Blógünder Schlock

In an effort to cut down on the spam, I’m turning on yet another annoying moderatorial option: “Comment author must have a previously approved comment.”

We’ll see how it works.

We still haven’t enabled the dynamic blog content on the Schlock Mercenary home page, because we found the memory leaks and they appear to be permanent holes in the FreeBSD implementations of php and MySQL. Plugging said holes means switching to another operating system, and that has to wait another week or so.

(If you’re a FreeBSD zealot, by all means complain about my nigh-libelous description of your bestest little devil-friend TO SOMEONE ELSE. I’m just repeating what the server guys have told me. No, I don’t want your offer of technical help. No, I’m not printing an apology or a retraction. Yes, you’ll get over it. I promise.)

I’m back from WorldCon. You can read my reports on the event starting here. Upshot, it was wonderful. And thank you for buying books while I was gone. You covered my expenses AND allowed us to sock away about $100 besides.

This raises an interesting point — one which a number of readers have raised with me privately: I probably ought to redesign the Schlock Mercenary home page so that Schlock books (of which there will soon be TWO) are more prominently advertised. I’m going to hold off on that until after we’ve gotten the blog working, but until then I’m leaving the Store link right here.
By the way, Under New Management got reviewed in Analog in this last issue. I haven’t seen it myself. As soon as I have I’ll post the relevant bits. Mostly all I know is that the review was positive.

Finally, be sure to check out my updated convention schedule. Late-breaking news! I’ll be speaking at ApacheCon on October 12th or 13th down in Austin, and I’ve accepted an invitation to be a guest at A-Kon in Dallas next June. Both of these schedule bits came in this week. The fans in Texas have spoken. I shall visit them twice in twelve months.

I had a great day. I attended nonstop, back-to-back panels from 11:30 through about 7:00pm, and enjoyed myself quite thoroughly. I whipped out a couple of caricatures for panelists, and a sketch or two for Schlockers in the audience who “made” me (it’s not like I’m hiding, but I AM kind of short). I placed a few books in notable hands.

I ate dinner with Phil Foglio (you may have heard of Girl Genius), and learned plenty from this master of self-publishing. Later in the evening I got to talk at length with James P. Hogan (you may have heard me go SQUEEEE!) about all kinds of things, including the fact that there’s a comic-book adaptation of one of his most memorable novels. Once I’ve gotten my hands on it I’ll let you know why you should buy it instead of whatever else it was you were planning to spend the money on (unless you’re choosing between it and a Schlock book, in which case I’ll strive to be unconvincing.)

There are a zillion other things I want to link to, but right now I need to go to bed. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.

Friday I hit what I’ve come to know as my “mid-convention emotional nadir.” At most conventions I’ll have a few hours in the middle of one day in which I begin questioning not only the wisdom of the decision to come to the event, but the wisdom of attempting to engage in any sort of creative endeavor at all, because there’s no hope at all, you know.

I believe that it’s mostly brought on by lack of sleep, odd eating patterns, and some legitimate concerns lent foundation in the fact that for some reason people are not fawning over me.

It also happens because I’m a pretty hard-core introvert. If you’ve met me at conventions you may think that you’ve got evidence to the contrary, but you don’t. You have proof that I’ve learned social skills that are critical to my survival in this business. I can shmooze, press flesh, play the huckster, clown in front of the class, and introduce myself to strangers, but what I REALLY want to do is sit down for a quiet discussion with a few close friends.

(This is sounding less like a convention report, and more like whining. I’ll get to the point.)

I planned to see three or four key panels on Friday, but only managed to get to one of them. The opportunity for some key shmoozing presented itself… and then, midday, I looked at how things were going, and was engulfed by the negativity of the mid-convention nadir. Not only did I not want to go to the panels, I wanted to be home. As a compromise, I decided it would be okay to be back in my room asleep.

So I tried to get sneaky with Mister Nadir. I made as if to walk back to the hotel, but on the way I cruised the dealers’ area. I met some more cool people, and consciously decided that while going to panels full of famous people would be kind of fun, I’d have more fun if I found a small group of people with whom I could have a quiet discussion.

I went to grab a bite to eat at the hotel bar, and met David Lloyd. He’s the guy who drew “V for Vendetta,” and we had a great discussion. He’s a neat person, and was here at show to recieve an award. After dinner I checked out the award ceremony (it was a modest thing at the hotel) and really enjoyed it. David’s speech was quite thought-provoking.

