loved her as Red Sonja (Thinking she portrayed Red in the Conan the Adventurer TV show) WRONG! The pic was taken just before I said that and she visibly cooled as I said it with a sharp, "I was never Red Sonja!"

I did get to mingle with a few other cool celebs - sorry no pictures - I went to the VIP Green Room quite a bit for food and drink - oddly enough security never ever stopped me - I always just walked in like I owned the place while my fellow Balrogs were always turned away along with anyone else who wasn't a star. I got to speak to Nichelle Nicols - Uhura for a quick brunch on Saturday, and John Rhys Davies just as he arrived on Friday very cool cuz he talked to me first! He came in and exclaimed loud like Sallah, "I see one!" and we toasted each other. I never asked what he meant by that - was too thrilled that he was talking.

Breakfast at the hotel Saturday morning was surreal as most of the patroons were stars and support staff so I was a having breakfast with a third of the cast for The Addams Family- Lurch and Cousin It and Wednesday, Uhura, Mark Sheperd, Monster Quest's Dr. Meldrum (I did get a Bigfoot cast), Joanie Brooks - who you may remember was on the cover of the first issue of Utah Geek Magazine that I have a serial action fantasy story in, among others.

At one point I joked that a guy was cosplaying as fellow Balrog Dave Butler - he was wearing the same jeans, white shirt and black blazer, we asked the guy to come and talk to us and it turned out he was the director of the whole Con! So we're making friends with shakers!

Here are a few of the more interesting cosplayers I saw.

Two of America's greatest heroes together again, Batman and Ben Franklin

Tim

Sara Butler, hiding and James Wymore and Jason King

Two cool cats that I don't know what they're from.

A Daft Punk Jedi

And the most bizarre thing was set up right kiddie corner from our booth - the pole dancing Wonder Woman!

Guess what I did when she left her pole unattended.

Just a good time overall!

Salt Lake Comic Con 2014

What a long strange trip its been. I have been all over over the place this year and now that the last big con I am going to is over its time to get back to work!

My most recent comment was an anonymous fan asking for me to finish my sequel to Heroes of the Fallen - it is coming, sorry for the delay. I'm going to try harder to post here at least once a week rather than just posting on facebook, twitter and tumblr. This needs to be a better catchall than just those other snowstorms.

In any case here are some highlights from SLCC - which was huge! My understanding is the numbers of people attending is right up there with SDCC or anywhere else for that matter so very cool! 120K+!

I got to meet Frank Frazetta Jr and the good guys at the Frazetta Museum Booth and get a few cool souvenirs!

Trolls were a problem as the WETA people brought quite a bit of LOTR goodness.

Lots of amazing cosplayers! Particular favorites of mine were Valerie Perez and Ivy Doomkitty

Being a presenter has its privileges, in the green room a number of celebrities were on hand and I hung out with Effren Ramirez (Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite) super fun and friendly guy!

I met Ron Perlman (one of my all time favorite actors!)

I nearly won the Space Balrogs, Supervillian Smackdown, but Dan Wells garnered just three more votes! And Jason King was hilarious!

Groot and Gamora! (Valerie Perez - so cool and nice!)

Daft Punk!

This guy was a stud! Great outfits!

Smaug's head was huge and ever watchful!

And selling books at a table with a host of awesome authors and friends including, Dave Butler, James Wymore, Craig Nybo, Sarah Seeley, Scott Tarbet, Jaleta Clegg, Sara Butler and Sean Ricks  - aside from their collective awesomeness was that the guys at UGEEK Magazine relaunched the magazine with a new action adventure fantasy serial of mine: Walking Through Walls. This went out to thousands of attendee's and I'm hoping even a decent fraction enjoy it and look at some of my other works. 

Lots of thanks to all the people that came by, said hey, asked for autographs and bought books, oh yeah and all the people who voted for me at the Supervillian Smackdown - We almost conquered the world!

I got to meet and hang out with far too many people to name them all, talked to so many great writers again - always love spending time with Peter Beagle. Til next time!

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!

Strange Sights of the Week