Post by Van Plexico on Sept 4, 2007 20:02:40 GMT -5
A few photos of the events:
www.plexico.net/dragoncon/photos2007.htm
Next is a trimmed-down version of my annual report, omitting stuff of less interest to folks here:
Hello, all,
This year, I'm going to attempt to give a quick-and-dirty, bulleted list of highlights from the weekend. It will inevitably turn into a lengthy account, regardless of my intentions now. Hopefully, though, it'll be interesting. Read on at your own peril!
Ami and I carried four suitcases to Atlanta, including three big stacks of ASSEMBLED! copies and two stacks of SENTINELS books. Our luggage was HEAVY!!! Since I never have a table at DragonCon (and wouldn't want one), I didn't really anticipate selling many of them, but I figured it was worth a shot.
So there's the setup. Otherwise, imagine the usual setting of bizarre creatures, strange life forms, and odd dialects-- and that was just when we ran into Keith DeCandido! Zing! So, anyway-- here we go:
THURSDAY:
* Ami and I flew down to Atlanta, enduring interminable delays both with the flight and with the registration process at the Hyatt. (Didn't Cap fight against Registration? I'm starting to wish I'd sided with him, if this was the alternative! hahaha)
FRIDAY:
* Went to Joe Crowe's (and John Snider's) "What's New, What's Hot" panel... then immediately over to the Hilton for the big "Avengers/Assembled" panel-- our roll-out event for the book. I was joined on the panel by Keith DeCandido, Joe Crowe, and George Kopec -- all contributed to the book.
We talked about the book and about the Avengers for an hour to a pretty large group of attendees. Afterward, we sold and signed six copies of the book to those gullible enough to be sucked in by our pitch-- err, I mean, to fine customers of clearly discerning taste.
* The "Return of the Dead Authors" panel at 10 pm Friday was as fun as I'd hoped it'd be. Larry Davis kicked us off as A E Van Vogt, with style and humor. Annette Davis was Zenna Henderson, and Joe Crowe and I did our usual banter back and forth, with him as "Two Gun Bob" E. Howard and me as Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Joe explained that "he" had not really tried to kill himself-- he was shooting at someone behind him and missed.
I have to mention my favorite line I used, as Burroughs, in my introduction: "I failed the entrance exam to West Point. It was totally unfair. They asked what I would do if attacked by a German with a bayonette. I replied in perfectly reasonable manner: I would ask the four-armed green Thark behind me to kill him."
Sue Phillips, our track director, promised a third installment for next year. Start digging up more authors!
SATURDAY:
* Ten a.m. brought "Breakfast with the Books." We talked about what we're reading now. I also talked about what I am *writing* now. Hey, you get it in when you can.
I hate that we missed both a good Comics Track panel at that time, and a panel about Redwall, which Ami and I have recently discovered. Ah, well. That's Dragoncon-- three hours of nothing, and then one hour of five things you really like, all at once. (Also missed seeing Scott Westerfeld and Jack McDevitt again, which disappointed me--especially since I'd just bought an expensive hardcover for McDevitt to sign!)
* Joe Crowe's "Manimal and Friends" panel was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be. Heh. I love the panels where Joe is given no real structure and can just cut loose and ramble about old TV shows and interact with the audience about whatever crosses folks' minds. It's hilarious. Stream-of-consciousness panelling.
* "Places Man was Not Meant to Go." This was a panel about books we could not finish. I compiled two lists for it: books I have never been able to finish, and possible reasons I could think of, for why people might not finish a book. It was sorta fun.
Though in retrospect it would have been funny to get up and leave before it was over. Oh, now I'm kicking myself for not thinking of doing that.
At some point in here, I sold both of the SENTINELS books I was carrying around for introduction purposes on panels to different members of the audience. Not a bad thing!
* Then. Came. Jeopardy. It's worth a few more words.
Yes, 7 pm Saturday at DragonCon means one thing (at least to comics folks): Marvel vs DC Jeopardy. It has taken several different forms over the years, but some things are constant: George Kopec will be there as my right-hand man, the dependable judge of the bells and answers; the audience will taunt me about my Moon Knight and Shogun Warriors questions; and one of the contestants will get blown away by the other two. Except, this year, all three were really good.
(I decided to "turn heel" this year-- when they started calling me out about being a big fan of Iron Man, I decided that rather than defending him, I would go the other way. I leered at them and declared, "Yeah! Tony Stark rules your universe now! Deal with it, suckers!" Or words to that effect. It seemed more entertaining that way...)
