NY ComicCon, Day 2
If the first day of ComicCon was surreal, the second was an acid trip down a chocolate river on a marshmallow boat with gumdrop mushrooms growing along the shore. Andy Warhol once said that everyone would get fifteen minutes of fame, and if this was mine, it was about a thousand times more than I ever imagined it would be.
The day started out much like Friday, with me and my webmaster Dave Wenk and my buddy Matt Bergin wandering the aisles and breathing in the sweet musk of our fellow nerds. Here’s my photojournal of the morning, and then I’ll get into the fantastic events of the afternoon:
As usual, sexy Batgirls were out in force, all of them showing love for The Warded Man.
Elf needs food… badly.
In full-on Fallout 3 action, the Warded Man badge gets the drop on The Steel Remains. Of course.
This might be my favorite picture from the entire con. The only thing better might have been Vader… or the Fett.
You may recognize the two people above. They were dressed as Robin and Batgirl the day before. Looks like they got a dose of Joker gas and switched sides. I snapped a quick pic and ran off when Joker offered to show me a magic trick where he makes a pencil disappear.
Rorschach was on hand to creep out the ladies with his stalker/flasher vibe, but his TWM badge redeemed him. Ladies love The Warded Man.
Case in Point: Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, everyone’s favorite bi-curious supervillaness duo. They stopped on their way to pulling a bank job to pose for a quick snapshot.
Amazing ward artist Lauren Cannon AKA Navate was on hand on Saturday. She’s best known for designing wards, but don’t forget this INCREDIBLE portrait she did of The Warded Man himself. Lauren was PISSED that she was stuck with a Steel Remains badge after all the work she did on design for The Warded Man. There ain’t no justice, I tell ya.
My new buddy author Robert VS Redick did a signing at the Del Rey booth, and I was able to snag an advance copy of his new book, The Red Wolf Conspiracy. Like me, his book came out in the UK last year, but has yet to drop in the homeland. Look for it in April!
GL and Jade used their power rings to ensure they got Warded Man badges, despite all the yellow in the design. Good to know those things are good for something.
Another batch of Bat-villains were on hand to pose. I think I saw maybe one Batman, but half a dozen Joker and Harley clones. The caped crusader had his work cut out for him. Thankfully, there were no less than a dozen Batgirls on hand to assist (or distract, depending on your point of view).
Poor Jessica Rabbit. was stuck with a Steel Remains badge, and she wasn’t happy about it. I think she deserved better. She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way. I tried to get her to play a round of patty-cake with me, but you can see Matt and Lauren waiting impatiently in the background, and I had to run.
Jessica’s pals were another Joker/Harley/Ivy gang. If Harley looks familiar, it’s because she was dressed as Daisy Mae the day before. She was sweet enough to put up with my nonsense and pose again in her new costume.
Black Canary looked ready to do a sonic-wail in her grief over having a Steel Remains badge. I pity the next criminal she comes across. Equally unhappy was… what’s her name? She’s from Street Fighter, right? It’s funny, I can picture the video game character perfectly, but I’m blanking on the name.
This one’s for my buddy Myke in Iraq. AMERICANS support The Warded Man, and not that Scottish Steel Remains nonsense. Who can finish the following sentence without googling the answer? “When Captain America throws his mighty shield…”
Waiting outside room 1A21 for the Fantasy Authors Roundtable panel featuring yours truly, my buddy Neil, who was reading early drafts of The Warded Man back in like 2002 and telling me (quite rightly) why they sucked, shows his displeasure at a Steel Remains badge.
I was nervous as hell about the roundtable. I’ve only been on a couple of con panels in the past, and this was by far the biggest, with hundreds of people in the room, to the point of standing room only. Also, the table wasn’t round at all. It was totally rectangular. John Birmingham, S. C. Butler, Peter Brett , Kim Harrison, Alex Irvine, Jackie Kessler, Vicki Pettersson, Tamora Pierce, Jeff Somers, and Carrie Vaughn made up the panel. To help my nerves, I settled in between my con-buddies Sam Butler and Jeff Somers, who helped me breathe deeply:
The only other person I knew on the panel was the ever-delightful and lovely Jackie Kessler, who was seated waaay on the other end by Tamora Pierce. Jackie’s upcoming book from Bantam Press, Black & White, is another advance read copy I picked up at the con, along with Jeff Somers’ The Digital Plague from Orbit. I still need to track down Sam’s books.
Another thing that really helped me keep my cool was the fact that a HUGE number of my friends and family turned out for the panel to show support. It was amazing to look out at the crowd and see so many friendly faces, including a few high school friends I hadn’t seen since 1991, reunited thanks to the wonders of facebook.
At ten panelists plus the moderator Shawn Speakman, with only 60 minutes to the panel, things were a bit crowded to say the least. My opening joke about how I had lost my name badge and wondered if anyone had found it (since half the audience was wearing a badge with my name on it) totally bombed. Seriously. Not even a pity laugh. I didn’t think there would be crickets in the Javits Center in the middle of the day, but I swear I could hear them.
I rallied, though, and I think I came off generally lucid. You’ll be able to see for yourself when Suvudu gets around to posting the video of the panel (hop to it, Shawn!).
It looked like a lively debate was brewing (with a load of angry TP fans in attendance ready to tear me apart), but then the time was up. Saved by the bell.
Next up was my signing at the Del Rey booth, with hundreds of free Warded Man ARCs on hand:
Not to mention kickass temporary ward tattoos:
More of my peeps showed up as well, including:
Brian and Karin had the boo-boo face badges, but Lauren used her feminine wiles to charm a Warded Man badge off some guy on his way home from the con.
Photographer extraordinaire Amelia D’entrone, who took my book jacket photo, also had a TWM badge, along with her son Luca the Palooka.
The Force is strong with you, young Luca, but you are not a Jedi yet!
Of course, the beautiful red-headed darling Cassandra Brett was on hand as well, and was among the first to grab a copy of the book to read in her carriage while daddy did his signing.
The signing was the day before my 36th birthday, so my friend Matt, who had been secretly carrying a cake (with frosting wards!) around all day, whipped out the delicious chocolate confection and got everyone to sing “Happy Birthday”. I thought my heart might actually burst with joy.
Here’s me signing books next to the cake, which Matt then cut and served to the guests in the line. People came in droves. Who doesn’t want free cake?
Matt Made surte to snag a slice for himself.
Here’s a nice shot of the crowd at the signing. You can just make out my friends Jon, Nancy, Fotini, and Jay.
Cassie might love daddy, but she did not love the crowd and noise. Luckily, mommy was on hand to calm her down.
Even Ghostbusters and Peter Parker love TWM.
The signing was scheduled to last for half an hour, but even after the cake ran out, people kept coming and coming. I wound up signing for over 90 minutes. The whole time I was on an incredible adrenaline high, overjoyed to meet people, shake hands, and talk about the book. When the last book was signed, though, it was like my strings had been cut, and I crashed hard. I almost fell asleep in the bar afterwards.
I perked back up later, though, when SueMoe and I started discussing Robert Jordan’s obsession with writing about Aes Sedai spanking each other.
Seriously. Look it up. I wonder if Brandon Sanderson will continue that theme as he finishes off the Wheel of Time.
More pix to come as I post about Day 3! Look for it!
Apologies for the delay in posting about this incredible weekend, but the joy and the anxiety and the exhaustion set in and I needed a day to recuperate. The next few posts will also be picture-heavy, so I was up rather late last night resizing pictures for the web.
