Saturday: I had some thoughts of seeing the Chuck panel, as I was there early enough, but early enough for the panel and early enough for the line are two different things and the line for Ballroom 20 was beyond insane, so I decided to go over to the Indigo Ballroom in the Hilton which is generally less impacted and see the program track there.  En route, I witnessed the line for Hall H, where the movie panels go on.  It had overflowed it’s already insane bounds and gone over across the street, wrapped around the park where the Clash of the Titans games promos were set up and extended into another dimension I think.  The games in the park were all nice: You could have your face painted and have a picture taken in cut-outs as one of Medusa’s victims, you could bounce on a giant trampoline (which did a number on my knee last year at con), you could play boffer wars in a bouncy arena, and you could even climb a rock wall with a cable safety harness.  Almost no one was playing the games, preferring to stand in line, so I decided I’d try the rock wall, which was free.  Unfortunately, I’d sprained my LCL a few months ago and about ten feet up the rock wall I felt it complain so I wussed out.  The guy who was supervising the wall looked more approving after I compared knee surgery scars with him.  In any case, I got a souvenir fan in place of a shield or a medusa headdress and went on to the line for the Indigo Ballroom, which was fortunately short.

I was there in time for the panel for Leverage, which I’d only vaguely heard of.  They had free MASTERMIND and GRIFTER T-shirts.  I took MASTERMIND, of course.  The room was packed and I had an extremely excited fifty-something fangirl next to me who was sqeeing with delight over seeing her favorite actors, one of whom I then noted was Christian Kane who I’d previously seen on Angel and who mentioned that he has a new music debut on iTunes of some song played on the show (explaining why his character Lindsay on Angel went off with a guitar at one point–they were incorporating a talent of the actor into the character).  Wil Wheaton was also playing this seasons’ guest villain, Chaos. It looks like a great show, and has a nice simple premise: a gang of modern-day Robin Hoods pulling a heist each week against some bad guys who deserve to get ripped off and then have their money given to charity.  I now have to set my DVR for another show.

Next was the Venture Brothers panel.  It’s a fun cartoon I’ve watched some episodes of and I’ll probably watch a few more.  The actors on the panel were entertaining and generally gonzo, as one might expect.

Then came the Sanctuary panel.  I’ve enjoyed the show, and the panel was enjoyable as well.  They talked a good bit about the Bollywood dance that figured into the last season finale, and also mentioned how they’ve set up a charity which has been helping various groups around the world.  The guy next to me started recording the whole show on his camera, but it wasn’t going to be an unsteady shot, because he’d brought an actual tripod.  I looked around and he wasn’t the only one.

Then came the panel for The Guild, who could teach the rest of Hollywood something serious about work ethic and how to please your fans.  Aside from being at their booth throughout the con with all the actors present doing continuous signings from what I could see, they started the panel with the producer thanking all the fans and telling some production details that were genuinely interesting (as opposed to the twaddle from the guy for the Falling Skies panel, for example).  They then introduced the actors and segued neatly to showing the third episode the current season because they assumed everyone had watched the first two.  I hadn’t, but I can remedy that now, it was fun to see Wil Wheaton back as the villain Faux who had ended up as Codex’s love interest at the end of last season.  They then gave out buttons with the bodice ripper painting of Codex and Faux shown in the episode as a funny bit.  Then, when you wouldn’t think they could top that, they said they’d show the fourth episode, though the editing wasn’t quite done.  So we start into a nice seen with Codex and Zaboo in her bedroom which suddenly organically turns into a Bollywood extravaganza called “Game On.”

Wow.  That was some serious showmanship, and not just for the music video, which was amazing, but for the reveal to the fans.  Obviously they planned this well in advance and I’m pleased to see it such a success.

The guy with the tripod then packed up and left, but I then stayed around to watch a bit of the Community panel.  It was fun and whacky and basically what you’d expect for a comedy set in a community college with Chevy Chase as one of the professors, but after getting a free community college membership card with a discount for buying the DVD, I decided I was tired of sitting and so left too, going back to the convention center to see the art show, which was underwhelming, and more of the art on in the dealer’s room, which was not.

One artist I should point out to everyone is Echo Chernik.  She does some amazing art nouveau illustrations.  Another is Jeremy Bastain who does the Cursed Pirate Girl comics.

I then picked up with Albert and a couple of his friends and we went to Dick’s Last Resort which was a good deal of fun, especially since they were into the Comicon spirit and the waiters were in costume.  Ours was dressed as a white Mr. T with a Brooklyn accent, which was entertaining, and the food was good.  Pete, who’d joined us for dinner late, told us about the really cool Tron set-up they’d had off-site from the convention center.  I wish I’d been able to see it, but there’s always too much stuff to see, but what he showed me on his camera was pretty amazing.  We ate and ordered too much, which in hindsight we shouldn’t have because the next stop was the House of Blues where one of my publishers, SmartPop, had invited us to a party.  There was a buffet with too much delicious food, and also copies of their latest essay anthology A Taste of True Blood which the editor, Leah Wilson, was signing for all the guests.  There was fun talk about anthologies and the usual convention party fun.

Sunday: The last day of the con, I decided to catch Ann and Jeff Vandermeer‘s panel where they talked about upcoming projects, including steam punk anthologies and various curious and whimsical things.  I then did the dealers room floor, snagging up various things that caught my eye as purchases for the final day sales and also getting the final day swag.

The most interesting/fun bit of swag came in the WETA Workshop booth where a guy got up on a chair and announced that in partnership with TheOneRing.net were doing a trivia contest based on The Hobbit. Now, I pride myself on having a semi-eidetic memory, so I thought my chances of winning something with trivia from a book I’d read over thirty years ago were not half bad if I played my cards right.  After flubbing one question, I got called on for another, wanting the names of two of the swords Bilbo found in the troll’s hoard.  Now, if I racked my brains I might have been able to recall the fancy elven names, but they just asked for names, so I immediately gave the orcish ones: “Biter and Beater!”  The Weta guy looked at me as if I’d gone slightly mad since he was reading the card and those were not the names he was looking at but I just grinned and nodded to the OneRing guy for arbitration, and he admitted that those indeed were two of the names for the swords.  Not the names they were looking for, but names from the book.  I was asked if I knew the elven name, which I didn’t, but a guy next to me did: “Glamdring and Orcrist!”  The OneRing guy decided that that question was sufficient to advance us both to the finals after we’d answered a couple other questions.

The final round was me, a woman, the elven scholar guy, and a kid who I expected had read the book recently.  The elven scholar won the first question, selecting a miniature shield as his prize, the kid then correctly said that Gandalf had asked for red wine in Bilbo’s house and got the map of New Zealand as Middle Earth, and I then answered the next question correctly and got my choice of fancy rubber Hobbit ears or a red T-shirt for TheOneRing.net with the slogon “Talk Nerdy to Me.”  I’m not much of a cosplayer, but a T-shirt in my size?  Excellent.

After that, Albert gave me a ride to the airport and my friend Michael picked me up.  All in all an excellent Comicon.

I had considered doing a daily blog post and update, but that way lay madness or at least sleep deprivation and less con, so I’ll just do it now.

