Comic Con - Thursday, Day 1: Attack of the Panels

Today was Thursday. Much more fun. True to last year's form, I swung from hating and fearing Preview Night, to quietly enjoying the more sedate Thursday.

Okay, not really sedate. That's hardly the right word. But I spent most of my time in panels today, which helped a lot.

I'm also an idiot and I left my sim card at the hotel, which means I failed to take any photos of anything except the daily loot. Here it is, the one lone photo from today:


Yeah, I cornered the market on Scott Pilgrim stuff.

If I'd remembered to take a sim card, I would have taken photos of all the cool stuff on the con floor. Like the full-size replica Owlship from Watchmen, or the huge Castle Greyskull, or DC's enormous, ever-crowded booth.

I'd have taken shots of the costumed folk (bless 'em, they really make the con special); the Boba Fetts, Batman villains, stormtroopers, anime ones that
I don't get, and knights in full plate armour beating the crap out of each other up on the mezzanine level.

I'd definitely have snapped a few blurry pics from the 4 panels we saw today -- 2 comics-related and 2 TV-related, which seems a good ratio. The first comics panel was Stan Lee and Grant Morrison. Stan Lee is exactly how you'd imagine him to be. Exactly. Morrison was polite and reserved, and seemed happy to concede the floor to Stan's constant showboating.

The next comics panel was a dream line-up: Robert Kirkman, Colleen Doran, Matt Fraction (Fraction!), John Cassaday, Jim Lee, Mike Mignola and Morrison again. They chatted amongst themselves. It was obviously very interesting, as they're all living legends. But it could have used more Fraction. The questions from the audience were pretty lame, but that seems to be the norm.

The TV panels we saw were for True Blood (Alan Ball doing an HBO vampire series. Yeah, that was my reaction, too.) and Dexter (the best show about a lovable serial killer ever). True Blood actually looks pretty good. HBO must have spent a fortune on advertising; the show's banners are plastered all over the con. Plus, they gave us all free bags, shirts, comics and a copy of the book the show is based on! The atmosphere in the Dexter panel was electric. But hey, if anyone deserves to be drooled over by adoring fans, it's Julie Benz and Michael C. Hall.

The food in the con is fucking terrible and costs a fortune. I know the American peso is weak, but $8 for a sandwich?

I'm no longer convinced our pro passes allow us to skip the queues. I swear to God I saw people doing it last year, but maybe it only applies to certain rooms. All I can say is, I hope it gets us into Joss' panel tomorrow.

I saw Comic Book Tattoo, the new Image anthology based on Tori Amos songs, and it is gorgeous. My Under the Gun collaborator, that young rogue Josh Hechinger, has a story in there, you know. The book is as big as a house and I'd never get it home, but I'm still foolishly contemplating buying a copy.

The business side of things is not going so fantastically. Several (okay, most) of the people I was supposed to meet are not actually at the con this year. We won't actually be hanging out at Eric's booth, unfortunately, but we'll still be handing out the CAGES buttons somewhere, sometime. Er, watch this space.

I'm surely forgetting a ton of stuff, but the hour grows late, and Friday looms near.

Comic Con - Wednesday Preview Night: The Show That Ate San Diego

Holy shit, man. Holy shit.

Comic Con International is here again, and I'm here with it. This time around I've got a professional badge, which is sort of like a license to kill, except not at all. It's more that I get in for free and can skip the long lines. I'm now the kind of person last year's me would have hated.

I'm going to go out on a (extremely sturdy) limb here and say that this year's attendance is enormously bigger than the last. I certainly don't remember this many people at Preview Night, and there were a shit-ton of people at Preview Night last year.

I hear whispered stories that Wednesday night used to be a quiet, genteel affair, attended only by the bored and completists. This year it was a hellish mosh pit of FREE FREE FREE showbags and posters and screaming, pushing people trying to grab 5 of everything.

There was a line 100 people deep for postcards and buttons at the DC booth. Just to pick them up. Postcards and buttons.