(Yes, I gave him a Schlock Mercenary book.)

Feeling recharged (at least a little) I made my way to the Baen’s Universe hospitality suite. The “barflies” from the Baen’s Bar forums are fun people. Many of them know me from my comic and my posts in their forums, and a few of them are not just fans — they’re fans willing to plug my work enthusiastically in front of people who walk into the suite, while I’m sitting right there quietly introducing myself as “Howard Tayler, professional cartoonist.”

That sucks the ennui right of my nadir.

One of the high-points of the evening: Australian fantasy author Garth Nix came by and we introduced ourselves. I told him I was “Howard Tayler, professional cartoonist.” He asked what I’d done. I handed him a Schlock URL card. He looked at it and said “I’ve read this. This is YOURS?”

I love when that happens. Of course now I’m feeling compelled to check out Garth Nix’s work, but since I’m told he’s probably the finest Australian writer of Fantasy (yes, someone besides Garth told me this) I’m looking forward to the experience.

Then I ran into Eric and Cathy Raymond, good friends well-met at a number of previous conventions. We had a nice long talk, and when it was all said and done I was returning to my room for sleep at about 2:00am.

Summary: I’m not presenting on any panels, I don’t have dealer-room space, and I’m mostly unknown at this event. But there are friends to be found here, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Here I am at Worldcon.

In my hotel room.

Blogging.

I suppose I could look around for a room party. I’m sure there’s got to be one SOMEWHERE. Mostly, though, I think I’ll sleep.

So far today I’ve gotten everything done that needed to get done down here. All of it. I had my business meeting, I put some books in the right hands, made some key contacts, and finished the commissioned piece that’s paying for this trip. It’s all done.

Tomorrow I suppose I’ll go to some panels. There’s a panel on “Science Fiction in Comics,” and I’m willing to bet not one of the panelists knows who I am. If I’d planned far enough ahead I suppose I could have planted a book with one of them. At this stage the best I’ll be able to do is plant a Schlocker in the audience, and that’s a stretch, since I need to track down a Schlocker willing to serve as a plant.

But it doesn’t matter, because I got it all done. Everything after this is gravy, baby. I may actually get a vacation for a couple of days.

Finally, that stupid Disney dog can be relegated to the dust-bin of nomenclatural history. Goodbye, planet Pluto.

Anybody who thinks that that an eight-planet Solar system poses problems for our educational curricula needs to realize that at least this generation of kids will have an interesting reason to talk about the planets.

Not only that, they’ll have actual definitions for planets that they can learn and stretch their growing young minds with. And if some of them were emotionally attached to Pluto the Planet, they can stretch their growing young minds with the exploration of concepts like “living with disappointment” and “only cartoon dogs live forever.”

We’re still having issues with the php scripts that pull Wordpress content onto the front page at schlockmercenary.com. We think it’s a memory leak in the OS that Schlock sits on, so the tech team is migrating to another box and OS (or so I’m told.)

In the meantime, I’m at Worldcon this week. I’ll blog some from the convention. Watch this space!

The server guys have been tearing their hair out trying to patch what appears to be a memory leak associated with php on the Schlock box. The re-appearance of the blog here indicates that they’re feeling optimistic.

I’m hopeful. I need to post news about Worldcon, or Schlockers in the area and at the event may be unable to catch up with me and commit commerce.

I arrive in the area sometime after 3:00pm on Thursday, and will be there all day Friday and Saturday. If all else fails, look for me near the heap of blue scaffolding on the Convention floor (not the Dealer’s Room). It’s a giant, build-it-yourself marble track called “The Chaos Machine,” and I typically find myself unable to stay away from it for extended periods.

Two things:

1) If you’re not already reading The Whiteboard as part of your daily trawl, I hope it’s not because you think the comic is only funny to paintballers. I’ve only paintballed once (an experience I found miserable) and the comic is one of my favorites.

2) Roger just found something in Doc’s fridge. Their solution to the problem should be amusing to Schlockers everywhere.

Brad Guigar and I are going to be hanging out together for a lecture series at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania on the 22nd and 23rd of September, and we are thinking about having a meet-and-greet for our fans. I’ve heard that the Hall of Heroes comic shop in Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, NJ might be a good place for that. We’d be selling and signing books, signing books you’ve already got, whipping out sketches, and being funny on demand.

Who’s interested? Post below, or email me, and we’ll see if we can set something up.