First off, a broad generalization: This appears to be a banner year for zombies and a notable year for family togetherness, and yes, we’re talking at the same time too.

Now on to specifics, in order of occurrence, not importance. I flew down Wednesday and was picked up by my friend Albert who was my guest for the con and in turn whose house guest I was. He’d already picked up our badges and since the airport was so close to the convention center, we hopped back and I got to see the last hour of preview night, whereupon I saw simultaneously the most impressive thing I saw at the con and the least impressive thing which were one and the same. The most impressive thing was the throne of Odin from the upcoming Thor movie. It’s this grand extravaganza that looks somewhat like a giant gold sword hilt (riffing, I think, on Odin supposedly having a sword suspended over his throne a la Damocles) with amazing Norse knotwork and steps and the impression that there were supposed to be valkyries perched all over portions of it like the Rockettes. However, on the throne itself was this cheap gold lame cushion that looked like it came from a ’70s porno. My guess is that Odin is going to wear some amazing fur cape and the set designer said not to bother because no one would ever see it, but it’s also going to be seen in thousands of photos as people lined up to take their pictures in it.

Regardless, I stopped by a few booths, notably Kingdom of Loathing and Girl Genius, picking up a few item cards at the first for my in-game clanmates and saying “hi” to the Foglios at the other.  The hall then closed and Albert and I went over to the bar at the Sheraton Suites to meet up with my friend Allison Lonsdale as well as her friends J. and Mel who do the Two Lumps webcomic.  Allison gave me the CD of “Live at Lestat’s” which I’d pre-ordered many years ago–and which she was glad to finally have out–and we had a good time (apart from my garlic intolerance and the unadvertised surprise garlic in the risotto, but they brought me mammoth coconut shrimp instead, so it all worked out).

Thursday we went to the con and I went off to The Power of Myth panel, which was an author track panel moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy.  The room was packed to the point of them turning people away and there were a number of interesting panelists, including my friend Seanan McGuire, and my friend and editor Esther Friesner who had been flown out for the con.  It was a very fun panel and moreover informative, with Seanan mentioning the Romany legend that a certain type of fey creature was known to steal your baking stone if you displeased it which had been modernized in her grandmother’s retelling to stealing your microwave.  Michael Scott also made mention of the fascinating and tragic detail that there were entire villages in Ireland that had lost their native folklore due to the inhabitants dying during the Potato Famine or emigrating to America.  However, when they emigrated, they brought the folklore with them.

After the panel I caught up with Esther and set up to meet with her for dinner.  I then looked at the program guide and decided that there was nothing else in particular I wanted to see that day so I decided to pace the floor of the dealers room to see everything, something I hadn’t done in years since it’s the size of two and a half football fields.  But I did it.

Walking the floor made me conclude that this is the year of the zombie.  There were enormous displays for The Walking Dead, both the original comic series and the new AMC adaptation.  I was able to gather that it follows some small-time sheriff’s officer who’s injured in a shoot-out then wakes up in a hospital after the zombie plague is already in full swing, a la 28 Days, but it also has the heartwarming family angle where he’s out to track down his wife and son and rescue them from the zombies.  There were also zombies visible in the large booth for a video game called Dead Speed which appears to involve some bad-ass in motorcycle leathers, zombie card and dice games for sale from Steve Jackson Games, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies stuff at dozens of booths.

There was also more heartwarming family stuff in the form of No Ordinary Family which postulates that somewhat dumpy looking bald guy, played by Michael Chiklis, is married to super-hot MILF Julie Benz, and they have a boy and a girl, and then they’re in a plane which is caught in some super-uber-phlebotinum storm while they’re flying, which is pretty much the same origin story as The Fantastic Four.  Michael Chiklis even played The Thing in The Fantastic Four, so it’s really not a surprise that he gets the super-strength power.  Julie Benz’s Milf gets the Flash’s superspeed power, which is also reminiscent of The Incredibles.  To be different (for certain values of different) the daughter gets telepathy and the slacker son gets super-genius calculator powers.  I’m certain it’s hearwarming but it sure looks derivative.

I then got together with Esther for dinner and we went to the Gaslamp Strip Club which is so named because you grill your own steaks, which was good and fun.  After that I linked up with Albert and we hit Extraordinary Desserts, which were beautiful but too sweet for my taste, and went to the “From Dusk Till Shaun” party being hosted at El Camino on India Street.  It was the place that had previously been The Airport Lounge and it was kind of sad to see the 60-70s “golden age of air travel” be replaced by an admittedly cool Mexican bar.  I saw my friend Storm who I hadn’t seen in a year and it was then time to call it a night.

Friday The day began with the panel I was on, again hosted by Maryelizabeth, With Great Power Come Great Stories.  I was there representing for Wild Cards, as were Carolyn Spector and surprise extra guest Paul Cornell.  The room was about two-thirds full, but would have had more people if the interminable line for ballroom 20 weren’t routinely barring access to the rest of the hall.  One of the panelists was even late because of it.  Regardless, the panel went well, and I got the closing remark, “But sometimes you need to use the insanity widget,” which Maryelizabeth then echoed as a good final line and adjourned us to the signing area.

After the signing, Carolyn and I went to The Field and had lunch, talked Wild Cards and writing in general, and had a good time, then went back to the convention center and went around the dealer’s room until my feet got too sore and I went off to see a panel and sit down.

While I would have liked to see the True Blood panel, the line for it was insane and the main point was to get off my feet.  They’d also cross-programmed it with another vampires-and-werewolves show I also like called Being Human, but as that’s from Britain and didn’t have banners over half the convention center advertising it, I assumed it would be less impacted and I could sit down immediately.  I was right.

I got in for the tail end of Teen Wolf. No, not the Teen Wolf with Back to the Future made them release it anyway, and not the cartoon version either.  Well, yeah, sort of, but it looked like with this remake, they planned to play it straight and it looked reasonably cool.

This was then followed by the panel for Falling Skies, or as I called it afterward “In Which Stephen Spielberg Phones It In.”  How do I explain it?  Let’s see….  Take War of the Worlds and file the serial numbers off (it’s in public domain, but the last version bombed, so you don’t want to be associated with that) and cross-pollinate it with some patriotism lifted from Independence Day by making your protagonist an American history professor who specializes in the Revolutionary War and is thus is filled with idealistic hope that a small band of insurgents can continually frustrate and annoy an invading army until their intergalactic homeworld eventually suffers an economic collapse and the funding for the invasion of earth is yanked.  Or something like that.  This role is being played by Noah Wylie, an actor I usually enjoy and who was very earnestly trying to sell his new series, but the story about his character’s wife being dead, two of his sons being around, and the third son being kidnapped by the aliens for “mysterious purposes”?  (Hint: These “mysterious purposes” are invariably hybridizing humans with aliens, which he would know if he were a professor of pop culture and were thus genre savvy.)