This was our ninth big year of comics Jeopardy at DragonCon. How things have grown! From a dozen people and post-it notes stuck on the wall, to 250 people- standing room only, yelling funny stuff the whole time- and full Jeopordy-emulating Powerpoint. A long, strange trip.
To thin out the herd of around fifty contestants, I did an "InQuizition"-style prelim. Contestants had to close their eyes and raise one hand for "A," two hands for "B," and no hands for "C," None of the above. The first question cleared out probably 2/3 of the contestants: "The Super Villain team that was about to face the Avengers, when Heroes Reborn swept it all away." A: The Masters of Evil. B: The Zodiac. C: None of the above.
The second question was about the first hero pairing in the new Brave and Bold.
By question 7, even going to double elimination, we had our three contestants.
And what a battle they had! Shag, Mike Stewart, and Ed, I believe. Shag led most of the way, but Mike came back and won at the end. And it turned out he was last year's winner as well! Back-to-back titles for him.
We need to bring Rob Clough down next year to set this man straight. A "Contest of Champions," if you will.
At the end of the tourney, the audience came up and we sold the rest of our ASSEMBLED! copies instantly. All four of us were frantically signing them while packing up before the Terry Moore panel started. All of the copies I'd brought were gone at that point, aside from the one signed copy for the next Jeopardy game in SF Lit. Wow. (But you cannot believe how much lighter our luggage was on the way home!)
SUNDAY:
* Sunday meant a non-stop string of panel appearances for me. "Wanted: Alive or Dead" explored the ways in which Fantasy is overtaking SF on the shelves of bookstores and libraries. I had a few things to say here regarding Manga overtaking both, but we'll leave it at that.
* "Pulp Fiction" was fun because we talked about the pulps and the fiction. 'Nuff said.
* "Politics in SF" was held in one of the big ballrooms and the house was packed out. John Ringo put me at the "Far Left" end (haha) and had a Libertarian writer next to me. Ringo was next, followed by Tom Kratman on the "Far Right."
That was a very fun panel. Ringo declared at the beginning that he intended for us all to avoid contemporary political situations (unlike last year, which nearly devolved into Ringo and me throwing chairs at each other-- I swear I saw Geraldo running around at one point). So, with this "Kinder, Gentler Ringo" as ring-master, off we went.
Of course, Ringo being himself, he got in a few shots at Al Gore, and I retalliated, but generally we kept things pretty civil. Good thing we had a big ballroom this year-- lots of folks in attendance, and even the other writers on the podium were flipping through my SENTINELS books while we sat there, saying nice things about them. (Such as, "Hey, I loved the X-Men! This looks like cool stuff!")
* A quick dash to the Hyatt for "God, the Devil and Neil Gaiman," a panel that overflowed into the hall and had to be closed. I was there because I like Gaiman's work okay-- it didn't really occur to me that the folks in the audience would LOVE Neil Gaiman's work and expect me and the others to be massive EXPERTS on it. Whoops! Whoopsie!
Oh well. We pretty much let the attendees drive the bus on this one. I sat back and talked mainly about SANDMAN and his other comics work (of which many of them were ignorant). And I made my big point that you can't "elevate" SANDMAN out of the Comics genre once it becomes respected and successful and try to convince people it's really something else ("graphic novels"). Sheesh.
* Right after that, it was back into the breach. "Semper Fi Sci Fi," soldier! Back came Ringo and Kratman, joined by a couple of other military SF guys I didn't recognize-- and David Drake! Holy crow! David freakin' Drake! What am I doing here??
As soon as Ringo saw me sitting down, he exclaimed, "VAN is on this panel, too?" Followed by a string of expletives strong enough to strip paint. Coming from him, I took it as a term of endearment. Though I think it meant he was going to have to keep up the "Kindler, Gentler Ringo" bit longer than he expected to. I told him, "A thousand points of light, John!" :-)
Ringo and Kratman and the other guy mostly talked about upcoming military technology advancements they expect to see (exoskeletons, big guns; ahh, you know). I figured my best use on the panel was to fill in the "sociological/political" angle on things, so I answered some audience questions on the Chinese government and society (while Ringo and Drake talked about their military capabilities, etc). And Drake gave an eloquent and brief explanation of Greek vs Roman military abilities and tactics in the ancient world that was worth the price of admission by itself.
