WorldCon 66: The Comics!
Posted August 11th, 2008 by Howard TaylerLet’s lead off with a picture, shall we?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I provided all of the Denvention newsletter comics. They’re all in this post after the “Read the rest of this entry” link…
I had a great time creating these. I think my favorite was probably the most self-serving of the bunch…
The newsletter editor wasn’t a Schlock reader, so he probably had no idea that I was parading my own characters across the comic. Most of the convention attendees were similarly oblivious, which made it even funnier to me. The fact that this exact scene has played out in real life (or at least in my imagined version of real life) is irrelevant.
I ran into one of my LaserMotive friends, Jordin Kare (who is also something of a luminary in the SF and filking community, too) at the show. LaserMotive is one team of guys working on space elevator technology. I was thus very pleased to have sent this piece in without knowing Jordin would be there…
Oh, and for the record, “surprising-yet-inevitable” is a term that we’ve bandied about over at Writing Excuses as a way to talk about perfect plot twists. Yes, this punchline is actually literarily significant.
This next one aired on the afternoon before the Masquerade.
I was worried when I sent it in. I’m 100% sure this joke has been told before in other ways, or perhaps even exactly this way, but nobody called me on it. It’s such an obvious gag, though. The only twist here is that I loosely modeled the host after the host from this year’s Comic-Con Masquerade: the inimitable Phil Foglio. Although I suppose if he really were inimitable I wouldn’t have been able to imitate him in this picture, would I?
Here’s the comic that ran in the installment before the Hugo ceremonies…
Ah, the elder, world-ending god Cthulhu… always good for a laugh.
The last of the comics that were purely my own was inspired by a mixture of mad science and good writing:
I carefully researched “avoidance conditioning” to make sure I was using the correct term. Of course whether or not it’s actually the correct term depends on how that mallet gets used. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.
Finally… I provided a comic with no caption, and invited people to provide their own and enter them in a contest for free merchandise.
Sadly, the newsletter did not correctly print the location for dropping off submissions, so I only got about half a dozen. Of those, most took the tack that the character on the left is a mad scientist or a space-captain, and the character on the right is his wife.
The winner, Jeanette Kalb, took it in a different (and much funnier) direction:
This version is computer-lettered, but the one that aired was not. Since I didn’t have my Photoshopping machine with me, I had to hand-letter on the original artwork. I then photographed that with my cell phone, and sent the image to David Willis, who cleaned it up for printing (in about three minutes… wow, that was quick.) He then sent it on to the newsletter editors for publication. We couldn’t have pulled off the contest without David’s help.
Jeanette walked away with what I call the “Schlock Mercenary Fangirl Package:” she got copies of all the books she didn’t already have, I sketched in them, and she also got a shirt. The runners-up each got $25 worth of merchandise (though one of them still needs to collect… Mister Gardiner, you need to check your email…)
Now then… if you’re reading this, and you run a science-fiction convention, you might be thinking these comics (or new comics in this vein) would play well at your event. If I’m your Artist Guest of Honor, I can definitely pull that off. If you want reprint rights, email me, and we can talk about it.
Explore posts in the same categories: Conventions, Comics
August 11th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I always feel like we’re just a foot away from the flying car.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Oh, the Flying Car hasn’t been the problem for a while now…
The trouble now is the Flying Driver, and the safe-in-a-bunker Mechanic: Who do you trust to fly the thing, and who’s going to make sure it doesn’t fall out of the sky.
Those are the sort of problems that take a while longer to solve.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Brilliant! Even if it does make me even more depressed that I missed the con of cons when it was less than an hour away.
Please have someone wake me when my flying car is ready.
D.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Apparently Rip Van Winkle has changed his name to Dev Dot Nul… Heh. Seriously, though. There are kits for sale. Quit whining and build your own. The Birdman has his own jet wing and some yahoo in Wisconsin has his own jet pack. They’ll build you one, too, for a couple hundred grand!
My wife and I had a conversation about why that private plane fell out of the sky onto the beach in Utah over the weekend… and why it seems to happen to private planes so much more frequently than commercial planes. Pesky little details like maintenance schedules (people don’t follow them for their more forgiving cars, either), power-to-weight ratios, quality of training and hours logged in the air… Amateurs at anything are just scary.