Like The Walking Dead, the story picks up several months after the invasion, but instead of having the collapse of society glossed over by means of a convenient coma, we have this grave-voiced little girl telling us that the aliens “did not want to be friends” as a voice-over to crayon drawings of bug-eyed green men with gnashing razor-sharp teeth.  I’m about to wonder if the sheriff and the history professor shouldn’t team up and go deal with the zombies and the aliens together when the Q&A begins and this breathless woman asks the producer where they came up with the brilliant idea of explaining the invasion via the little girl’s drawings, and I’m thinking, um, it’s on tv tropes.org and it’s called a “nightmare fuel coloring book.” I could almost forgive the woman for the ditzy question when the producer opened his mouth and started blowing colored smoke about it being something Stephen Spielberg invented from his amazing creative genius, as opposed to it being a standard film convention of the genre, and you always give the dire exposition to little girls instead of little boys if you can help it because little girls are perceived as inherently more innocent and the contrast is automatically viewed as creepier.  Duh.

Then the panel was over and there was a short wait for Being Human to start.  Unlike most there, I had not yet illegally downloaded the whole second season to watch it, but I still enjoyed the panel and the actors.  There was also an interesting mention that while the BBC show is continuing, there will be an American version started up on the SyFy channel and the producer hoped we’d watch both so he’d get more residuals.

I then went and caught dinner with Albert and his friend Andrew, who’s also a housemate.  We hit the Dublin Square and had dinner and drinks with a blogger who was covering the con, after which we called it an early night in preparation for Saturday.

In twenty years of Comicons, I have never gotten so much swag.  Yes, there was the year of pogs, the year of posters, the years of posters and bags.  But never before have I gone to a con, come back laden with more bags than I could reasonably carry (or take as my onboard luggage), and then realize I’d left two behind at my friend Albert’s.

I was told by dealers that they weren’t seeing many credit cards, but everyone was paying cash–a sign of the economy.  But it seems another sign of the economy that Hollywood is just throwing free stuff at people as promotion.  I came back with four free DVDs (one random one given to me by a little kid in the hall, another box set of The Rose, Hello Dolly and 9 to 5 I’d got as a door prize for being one of the few people to look at “The Middle”) then came home and found a Coraline DVD waiting for me, prize from a raffle I’d entered at Westercon.

But now that that’s all said, let me go through the days of the convention in order.  I flew down Monday early to visit, and while doing so, found myself sitting with the staff of Slave Labor Graphics, going down to staff their booth.  (Tuesday, I went to the museums in Balboa Park.)

Wednesday night was “Preview Night,” which is pretty much a misnomer, because the floor was packed beyond anything I’ve seen before, and the con is now selling out so far in advance that everyone qualifies for preview night, as there are no longer any tickets left for people at the door.  We got our badges easily and hit the floor, and here I will describe what could be found on the floor and what the innovative promotions were: AMC is doing a new version of The Prisoner and they were having people take their pictures and be assigned their numbers for The Village.  I am now number 602, and the picture is only slightly better than my awful new driver’s license photo.  Heroes had booth babes in cheerleader costumes scanning badges to enter people into a raffle to win a Nissan cube (one given out per day of the con).  There was a Visitors center for the new V series, handing out cheery pamphlets.  And there was a booth with some new toy that was kind of cheaply made for the $70 price tag but cool all the same, since it wired up an encephalograph in a headband with a little base that had airjets floating a little blue foam rubber ball in the air depending on how much you concentrated or relaxed, with another little knob to twiddle to adjust the horizontal so you could take the ball floating through a series of hoops and other obstacles.  I found it easy, but it was frustating most of the gamers trying it, and even more so because the booth babes were got up as scifi psychic maidens which fit with a faux telekenisis game and they were doing it easily because they’d practiced and had likely been picked for being good at it.

On the Scifi end, the SciFi channel had rebranded themself as SyFy.  One actor on a panel (I think Eric McCormack promoting Alien Trespass) asked what was up with that, and why they thought they needed the name change, at which point a woman in the audience shouted out “Because they’re stupid!” which got a huge laugh and was the explanation that the panelists and the whole audience nodded in agreement with.  However, that said, SyFy was giving out nice disposable cameras and even nicer bags, and doing this in the Gaslamp Quarter instead of on the convention floor.

After the con closed Wednesday night, I went to the Airport Lounge for the Evil Empire Job Fair.  Company was good, and I linked up with Kelly and Shane from White Wolf, my old publisher, and we talked and hung out.  White Wolf did not have a booth at this con (they were on the wait list) but was helping to sponsor the X-Sanguine party on Saturday opposite the Masquerade.  Kelly does publicity for White Wolf and we talked about the various things we’d seen on the floor and what seemed the most effective.  We both griped about idiots who only brought one size of a given T-shirt to a convention.  (More about that later.)

Thursday was an interesting day.  Rather than go to the ginormous Hall H, most sane people were avoiding it because that way they could avoid the hordes of teenage maenads who were going to the Twilight panel and had even camped out the night before.  Many people ranted and lamented that Comicon had gotten away from its roots with all the Hollywood stuff, but I went to The Middleman panel, and saw the really good side of Hollywood that no one ever talks about: Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who’s a great guy and fanboy extraordinaire, in addition to being a screen and comics writer, had his comic The Middleman picked up as a series by ABC Family.  They promoted it last year, and filmed twelve episodes, but not, alas, the season finale, episode thirteen.  So instead, Javi had a full cast reunion (including a lot of actors who have gotten jobs on major network shows since) there to do a full dramatic reading of “The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse.”  It was hilarious, especially Matt Keeslar’s killer diction with the absurdly long name of the phlebotinum du jour, and there’s even a comic book now of the lost last episode.  This was everything right about the Hollywood presence at Comicon.

That evening, we were thinking of going to see Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, but instead, we (meaning Albert, Leslie and myself) went to the sneak preview of Mystery Team, a new film from a team called Derrick Comedy, who I never heard of before but I expect we’ll be hearing a lot from again.  As I told their director the next day, Comicon had given them the same spot on the floor that Clerks had had years before–an omen the director was very thrilled to hear, but honestly, Mystery Team is ten times more professional and funnier than Clerks ever was.  Basic Premise: Encyclopedia Brown grows up and has to deal with strippers, murders, and drug-addled hos.  Really.

Friday we tried to get into the room to see The Guild panel, but there was no room.  By that point we realized there would be no hope of getting into the Coraline panel either, so we just went and did the floor for the most part.  Then I had the idea of going to the Hilton to see a new TV show pilot which I reasoned might have more room.

We then got to see everything wrong with Hollywood in the form of The Middle, which I think is best described as imagining Malcom in the Middle without Malcolm: Heartwarming family comedy (for certain values of “heartwarming”) about a mother with three children who are so socially graceless to the point of it nearly qualifying them for special ed, which they apparently get from their parents, since this was the source of the extremely contrived plotline of the pilot which conspired to get the mother stranded in the middle of a cornfield in a superhero costume.  Really.  This was no doubt some insane (or desperate) executive’s idea of how to make it appeal to a Comicon audience.