Afterward, a couple of them shook my hand and told me, "Good job!" Drake got away before I could say anything to him, though.
I consider it an honor and a privelege to have been a co-panelist with those guys. Awesome. There's you an item for that list of highlights in life, thus far...
* The second year's session of SF Jeopardy came at 8:30 pm, and the attendance was weak but okay. Two other good contestants were blown away by super-genius Fragano, who turned out to be a college prof. in Atlanta and to have once taught at my old school, Georgia Perimeter. He knew his stuff, and crushed his opponents like he was Rob Clough being asked about Marvel events of 1979. Yikes! Sue gave him a couple of signed books she had, and he then got two more choices, and took the signed copy of ASSEMBLED and a set of my three SENTINELS books. The runner up took the last couple of random copies of SENTINELS I had left-- so now those were all gone, too.
MONDAY:
* Only one panel I was scheduled for on Monday: "Revisionist History: The New Fantasy?" My co-panelist had tried to research the term "Revisionist history," and found little useful about it, while I had simply assumed it meant "Alternate history." But this actually led to a very interesting conversation among the two of us and several audience members over such semantics. We decided that "Revisionist history" is history being rewritten *with an agenda of some kind behind it*, and is pushed on the public as being "true." "Alternate History" is not believed to be true by anyone, but may contain "cautionary tales." There're also the stories that look back at the present or past from a post-apocalyptic future, among several other sub-sub-genres we dug into. Really interesting stuff, from what I'd feared would merely be an hour of people saying, "Harry Turtledove is awesome." So that worked out well.
* I then took a placard and wrote "The Bandito" on it and left it there for Keith, for his panel after mine. And with that, Ami and I took in an hour or so of my beloved Robot Battles, made one last turn through the exhibit rooms (which was not much different from the dealers' rooms, as best I could tell), and then it was off to grab lunch at my beloved Pig n' Chik BBQ with Bobby Politte and two other friends, and then to the airport.
Another DragonCon in the books-- number 11 for me, in 13 years since I first started going. Very possibly the best, most fun one yet-- and whenever you can do something eleven times, and the eleventh time be the most fun yet, that says something about the people you're interacting with, the quality of the events, and the good company.
Can't wait for next year already!
www.plexico.net/dragoncon/photos2007.htm
Next is a trimmed-down version of my annual report, omitting stuff of less interest to folks here:
Hello, all,
This year, I'm going to attempt to give a quick-and-dirty, bulleted list of highlights from the weekend. It will inevitably turn into a lengthy account, regardless of my intentions now. Hopefully, though, it'll be interesting. Read on at your own peril!
Ami and I carried four suitcases to Atlanta, including three big stacks of ASSEMBLED! copies and two stacks of SENTINELS books. Our luggage was HEAVY!!! Since I never have a table at DragonCon (and wouldn't want one), I didn't really anticipate selling many of them, but I figured it was worth a shot.
So there's the setup. Otherwise, imagine the usual setting of bizarre creatures, strange life forms, and odd dialects-- and that was just when we ran into Keith DeCandido! Zing! So, anyway-- here we go:
THURSDAY:
* Ami and I flew down to Atlanta, enduring interminable delays both with the flight and with the registration process at the Hyatt. (Didn't Cap fight against Registration? I'm starting to wish I'd sided with him, if this was the alternative! hahaha)
FRIDAY:
* Went to Joe Crowe's (and John Snider's) "What's New, What's Hot" panel... then immediately over to the Hilton for the big "Avengers/Assembled" panel-- our roll-out event for the book. I was joined on the panel by Keith DeCandido, Joe Crowe, and George Kopec -- all contributed to the book.
We talked about the book and about the Avengers for an hour to a pretty large group of attendees. Afterward, we sold and signed six copies of the book to those gullible enough to be sucked in by our pitch-- err, I mean, to fine customers of clearly discerning taste.
* The "Return of the Dead Authors" panel at 10 pm Friday was as fun as I'd hoped it'd be. Larry Davis kicked us off as A E Van Vogt, with style and humor. Annette Davis was Zenna Henderson, and Joe Crowe and I did our usual banter back and forth, with him as "Two Gun Bob" E. Howard and me as Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Joe explained that "he" had not really tried to kill himself-- he was shooting at someone behind him and missed.
