Blógünder Schlock

On September 12th, which is one week from this Saturday, a group of comics creators will descend on Dragon’s Keep in Provo, Utah to help our friend Jake.

Long story short: Jake Black has cancer, and insurance is covering a lot of his treatment, but not all of it. Chemotherapy is expensive. Our job is to make up the difference.

Your job is to come buy get stuff after donating to the cause at prices donation amounts that make retail prices cry like a playground bully who has just been nut-punched by that little asian girl.

I’ll be there, and I’ll be bringing a limited supply of all my books. $15 books can be yours for a $10 donation. $25 books will escape with you for $15. A full boxed set will cozy up to you for just $60. If you want me to DRAW in these books… well, another donation may be required, depending on how busy I am.

You see, I’ll also be sketching for cash like a madman. I’ll draw whatever you want. Do you need a sketch of your RPG character, rendered XDM style? I can do that. Schlock with an Ovalkwik popsicle? No problem. Doctor Bunnigus dressed as a cat-girl? Drop coin, and pass me the hand sanitizer. It’s yours.

Want to cut to the head of the line? For $100 you get a boxed set, a copy of XDM, and each of those six books gets your choice of sketch inside. It is, as the ancient canticle suggests, “all about the Benjamins.”  And for the record, every penny you spend with me goes to Jake. No overhead. No “covering my costs.” I’m donating my stuff and my time.

And so are all these guys.

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

Howard and I will be leaving for Worldcon tomorrow.  After that Howard spends a week at GenCon.  The result is that he will not have much time for blogging here.  Howard intends to micro-blog using twitter, so if you want the very latest info, please check his twitter feed or facebook page.  I will be attempting to post Schlock related convention highlights here on this blog.  My more personal thoughts will go on my blog.  If all of that is not enough convention coverage for you.  You should head over to conreporter.com.  They’ve got a good dozen excellent bloggers who will all be posting about Worldcon.  You will be able to get a non-Tayler-eye view of some of the events, including the announcements of Hugo winners almost as soon as they are announced.

Still need more cool stuff on the web?  Run on over to xtremedungeonmastery.com.  The first of three fun video commercials is up.  The other two will be posted at intervals between now and GenCon.  There is also a link to a really cool online card trick you can use to amaze your friends.

Howard will be at Worldcon for the full convention.  We provide this handy schedule reference if you wish to track him down while you’re there.

Thursday August 6

3:30-5:00 pm Webcomics You Should be Reading P-524B

Friday August 7

12:30-2:00 pm Create a Superhero  P-510B

2:00-3:30 pm Writing Excuses Podcast P-513C

5:00-6:30 pm SF Comics for Children  P-513A

6:45-Late: Schlocker Meet-up  Les Jardins Nelson 407 Place Jacques-Cartier in Old Montreal.  We will be departing the convention center at approximately 6:45 pm and walking over to the restaurant.  This event is separate from the convention.  We will stay at the restaurant to eat and visit as long as we can without causing a problem for the restaurant staff.  At which point we will either break up for the evening or find a nice open place to sit and visit longer.  Howard will tweet the ongoing location of the Schlocker Meet-up as things progress.  Watch his twitterfeed on that evening for up-to-date details.

Saturday August 8

6:00-6:30 pm Signing 3-283S Stop by and Howard will draw you a quick sketch either in your book or on a handy piece of paper if you don’t have a book.

7:00-8:00 pm The Pantheon: Essential Graphic Novels  P-513A

Sunday August 9

10:00-11:00 am Running a Web-based Business P-512DH

12:30-2:00 pm Writing for a Living P-522B

3:30-5:00 pm From Base to Noble – Why Self-publishing has no Stigma in Comics P-513A

8:00-10:00 pm Hugo Award Ceremony

Sandra will also be attending the convention, but other than attending the Schlocker Meet-up and the Hugo Ceremony, her schedule is not set.  She will be participating in The Great Worldcon Scavenger Hunt sponsored by Anthology Builder so tracking her down may be worth the effort.

In ten days Sandra and I fly to Montreal for Anticipation/WorldCon 67, the 67th Annual World Science Fiction Convention. We will not have merchandise with us at this event. We were unable to find a dealer interested in carrying it. Oh well, more time for me to meet people and talk about stuff. I do have a 30-minute signing, and I’m planning to bring a stack of paper to do as many sketches as time permits. There may also be an extra-conventional (read: outside-of-the-convention) Schlocker get-together. See the comments thread for more information.

Obviously if you’re hoping to get me to sign your book, you need to bring it with you. You can get one here, or maybe in Toronto at The Beguiling. Toronto’s in Canada, right? How far can that possibly be from Montreal?

Immediately after returning from WorldCon I’m turning around and going to GenCon Indy. We’ll have a full pallet of XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery and I’m also bringing around 20 copies of each of my books, along with twenty shrink-wrapped boxed sets. If you’ve never shopped with us online and would prefer to pick up Schlock merchandise in person, please stop by! I won’t have that much inventory on-hand, though, so please come by early.

Between now and the events I need to knock down three weeks of comics. No problem. I know just the guy for that job.

XDM Pre-orders are closed. Tracy, Curtis, and I signed two pallets of books on Monday, and I think we’ve got a few left over.

I’m going to be taking some of them to Dragon’s Keep. That’s right, on Wednesday (the day comics arrive) by 2:00pm you can get a Pre-order edition of XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery at Dragon’s Keep in Provo. As an added bonus, I may be able to draw a picture in the back for you.