We were three of the thirty people who’d come to see it in the Hilton’s lavishly huge and beautifully air conditioned Indigo Ballroom.  I was handed a raffle ticket going in the door, a Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince panorama picture bag (without having to fight a line at the WB booth), and a really nice canvas tote from MomLogic.com that included a purse hook (Albert and I couldn’t figure out what this thing was until our friend Leslie explained it), WB-character branded canned goods and pudding (really, and damn were they heavy), a Batmite mask that said “Awesome Sauce!” on the back, an apron that turned out to be a cross between a sun dress and babydoll pajamas, and the aforementioned box set I won in the raffle of favorite women’s films.  The WB publicist said the star never showed up to answer questions because she was stuck on the convention floor, which I read as the publicist calling Patricia Heaton on her cell phone and telling her she’d meet more fans on the floor than the handful who’d made it over to the ballroom in the other hotel.  But I wasn’t complaining because I could breathe and was given lots of swag.

Going back to the main convention center, the line for Dollhouse was wrapped all around the upper hall, so we decided not to bother.  We later heard bizarre rumors that season two is going to be set in some future dystopia.  We shrugged, saw some of the academic panels from the Comics Arts Conference, then went to the outdoor carnival NBC had set up to promote Heroes.  Short explanation: Season Five of Heroes is going to be set in a carnival, and they had the same actor to play the barker on the show as at the Comicon carnival.  It had free popcorn, snowcones and cotton candy, and games you could play for ticket to win Tshirts, collectibles or signed scripts.  I won a Tshirt, but the only size they thought to make for the con was Large.  Somewhere there is an exceedingly stupid publicist.  I didn’t wear a Large even when I was twenty and slim.

After that, we to get into the True Blood party, which had a line that went on forever.  While we were in the line, we ran into Jim and Nancy Hay, who were going out to dinner, so we blew off the party and joined them and were glad that we did–there was an amazing Mexican restaurant, and great company as well.  We talked about Comicon’s past and present, and I mentioned the insufficient air conditioning in the convention center.  Jim told me that a secondary air conditioner is brought in just for the con, at great expense, but unfortunately it still isn’t enough.  At a couple of the writing panels, Albert and I both found ourselves nodding off from lack of oxygen just from the press of people in the room.

Saturday is the traditional biggest day, and it did not disappoint, except when it did: After attending the “Is the Joker a Psychopath?” panel (which had Adam West on it, as well as Jerry Robinson, the Joker’s original creator) and then going over to the Indigo Ballroom and catching the Sanctuary panel (which was packed, unlike The Middle the day before) and had its actors, who seemed to be having some very good chemistry and fun, we went and thought maybe going two and a half hours early would be sufficient to get into the Iron Man panel.

We were wrong.

Albert and I waited an hour and a half in the sun until someone came out and said we weren’t likely to get in for anything, since people were basically doing a sit-in in Hall H.  So we then went to Ballroom 20, which had a wraparound line, but I thought would be sufficient to get in for True Blood.  While in line, I talked with a woman dressed as Snow White from the Fables comic series and we had a great conversation about that, books, and literature in general, since she’s a children’s librarian from LA.  We then saw the tail end of the Fringe panel and all of the True Blood panel, both of which were fun and informative.  Best line of the evening was by Alexander Skarsgard who, when asked if they had conventions like this in Sweden, said “If this were in Sweden, it would be in a barn, and there would be only thirty people, and twenty five of them would be named Skarsgard.”

We then went to Hennesey’s to hang with Pete Coogan and the rest of the professors from the Comics Arts Conference and get dinner, after which we went to the X-Sanguine party, which had a zombie theme, good company, and interminable rave music.  I hung out with Kelly and Shane and a bunch of other friends.  We laughed about the large-only Heroes T-shirts.

Sunday we split up a bit–Albert and Leslie went to the comics arts conference’s art show, while I went to the Mystery Team panel, the panel after it for Alien Trespass (part homage, part send-up of 50s B-movies), and finally the panels for Being Human (the new BBC show about the vampire, the werewolf and the ghost who share a flat in Bristol) and Torchwood.  John Barrowman was a ham as always.

After that was Once More With Feeling, the Buffy musical, which Albert and Leslie rejoined me for.  And then Comicon was over except for not being over: We went out for dinner, caught Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Pete and the other professors, when went to the Hyatt bar where I got to reconnect with my old friend and occasional co-author, Andy Grossman.

And Monday, I went back to the art gallery to check out “The Ridotto in Venice” which is something I was researching for some fiction.

Whew!

While there, I invented a parlor game of interest to writers and fans in general.  It was inspired by this inspired blog post about matchups between heroes and villains to decide the eternal battle of good versus evil.  However, as the game evolved, it seemed a better name was needed than simply Good versus Evil or Heroes versus Villains.  Instead, taking the name from the most warped match-up that presented itself, let me present Mary Poppins versus Cthulhu.

The rules are fairly simple: You need two players, along with any number of judges and kibitzers to decide the fate of the battle for those cases where the contestants can’t agree.  Each player thinks up a hero or villain from the pages of history or literature, then on the count of three, says the name.  It is then decided which of them would win in a battle to the death, with all their powers and resources brought to bear on the problem.  Players alternate heroes and villains each round, and it’s of interest to writers because it gets you to think about characters strengths and weaknesses and the way things will logically happen in a plot.

I played mostly with John De Cles at the dead dog party at the end of the convention.  With the case of Mary Poppins versus Cthulhu, the logic went as follows: While on the face of it, Cthulhu is an ancient evil elder god who will rise from the waves when the stars are right, if you go with the book version, there’s no contest–Mary Poppins rearranges the stars in the course of babysitting and can also summon Greco-Roman gods as a way to amuse kids on a shopping trip.  She’d banish Cthulhu without even breaking a sweat and do it in time for tea.  And even if she were limited to the powers of the Disney musical version, Cthulhu would find himself in a magical chalk painting with nothing to eat but pearly kings and penguins, and by the time he’d finished that, Mary Poppins, having the power of Julie Andrew’s perfect diction, would be able to banish him by speaking the appropriate eldritch words from the Necronomicon.  For example, “Supercalifragelisticexpialidocious,” which is of course “something quite atrocious” which fits Cthulhu to a T.  However, Cthulhu would at least get to eat Burt the chimney sweep.

In a similar match-up, Willy Wonka was able to deal with the monster from Cloverfield, since he’d previously faced snozwangers, hornswogglers, and those horrible wicked wangdoodles, not to mention vermicious knids which are certainly more than Lovecraftian enough too.  So he’d know what the Cloverfield monster was and how to deal with it, and barring that, would find a use for unsafe Wonka gum and turn it into a blueberry the size of the giant peach.

Evil however was able to take points in unexpected places.  For example, Superman, champion of good and utterly broken superhero, was taken out by the Child Snatcher from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, who doesn’t have much in the way of power beyond a facility for disguise, a little sweet-talking, and the ability to design a good trap.  Then again, this is what everyone uses to get the better of Superman, so the Child Snatcher is well prepared.  Add a Kryptonite lollipop and Supes was toast.  Eliza from Uncle Tom’s Cabin was also taken out by Lucrecia Borgia, who had never followed her out onto the ice, but instead just poisoned her beforehand.

There were also some embarrassing deaths.  Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist commited suicide after being confronted by Casper the Friendly Ghost (who would not have tried to kill anyone despite the rules of the game, but whose constant attempts at friendship mixed with Bill’s unsuccessful attempts to kill him led to Bill taking his own life).  Lobo the bounty hunter from DC comic simply shot Pongo from 101 Dalmations.  Sauron was utterly unable to tempt Sidartha, who simply threw the One Ring into Mt. Doom without stressing out about it.  And while we were not certain of exactly what went down beforehand, Hans Brinker ended up skating to safety while Snidely Whiplash fell through the ice.

