Blógünder Schlock

I’ll be one of the Guests of Honor at Penguicon 2010, and they asked me if I’d like to provide some artwork for them. Happy to oblige, today I knocked down seven penguin pictures for the various flavors of badges. If you happen to be on staff, a colored version of the penguin to the right will grace your badge. That panicked look on your face? That’s what you get when you’re running a convention, and all you have is a hammer and duct tape.

Panelist Penguin, ConCom Penguin, and Attendee Penguin all look much more self-assured.

I’m going to spare myself the headache of a full convention report and cut to the chase: LTUE was better this year than at any other year I’ve attended, and promises to be better still next year. Also, I came home with a book.

Today, languishing from a heady mix of emotions, that bitter cup known as “Post-Con Funk” (not to be confused with “Con Funk” — the former is a mild depression,  the latter a not-so-mild odor) I decided to stay in and read the book I came home with. I originally had it in my mind to go out and see a movie, but my brother Randy twittered rather negatively about Percy and the Lightning Whatsit, and the crowds scared me away from The Wolfman. Crowds, you see, are something I like to avoid when I’m post-conning.

But I digress. I decided to read the book I got. It’s a pre-release copy of Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, which is coming out in the UK shortly. It’s the sequel to I Am Not a Serial Killer, which is already out in the UK, and which hits shelves on this side of the pond on March 30th. And now, with a full three paragraphs of setup, here is my one sentence review:

This book is even better than the first one, which was stunningly good, and although I know Mr. Monster to be the second book in a trilogy, I’m happy to announce that it doesn’t suffer from “middle book” issues.

There you go, everybody: Mr. Monster, available soon in the UK.

Incidentally, I feel much safer around Dan than I feel around myself. His demons seem very securely chained. But that’s probably more than you need to know.

Oh, and I do plan to see both Percy Jackson and The Wolfman soon. I’ll let you know how they stack up.

For the next three days I’ll be at Life, The Universe, and Everything, the BYU Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy. Yes, I’ll have merchandise with me, including Schlock books, XDM, and Writing Excuses CDs, and I can show off a couple of Schlock minis. I’ll also have a pen on hand for signing things. I can’t guarantee enough free cycles to draw commissions, but I can knock down a sketch or two.

Registration is free. We’ll be on the third floor of the Wilkinson Center on BYU campus. Here is my schedule. I hope to see you there!

As promised here are the details of Howard’s LTUE presentation schedule

Thursday Feb 11
1:00 PM: Talking art
Howard Tayler, Nathan Hale and Bryan Beus will talk about art. Pretty straightforward, right?Bring your questions to ask these two excellent artists (and Howard.)

2:00 PM: The Howard and Bob Show
When Bob suggested to Charlie that he wanted to be on a panel with Howard for a reprise of “The Howard and Bob Show,” Charlie took him a bit too literally. Howard Tayler and Bob Defendi promise to be both entertaining and educational. Beyond that, all bets are off.

6:00 PM: Drawing Wizards
Join Nathan Hale, Brian Hailes, Sarah Seiter, Howard Tayler, and Bobbie Berendson as they discuss and demonstrate a bit of wizardry. Drawing wizards goes way beyond the pointy hats, folks.

Friday Feb 12
9:00 AM: How to become an idea factory: Where to get ideas and how to go from idea to story.
Clint Johnson, Larry Correia, James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Karen Hoover, and Howard Tayler discuss that most curious commodity, the authorial idea.

7:00 PM: Writing Comics and Webcomics
Learn the particulars of writing for comics with professionals from both the traditional comic book arena and the world of webcomics: Jake Black, Brian Hailes, Howard Tayler, and Emily Sorensen

Saturday Feb 13
9:00 AM: The Future of the Art of Comics
Join this panel of comic creators as they attempt to scry tomorrow’s comic art from the entrails of today’s Wacom tablets, Cintiq monitors, and inexpensive color printing (among other things.)  Emily Sorensen, Brian Hailes, Jake Black, Howard Tayler. (Note: No actual Cintiq entrails will be present.)

1:00 PM: Signing

4:00 PM: Writing Excuses Panel and Podcast Recording
Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler discuss their podcast and record an episode, perhaps with the help of a guest author or two.