In other news, watch this space for:

* My WorldCon Schedule! See me in Montreal!

* My GenCon Indy Schedule! See me in Indianapolis!

* Some auctions, maybe! Including one of only three upside-down-bound copies of XDM! Tracy got one, Curtis got one, I’m going to draw in mine and then sell it because I want to have an iPhone.

As you may have noticed I’m not going to be at Comic-Con this week. Go see my friends in the Webcomics Pavilion, including the Blank Label Comics crew in booth 1330, sandwiched between Penny Arcade and Keenspot.

Posted by Sandra Tayler
Howard will be attending two major conventions in the month of August.  We do not have all the schedule details yet, but we want to let you know that he’ll be attending so that you can make your travel plans accordingly.

Anticipation (Worldcon 67) in Montreal Canada August 6-9.  Howard will be attending the convention and appearing on many panels.  I will be attending too, but not on panels.  This will also be the site for the Hugo Award announcement.  Important:  We will not have a dealer table at this event and have not been able to arrange for another dealer to sell our books.  We can’t bring piles of books with us through customs.  If you want books signed and sketched by Howard, you will need to buy them in advance.  We are looking into arranging a Schlocker meet and greet that is separate from the convention.  It will probably be on Friday August 7 but exact time and location are yet to be determined.  Montreal locals are invited to speak up in the comment thread with ideas and suggestions.

GenCon Indy in Indianapolis August 12-16.  We will post Howard’s full schedule at a later date.  He will be on many panels and presentations.  When he is not presenting, he will be at booth 1921 signing books like crazy.  This booth is located on the main aisle right across from the big Wizards of the Coast booth.  This is the Margaret Weiss Games booth which will be selling both XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery and all of the Schlock Mercenary books.  We’d dearly love to sell out and not have to ship any books home, so stop by early.

Howard will NOT be at Comic Con San Diego this year.   With Worldcon and GenCon back-to-back, another event was one event too many.  Howard is sad to miss it, but happy to retain some shreds of sanity.

This is the pair of work days during which a horde of minions volunteers show up to help package and send out 1300 packages full of Schlock books.  We always schedule two days, but for the past three shipping events the workers have been so amazing that there was nothing left to do on the second day.

Who: Any Schlock fan who is either local to Utah, or willing to travel at their own expense.

Where:  At Dragon’s Keep 260 N University Ave in Provo

When:  Starting at 9 AM running until 4 PM on June 8.  If there is work left to do, we’ll start again at 9 AM on June 9.

What:  The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance Shipping Event.  Most of the work will be putting books and slipcases into boxes and sticking labels onto the top.  There will be laughter and free food.  Volunteers will also get to pick through our scratch and dent box to take something home with them.  We do need a couple of volunteers with trucks who are willing to show up at our house at 8 AM on June 8 to help us haul massive piles of stuff down to Dragon’s keep.

Why: Because putting all those books in boxes all by myself would take a really, really long time.

If you are interested in volunteering for this event, please email schlockmercenary at gmail.com with the word “volunteer” in the subject line.  It would be helpful if the body of the email lists when you’re likely to be coming.  Some of you have already emailed me to volunteer.  I’m pretty sure I’ve got you listed, but it would be a good idea to email again to make sure you’re on the mailing list.  If you don’t want to email, but still want to come, feel free to show up on the 8th. If you only have an hour or two, that is fine just stop by. I don’t recommend showing up on the 9th unless you’ve read an announcement that there is still work to be done.

Have any questions?  email schlockmercenary at gmail.com and I’ll clarify.  Thanks everyone!

This weekend I was the Artist Guest of Honor at CONduit XIX: Evil Overlords of CONduit. I want to make it clear right away that while I was quite happy to accept this honored status there were artists there much worthier of acclaim. My friends Sarah Seiter and Jessica Douglas top that list. Their art-show panels made my panels all jealous.

But for me these events are not about honor nor acclaim. They’re about learning new stuff, teaching old stuff, making new friends, and connecting with old friends. And all this happens while celebrating the speculative genres in writing, art, music, and even dance.

A previous post has my schedule in it. I won’t trouble you with a travelogue, or a blow-by-blow. Sandra wrote more (and better) about the event than I can, and Fox 13 News offered television audiences a two-minute tour.

Some of my favorite moments from CONduit were the impromptu gatherings of professionals, the conversation groups that would coalesce at odd hours (often late ones) in the hotel lobby, empty conference rooms, or lesser-used passageways. Utah is home to a surprising number of genre-fiction writers and CONduit is like a big family reunion for us, complete with the crazy uncle, the could-have-been-a-supermodel cousin, and the scary half-Italian second cousin with rumored mob connections. If you’ve ever wanted to be a fly on the wall somewhere, I know some good walls.

I think the most significant single moment from CONduit XIX for me came at the Scrapyard Release Party, when I stepped outside for a moment and ran into my friend Gizmo. He said “I want to tell you something, but you need to take it the right way.” I agreed to take it the right way, expecting to learn that my fly was down. “When I first met you three years ago you looked like a comic book guy trying to sell your comics. Now you look like a professional.”

I pondered that remark for quite some time. I’m not entirely sure what has changed in my demeanor, what outward signs Giz is seeing, but one thing’s for sure: I’m glad he said something, because I do feel like something has changed. It might be that these shoes are finally starting to fit.

Next year CONduit’s theme is “Space Pirates of CONduit.” It’s happening over Memorial Day Weekend in 2010. Come meet my sometimes-dysfunctional extended family (I’m the cousin everybody expects to end up in prison.)