Good News, Bad News

I've been seeing lots of messages on Twitter and Facebook from people who are really excited to come see me tell stories and perform at the upcoming Denver Comicon. I love it that so many people are excited to see me do my thing… and I feel terrible that I have to cancel my attendance this year.

I am under an NDA, so I can't disclose exactly why at the moment, but I got an absolutely AMAZING job that conflicts with the convention, and there just wasn't a way to make the schedules work out.

I don't cancel convention appearances lightly, because I know how disappointing it is for the people who are attending. I assure you that this isn't a ploy to win a game of Mystic Warlords of Ka'a, or even a bowling match… this is just something that happens from time to time when someone like me is lucky enough to land a dream job that conflicts with a planned trip out of town.

I'm really sorry, and I hope you still have a great time at the con. Hopefully, I'll be able to be there next year.

Memories of the Phoenix Comicon 2012

In about 22 hours, I leave for Origins Game Fair in Ohio. I've wanted to go to this convention since I was in high school, and I'm really excited to finally be attending.

Felicia and I are doing a bunch of TableTop stuff, and the organizers have even set aside time in our busy schedules for some gaming. If you're coming to the con, I'd love to accept any gaming dice you wish to add to my growing collection.

And now, a brief recap of the Phoenix Comicon:

I was hoping to be there Thursday through Sunday, but I got an awesome job that worked on Thursday and Friday, so I didn't get into town until Friday evening, with my wife and my son in tow.

We settled into our hotel, met up with our friends for dinner, and headed over to do the late show with Hardwick and the Nerdist crew. The podcast was entertaining, the audience was engaged, and we all stayed up WAY TOO LATE.

They gave me this IPA in the green room from O'Dell. It was cleverly named "Odell IPA." It was wonderful, and reminded me of Racer 5, with a touch of Ruination.

But the thing is, I couldn't say the name of it without cracking up and then quoting the infamous accident on the Knife Show from a few years ago. This joke carried us through the weekend, because Anne and I had a lot of O'Dell IPA while we were in town.

I went to sleep, woke up sooner than I wanted to, and made my way to the convention center. It was a merciful 80 degrees this year, instead of 184 like it was last year, which I bet made the cosplayers happy.

I signed lots of pictures and books, posed for some photos with my friends from Eureka, and then we did the Eureka panel.

Fun fact: Colin Ferguson and I are looney hockey fans. He likes the Habs, while I am Kings Fan Super Number One Top Fan Guy. But since we're both living in Los Angeles, and our team in the Stanley Cup Final, Colin suggested that we both wear Kings jerseys to the panel.

So I provided two jerseys from the early 90s:

It was so awesome to troll 4000 people. Colin walked out to raucous applause, which almost immediately turned to boo-urns when they saw what he was wearing. When I came out onstage, it was even better, because I walked to the front and really played it up. I think it was mostly taken in the spirit it was intended, which made us both feel like we'd trolled successfully.

The panel was great, and it was so wonderful to hear from so many people that Eureka was and is important to them. I'm so proud of the show, and it still stings that I only got to work on it a little bit before the network formerly known as Sci-Fi sent it off to the Land of Wind and Ghosts.

After a much-needed break for a little bit of food, I went back to signing things and meeting people. The line was ridiculous, and I did my best to get through it without making anyone feel rushed. I was not prepared for how many people wanted to meet me, and I was a little overwhelmed a lot of the time.

Storytime With Wil went better than expected. I performed a bunch of fiction, and told a couple of stories about me and Anne. I was especially happy that the audience seemed to enjoy The Monster In My Closet, and the thing I wrote about A Place Where Men Run Wild.

After storytime, we had a-fucking-mazing pizza at a place called BRICK (the wait for Pizzeria Bianco was until July), then met up with my friend April and her friends for the biggest and dirtiest game of Cards Against Humanity that I've ever played. I fell asleep at 11pm, and when I woke up at 8 on Sunday, it still wasn't enough sleep.

What the hell is that about, anyway? I thought you needed less sleep as you got older, not more. This is bullshit.

