The manga signing at Golden Apple last night was awesome. We drew a very large crowd by comic book in-store signing standards, and it was more like an informal party than anything else.

I’m telling you, if you’re local and into comics or Star Trek, you should come out to one of these things, because we have a lot of fun getting our geek on.

At last night’s event, the SoCal contingent of Enforcers from PAX was in full effect, so we posed for a picture to protect our rep against the Seattle Enforcers, who I understand are always taunting the SoCal Enforcers with tales of awesome. Well, who’s awesome now, beeches?!

I also got to meet filmmaker John Singleton, who was on his way to a dinner, but stopped to get his comics on the way.

"Wow, I am a huge admirer of your work," I said when we were introduced.

"I’m an admirer of yours, as well," he said, and I could tell that he meant it. A lifetime in the entertainment industry has given me a nearly flawless bullshit detector, and I was totally floored by his sincerity.

I stayed at the shop until they closed down, and picked up Batman #668, which will wrap up Grant Morrison’s outstanding run on the series. I also grabbed a 100 Bullets trade, a 1602 hardcover, and a book for Nolan called The Big Book of Hoaxes, which I think he’ll like. I now have so many unread comics, trade paperback, and graphic novels, I will have to take a full day to do nothing but read them. It’s a sacrifice, I know, but I’m willing to make it. Stiff upper lip and all that.

I met a bunch of people from TokyoPop, including the publisher. In the film and television world, this would be the equivalent of meeting a network or studio head, and those guys are always douchebags, but Mike from TokyoPop was a cool guy. In fact, everyone from TokyoPop was cool, and I felt like I was talking to people who are in this because they’re passionate about the work and excited about the future of Manga in America.

And speaking of the Manga, there’s another review out today, from activeanime.com:

The first volume really had a fan fiction feel to it, and frankly, the
art work left a lot to be desired in many cases.  In this volume, the
stories have more punch, and the design is better.  Perhaps some of the
talent behind the stories is to account for this.  One of the writers
is Wil Wheaton- yes, that Wil Wheaton of TNG fame.  He shows he has the
right stuff as a writer for the franchise with his work “Cura Te Ipsum”
which headlines the book.  Damaged engines, Scotty getting new crystals
from the middle of a war zone, and McCoy wrestling with his conscience
and the Prime Directive whilst seeing a civilization tear itself apart
are prominent elements in the classic tale that could easily have been
an episode in the original series.  You can see the author has caught
the essence of what the classic shows were all about and has cleverly
distilled it in a compact manga format.

Dude! I’m 2 for 2! Awesome.

Our next stop is at the West Hollywood Bookfair this Sunday, where we’ll have a Q&A, then we’re down in Manhattan Beach next week at Comic Bug for the final comic shop stop on the tour.

My printer shipped a limited number of The Happiest Days of Our Lives to me earlier this year, so I could take them with me to the various conventions I appeared at over the Summer.

The remainder of the first printing arrived about twenty minutes ago, and it’s quite fitting that I feel the way I did in this picture:

Note: There’s a time change for Golden Apple. It’s updated below.

Hi, I’m Wil, and I like blog post titles that are obnoxiously long. Thanks for stopping by, San Diego.

Star Trek: The Manga – Kakan ni Shinkou has been released, and is showing up in comic shops and book stores all over the place. I had a bit of a squee moment this weekend when Nolan and I found it in a Borders, marking the first time in my life as a writer that one of my books was stocked in the correct section.

My story kicks off the collection, and is described by Comic Book Bin thusly:

In Cura Te Ipsum, the U.S.S. Enterprise
is crippled, far away from the nearest Federation Starbase, and badly
in need of dilithium crystals.  They find dilithium on a planet in the
middle of a brutal civil war/blood feud. Captain James T. Kirk
sees an opportunity to guide the planet’s warring factions towards
peace, but will he be violating the Federation’s Prime Directive not to
interfere in the affairs of non-Federation planets?

Comic Book Bin gives us an A-, and says:

Star Trek: the
manga – Kakan ni Shinkou rings true enough to be more than fan fiction,
and for all practical purposes contains some of the best Star Trek
comics ever done.  Veteran Trek creator Diane Duane, Trek actor Wil
Wheaton, rising star of manga Bettina Kurkoski deliver star
performances with their contributions to this volume.

Dude! Awesome!

I’ll be at Golden Apple Comics this Wednesday with many of the other writers and artists for a Q&A and signing as we continue our SoCal tour:

Wednesday, September 26
8pm-10pm
7pm-9pm
Golden Apple
7711 Melrose Ave., Hollywood

The softcovers of The Happiest Days of Our Lives have just shipped, according to my printer, so I should be able to start taking orders next week. The limited edition hardcovers are taking much longer, and won’t be here until the week of October 8, but I think it’s close enough that I can start taking pre-orders for both versions next week.

I’m talking with David Lawrence about doing an audio version. We’re hoping to record the first week of October, so it’s ready to go at the same time as the printed versions.

Since I’m doing this book entirely on my own, I’m going to be drawing heavily on community support to help promote it, starting right now: if you got The Happiest Days of Our Lives this summer from one of my convention appearances, would you let me know what you thought, so I can make sure my marketing efforts reflect what readers are getting from the book?

From the people I’ve talked to already, I’m starting to get the sense that it inspires nostalgic memories of their own, which leads to discussing a lot of the shared experiences we who grew up in the 70s and came of age in the 80s share: Star Wars figures, video games, RPGS, things like that. I also hear that even if you’ve read these stories online, it’s an entirely different experience to read them in print.

Andrew and I are working on a media kit like the one we did for Dancing Barefoot, and Roughy and I are busy building all the appropriate ordering and product pages at Monolith Press.

Questions? Comments? You know what to do.