And then there were the odd ones.  Valentine Michael Smith eventually realized Mrs. Lovett was a bad person and “sent her away” but then proceeded to eat the meat pies anyway.  And while Shirley Temple was successfully assimilated by the Borg Collective, adding her uniqueness to their own led to the Borg Ship “Lollipop” and probably the strangest Borg Queen ever, absolutely ruining their street cred as villains and handing the round to Shirley.

First off…wow. Comicon was amazing. In over twenty years of attending, Comicon’s managed to outdo itself again, mostly by dint of those who came, both industry types and fans. I don’t know how many, but numbers of over 200,000 were rumored and probably underestimated.

Second thought, what’s up with the art shows at all the cons? At Comicon, I saw more winged kittens in the art show than superheroes, or for that matter, any comic book characters. Yes, I understand the cottage industry of marketing to dragon and cat fetishists, but seeing the same dracokitty art recycled from Westercon to Comicon was surreal given the difference of the rest of the convention.

Saturday night of Comicon, I skipped the masquerade to go to the X-Sanguine party at The Abbey. Theme for for the night was quarantine for a viral outbreak, and the goth industrial finery was on full display, with highlights being a trio of veiled Victorian ghost brides who’d used phosphorescent electric wire to illuminate their gowns from inside, stilt-walking mad scientists, and a guy who’d managed to reproduce Captain Hammer from Joss Whedon’s new project, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, on short notice, but looking even more impressive–Nathan Fillion, who plays Captain Hammer (and was at the con), is slightly over six foot, but the costumer I talked to, Damien, stands about 6’6″ with a superhero build.

My friend Storm was also there, dressed as Marie Antoinette, and we ended up talking to a bunch of fans from Vegas, where Westercon was just held, who were saying that Comicon should move to Vegas because Vegas had the convention space to hold Comicon. I countered that I didn’t want to see the guy in the Chewbacca costume fainting in the Vegas heat, as it had been 115 earlier this month when I was there. They had to agree on that point.

The San Diego Convention center had a dealer’s room the size of two football fields and it was still crowded, despite the alternate draw of all the panels going on upstairs or in Hall H. I completely missed Hall H which consisted as per usual of all the movie previews and panel discussions with the various writers, directors and actors for the movies, instead mostly going to the ones for the comic and television shows and dealing with the lines to get into some of them.

In contrast, the resort where Westercon was held was palatial, if smaller than the San Diego convention center, but the few hundred fans and pros attending were still rattling around. Attendance at Westercon was down from previous cons, and while I did have a good time, it was very much a relaxicon with the added perk of doing 4th of July in Vegas, and Vegas did not disappoint–The fireworks show at the Red Rock was spectacular, and the Vegas restaurants similarly excellent.

That said, the biggest amenity Comicon has going for it in the current location is San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, which in my estimation is second only to New Orlean’s French Quarter for restaurants in strolling distance, and possibly superior in that New Orleans does New Orleans cooking almost without exception, whereas in the Gaslamp, I had Irish food twice at The Field, semi-Irish food once at Hennesey’s, and amazing Indian food at a new restaurant called Masala. And that’s just a small sampling of what’s there.

Many fine things can be said about Vegas, but strollability in July is not one of them. I’ve heard rumors of Comicon possibly moving to Anaheim sometime, but the restaurants in the Disneyland area, with certain exceptions, do not equal those of the Gaslamp, and certainly do not have their number and range.

But before going back to the wonder that is Dr. Horrible, I should probably go over the con in order. Rather than driving or flying, this year I decided to take the train, both for budget and novelty. And luckily I decided to go down a bit early and leave a bit late, so I missed what the conductors said were the most crowded trains they’d ever seen.

Anyway, my friend Albert picked me up Tuesday night when I got in. Wednesday we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and then to the con in time for Preview Night, which has gone from being a perk for those who get their memberships in advance to a virtual necessity for those who want to see the show relatively uncrowded. Repeat, “relatively.”

The dealer’s room was amazing. Small generalities: Larger Hollywood presence, smaller game company presence, a somewhat larger artists alley and more fine art booths, both modern and vintage. As opposed to the winged kittens upstairs at the art show, the owner of Century Guild had just acquired a portfolio of original Klimt prints and was showing them to interested buyers and also those like me who couldn’t afford them but still appreciate fine art. Last year he had original Mucha. Century Guild was also showcasing some works of current day artists working in similar styles and there were a large number of professional artists who had booths outside of artists alley.

It was, in short, the grand bazaar. I bought a colored die I needed to complete a set, for ceremonial and aesthetic reasons, caught dinner at The Field with Jim and Nancy Hay, and then went to the X-Sanguine after-party held at the Airport Lounge, a nightclub in San Diego done in an early 70s airport theme.

Thursday, I did the dealer’s room floor for the most part, locating the Tor booth, waved “hi” to Patrick Nielsen-Hayden who looked like he was busily liveblogging the whole thing, admired the cover of Inside Straight, and then spotted Caroline and Warren Spector nearby. We were all heading off to the Doctor Who/Torchwood panel in Ballroom 20, which was thankfully big enough to hold everyone, but the line wrapped around the upper floors. A large number of the writers, producers and actors were there, especially for Torchwood. John Barrowman was particularly funny and was obviously having a great time because San Diego is his old college town and he was able to return as the triumphant actor-hero.

After Torchwood, I ran over to 5AB for Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s new project, The Middleman. Javi was there, pleased as punch (and deservedly so), and Matt Keeslar who plays The Middleman was there as well, obviously having a great time too. They played a clip from the other star, Natalie Morales, in which she apologized for not being there, and then showed an amusing clip from an upcoming episode in which Kevin Sorbo plays a bad Middleman from a previous era. All-in-all, very fun. I hope the show makes it, and not just because Javi’s a friend but for the selfish reason that I want to see more episodes.

A bit later there was the Superhero Superfiction panel in the same room. Caroline Spector and Melinda Snodgrass were there representing Wild Cards and promoting Inside Straight as well as Melinda’s new novel, Kevin J. Anderson with a new Superman book, and several other authors for various other books, including two from a new one called The Darker Mask. Mary Elizabeth Hart from Mysterious Galaxy was moderator and afterwards hosted the signing. I’m looking forward to next year when Busted Flush is out, as well as Esther Friesner’s Witch Way to the Mall anthology so I’ll have something current to sign.

After dinner at the aforementioned Masala with Margaret Organ-Kean (who came after finding from the internet that fans were already expecting her in artists alley) and her husband and fellow Foolscap instigator, Bruce Durocher, they con had a special showing of The Lost Boys: The Tribe along with a panel with the writers and actors. Corey Feldman was hamming it up by coming in character as Edgar Frog, and Angus Sutherland was taking the analogous role to what his brother Kiefer did in the original. Short review: Not as good as the original, but still quite good for a sequel, and far better than a direct-to-DVD movie has any expectations of being. I saw it along with my friends Albert and Jerry who are about the same age as I was when the original came out. They liked it a lot and I smell more sequels sooner than twenty years.