I almost died at the Warner Brothers booth while securing a bag with a picture of Wonder Woman on it. There was nothing in the bags, they're just bags, but people were crushing each other to get to them. The poor WB people were yelling for the crowd to remain calm. It was like the goddamn Fall of Berlin in there.

It made me a little bit sick for a little while. Then I remembered that Preview Night had shocked me last year, and I went on to have a really good show. And hey, if Comic Con's bloodthirsty consumerism doesn't make you throw up in your mouth a little, at least once, then you ain't human.

Besides, I bought my first comic book of the show -- the new volume of Elephantmen, signed by Richard Starkings! -- and I can't wait to read it. Comics are great. Comic Con is great. So long as I get to skip all the lines.

Now for the return of a now-annual tradition: the photographing of the daily swag. Here's Wednesday's haul:


Why yes, that Battlestar bag is awesome. Cool cover for this year's Event Guide, too.

And now, a picture of my satchel bag, new buttons on the right. I got a DC Nation, an Elephantmen, and a... Hang on. What's that?! Could it be?


It is. That, my friends, is a CAGES button. Limited run of 50. If you want one of your own, you'll have to bump into us at the con and ask us. Or we may be hanging out Friday or Saturday with the wonderful Eric Knisley over in the Small Press area.

Preview Night is over. On with the show!

First, A Word From Your Host

It's been a long time since I weblogged something on these intertubes. The thing is, there've been many things in the last 2 months that I've wanted to talk about on here, but the twin devils of work and after-work idleness got in my way.

Now I'm in San Diego promoting our book, and I therefore have something half-decent to blog about, and all these other happenings need to be neatly summed up in a few sentences. Like so:

- We passed the 52nd week of Elephant Words (link to Elephant Words in the sidebar over there; I'd fetch it for you, but the touchpad on this EeePC is a bitch to use). That means I've written a short (sometimes incredibly short) story every week for the past year. I never knew I could do that. My co-conspirators at EW are some of the nicest people and finest writers a guy could hope to know. I plan to continue with it.

- Speaking of anniversaries, I'm at San Diego Comic Con again, and do you know what that means? Well, considering I started this blog in order to document last year's con, I'm pretty sure that means this blog is one year old. Huzzah!

- Our book is out. Well, no, that's a lie. Our comic CAGES is being properly printed in September. But I am currently in possession of several incomplete proof copies, and they're really real books. They've got glossy covers and nice binding, and they have our names on the front. It feels warm and fuzzy.

- Holy expletive there are a lot of good shows on TV right now. Battlestar Galactica, Big Love, Dexter, Mad Men and Flight of the Conchords have joined forces to overwhelm me with awesomeness. Are we living in a Golden Age of television? When did this Renaissance happen?

- Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog was bloody fantastic, wasn't it? I can't wait for the panel at San Diego. (It's funny; I've enjoyed watching the stunned/appalled reaction from certain corners of the internet in re: Act 3. It's a Joss show, people -- that means guaranteed pain. At this point, I'd be surprised if he didn't rip our hearts out and show them to us.)

- D&D 4th Edition is amazing. Yeah, yeah, it's culturally lame, and playing it sorta makes me feel like I'm back in high school. But I think it might be one of the best RPGs ever written, or at least the best since Exalted. And at this point, I can't afford to be choosy about culture -- I'll take any book, game or show that makes me feel that sense of wonder and awe again.

Right. Next up San Diego Comic Con International!

Updatey

Still working, still kinda writing. Things are humming along with CAGES. I actually spoke to my publisher for the first time last week (thanks to Skype), which is weird when you consider that I've known him for close to two years now.

Bought myself a new computer. It is very lovely. After some wrangling, my dual-boot Ubuntu/Vista setup works like a charm.

Look! Animal-themed links!

- How the Vancouver Aquarium harpooned a killer whale back in the 60s.

- Man arrested for slapping a camel on the butt.

- Rat, cat and dog, living together in harmony.