5:00 PM: Making a Living as an Artist (2 hours)
This one has a huge list of panelists with a wide variety of experience as working artists. If you’re looking to find work (or make your own) in this field, this panel is a must see. Steven Keele, Kevin Keele, Joshua Keele, Brian Hailes, Jessica Douglas, Sarah Seiter, Nathan Hale, Howard Tayler, Brian Beus, and Sandra Tayler.

And by the end of all that, Howard will be tired. But not too tired to take a Sharpie marker to the inside of your book.

Last October we announced the Howard Tayler 2010 Appearance Schedule. A few things have changed since then, so it is time to post the new, improved, and updated Howard Tayler 2010 Appearance Schedule.

February 11-13: LTUE, Provo, Utah — This is next week and it is currently the only event Howard is scheduled to attend in Utah. The annual Life The Universe and Everything  Symposium is held on BYU campus. Howard will be attending and presenting all three days. (We’ll be posting a detailed presentation schedule early next week.) Sandra will also be attending and presenting. Her presentation schedule can be found here. LTUE event is FREE to anyone who walks in and asks for a badge. Other notable guests include Brandon Sanderson and ILM wizard Marty Brenneis. LTUE is always packed with excellent writing and artistic advice. It is well worth the trip to attend. (Note this is a symposium, not a convention. Costumes are not allowed on campus.)

April 30-May 2: Penguicon, Troy, Michigan — This event has long been one of Howard’s favorite conventions to attend. He is pleased to return this year as an Artist Guest of Honor. Other GOHs include Spider Robinson and Karl Schroeder. Penguicon combines the best of Sci Fi/ Fantasy Fandom and Linux Geekery. Regular features are ice cream made with liquid nitrogen, sword play demonstrations by Aegis Consulting, and the amazing Chaos Machine. Sandra will be attending with Howard.

May 28-31: Balticon, Baltimore, MD. Howard was delighted to receive an invitation to be a guest of this long running convention. This will be Howard’s one event on the East Coast for 2010. Other guests will include Tanya Huff, Dr. Thomas Holtz Jr., and a host of other excellent panelists and presenters. Howard has not had the privilege to attend this event before, but he expects to have a marvelous time.

August 5-8: GenCon Indy, Indianapolis, Indiana — Howard intends to reprise his attendance at GenCon in 2010. He’ll have a table where he will hang out with Tracy Hickman and Curtis Hickman. There will be yet another action packed Killer Breakfast event and a good time will be had by all. There will also be acres of dealer’s room floor, non-stop gaming, and all the other cool events one expects from GenCon.

The arrangements for DragonCon have fallen through, making an appearance there extremely unlikely. Howard has his eye on AussieCon in Melbourne, Australia, but the travel expenses involved make that event extremely tentative as well.

There will be more specific scheduling details available for each of these events as they draw closer. Some of them may include non-convention related Schlocker meet-ups, or book launch parties. If an event is not listed, then it’s safe to say that you won’t find Howard there. If you want him at a convention near you, contact your local con and tell them to book him for 2011. Book early, we expect his 2011 calendar to fill up by October.

I’ve got a long list of things I want to do this year, but most of those things won’t be interesting to you. The short, Schlock-centric version of the list looks like this:

1) Deploy a new Schlock Mercenary website design with new plumbing underneath it. This should be done fairly soon.

2) Kick-ban everybody who leaves comments with suggestions for the new design underneath this post. This can be accomplished starting immediately.

3) Get three more Schlock books in print. With Travis’ help on the coloring I believe this is actually possible. He’s amazing.

4) Overhaul my convention process. I learned a lot at GenCon Indy last year, and expect to be employing what I learned fairly quickly.

5) Celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the strip with something impressive. The local constabulary won’t let me mark the date with anything more explosive than croup, so I’m got about five months to come up with something non-conflagratory. (Note: Suggestions on the 10-year-anniversary are welcomed. Focus your efforts there, and avoid incurring wrath!)

As is usual when we ship books to a major event, some of the books which returned from GenCon were damaged in transit.  Forklifts are not kind to books.  We are now offering these scuffed, dented, or bent books for sale in the store at discounted prices.

As you can see from the photos, most of the damage is minor.  Your book could get as much damage from being carried around in in a backpack.  We guarantee that no pages will be torn and that all pages will be present and accounted for.