Friday was the day of lines. Joss Whedon was in Ballroom 20 with the cast of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The line went on forever, but the panel was both funny and informative. I’d thankfully been turned onto it before the con, so was able to watch it free, then paid for an iTunes version I could watch on my iPod on the train the way down. I was hoping and expecting there to be a big-screen showing of it, and one was scheduled for that evening, but unfortunately not in that room, which was reserved for the Eisner Awards. Instead, it was put across the hall in room 6B, after the showing of the Sci Fi Friday Night preview shows of Eureka and Stargate Atlantis, after the 30-year reunion show of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

This was a mistake. Not everyone could get into MST3K who wanted to, and everyone who wanted to see Dr. Horrible was getting in line early to see Sci Fi Friday too. I actually could have gotten in to the room earlier because one of the door guards looked at my badge and thought I was the Kevin Murphy from MST3K, but I don’t think I’d be able to fool the audience let alone the other panelists, so I didn’t capitalize on the confusion.

Thankfully there was some mad plate-spinning from the convention staff and they arranged for rooms 5AB and 7AB to be opened and show early showings of Dr. Horrible. However, I was already in a good place to see the SciFi Friday, so I got in and watched both. The producer of Eureka introduced the Sci Fi portion of the show, and Joss and the rest of the cast and writers attended the big-screen premiere of Dr. Horrible and took their bows to thunderous applause.

I’m thinking that in the future, Hall H may have to be opened for nighttime programming.

Now, what to say of Dr. Horrible? I’ll echo what Joss said at the panel earlier that day: During the writers strike, they’d thought about making art without any money going to certain people, with “certain people” being an obvious circumlocution for the studios. It was rather exciting to watch something at the forefront of a new media form, direct-to-iPod rather than direct-to-DVD or its precursor, direct-to-video.

Of course Dr. Horrible showed up on DrHorrible.com first, for free viewing to build buzz, and of course the Comicon placement and showing was well chosen. Joss’s brothers and co-writers, Jed and Zack, mentioned that there would be tryouts for the Evil League of Evil on the website, and ten or twelve winners would be added to the League and included on the eventual DVD. And there was also mention of future installments of Dr. Horrible.

But what to say of Dr. Horrible? Apart from superlatives about the writing, acting, and music, and nice words about the low budget costuming which looked like stuff that regular people who were superheroes or villains could throw together (explaining how so many costumers reproduced it so quickly), maybe a quick thumbnail pitch: Dr. Horrible, aka. Billy, wants to join the Evil League of Evil, but also wants to get the girl of his dreams, Penny, but has trouble when Captain Hammer, narcissistic prat of a superhero, gets in the way. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say that it does a very nice job of wrangling with the concept of what is good and what is evil, who’s the hero and who’s the villain, and far more successfully than other things which I would have expected to be better but weren’t and I’ll get to later. (Hint: The Dark Knight.)

In any case, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was marvelous to see on the big screen. I want the next installment. Now. But in the time being, I can just rewatch the original three acts on my computer for my happy payment of $3.99 to iTunes.

Saturday, got to the con too late to get in the line for Heroes second season panel, but was able to get into the Tori Amos panel. I’m a big fan of Tori Amos and it was great to see her, though it was a bit odd given the dressing down of most of the panelists (Joss was running around in rumpled plaid), Tori was got up in a black designer gown and long red wig like she was going to the Grammies. She was also discussing the new coffee table book of comics that have been done based on her songs, and mentioned how after reading the stories in it, she was hearing different, new music in her head. Which means we’re going to get more albums from her. Really interesting discussion between her and the writers and artists on the project.

After this came the line and panel for Joss Whedon’s other new project, Dollhouse. Eliza Dushku was also there, as well as the actor who plays the investigator and also played some major role on Battlestar Galactica, which is still on my “to catch up on” shelf, so I can’t say anything about him other than looking forward to seeing him on the show since he and Eliza appeared to have good chemistry. And Dollhouse looks like it’s going to be very interesting.

Now of course comes the question…this is Comicon. Where are the panels about the actual comics, as opposed to fancy coffee table books or comics like The Middleman that made the jump to the small screen? Okay, I next attended the Fables panel, which had the full writing and art staff there, as well as the editor as a ringer in the audience and a friend who was model for Bluebeard playing the MC. Plus a gang of fans who’d costumed themselves as everyone from Flycatcher to The Snow Queen. There was also a giveaway of a one-page comic, which was good fun, and special giveaways of art for those who didn’t get one last year.

I then went and caught the second half of the Chuck panel. All the actors were having a great time kidding each other and extremely earnest about getting people to watch their show. I was rather disappointed it and Fables were put opposite the Pushing Daisies panel, but at least it kept the rooms less crowded.

For dinner, met up with my friend, Pete, aka. Dr. Peter Coogan, instigator of the Comics Arts Conference, a whole academic track going on in Room 30 (a.k.a. Outer Mongolia) during the con. Got a great academic conversation fix with him and the gang and then primed myself for going to the aforementioned X-Sanguine party at The Abbey, where of course there were a number of other professionals spiced in with the regular goths.

Finally Sunday. Missed the Smallville panel with was on strangely early, and then couldn’t get into the room for the Supernatural panel due to the large number of drooling fangirls. Instead, went to the Emily the Strange panel which had the usual Mad Lib and a rather interesting slideshow of Emily art, but less schwag than previous years when they had a music sampler. Caught the end of Paranormal State so as to sit down for the Ghost Whisperer panel. Jamie Kennedy showed up acting like, well, Jamie Kennedy, and wearing a plaid fedora through the panel. Probably the best example of “star” behavior I’d seen all weekend, as opposed to “giddy happy actor” which everyone from Barrowman on had been doing when they weren’t doing the “play your character as a member of this panel” shtick. Of course Jamie Kennedy was also probably happy that Jennifer Love-Hewitt was unexpectedly absent so he could make jokes about her breasts.

After checking out more of the dealer’s room, I went to Outer Mongolia, or Room 30, and caught the last panel of the academic track, a round-robin of undergraduates and graduate students giving nutshell presentation of their papers. The most interesting of these came from Brian Swafford of Ohio State, who talked about Comicon as a site of pilgrimage, and how status was accrued by fans by having visited the legendary Comicon. I’d never put it in that context before, but it made perfect sense, and the link between medieval pilgrim badges and modern con badges is far closer than one might think.

After that, I decided to go to the Once More With Feeling screening as the finale of the con, but got in the room early and caught the tail end of Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra talking about their new project, some online animated Indian mythology that left me underwhelmed and had me staring at Deepak Chopra as he talked about worldwide poverty while wearing these red-sequined spectacles that looked like they’d been made to accessorize with the Ruby Slippers. But I suppose being an international self-help guru lets you transcend irony.

Then came the second Joss Whedon musical of the con, with the entire audience singing along. It was marvelous fun, and after it, I met up with my friends Albert and Jerry and we went off to meet up with Pete and the other professors to see The Dark Knight. En route, we ran into a grand score of con schwag: a young woman opening up boxes of T-shirts and squirt pistols promoting Sukiyaki Western Django, telling everyone to take as many as they wanted. I took a brace of pistols and a pile of T-shirts, as I had an empty bag and was going to be meeting Pete soon. I handed around some to the Pete and the other professors and one of the Dark Horse editors who was also hanging out with the academics, we got our tickets, got dinner at the food court, and then saw the film.