- The greatest pets ever. EVER.

Fail

Of course, I failed Script Frenzy.

It's my fault. I'm not going to blame the new job, or the marketing for CAGES, or all the other crap I'm doing, or the fact that writing a screenplay is goddammit seriously hard. It's my fault.

Still, I really like what I've written. Enough that I'll keep going and finish the damn thing, some time, at some point in the indeterminate future. This I swear.

By the way, I'm writing the script using Zhura.com, and I really like it. Don't let the silly social networking look of it put you off -- the in-browser script editor is robust and powerful. If you'd rather not download a copy of Final Draft for whatever reason, this is your best alternative.

The reviews are in for CAGES, and people like it. They really like it. This makes me happy. I'm also soon to be doing a phone interview thing for CAGES, which is bound to be embarassing.

So I guess Cubans can buy computers now. And they run fucking Windows XP. Look, I don't want to sound crazy here, but if the Cuban government wants to shield its people from the grasping talons of corporate capitalism or whatever, well, why not go open source?

I can't believe I never heard of this before: Lego's free Factory program that lets you build your perfect virtual Lego model, then delivers all the required bricks to your door. How cool is that?

Also, I own the film Iron Man an apology. Here goes: Iron Man, I'm sorry I pre-judged you and said bad things about your trailer after San Diego last year. You are actually really awesome. Let's be friends.

Finally, I leave you with this parting image, which I'm pretty sure I saw on a gilded mural within the hallowed Duomo of Florence.

CAGES Is Almost Upon Us

My first book CAGES is at the printers right now. Like, as we speak. This is fairly exciting.

It also means that I'm going to be very busy for the foreseeable future. The marketing blitzkrieg is already underway -- the official website's getting redesigned (ditto the Insomnia Publications site), press releases are being put out, and I'm sending digital review copies to those worthy reviewers and bloggers who want to write about it.

So... are you a comic book reviewer or blogger? Would you like a review copy of the book? Well, why didn't you say so? Just shoot me an email at the usual place, and I'll be happy to send you a copy.

For those of you going to the Bristol International Comics Expo in a few weeks, you'll even have a chance to pick up a special advance copy of the book. Just sidle over to the Insomnia Publications table and look for a Scottish bloke called Crawford. Tell him, in these exact words, "G'day from Xander". He'll know what to do.

Thirdly (!), some more exciting news about CAGES: Australian comics superstar Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night, Fell) will be providing us with a foreword for the book. He is a scholar and a gentleman.

And last but not least, I can announce that Insomnia will be attending San Diego Comic Con again this year. Okay, actually it's just me and Mel. But we'll have a table, and banners, and lovely comics to sell. Have you booked your accommodation yet?

Okay, I lied, there's one more thing: My writing partner and all-around great guy Josh Hechinger just did an excellent interview for Sequential Tart. I swear, I would have pointed you to this even if he hadn't given me a shout-out in the interview.

My New Favorite Blog Of All Time

Thanks be to Boing Boing for bringing to my attention the wondrous blog known only as 'Got Medieval'.

Not only am I capable of spelling the word 'Medieval', I also have more than a passing interest in matters relating to the Middle Ages. I even harbor a secret dream to (don't laugh) retrace the steps of the First Crusade from France to Jerusalem, using only land-based transportation. Sure, it'd take forever and cost a fortune, but how cool would that be?

Even if you're not much of a medievalist, this blog is hilarious. I highly recommend this post on chainmail bikinis, so very timely now that Gary Gygax has passed away. You could follow that up with a post about testicle-biting beavers, and cap it all off with pictures of monkeys doing funny things.

(Incidentally, 'Monkey Butt Trumpet'? Best band name ever.)

Hell, just read the whole thing.

This Week In Links

A collection of funny, useless, enlightening, enlivening, and ridiculous stuff I found on the intertubes this week, otherwise known as the weekly post of Christ I Need To Close Some Of These Firefox Tabs.

• Get your Mammoth Chunks at the Time Travel Shop -- a photo gallery depicting a very clever stunt.
  
