Blógünder Schlock

I got a horrible night’s sleep Saturday night and Sunday morning. I forgot to pack my melatonin, which helps me regulate my sleep schedule when I travel, and sure enough, I fell asleep promptly at 1:15am… and sprang awake at 3:25am. I channel-surfed for a while before settling on a show about tornado chasers on the National Geographic channel. I can’t remember what time I finally fell back asleep, but it had to be around 4:45am.

And then I sprang awake at 7:00am. Oh well. So much for “sleep.” I packed my bags, ate breakfast, and checked out of the hotel.

I was the 2nd person to arrive at the convention center (the first was the guy working convention security.) I trundled my bag over to my table, and then took a 20-minute power-nap on one of the couches.

The noise from the X-box stations kept waking me up, so I decided to have a go at one of the games. Burnout 3: Takedown really caught my fancy. I’m pretty good at driving games, provided they don’t rely on “magic” key-sequences (a la Mario Kart Double Dash) and have reasonably true physics. I had a great time playing Burnout, in which the object is to take your nigh-indestructible car and run everybody else off the road. The other players, including the computer players, ALSO have nigh-indestructible cars, though. I can ram a delivery truck and send it sailing through a second-story window, but Player 1’s car could only be taken out by knocking it into a head-on collision with something big and solid… like an overpass piling.

(Note: four days later, back at home, I rented Burnout: Revenge. Wheee!)

Sunday was a slower day at Chimaeracon, but we still had a great time. I had lots of company at my booth, including a few folks who kept coming back to have me draw Munchkin cards. These are tricky to do, because I have to lay them out in pencil on another sheet of paper, and then do the final artwork in Sharpie, freehand.

Here’s a nice picture of me doing a “William Effing Shatner” card for Al Griego. He heard about the one I did for Wil Wheaton at Linucon 1.0, and just HAD to have one of his own.

The guy who took the picture was a new Schlock fan (within the last six months, if I recall correctly), and was also a disabled veteran from the Iraq war. His attitude was fantastic — whiney Howard stands to learn a lot from somebody who has to sit everywhere he goes. He wanted some artwork, he got some artwork. I didn’t ask him to pay, because the way I see it, he did stuff for me already, and it’s the kind of stuff I can’t begin to pay back. If a free Petey picture makes him happier (though I have a hard time imagining him any happier than he was when I met him), it’s his for the asking.

As some of you may know, I prefer to spend Sundays in church. My chosen profession currently requires that I spend at least a few Sundays on the road. On those days I try to look for a spiritual element that I can lean on for support during the rest of the week. With the help of a fan in a wheelchair, I found that element.

All in all, Chimaeracon was a great convention. It wasn’t large, but it was very spirited. If you live within an hour or three of San Antonio, you really should make time to be there next year. If Al, Keri, Gilder, Michael, Stuart, April, Glenn, and the rest of the folks I played with this year are there, I promise you’ll have a fantastic time.

I spoke with our print broker — the press match should arrive on my doorstep Monday morning. This is the “test run” of the book from the printer, which I will carefully examine to ensure that you’re going to get blown away when your pre-ordered book arrives.

If it meets with my approval, I will open pre-orders as soon as I’m able to put the page together — this probably means Tuesday or Wednesday. If it does NOT meet with my approval then we’ll likely have to wait at least a week or two while I get everything straightened out.

Sure, I could start taking your money right now, but I am not going to. Not until I know that the book meets the high standards I set for… umm… schlock.

When I scripted, pencilled, inked, and colored today’s strip I had forgotten — COMPLETELY forgotten — that King Kong hit the DVD shelves Tuesday.

Just so you know.

(Oh, if you want to watch any special features, you’ll want the 2-disc set. The one-disc edition you find at Blockbuster and Wal-Mart has nothing to offer in that vein.)

(Unrelated note — I’ve got one more page of Chimaeracon report to finish up. I’ll get to it, I promise.)

It was 8:00pm-ish, and I needed something to do. Al Griego was just sitting down with a small group to play “Frag,” a Steve Jackson game involving miniatures.

The premise is simple. You are a group of gamers playing a first-person shooter. The first one to score three “frags” (kills) wins. If you get fragged, then on your next turn you’ll re-spawn and be back in the action.

Al is not being paid enough. He was a GREAT host. He explained things clearly, played both well AND graciously, and supplied prizes for the winners as well as for those who got fragged the most, and fragged the worstest.

I had a great time. Granted, this was in part because I won, but it’s also because the game is just too much fun. We shouted. We taunted. We punned. We got and gave frags. And apparently I was among the loudest of those laughing… Chris Quinn’s blog of the event mentions me as follows:

I am going to head over and check out the game Howard Tayler is playing in. It seems like the folks at his table are laughing every 10 seconds. And Howard, he is the guy who did that outstanding sketch of me, looks as if he is holding court to a captive audience.

Dude is a character. He had me laughing most of the day as I sat here blogging. His booth was right next to the area they gave me to write from.