Sunday was very low key. I got there early and did a bit of shopping, including something AMAZING from Monkey Minion Press that will be revealed at the exact moment it is to be revealed, and not a second sooner. I also got a d12 Fez from Fez-o-rama, because I love the d12 and I hate that it's always in the d20's shadow. (Fun fact: that's why it's a d12 in the Tabletop logo.)

The show opened, and I did some photos with most of the Star Trek: TNG cast, before we did a huge TNG panel. There were easily 6000 people in the room of all ages, and several generations. I can't believe that, twenty-five years later, we can still get 6000 people into one room to celebrate what they love about the show. That's just awesome.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but those are the things that are clearest in my memory. I had a wonderful (if totally overwhelmed) time at the show, and I hope everyone who came out had a great a memorable experience. I'm already talking to the con about coming back next year.

in which i have a realization, and i am grateful

In the precious few moments I had today between work-related responsibilities, I stopped into my comic shop, and I saw this:

I made this!

I've been so busy, and I finished my part of this project so long ago, I wasn't prepared for how proud and excited I was when I saw a book that I had written in my own comic shop, right there down the shelf from Brubaker, Wood, Willingham, Fraction, Waid, and other comic book authors I respect and admire.

When I bought some copies, Amy (who some of you know from Tabletop) held it up and said, "Is this your first published work as a comic author?"

I thought for a second and said, "I've written manga before, but this is my first comic book."

And that's when it hit me: Today, I am a published comic book author. A real one, and if I work really hard, and have a little bit of luck, it's only the beginning.

I've been traveling and working so much the past few months, I haven't been able to slow down and look around very often (life moves as fast as Ferris Beuller warned us), so I haven't been able to just stop, reflect, and be grateful for what I have. I don't mean to suggest that I'm taking things for granted, or under the delusion that I'm some kind of big deal or anything stupid like that, I just mean that I can't think about more than what is immediately in front of me until it's done, and there's been a long list of somethings in front of me for most of this year (which is awesome; it's great to be busy making a living doing what I love.)

But it's all too easy to get so overwhelmed with all the responsibility, we forget to take a moment to be grateful for the opportunities we have.

Today, I am grateful.

And now I am going back to work.

something stirs and something tries and starts to climb toward the light

I worked on [REDACTED] today, and had more fun than I thought possible. I can't say anything more until July.

Tomorrow, I work on [REDACTED], which is different from [REDACTED], but should be really awesome, too. I can't believe I get to spend two days working with [ACTORS].

(It was a lot easier to talk about my job before the studios became obsessed with secrecy.)

So a couple of quick things before I get back to preparing for [REDACTED]:

I'm going to the Phoenix Comicon this weekend. I'll be on a few panels, and I'm doing a special show on Saturday night.
Next week, Felicia and I are going to Origins in Columbus, to play games and talk about Tabletop.
My testing of the theory that it is not possible to have too many gaming dice continues, so if you're coming to either one of these cons and want to give me dice that I can add to my ever-growing collection, I'd love to have them.
Today, the comic I wrote with Felicia for The Guild comes out. It's called FAWKES, and it is about what happens between the end of Season 4 and [SPOILER] in Season 5. It's getting generally good reviews, which delights me. The only negative is that I didn't spend several pages filling in people who don't watch The Guild why they should care about the story and who everyone is, which is a little silly, because I didn't write it for those people (who aren't going to buy it, anyway.)I'm especially happy with the artwork and both covers, and super-grateful to Dark Horse for supporting it.

Finally, my beloved Los Angeles Kings are in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1993. This is what I looked like last night after they won in overtime:

Not actually taken last night, but I do this whenever the Kings win.

This is how I know #Tabletop has arrived.

I keep hearing from gameshops that people are coming in and buying the games we play on Tabletop, and from people who tell me that they're using Tabletop to show their non-gaming partners why we love to geek out over games all the time… but someone choosing to use our super lame totally awesome trophy that Lindsey got from eBay for 3 bucks we spent an unfathomable amount of money on making as the trophy for "award"? That's amazing.