• Starbucks Phase Two. (I knew it!)
  
• Mario cocktails for the win. (I'll take a Yoshi, thanks.)
  
• I'm dreaming of a world of giant wheel-boats and zeppelins.
• The Secret Museum of Mankind!
  
• It's true, white people do like these things.
• Speaking of the above: Why projecting all your hopes and dreams of magical elves of change onto Barack Obama... isn't going to change much of anything.
• But it's still better than watching this horrifying Clinton TV ad.
• Speaking of: It's THE BEAST! From a Lot of Fathoms! I don't know why, but I heart this trailer so, so much.

Tune in next week -- same blog time, same blog channel!

Unless I only do this once, in which case nevermind...

Boing Boinged!

I got Boing Boinged.

It's not the first time, but even so, it never gets any less cool.

So if you're one of those people who accidentally clicked my name instead of the article link... Accidental Hello! I'm a writer. This is my blog.

Wait, don't go! We can totally discuss things.

So how about that plant-human hybrid article? I actually stumbled across it last night while researching material for my latest Elephant Words piece, which is based on a photo of a mushroom seller.

Interestingly, the comments section there on BB has turned into a pretty heated discussion about genetic engineering in crops, due to the segment of article that Herr Frauenfelder selected for quoteage. I say 'interestingly' because that wasn't the bit that interested me at all. I was more intrigued by the caterpillar-mushroom hybrid stuff later in the article, as you'd have guessed if you read my story.

Anyway, welcome to you random clickers. Stay awhile, why don'tcha?

Epic Win

Signed a rental contract for a house today, 5 days after rocking up to Vancouver with nothing but a car. It's in a great location too; right on the corner of East Hastings and Boundary Street where the suburb of Vancouver meets the suburb of Burnaby.

With all this good luck, we must be doing something right. And thank Xenu for Craigslist.

Anonymous vs Scientology In Vancouver

Today, February 10 2008, was a watershed moment in political history.

No, really.

Today a series of simultaneous, ad-hoc political protests were carried out by thousands of anonymous net citizens in dozens of locations all around the world. These protests were carried out by a decentralized group that, as of three weeks ago, did not exist. These protests were not funded or led by any person or organisation. What they did have was numbers, a cause, and a common enemy: the Church of Scientology.

I'm talking about the anti-Scientology group known as 'Anonymous', which was flash-baked into instant existence following the online controversy over the Church's efforts to censor a leaked Tom Cruise video during the middle of January.

Here's the Wikipedia link regarding Anonymous.

Here's a massive summary of all worldwide locations that were 'raided' today, including a ton of photos.

And just for fun, here's a Google News link to the ongoing world coverage of this historic event.


Interestingly enough, there was a large protest here in Vancouver today. I can't really say whether or not I attended. That's the whole point of Anonymous, is it not?

But had I attended, I'd be able to tell you that there were at least 200 people there. Almost all of them wore face masks or coverings of some kind, due to Scientology's practice of hounding and persecuting those who speak out against it. Oddly, perhaps a third of the crowd wore Guy Fawkes/V for Vendetta masks.

Yes, had Austin and I attended this gathering, he might very well have taken a lot of photos of the crowd. They might even now be posted on his photoblog, and they might include some excellent shots, not just of the protesters but of the 10 or so Scientologists who stood out front during the raid. Some glared, some chatted and answered questions from protesters, and a few creepily filmed our faces with handheld video cameras while refusing to speak to anyone.

Had I been present, I'd tell you that the protest was a kind, gentle sort of affair. Even with all the covered faces, you could tell the demographic was more Concerned Geek than Bomb-throwing Anarchist (Hell, some Anonymous even wore Star Wars stormtrooper masks. Sorry, but that shit doesn't intimidate anybody). People chatted, cracked jokes, and generally had a fun time. There was one police car parked nearby, but apart from some vigorous sign-waving and a couple of rowdy sing-alongs, the event remained peaceful. Miraculously that seems to have been the case in every single protest today, even the London one, where they had the pleasure of being herded and barricaded by mounted police.


