Comicpalooza Thoughts

I spent most of the past weekend at Comicpalooza. I’m a natural introvert so three solid days surrounded by people was pretty draining. Regardless of that, I have to say I had a lot of fun.

The panels went well. The first one, talking with Star Wars authors was scheduled for noon on Friday, which was about the same time the doors to convention center were being opened to the public. Despite that the turn out was still pretty good. Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta and Alan Dean Foster had a lot of interesting insights into what it was like writing Star Wars novels and how that process has changed over the years, The early days definitely sound cooler as they had a lot more freedom to develop their stories.

The second panel was on Saturday and was with other emerging authors; most of whom are friends of mine. That was definitely the most fun of them all. Though it had the smallest turn out, far more people turned up than I expected.  The panel was scheduled for the same time as Patrick Stewarts appearance. As an attendee, I know which one I would have gone too.

Also on Saturday, my friends showed up decked out as Maarkean and Saracasi.  The costumes turned out really well despite complete lack of skill in this area from any of us. Unfortunately, the headpieces were a one time deal and had to be destroyed to be removed.

Unfortunately, there was a problem at the printers and the copies of “Aristeia: Tree of Liberty” are still not done. This is probably going to necessitate a delay in the books release but not by to long.

On Sunday I ended up filling in for someone and moderating a panel on writing novels vs comic books. Since I’m not a bit comic book guy but Benjamin Percy, Mat Johnson and David Liss were interesting. I got some good insights into the two medias of story telling.

One benefit of the extra panel was that it took place in the same room Armin Shimerman did a Q&A, this allowed me to catch the last little bit of it, the only panel I saw that I wasn’t on. He’s a entertaining speaker and had some good stories about his time on DS9. I got to meet him a bit later and we talked a little bit about writing.

I also got to meet Sam Huntington from Being Human. He also comes off as a genuinely nice guy. As cool as that was, my fellow writer Leo King happened to be eating lunch in the green room at the same time as Patrick Stewart and a few others. Color me jealous.

The best thing about the con though was the chance to interact with my fellow writers and fans.  I got to meet some frequent readers of this blog, Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics among them, and several others who were either fans of mine or just Grey Gecko Press in general. It’s awesome to be able to meet in person people who you only ever get to interact with via the interwebs.

I look forward to Comicpalooza again next year.  If any fans got some pictures and would like to share, take my Facebook page in them.  Next up on the tour circuit, World Con/Lonestar Con in San Antonio over Labor Day weekend. That should be cool as well though a completely different experience. Less geek gathering so less costumes but also entirely focused on books and writers.