Author: Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

in which i have a realization, and i am grateful

Posted on By Wil

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

The Guild: Fawkes

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

Posted on By Wil

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:

 

Kings WIN! KINGS WIN!

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

 

This is how I know #Tabletop has arrived.

Posted on By Wil

Tabletop Trophy in Draw SomethingI 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.

I do not always make a meme reference to my own show, but when I do, I choose this one.

in which diablo 3 is played with my son

Posted on By Wil

Today, I'll wrap production on the latest series of audio books I've been doing. It's been ten long days, and though I genuinely adore the people I'm working with, I'll be happy when I get to the last word on the last page, because…

I'm going to start work on a different and awesome project on Thursday, before I head to Phoenix for Comicon late Friday night, and I have a crapton of homework and research to do before that gets started. 

Because I've been so busy with the audio books and a few secret things, I didn't have any real time to play Diablo 3 until this weekend. I put in 12 hours in three days (guess how I know I'm an adult? That felt a little excessive to me.) and though I'm only in the beginning of the second act, I really like it. The art direction is beautiful, the music and story are fantastic, and the gameplay is exactly what I want and expect. I think it also helps that I played cooperative with Ryan, who is on the other side of the country, and it felt like some good father/son bonding time, mostly because of the silly chat.

I'm playing a monk I named Alikka. She's so bad ass, when she punches people, they explode. Last night, Ryan and I took two monks on a couple quests, and we destroyed the bad guys.

"You know how I know these cultists are crazy?" I said in chat.

"How?" He said.

"Because they just saw us beat the shit out of this giant demon thing, and they still came running at us with their little knives."

"LOL. Stupid cultists," he said.

We were in some village, doing this quest where we had to free a bunch of prisoners from cells that were scattered all over the place. It wasn't a simple matter of walking up and unlocking the doors, though, on account of all the demons everywhere. So we're fighting the demons and the prisoners are all, "Save us! Save us!" so I typed, "Hey! We're a little busy right now FIGHTING THE FUCKING DEMONS." 

I almost wiped, but the resulting laughs were worth it.

Then, later, he used this skill where the monk summons a giant bell, kicks it, and wastes whatever happens to be in the path of the resulting soundwave (it's a cool looking effect that I'm not doing justice in the description.) I said, "It looks like you just … [puts on sunglasses] … rang his bell. YYYEEEEEAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"

It went on and on like that until it was time to go to bed. We got some nice gear, and it was really fun to play this character who feels like a super bad ass (I love this thing she does where she punches like seven enemies in a row and they're all "Hey what just happened? Oh we're dead.") even though she's only level 17.

It's not the deepest game in the world, and it isn't going to replace the experience I have when I play a tabletop RPG with my friends, but as a social experience with my son that was pretty easy to play for a little bit and then walk away from, it gives me exactly what I need.

I probably won't pick it up again for… gosh, probably not until I get back from Origins in two weeks, but I'm glad I spent some time playing it this weekend, even if I'm paying for it this morning because I stayed up too late playing it with my son, who I miss more than anything.

… god damn do I need another cup of coffee.