Anyway, had I attended this little shindig, I'd have said it was the most fun I've had all year. And that'd bode well for my time in Canada, wouldn't it?

More linkage...

Anonymous' own website covers the events.

Ongoing coverage of the raids on the Whitechapel forum.

A pretty decent Newsweek column from 2 days ago, explaining Anonymous and their purpose.

And finally, here's another link to Austin's excellent photos from today.

xenu.net

More soon.

G'night.

Smells Like Victory

50,000 words written in 29 days.

80,000 overall.

It was a pretty good month.

Can't Stop Laughing

The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses.

I went to one of those schools which have nuns, and this cracks me up. Behold an example of the awesome:



God, if you're up there, I'd like a pair of magic, child-eating bears. Thanks.

Do The Dance Of Joy

Out with the old...

...in with the new.

Lifetime Achievement

Last night, I ticked off a very important item on my List Of Things To Do Before I Die.

I played Guitar Hero in a crowded bar (specifically, I played Sweet Child O' Mine on Expert Difficulty), causing spontaneous applause and adulation, followed by free drinks for the rest of the night.

No, seriously. And it was awesome. (Okay, 7 people doesn't really count as 'crowded'. But the rest of it is 100% true.)

Thanks to Joseph, Kevin and Sylvia at Cafe Latin for rockin' out with me. And I finally got to try the just-released Guitar Hero 3! First impressions: I'm not too fond of the new interface, but it has one hell of a tracklist.

Okay, back to work now.

50th Post Comics Extravaganza!

Believe it or not, this is the 50th post since I started this odd little experiment of a blog.

Of course, 50 posts isn't very impressive for someone like, say Josh Hechinger, who gets in at least 20 before breakfast. But for me? Well, it's rather big. 50 posts in 3 months! That's, like... some number of posts per week. I no can do math. :(

Anyway, I thought I'd celebrate by giving you all first look at the cover to Cages, soon to be my first published comic book. (For those just waking up in the back: It's a dark future story presented as a self-contained graphic novel, it's coming out next year from the fine folks at Insomnia Publications, and the art is by the wonderfully talented Mel Cook.)

We wanted something really different and eye-catching for the cover, so we contacted Jonathan Hickman -- iconoclast, comic artist and soon-to-be-superstar -- to see what he could come up with. And, yeah, it pretty much blew us away:





But that's just whetted your appetites, hasn't it? What's that you say? You'd like to see some more of Cages?

Well, alright. Here's 5 finished pages from Chapter 2. This is about a quarter of the way through the book; our heroes, the three children, have just escaped from the lab and met a group of survivors, who are led by a slightly-crazed shaman:
















But that's not enough for you, is it? You'd like to see even more art from the brush of the prodigious Miss Cook, wouldn't you?

Well, because I can't say no to you, here's the cover art for Mysterious Visions Anthology #12, to be released next year and containing our story Ho Versus Joe. It's a blood-drenched black comedy that answers the eternal question: Who would win in a fight between Zombie Ho Chi Minh and Zombie Joseph Stalin?





(Dimestore Productions have taken down the project pages for some reason, but you can still see the fantastic Ho Versus Joe Round 2 character illustrations here.)

This concludes our 50th post. I wish I could promise you that the next 50 will be witty, erudite and bursting with content, and that they'll enrich your lives in hitherto unimaginable ways... but that'd probably be lying.


Cross-posted to my Comicspace and the official Cages website.

Shiny Pretty Things

If you'll look to the right and down a bit, you'll notice that I have replaced the old links section with a new blogroll, which is linked directly to my Google Reader feeds. Pretty, isn't it? You can even copy that OPML link into your feed reader of choice, allowing you to read exactly what I read every day. Perfect for stalkers.

(You want to know the saddest part? That's actually just a selection. My real daily reading list is twice as long.)