On a tangential note, we’ve put up a special item for auction this week.  A fan bought a book from us at WorldCon.  Then he paid Howard to draw a picture in it.  Then he gave the book back to us on the condition that we offer the book up for auction.  So we are now auctioning off a unique copy of XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery with a drawing of Howard rejoicing at being paid three times.  We’re starting the bidding low since we’ve already been paid twice.  Happy bidding!

Oh.

Wow.

So this is why there’s so much hype. An entire ballroom full of people at tables playing  RPGA-sanctioned games of D&D. And then two more ballrooms full of people playing boardgames. And yet another full of table-top wargamers with beautifully-painted miniatures… and that was at 9:00pm on Saturday.

I won’t trouble any of you with a blow-by-blow. Suffice it to say that our corner of the Margaret Weis Productions booth was busy, and we sold hundreds upon hundreds of books. I got to be on panels with some of the legends of game design, and managed not to eat much foot in the process. I got to catch up with old friends, and I finally got to meet Skippy of The Skippy List (he is a real person, yes.)

My first GenCon was any number of things, but I can say for certain what it was not. It was not my LAST GenCon. Indianapolis, I will be back.

I have received word that our two pallets of books have arrived.  Tracy, Curtis, and Howard have all arrived.  Everything is good to go.  This means that I will no longer be plagued with nightmares of plane delays and mis-shipped goods.  I don’t expect to hear much from Howard over the next few days.  He’s going to be too busy to tweet let alone call.  What I hear from him is rather like telegraph messages.

Call 1 “The cash register isn’t working, so we’re going to have to take money by hand.”

Call 2  “Which credit cards do we accept?”

Call 3  “We’re ready to go.  The doors are about to open.”

Call 4 (in a harried voice) “Did you send those orange shopping bags?”

Since I’ve helped run a booth before, I have a very clear picture in my mind of all the frantic preparation and scrambling to get everything into place.  I wish I could be there to help out, but it sounds like the space behind the booth is already pretty cramped.  I’ll know how things went at around 5 PM my time when the dealer room is closed and they’ve had time to count inventory.

Until then I’ll have to console myself with reading this lovely review.

Howard’s full GenCon schedule is here.

Howard and I are back from WorldCon, but we’re still travel-lagged and stumbling over suitcases.  It is going to take a few days before things are running smoothly around here.  As is so often true, my intentions to blog about WorldCon went unrealized.  Blogging is hard when the only places with wifi are public, and therefore full of distractions.  Either Howard or I will do an in-depth post about Worldcon and the Hugos once we’re done sleeping and unpacking.  For now I’ll just say the most important bit, which is how incredibly happy we both are that Girl Genius won the Hugo instead of us.  We can not think of a work or creators more deserving of the award.

Tomorrow Howard flies to Indianapolis for GenCon Indy.  He will spend most of his time at booth #1921 which is listed as the Margaret Weiss Games booth.  It is on a main aisle right next to the Wizards of the Coast booth.  But there will be a few times when Howard is not at his booth.  To find him at those times, you’ll need to reference the following schedule:

Thursday August 13

12:00 – 1:00 pm ICC: 212  Freelancing (or How to Get Your Second Freelance Project) with Matt Forbeck, Stan!

1:00 – 2:00 pm ICC: 212 The Science of Humor – Solo presentation

8:00 – 10:00 pm VIG reception Westin Grand Ballroom 1

Friday August 14
10:00 – 11:00 am  ICC: 212 The Free Content Business Model – Solo presentation

11:00 – 12:00 am  ICC: 212 The Life and Times of a (Web) Comic Illustrator  With Stan!

2:00 – 3:00 pm  The XDM panel with Tracy Hickman, Curtis Hickman

6:00 – 7:00 pm ICC: 212 Top 5 Best Gaming Products EVER! With Stan!, Richard Borg, Mike Gray, Ben Clark, James Wyatt

Saturday August 15

10:00 – 12:00 am Killer Breakfast with Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, Curtis Hickman

2:00 – 3:00 pm  Dragonhearth Podcast with Tracy Hickman

Sunday August 16

At some point he’ll take a break for lunch, but should be at the booth most of the day. Note that Tracy and Curtis will be gone on Sunday, so if you want triply-autographed books, get ‘em before then!
4:00 pm Exhibit hall closes to public and Howard is busy closing up shop