I have to mention my favorite line I used, as Burroughs, in my introduction: "I failed the entrance exam to West Point. It was totally unfair. They asked what I would do if attacked by a German with a bayonette. I replied in perfectly reasonable manner: I would ask the four-armed green Thark behind me to kill him."
Sue Phillips, our track director, promised a third installment for next year. Start digging up more authors!
SATURDAY:
* Ten a.m. brought "Breakfast with the Books." We talked about what we're reading now. I also talked about what I am *writing* now. Hey, you get it in when you can.
I hate that we missed both a good Comics Track panel at that time, and a panel about Redwall, which Ami and I have recently discovered. Ah, well. That's Dragoncon-- three hours of nothing, and then one hour of five things you really like, all at once. (Also missed seeing Scott Westerfeld and Jack McDevitt again, which disappointed me--especially since I'd just bought an expensive hardcover for McDevitt to sign!)
* Joe Crowe's "Manimal and Friends" panel was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be. Heh. I love the panels where Joe is given no real structure and can just cut loose and ramble about old TV shows and interact with the audience about whatever crosses folks' minds. It's hilarious. Stream-of-consciousness panelling.
* "Places Man was Not Meant to Go." This was a panel about books we could not finish. I compiled two lists for it: books I have never been able to finish, and possible reasons I could think of, for why people might not finish a book. It was sorta fun.
Though in retrospect it would have been funny to get up and leave before it was over. Oh, now I'm kicking myself for not thinking of doing that.
At some point in here, I sold both of the SENTINELS books I was carrying around for introduction purposes on panels to different members of the audience. Not a bad thing!
* Then. Came. Jeopardy. It's worth a few more words.
Yes, 7 pm Saturday at DragonCon means one thing (at least to comics folks): Marvel vs DC Jeopardy. It has taken several different forms over the years, but some things are constant: George Kopec will be there as my right-hand man, the dependable judge of the bells and answers; the audience will taunt me about my Moon Knight and Shogun Warriors questions; and one of the contestants will get blown away by the other two. Except, this year, all three were really good.
(I decided to "turn heel" this year-- when they started calling me out about being a big fan of Iron Man, I decided that rather than defending him, I would go the other way. I leered at them and declared, "Yeah! Tony Stark rules your universe now! Deal with it, suckers!" Or words to that effect. It seemed more entertaining that way...)
This was our ninth big year of comics Jeopardy at DragonCon. How things have grown! From a dozen people and post-it notes stuck on the wall, to 250 people- standing room only, yelling funny stuff the whole time- and full Jeopordy-emulating Powerpoint. A long, strange trip.
To thin out the herd of around fifty contestants, I did an "InQuizition"-style prelim. Contestants had to close their eyes and raise one hand for "A," two hands for "B," and no hands for "C," None of the above. The first question cleared out probably 2/3 of the contestants: "The Super Villain team that was about to face the Avengers, when Heroes Reborn swept it all away." A: The Masters of Evil. B: The Zodiac. C: None of the above.
The second question was about the first hero pairing in the new Brave and Bold.
By question 7, even going to double elimination, we had our three contestants.
And what a battle they had! Shag, Mike Stewart, and Ed, I believe. Shag led most of the way, but Mike came back and won at the end. And it turned out he was last year's winner as well! Back-to-back titles for him.
We need to bring Rob Clough down next year to set this man straight. A "Contest of Champions," if you will.
At the end of the tourney, the audience came up and we sold the rest of our ASSEMBLED! copies instantly. All four of us were frantically signing them while packing up before the Terry Moore panel started. All of the copies I'd brought were gone at that point, aside from the one signed copy for the next Jeopardy game in SF Lit. Wow. (But you cannot believe how much lighter our luggage was on the way home!)
SUNDAY:
* Sunday meant a non-stop string of panel appearances for me. "Wanted: Alive or Dead" explored the ways in which Fantasy is overtaking SF on the shelves of bookstores and libraries. I had a few things to say here regarding Manga overtaking both, but we'll leave it at that.
* "Pulp Fiction" was fun because we talked about the pulps and the fiction. 'Nuff said.
* "Politics in SF" was held in one of the big ballrooms and the house was packed out. John Ringo put me at the "Far Left" end (haha) and had a Libertarian writer next to me. Ringo was next, followed by Tom Kratman on the "Far Right."