It’s not that I don’t want a flying car. I do! I just don’t want anyone else on the same continent (i.e. in my airspace) to have one. I’ll stick to skydiving for now and driving on the freeway to tempt fate.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Or to put it another way, “Dude, where’s my Jet-Pack?”
August 11th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
The guy talking in your “self-serving” comic reminds me of the art for Draco of Larry Niven’s Draco Tavern. He’s very similar to the Draco in the cover art of one of the hard cover story collections I have, I’ll have to see if I can find it right quick…
Ahh, found it. “Limits”, hard bound, copyright 1985. Inside cover says “Book club edition” (doesn’t say what book club however). And the cover artwork is by Ron Walotsky. :)
All of the comics are great but I think I like the “self-serving” one best too. I can just see Schlock and company running away with your story on you. ;)
August 11th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Hah. I think the characters running away with the story one is the best :P. Don’t let them get too far away from the beaten track, though!
August 11th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
@ DarthReed
“. . .couple hundred grand!” “quit whining. . .”
==snerk==
You buy, d00d, I’ll build. Heck, you buy two and I’ll build yours too. If it’s not a commodity, it’s not here, experimental toys notwithstanding. When I can trade my Ranger in on a flying car with VTOL that replaces, or eliminates the need for, 4×4 for under $50 K USD, I’ll be sold
Meantimes, thanks for playing.
D.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Does it mean anything that the gentleman calling the room to order in 2108, drinking at the bar with Schlock and company running away with the story, and wearing that pilgrim’s outfit all seem to be the same person? Who’s balding head is that, anyway?
August 12th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Did he know your name was Howard?
ErikTheRed: A foot and a gang rape. That link’s kinda NSFW.
Everyone going on about flying cars: I’m sorry, but I can’t help picturing al-Qaida buying a fleet of flying truck-bombs. Or even just dropping a truckload of flechettes…
August 12th, 2008 at 8:54 am
That microphone was flying. If a microphone can fly, how much longer until a car can? Then a battleship? Then you have gravity rail guns, gravity beams, gravity bombs…oh well. We didn’t really *need* civilization, did we?
August 12th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
To
answerdemolish your three questions in order:Square-cube law.
Ditto, plus the effect may be vulnerable to disruption.
Gravity shields.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Thanks, Sam, but you didn’t really
answerbother to address the questions at all, didja?How can you apply any “law” before proving that the question falls into its domain?
And applying a supposition to a given isn’t an argument at all. Since the microphone floats, the antigrav is obviously working. There is nothing to suggest this effect is prone to disruption, regardless of scale.
I do agree that gravity shields (constant acceleration away from a point source) may help ameliorate the destructive effects of gravity manipulation weapons, but in the ages-old contest between warhead and armor warhead always — ALWAYS — wins. This is historical fact.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:36 am
The square-cube law applies to lots of things.
My point was, just because a microphone can fly, that doesn’t mean that a flying car will ever be practical. Okay, maybe that wasn’t addressing the question, but it was addressing what seemed to be a fairly obvious subtext of the question. Maybe I should be more careful about that distinction.
“the antigrav is obviously working.”
This is a bit of a side track, but who says it’s antigravity anyway? That bit on the bottom of the mike looks like it might be electromagnetically accelerating the air downwards.
“There is nothing to suggest this effect is prone to disruption, regardless of scale.”
Oh, really? You think shooting that delicate-looking assembly on the bottom wouldn’t disrupt it?
“in the ages-old contest between warhead and armor warhead always — ALWAYS — wins.”
Up to a point. Otherwise, why even have armour?
August 14th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Well, if I couldn’t be there, at least I got to see the comics.
Yea, hardly compares doesn’t it.
I’ll pass on the flying car if I can have a Strohl Munitions Short-barrel (rotary) handcannon!
It makes me all tingly just thinking about it.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Really reaching, aren’t you, Sam? Heh. Nice to know I still gots it.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Reaching? Oh, my lame excuse about apparent subtext. Just because it’s an accurate explanation of what the hell I was thinking doesn’t mean it’s not a lame excuse.
Stupid text-based medium. There isn’t even a smiley for “No, seriously, that’s not a rhetorical question.” Probably because if there was, nobody’d use it.
On another note:
Future Extreme Sport: Base jumping off a space elevator. Don’t forget your heat-shield.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Dang, I hope I live long enough to get to try that.
I wonder if it would be enough freefall time to actually become bored?