Thanks for stopping by and for your interest in Pan’s adventures.
The free e-comic can be found in the sidebar to the right, as I’ve mentioned. If you like what you see, hit the Buy the Book Button to the right. It’ll take you to the book-buying links.
Blood Feud is also available as an e-book. You’ll find the links for those on the buying links page as well. It’s just $3.99!
The 2012 Boston Comic Con is being held April 21–22 at the Hynes Convention Center, in the Back Bay area of Boston, Massachusetts. With a nurses convention, the Yankees playing the Red Sox, and the 100th anniversary celebration of the Red Sox’ baseball home, Fenway Park, all going on at the same time, it’s gonna be one insanely busy weekend in Beantown!
Regardless, you’ll find me in the BCC Artists’ Alley at Table 106 (AA106), manning the StarWarp Concepts post; just look for the Pandora Zwieback banner. On sale will be copies of Blood Feud, Carmilla, A Princess of Mars, and The Bob Larkin Sketchbook, as well as the Official Pandora Zwieback T-shirt. I’ll also be handing out Pandora Zwieback bookmarks—while supplies last, of course.
Boston Comic Con runs from 10 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The Hynes Convention Center is located at 900 Boylston Street.
For more information, head over to the Boston Comic Con Web site. Just click on the logo up top. Hope to see you at the show!
So, you’ve seen the notices here of the conventions I’ve been attending recently, but where, you might ask, can you find the reports on my first two con appearances of 2012? Why, over at the StarWarp Concepts blog, that’s where!
You’ll find the write-up of the March 24th Institute of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction gathering (hosted by Blood Moon Rising magazine) here, and the report on the March 31st New York Comic Book Marketplace is here.
Next stop on the SWC 2012 Promotional Tour is the Boston Comic Con, being held April 21–22 at the Hynes Convention Center, in the Back Bay area of Beantown. I’ll be manning the SWC table in Artists’ Alley—just look for the distinctive Pandora Zwieback banner.
Hey, Pan-atics, looking for news on all the Pan-related doings that happened at this year’s NYCC? Then head on over to the StarWarp Concepts blog, where I’m posting my two-part report on the show.
Mistaken identities! Aztec serial killers! E-books! Small-press comics! An overuse of exclamation marks! Go check it out.
New York Comic Con 2011—being held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center here in New York City—is this week, October 13–16. I’ll be manning the StarWarp Concepts location: BOOTH 2539 in the Small Press Publishers Area.
Helping me out at the booth (as he did last year) will be my good friend Richard C. White—bestselling author of the fantasy novel Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, Book 1: Paths of Evil and the e-book Star Trek: Echoes of Coventry.
We’re located in Level 3, Hall 3A, near Artists Alley—and against the wall of the construction area that’s slowly been moving across the building since last year. Those of you who attended the 2010 show may remember that the construction site breaks the show’s main exhibition hall into two parts: the larger, more mainstream exhibitors on one side, the smaller publishers on the other. So please don’t forget that we’re on the other side of that wall!
Here’s a map so it’ll be easier to find us:
On sale will be:
• Copies of BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1, CARMILLA, and THE BOB LARKIN SKETCHBOOK
• 11″ x 17″ full-color prints of Bob Larkin’s cover art for Blood Feud. It’s a limited-edition print, though, so be sure to pick up one while supplies last.
• THE OFFICIAL PANDORA ZWIEBACK T-SHIRT! Now you can dress like our favorite Goth girl, and proudly show off your monster-hunting skills while wearing the same T that Pan models on the cover of Blood Feud. The shirt makes its debut at NYCC; after the con, it’ll be available exclusively through the StarWarp Concepts webstore.
I’ll also be handing out free print copies of the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 promotional comic book and Pandora Zwieback bookmarks—while supplies last, of course. (And that comic supply is getting pretty thin.)
And wait until you see the one-of-a-kind, not-for-sale Pan Zwieback leather jacket that we’ll have on display—painted by Bob, who’ll be on hand Saturday to sign the sketchbook and prints, as well as copies of his much-sought-after art book, The Savage Art of Bob Larkin.
You’ll find it all at booth 2539—just look for the Pandora Zwieback and StarWarp Concepts banners. So spread the word:
Of course, that depends on whether I can still get Hell a ticket this close to the show…
Ever since I got involved in book publishing, I’ve subscribed to the Publishers Weekly newsletter. (PW is a magazine that’s the bible for the industry—sort of a combination New York Times Book Review and literary Entertainment Weekly.) In one of the recent newsletters, there was a link to an article by bookstore owner Josie Leavitt, titled “She’s Not a Strong Reader”
“…after two failed attempts to get the book [the teenage girl] wanted, she finally let me help her. I got her a wonderful stack of Libba Bray and Sarah Dessen and left her alone, only to have her mother announce to me, ‘She’s not a strong reader.’ As if that explained why her daughter was taking her time to choose the right book.”
And that reminded me of a similar encounter I had at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con, only in this case it involved a young boy (maybe 10 years old) and a copy of a Young Adult novel that I was selling at my booth: Spider-Man Super-Thriller: Warrior’s Revenge.
Now why, you ask, would I be selling copies of a book written by Neal Barrett Jr.? Simple—because Neal didn’t write it, I did. In fact, it was my first novel! (Long story short, Neal’s manuscript had been rejected by Marvel Comics’ licensing division, and I was brought in to write an entirely new manuscript. Problem was, the covers had already been printed, so no author credit for me.)
Anyway, the boy’s eyes made a slow pass across the table and then locked on the Spidey cover. (It is pretty eye-catching, thanks to the great work of artists Mike Zeck and Phil Zimelman.) He picked up the book.
“It’s a novel,” I told him. “Spider-Man and the Hulk fight the Super-Skrull.”
His eyes got real big. He thumbed through it, liked what he saw, and told his father he wanted it.
And Dad balked.
“I don’t know…” He thumbed through it, too. “It’s not a comic book. Are you sure you’re gonna read it?”
“Yes!” the kid said. “I really want it!”
Dad frowned. “I don’t know…”
I was a little surprised by his reaction. I mean, after a dozen or so years of exhibiting at comic cons I’d gotten used to teens and adults grimacing when they realized that things like my other Marvel project X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy and this Spidey adventure were actual books, with lots of words on the pages. Gah! How horrible that I actually expected them to read something without pictures! (Not that there weren’t some pictures—for Warrior’s Revenge, artist James Fry had provided ten fantastic illustrations.)
But here was a boy who saw all the words on the pages and still wanted to read it—and Dad was trying to discourage him? WTH, Dad?
“Y’know,” I said to the dad, “if he likes to read, that’s really not a bad thing.” The unspoken nudge being it would be a good thing to buy it for his son. (Besides, I was charging only three dollars—what a bargain! I mean, I recently saw a copy of it for sale at Amazon.com for $121.00!)
Dad sighed. “I guess…” He shrugged. “All right.”
He paid for the novel, I autographed it, and off the kid went, happily clutching his new book. And I stood at my booth and shook my head, wondering why any parent would want to discourage their child from reading.