That was a very fun panel. Ringo declared at the beginning that he intended for us all to avoid contemporary political situations (unlike last year, which nearly devolved into Ringo and me throwing chairs at each other-- I swear I saw Geraldo running around at one point). So, with this "Kinder, Gentler Ringo" as ring-master, off we went.
Of course, Ringo being himself, he got in a few shots at Al Gore, and I retalliated, but generally we kept things pretty civil. Good thing we had a big ballroom this year-- lots of folks in attendance, and even the other writers on the podium were flipping through my SENTINELS books while we sat there, saying nice things about them. (Such as, "Hey, I loved the X-Men! This looks like cool stuff!")
* A quick dash to the Hyatt for "God, the Devil and Neil Gaiman," a panel that overflowed into the hall and had to be closed. I was there because I like Gaiman's work okay-- it didn't really occur to me that the folks in the audience would LOVE Neil Gaiman's work and expect me and the others to be massive EXPERTS on it. Whoops! Whoopsie!
Oh well. We pretty much let the attendees drive the bus on this one. I sat back and talked mainly about SANDMAN and his other comics work (of which many of them were ignorant). And I made my big point that you can't "elevate" SANDMAN out of the Comics genre once it becomes respected and successful and try to convince people it's really something else ("graphic novels"). Sheesh.
* Right after that, it was back into the breach. "Semper Fi Sci Fi," soldier! Back came Ringo and Kratman, joined by a couple of other military SF guys I didn't recognize-- and David Drake! Holy crow! David freakin' Drake! What am I doing here??
As soon as Ringo saw me sitting down, he exclaimed, "VAN is on this panel, too?" Followed by a string of expletives strong enough to strip paint. Coming from him, I took it as a term of endearment. Though I think it meant he was going to have to keep up the "Kindler, Gentler Ringo" bit longer than he expected to. I told him, "A thousand points of light, John!" :-)
Ringo and Kratman and the other guy mostly talked about upcoming military technology advancements they expect to see (exoskeletons, big guns; ahh, you know). I figured my best use on the panel was to fill in the "sociological/political" angle on things, so I answered some audience questions on the Chinese government and society (while Ringo and Drake talked about their military capabilities, etc). And Drake gave an eloquent and brief explanation of Greek vs Roman military abilities and tactics in the ancient world that was worth the price of admission by itself.
Afterward, a couple of them shook my hand and told me, "Good job!" Drake got away before I could say anything to him, though.
I consider it an honor and a privelege to have been a co-panelist with those guys. Awesome. There's you an item for that list of highlights in life, thus far...
* The second year's session of SF Jeopardy came at 8:30 pm, and the attendance was weak but okay. Two other good contestants were blown away by super-genius Fragano, who turned out to be a college prof. in Atlanta and to have once taught at my old school, Georgia Perimeter. He knew his stuff, and crushed his opponents like he was Rob Clough being asked about Marvel events of 1979. Yikes! Sue gave him a couple of signed books she had, and he then got two more choices, and took the signed copy of ASSEMBLED and a set of my three SENTINELS books. The runner up took the last couple of random copies of SENTINELS I had left-- so now those were all gone, too.
MONDAY:
* Only one panel I was scheduled for on Monday: "Revisionist History: The New Fantasy?" My co-panelist had tried to research the term "Revisionist history," and found little useful about it, while I had simply assumed it meant "Alternate history." But this actually led to a very interesting conversation among the two of us and several audience members over such semantics. We decided that "Revisionist history" is history being rewritten *with an agenda of some kind behind it*, and is pushed on the public as being "true." "Alternate History" is not believed to be true by anyone, but may contain "cautionary tales." There're also the stories that look back at the present or past from a post-apocalyptic future, among several other sub-sub-genres we dug into. Really interesting stuff, from what I'd feared would merely be an hour of people saying, "Harry Turtledove is awesome." So that worked out well.
* I then took a placard and wrote "The Bandito" on it and left it there for Keith, for his panel after mine. And with that, Ami and I took in an hour or so of my beloved Robot Battles, made one last turn through the exhibit rooms (which was not much different from the dealers' rooms, as best I could tell), and then it was off to grab lunch at my beloved Pig n' Chik BBQ with Bobby Politte and two other friends, and then to the airport.
Another DragonCon in the books-- number 11 for me, in 13 years since I first started going. Very possibly the best, most fun one yet-- and whenever you can do something eleven times, and the eleventh time be the most fun yet, that says something about the people you're interacting with, the quality of the events, and the good company.
Can't wait for next year already!