Afterwards, over drinks, everyone was pretty much in agreement: It was a good film, but we were all disappointed because we went in having been told it would be a fantabulous film and it was merely good. Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker was probably the shining star of the film, but couldn’t transcend the numerous plot holes and idiocies. Also, the child playing Commissioner Gordon’s son couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag, but to give him credit, even a cross-dressing Shirley Temple couldn’t have pulled off the winsome moppet dialog they gave him, or made it convincing in the absurdly CSI-esque version of Gotham City he was living in. If they’d let him drop an F-bomb or two, I might have bought him as a real child, but not as they had him.

More problematic, Aaron Eckhart makes a perfectly fine Harvey Dent, but his transformation into Two-Face is unconvincing to say the least. Here again, I’ll blame the writers, since I can’t think of any actor who could have pulled off the lines they gave him.

Also, the Joker’s traps only appeared to work because the people of Gotham are idiots who take everything he says at face value, rather than expect him to do something like lie, or change his mind, because he’s crazy. There’s a couple boatloads of people in one of his traps and nobody twigs to the idea that you can’t trust that what he’s said is true. Some others defended this by saying that they didn’t have time for a long dialog between the civilians, but as I said, I would have settled for just one junior high school student who’d just done a book report on “The Lady or The Tiger.”

Again, similar themes to Dr. Horrible, but far less successfully dealt with.

And that was Comicon 2008. Whew.

I didn’t take long to consider my answer. The chance to travel to a part of the world so wrought with history and consequence doesn’t come every day. I had met my publisher, Rani Graff, and the multiple award-winning translator of Transformation and Revelation, Didi Chanoch, at the Glasgow WorldCon, and when these two great guys and Naomi Wiener, the foreign guest coordinator for ICon, promised to meet me at the plane, take me touring, show me a great time at the con, and send me safely home again, I jumped. (Besides, I’ve never done a GOH gig, and I thought I ought to grab the opportunity.)

I was actually surprised that almost everyone’s first reaction was: Are you really going to go there? Some were worried for my safety. Some have problems with Israeli history or politics.

I would hate the thought of people not visiting our own country because they judged us all by our national government. And no matter what my personal views on Israeli/Palestinian history or politics, I wasn’t going to become wiser or more intelligent about the issues by not going. And I sure didn’t like the thought of refusing because I was scared I’d be blown up.

I read the US State Department site that advised American citizens to stay out of the West Bank and Gaza and avoid places where large numbers of Americans gather. As the convention is conducted mostly in Hebrew (with the exception of the Guest of Honor events and the film festival!) I doubted there would be large numbers of Americans at ICon. Naomi assured me that most of the convention guests would speak excellent English, which was really a good thing as the sum total of my Hebrew comprises shalom, toda, and mazeltov!

Truly the most nerve wracking part of the anticipation was the shoes I had to fill. Last year’s GOH was Neil Gaiman. Ouch. And before him? Tim Powers. 2004, Guy Gavriel Kay. And in 2003, the man who put ICon on the map for North American authors – Orson Scott Card. Holy moly!!!

So how was it?

What an awesome time! Indeed Rani, Didi, and Naomi, whom I came to call my “minders,” met me at the airport. They allowed my to deposit my luggage in a charming Bauhaus-style hotel in downtown Tel Aviv, then whisked me off to the 4000-year-old port of Jaffa to walk off the long airplane hours and eat hummus and St. Peter’s fish while overlooking the Mediterranean.

We spent a total of four days touching the country itself – Caesarea, the Roman port city built by Herod the Great, the Crusader port of Acre, the Sea of Galilee at sunset and with the full moon rising, a drive through Haifa. On one day we did the fortress of Masada – where the great silence of the desert swallows up the voices of tourists – and a float in the Dead Sea – one of those touristy things that everyone does for a good reason. There is just nothing like it. (I call such things “uniquities.”) And then a full day in beautiful Jerusalem, being trampled on by representatives of all three great monotheistic religions, while finding a lovely peace sharing a meal with new friends on a rooftop in the old city on a golden afternoon with a soft breeze blowing. Jerusalem is a wholly and holy unique place.

And, oh yes, then there was ICon itself. We began with a preview night at a local bookstore, where I began to meet the passionate, energetic people of the Israeli fantasy/sf community. Besides drinking wine and being introduced to many of the con volunteers and bookstore patrons, two Israeli authors, Shimon Addaf and Hagar Yanai, and I gave a brief preview of a panel called “Conquering Fantasy” in which we were to talk about war and occupation as a continuing element of fantasy literature. Even after such a brief discussion, I could tell that this was going to be a great discussion.

ICon runs for 6 days during the autumn holiday of Sukkot, when schools are out. The similarities with North American conventions? Lots of card players, RPGs, non-stop films (the ICon internation film festival component is becoming very prestigious), lots of purple hair, and some costumes (though no masquerade.) Lots of things going on at once. Lots of literary programs. Attendees that are far better read in “the literature” than I am! Many friendly people. Many people who are just there having a good time and could care less about a GOH.

The differences? The attendees are almost entirely under thirty. They can house many students hostel style in a nearby high school, which allows lots more young people to come. This fantasy/sf community is definitely young. Most of the presentations are in the form of single presenter lectures, rather than panels. As these are conducted in Hebrew, I didn’t get to many, but many of the subjects are similar to those we hear. Rather, in between my own events – which consisted of the opening ceremonies (run by a comedy troop who were funny even in translation), a talk & reading, GOH interview/Q&A session, a writers workshop with 15 eager aspiring writers, and the Geffen Award presentation – I sat in the cafe area of the convention venue and just talked to attendees. Some were aspiring writers and wanted to talk writing, some just wanted to talk about the books. Everyone wanted to talk about my impressions of their country. Many wanted to talk American politics. (Our own voters should be so informed!!) I found it interesting that gender issues were a big topic. I really enjoyed talking to two young women who had just completed their military service. Conversation was just terrific and no matter how much they apologized for their English – they were all quite fluent.

One of the highlights of the con experience was my publishers’ dinner, where I got to meet such interesting people as the young woman who has translated all of Harry Potter into Hebrew. She’s midway through Book 7, and invariably people said “Why are you here and not at home working?” I was also privileged to meet the man who translated Tolkien into Hebrew. I have nothing but admiration for people who do this – such a responsibility, and such talent.

Well, I could write about it all night. The upshot is that it was an honor and a privilege to attend. Fantasy readers are special people the world around. If you ever have the opportunity to attend ICon, do. Best if you speak the lingo to go to the lectures, but not a requirement to have a great time.

Carol

It’s also advance fanfare for the triumphant return of the Wild Cards series. The new volume, Inside Straight, will be out from Tor in 2008. Moreover, Tor will have a booth at Comicon, and those there can register for a special convention drawing. Tor will have half a dozen glossy 11 x 17 inch posters of the gorgeous Michael Komarck cover, autographed by George R.R. Martin and five other contributors (Melinda Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, Daniel Abraham, Ian Tregillis, and Carrie Vaughn), and will be handing out the posters to the winners. Flyers and other information about the new triad will also be available at the Tor booth.