How did I accomplish this marvellous feat of technical wizardry? Well, I stole it from this guy. That's how good I am at the internets.

In other news, the December festivities are fast approaching, and there are way too many exotic electronic gadgets showing up on my wishlist. As if the Chumby and the XO-1 weren't exciting enough, I'm also seriously coveting the Eee PC and the new 80GB Zune. Not to mention Rock Band, but mercifully that's not out here until next year.

Sigh. What are the odds of all these expensive, desirable items coming out right in time for Christmas? It's almost like it was planned that way...

Why I Installed Linux

/begin evangelism

Cory Doctorow has finally gotten to me. Apparently I read too much Boing Boing, and I've been indoctrinated with all his open-source, anti-copyright, Creative Commons, weird-obsession-with-Disney-Land beliefs.

Okay, maybe not the Disney Land thing.

But I did install Linux. Ubuntu, to be exact – a relatively new Linux OS designed to be incredibly easy for the home user. Also? It was founded by a billionaire astronaut philanthropist.

I know what you're thinking, and it's the exact same reaction my friends had. Their two most common questions were, 1. “Why the hell did you do that?”, and 2. “Does it actually, y'know, work?”

To the first of which, I would answer:

1. Because I was fed up with Windows and I felt like making a bit of a techno-political statement.

2. Not only is every piece of software free, every piece of software is open-source – which means, in most cases, they're excellent.

3. Fuck Apple and Microsoft.

4. Nelson Mandela told me to.

And as for the second question... well, I haven't booted Windows Xp in two weeks, except to sync my phone and play Medieval 2.

Honestly, Ubuntu does absolutely everything you can do under Windows; and in most cases, it does it better. Bittorrent? PDF authoring? Raster graphics editing? Photo management? Wireless networking? Ipod library management and device syncing? CD and DVD authoring? All of these things are arguably easier and more powerful under Ubuntu.

No viruses. No spyware. No 'You have 27 days left in your free trial'. No trawling sleazy torrent sites for cracks and keygens. No Ctrl-Alt-Del, why-won't-this-fucking-window-close.

Basically, it's personal computing Paradise and I'm never going back.

So I guess the $64K Question is: Should writers install Ubuntu? Will it help your work in any way? Well, not really. The word processors are great, but to be brutally honest, I don't like celtx as much as Final Draft when it comes to screenwriting apps. But for my money, the difference is made up in terms of stability and generally feeling good about yourself.

So give it a shot. You can grab the install disc here. I burned mine myself, but you can have one delivered to your door for free, wherever you happen to live. In a time when every new computer user is getting that vomitous mass called Vista shoved down their throats... why not make a switch? It's simple, it's better than Windows, and you'll probably like it.

/end evangelism

Amazing Resource For Writers/TV Fans

I think I just found the coolest wiki on the net: The TV Tropes Wiki. It covers far more than just TV, and goes beyond a simple listing of cliches; instead it focuses on the way our most common narratives actually work. It's also freaking funny.

In a short browse, I learned the following useful facts:

• If your show has a Proud Warrior Race Guy (often a Scary Black Man), that character can later evolve into a Warrior Poet.
• Is your villain suffering from Villain Decay? Begin Spikeification immediately, but watch out for Flanderization!
• If you've got a bad case of Jean Grey Escalation, whatever you do, don't hang it on a lampshade.
• Genre Blindness is to be avoided. Contractual Genre Blindness, on the other hand, is kinda cool.
• And What Kind of Lame Power is Heart Anyway? (A question for the ages.)

Also, the entry for Five Man Band has some amazing and thought-provoking examples of shows and how their characters fit the archetype (Grey's Anatomy and Mythbusters?!).

Until next time, True Believers...

So Very Cool

My girlfriend is amazing. You know how I know?

Because she made me my very own Knithulhu.

Here he is just hanging out and chillin', as Elder Gods do:





And here he is lording it over his underwater realm:



(For those of you who are completely befuddled by this post, Wikipedia is ever your friend.)