Okay, for the record, this “captive audience” was anything but “captive.” They shot back, giving at least as good as they got. Chris must have caught that one moment in the second game, when Al prepared to roast me with the flamethrower and I played the “insubstantial” hack. My taunting went on for at least thirty seconds as the flames went through me to no effect, and included head-slapping a-la Monty Python and the Holy Grail and a saracastic cry of “Mommy, Mommy, I’m so hot!”

I won round two as well, and did so with violent aplomb. A few of us (including me) had one frag, and one guy had two. But on my last turn I’d played the “Extreme Damage” gadget, doubling the damage of my machine gun. It was going to last through the end of the current turn, but I needed to be SURE of my kills. So I played the “Bonus Damage” hack for an additional doubling.

Boom! I fragged Al with 9 points of damage (you roll your damage dice, your target rolls his health dice, and the number of times his roll can be divided into your roll is the amount of damage he takes — I think I rolled around 48 on 12 six-siders, while Al rolled 5 on his two dice of health). Not bad.

Then I took my movement roll, and got within a couple of spaces of a pair of players who had been duking it out during their last turn. I had one attack coming to me, but the machine gun allows you to split one attack across two targets.

The first guy took 9 points of damage. The second took 19. I only rolled 39 with my twelve dice, but he rolled a two. I ended up fragging three people in one turn, and two of them in one attack, ending our second game with FOUR frags instead of the requisite three.
Yes, Al gave me prizes. I came away with the PvP expansion for Frag (I’ve got to get Kurtz to sign this!) and the “Cardboard Heroes” package of cutouts for those who need lots and lots of minatures on a budget. The guy I fragged for 19 points of damage won the “worst frag” of that game, and thanked me profusely for helping him win a Frag expansion.

I’m going to have to go out and buy this game. If you’re interested in it, you can buy it direct from Steve Jackson Games, or through any game store near you.

I was told that the convention would open at 10:00am. I was wide awake at 8:00am. I enjoyed ate breakfast in the hotel, and hoofed it over to the mall by 8:45. Sure enough, there were people already there, setting up their games, and getting ready for a busy day.

It was a busy day. In summary… I did lots of commissions, and lots of free sketches. I met lots of fans, some of whom drove as much as eight hours to come to the convention in order to see me. That’s always flattering.

My booth was right next to the command post for the San Antonio Express News. Their Geekspeak blogger Chris Quinn spent the day blogging the event. You ought to check out his blogs from the event. I did a caricature of him which I hope he’ll post somewhere — like I said in the previous post, my camera battery won’t take a charge anymore, so I have no photo-record of any of the stuff I did.

Well… except for this piece. When I went to bed Friday night I had a pun come to me. I scribbled the pun on a piece of paper, and brought it to life on Saturday. This one wasn’t for sale. It was for ME.

One of the con organizers brought me a copy of the article that ran in the San Antonio Express-News. I was very, very pleased. You can read it here, but the online version lacks the charm of the printed one. The printed one had a very nice picture of me, and a picture of Schlock, too. Yeah, that’s right… I got my picture in the paper before I even showed up in town.

I guess it was about 3:00pm when it hit: my mid-con depression. I was at my table, nobody was there, my only panel was finished, my hand hurt, I’d only made about $75 so far, and I wondered “why am I here?” Fortunately, this has happened before. It seems to ALWAYS happen — even at conventions when I’m busy the whole time. The only way out is through. I finished coloring Arthur Pandragon, ate some lunch, and by about 3:30 I was back on my “A” game.

At around 7:00pm I emceed the costume contest. It was a small gathering, with the audience only outnumbering the contestants by 4:1 or so. I introduced the judges (Kari and Lisa from Black Rabbit Games, and David Wong from Brick by Brick studios), introduced myself, and then called the contestents through the curtain one by one.

We had costumes from Half-Life, Star Wars, Transformers, and an anime I’ve never heard of. The judges deliberated while I told a real groaner of a pun I came up with on Friday (not the Arther Pandragon one… a different pun. I shan’t write it down here, though.) The winner was “Perceptor,” a Transformer whose costume was fashioned from cardboard boxes, dinner-plates, velcro, and lots of paint. Stuart, the guy who built the costume, was running the booth directly across from mine, and his girlfriend was the one wearing it.
After the costume contest I figured I’d head back to my table and make some money on commissions. Unfortunately, the dealer’s area was now closed… what was I supposed to do with myself for the rest of the evening?

Maybe… maybe I could find a cool game to play.

Chimaeracon is the first convention I’ve attended where my travel abutted the beginning of the event. I was scheduled to get off the plane, get picked up, check into the hotel, and then get right to work.

The travel part was a little more interesting than usual. First and foremost — the Salt Lake City International Airport is under the worst sort of construction right now. My advice to travellers departing from SLC — use the Park & Fly service outside the airport, and get there 90 minutes early. Navigating long-term parking inside the airport is awful.