Carrie Vaughn will also be attending the con, and both of us will be answering questions about our characters (mine’s Rosa Loteria) and the stories (I’m not in Inside Straight, but the next volume, Busted Flush, is in the works, and beyond that, I can’t say much, since George has sworn us to secrecy about many crucial details, especially about Busted Flush because that will have details of the ending of Inside Straight, following as it does).

More exact news here:

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/news.html

There’s also a special new Wild Cards forum started at the Captain Comics message board, which will have assorted Wild Cards news and updates:

http://www.captaincomics.us/

Anyway, with Comicon, I’ll try to do updates from the Con, but can promise nothing except to do a large wrap-up when I get back next week. So use this topic for discussion of what’s going on for those who are there and those who are curious about it all.

Some years later, I got an email thanking me for my first novel — from Bosnia. The last care package had somehow made its way to the next international conflict and the soldiers there were grateful for something to read. I’d made some fans, but more than that, I’d help make the world a little brighter for people in a dark place (ironically with a dark fantasy set in Europe.)

Then came 9/11 and before I could think about getting some books together for “any soldier who like F&SF (and horror),” some jerk put anthrax in the mail and everything got restricted to mothers of soldiers and other people who actually knew someone, and since I was fortunate enough to not have any family or friends serving, the whole idea of kindness from strangers got buried.

Then I read a post by Cory Doctorow on Boing-Boing, mentioning that Iraq is having its first fantasy roleplaying convention, Ziggurat Con, being held June 9 from 1200 to 2100 hours at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq. There’s a call for donations of roleplaying game books for prizes, as well as for things such as dice, because d20s are in rather short supply in Iraq.

However, all my spare game books are either not current or I’m currently using them, so I dropped the con’s organizer, SPC David Amberson, an email (david.amberson (at) iraq.centcom.mil), asking him if he might like novels for prizes as well, and also if I should pass along the request to other authors I know. Here’s his response:

As for Fantasy & Sci-Fi Books, YES PLEASE!!!!! We have a loaner library here, but few books in it. People borrow and never bring them back. Books are the keys to understanding the world, and how it really works. By understanding other worlds and how they work, we can learn how to change our thinking and progress.

My address is as follows:
SPC David Amberson
A Co 86th Sig Bn
APO, AE 09331

Thank you so much for your support,

Dave

Building a library in the shadows of ancient Ur is a worthy cause, and while we should of course keep sending signed copies of our various works to all the local conventions in our own countries, sending them somewhere where there’s a scarcity of books in English and a whole lot of people who want to read them is a good thing. And we can even sneak in a letter to “any soldier” on the flyleaf.

Those of us with new novels about to come out might also drop a note to the publicity department at our publishers as to where to send the spare review copy or even a promotional case. Just think of it–review copies and promos that actually get read.

And of course boxing up some of those works by other authors that we’ve read and enjoyed (or promos we were sent that we didn’t have time to read) is also a good thing.

Attendance was down with both, due to being in the shadow of the three gorillas: Comicon, WorldCon and finally Westercon, though in many respects, the third gorilla was actually smaller than the orangutan twins.  Conjecture and Silicon both had dealers rooms as large if not larger than Westercon, and while the programming tracks were not as lavish, the nightlife was slamming.  And, um, it was almost all fans.  Not publishers parties.  Not bid commitees competing for the honor of hosting the next Westercon or Worldcon.  Just fans.

Okay, I’ll admit that Kevin and Andy’s “League of Evil Geniuses” party was also pimping Costumecon 2008, which they’re hosting here in San Jose, but when you walked in the door, you weren’t immediately badge-stickered and there was nobody with a cash box and a set of membership forms.  Just good munchies and drinks and fun conversations.  Ditto with the Browncoats, the Rocky Horror cast party in San Diego, the Rocky Horror full show (with doorprizes) in San Jose, the BASFA party and so on.

Writers?  Less than any of the big gorillas, of course, but still a fair number, with somewhat more at Conjecture as Silicon is trying to become more of a media con.  But for all that, the number of readers was high, with people excitedly talking about novels and short stories, current as well as classic.

I talked with Nancy Holder and couple of other authors about how, if the two conventions can get themselves synced to being consistently one week apart–as opposed to being the same weekend, which they have been twice before–they’d be particularly useful waystations and caravanserais for authors doing book tours either direction up or down the state, since that would leave four days for travel in between as well as signings in Monterey, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles/Orange County.  Since local SF bookstores (Mysterious Galaxy from San Diego and Other Change of Hobbit from Berkeley) are already at the conventions, it would be a sensible thing to arrange.

A couple of weeks ago, I participated in the Colorado Gold Writers Conference in Denver. I gave a workshop on designing and writing vivid fictional worlds. I did a question-and-answer session addressing all sort of topics, as well as some individual writing issues. I spent a lot of time “fraternizing.” Had a great autographing session. The hardest part was the ten-minute “writer-of-the-year” speech I had to give on opening night…which led me to think about the place of writers’ conferences (aka writers’ workshops).

For those who aren’t quite sure: Writers’ conferences are different from science fiction conventions. They are usually multi-genre. You’ll find no masquerades, fandom, gaming, anime, 24-hour movies, or art shows with buxom women and elf pottery. There are LOTS of aspiring writers, and a sprinkling of professional editors, agents, and published authors. These latter few, along with some interesting specialists – law enforcement folks, coroners, sex therapists, hypnotists, journalists, academics, and the like – give workshops on various writing topics, from point-of-view to using the seven deadly sins as a basis for plotting your thriller.

One of the big draws of a writers’ conference is the availability of 10-minute individual meetings with the guest editors or agents. These are, in essence, a verbal query letter, where the aspiring writers can pitch their books. If the project is at all interesting, the pro might ask to see a few chapter and synopsis or even a whole manuscript. When asked about the odds of anyone actually selling work through this kind of contact, the pros are straight.. It happens about as often as getting struck by lightning.

Some people pooh-pooh writers’ conferences, saying you can get the same information from reading a few good books and studying Literary Marketplace. Indeed, I’ve heard some poor workshops with questionable information, as well as some great ones that gave me new ideas. A lot of the craft information is at a beginners level. I’ve definitely seen a few too many pasta bars and rubber chicken lunches. But I love them anyway (the conferences, not the chickens.)

It was at a writers’ conference that I first met real editors, real agents, and ordinary walking-around people who had published books. I learned that you could talk to such elevated people in the bar or at lunch. And there’s nothing that beats being around a few hundred people who are excited about what they’re doing. It’s a terrific place for introverts like me to get comfortable walking up to strangers.

Before I was published, I valued hearing that other aspiring writers had the same doubts and struggles as I did. Now that I’ve learned a few things about “real publishing,” a writers conference it is a great place to “pay it forward.” I find that I still come home exhilarated and ready to get back to work. And I can prove to hopeful writers that great things CAN happen. I sold my first books by reading the opening of Transformation to an editor at a writers’ conference and giving my ten-minute pitch. Lightning does strike.