Things were fine once I finally got into the air. I got to talking with the woman sitting next to me, and mentioned that I was a cartoonist. She asked a lot of questions about that, and we had a nice conversation (about me). Then I asked what she did for a living, and it turns out she paints landscapes and still-lifes. Then the conversation got REALLY interesting. We looked through an art magazine she’d brought, talked about tools and techniques, and swapped business cards. And according to her card, you can see her stuff at nancyjhill.com.

Al Greigo picked me up at the airport. Al is one of Steve Jackson Games‘ “Men In Black,” and is huge fun to be around. He helped me get checked in, and then we went over to the convention center to set up.

The Crossroads Convention Center appears to be an attempt on the part of a languishing shopping mall to find something profitable to do with empty storefronts. We were right there in the mall, which was wonderful because it gave us quick access to the food court, but the mall was fairly dead. We pulled in Friday evening at around 5:45, and there weren’t many people around at all.

Still… quick access to a food court, plus hundreds of gamer-geeks in the same place! Chimaeracon was great for us, regardless of what the mall might have been like.

Al showed me to my table, and I realized that I’d been provided with an 8′ x 10′ booth with a table, two chairs, and pipe-and-drape. Usually I get four feet of table in Artists’ Alley. I looked at that big empty booth and realized that I had very little with me by way of decoration. Fortunately I’d brought my two dragon posters and some binder clips. The posters went up behind me, clipped to the drape, and then I spread out my portfolio, my URL cards, and my art kit and basically set up shop.

I was in the Dealer’s Area, which was low-partitioned from the main floor. The main floor was dotted with around forty hobby-gaming tables. There was a D&D game running in one corner, miniature games running all over the place, and several different card games. There were also game demos from some local game companies.

One of the most interesting was Hunting Party from Seaborn games. It had elements of “Clue,” and “Munchkin,” but did not feel in the least bit derivative. I was also impressed by the quality of the playing pieces and cards. The artwork was a little dodgy, but this still looked like a very solid game that you could get years of play out of. And it’s from an indie startup.
I did a couple of commissions, whipped out a few free sketches, and basically hung out until they kicked us out at midnight, at which point I went back to my room for six hours of sleep. I don’t have pictures of the commissions, though… the battery on my camera won’t take a charge. *sigh*.

I just got back from Chimaeracon. I’ll do a full report later. Right now I just want to say thanks to the convention staff, and especially the guest relations team. They took really good care of me. I had a great time.

There’s a bed around here that I need to pour all of me into. Goodnight!

I leave the house today at 11:15am. I’ll arrive at SLC International at noon, park in long-term parking, and be in the air on my way to San Antonio by 1:25pm. Or that is the plan.

According to this same plan, I land in San Antonio at 5:00pm, Al Griego picks me up and drives me to the convention, and I get my game on.

I’ve already heard from one crowd of Schlockers planning to make a three-hour pilgrimage on Saturday. You too, oh Texan Schlocker, can be as cool as them. Succumb to the peer pressure. Imagine, if you will, that “everybody” really IS doing it.

I’m bringing mockups of the cover for the book, a PDF that shows what the book’s guts will look like, and of course all my art supplies. Bring your favorite miniature, and I’ll sketch it into your favorite RPG character. FREE. And if you have moneys to give me, oh the things I can do with ink and color.

I’m Emceeing the costume contest on Saturday night, too. That’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to the stand-up circuit. You don’t want to miss it.

See you there!

The nice people who drive the crane home (I need to stop calling it a crane, because I think it is a cherry picker) parked it in its usual spot for a good night’s sleep.

And they left the “look out, I’m backing up!” light on. It’s a flashing yellow warning light.

The crane (err… cherry picker) is not really asleep. Or maybe it’s sleeping with its head canted funny, and is snoring. Regardless, it’s not getting a good night’s sleep, because it may wake up with a dead battery or a burnt-out light.

It’s also keeping me up.

Snoring is definitely the right metaphor here. The machine is snoring. And I’ve already said too much. See, if they find that a small-caliber round has passed through that light-bulb during the night, this blog will certainly have the authorities knocking on my door, wondering whether I was the one who committed… umm… mechapneacide?

Our home is on a lovely lot at the back of a quiet cul-de-sac, but it’s also at the back of the residential zone. Thus it is that when I look out the kitchen window, sometimes I can see a crane.

This morning I saw it pull away, off to work. This evening it was parked again, and I thought “how nice… it’s home from work and gets to sleep.”

(Yes, I had just gotten up from a nap. A cartoonist’s life is rigorous and tiring.)

And then I got to wondering idly about sleep, and whether any of our machines are complex enough to actually need it. Sure, they need maintenance. Some even need to be left “off” for periods of time — especially machines that generate lots of waste heat.

But what about SLEEP? Do we have machines that get annoyed with us if we ask them to work during their planned nap? Will any of them go quietly insane if we don’t give them a little dream-time to themselves?

Of course not. They are all far too simple, and besides, we are not about to build machines that suffer from something as inefficient as a requirement that they spend a third of their time sucking power while not getting any work done.

(I am very carefully ignoring the fact that my computer is very sluggish when I try to use it on Saturday evenings during the scheduled virus scan. And don’t get me started on the Sunday Night Backup.)