Simon & Schuster has just published Richard A. Knaak's Beastmaster: Myth with apparently no mention of Andre Norton. Is her estate aware of this? I'm already seeing Norton readers questioning the novel's provenance.

I headed over to Silver Spring, Maryland, this morning to catch the documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist. Had it not been the D.C.-area premiere, with director Andrew D. Cooke scheduled to be present for a Q&A, I might have instead waited for the DVD. But since it had the feel of an event, I thought it might be fun, and worth the drive. (After all, I'm about an hour and 45 minutes away.) Also, I was intrigued to see whether serendipity would throw me together with any other members of the comics and/or science-fiction tribe.

I'd never been to the AFI Silver Theatre before, so I made sure to get there early and scope the place out. While waiting in line wondering whether I'd see any familiar faces, who should appear but local fan Kyle Scott McAbee, someone I'd often seen at Capclave, Balticon, and even a few Worldcons. While we waited to be let in, we chatted about Walter Karig, the novel Zotz!, and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. I'd have liked to have kept talking, but unfortunately, we parted once we were let in, since he wanted to sit in the back row and I preferred to sit closer to the front. (Sorry, Kyle!)

The audience was an interesting mix of people who had no idea who Will Eisner was and were just there because this was one of many films being shown as part of the 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival and people know knew exactly who Will Eisner was and were there to see him celebrated. Each group came to the film with different expectations. The first just wanted to be entertained for an afternoon, the second wanted to see whether someone make a documentary about a comic-book god ... and not get it wrong.

I'm happy to say that director Andrew D. Cooke (seen to my right below) did not get it wrong.

Eisner had already told his story in the autobiographical graphic novel The Dreamer, and Cooke merged that together with video interviews with Eisner and his peers, plus audio interviews Eisner had done with his peers himself in the '80s in what he called his Shop Talk tapes, managing to pull all of this raw material together into a coherent picture of a life. Cooke made good use of what his research had uncovered. One of the images that made me smile was a home movie of Eisner's proud Dad reading one of the early Spirit newspaper inserts while his Mom and sister watched.

Those who came knowing nothing enjoyed it, but what I think it more important is that those who came knowing everything were pleased. You know how it is when a subculture gets put under the microscope. Something is usually wrong, some egregious error which makes insiders wince. There was nary a wince here. Cooke told Eisner's story and told it true.

I should add that I looked at this doc quite differently than most people. For me, this was about my family. When I watched Gil Kane being interviewed, I remembered him hanging out in the Marvel Bullpen with me, and handing in his pencils for the cover to my first Scarecrow story. When I saw pictures of Phil Seuling, I remembered all of the times as a kid when I sat in the front row at conventions looking up at him. When Stan Lee was on the screen, I remembered the years I channeled his voice while writing Bullpen Bulletins. When Jerry Robinson spoke, I remember the drawing he did for me, long before I started working in comics, that showed his creation Robin, the Boy Wonder, telling me he hoped I'd work in comics someday. And so on.



So you can see that I approached this documentary very personally, and if Cooke had made a wrong move, I'd have pounced on any misstep. There weren't any. I plan to purchase a copy of the film on DVD as soon as it's out in March, as should you. And even if the doc itself doesn't interest you, a complete set of Eisner's Shop Talk tapes will be included as a DVD extra, featuring interviews with Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, and many more influential artists. So keep checking the official site for more info.

Afte the screening, Cooke took questions from the audience. You can download the 23-minute Q&A (it's 10.67MB) that took place after the screening here. A few of the Q's are faint, but all of the A's are strong and clear. (Unfortunately, the mike on my digital recorder is so sensitive that from time to time you can also hear the guy next to me who couldn't stop chewing on his ice!)

After the official Q&A, Cooke hung around chatting with us diehards for another hour, and in the process I bumped into another one of those who, like me, had attended early July 4th Phil Seuling conventions, only this guy—Mitch Berger—had arrived on the scene even earlier them me. My first con was in 1970, but his was in 1968, if I'm remembering correctly. And so after Cooke left, Berger and I kept talking about the old days, including Vaughn Bode's slideshows, Phil Seuling's creation of the direct market, and more.

It was a very satisfying family reunion. I'm sure that many of you know exactly what I mean. And that's satisfying, too.

You can find more photos of my day here.

Well that was swell.

Parties are hard on Emily. She wants to bark at everyone, she wants to eat all the low=lying food, she wants the small children not to chase her, she wants the Too Many People to be Elsewhere. She is now snoring in her crate , beside me, totally exhausted.

There was Too Much Food (which is always better than too little). There were many people (after the usual slow start during which one feels like a wallflower) and much music and conversation. We received more wine than we put out, managed to get people to drink almost all the beer and cider, and have left over ham, chili, and turkey (also veggies, cheese, bagels and birthday cake).

Avocado had the Younger Generation upstairs in her room. Sarcasm Girl made a surprise appearance! People seemed to have a good time.

And SG gave me the coolest birthday present: an 1888 edition of Sara Crewe: Or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's, with great black and white illustrations. I got Noel Coward's Present Indicative and a gorgeous scarf of...no, really: angels averting their gaze! from claireeddy.

So much food. So many people. The Spouse, who is a Hero, is in cleaning up the house. I am lying here on an ice pack, listening to the dog's snoring, soft and low, an excellent thing in a hound.

And tomorrow: another day older and deeper in debt.

In honor of the new project, I've decided to change my name to Ur-Bray.

Yeah, it's time to call it a night. Sigh. Don't want to go to sleep because when I wake up it will be Monday.

msagara has made an interesting observation. Some readers are mistaking regular-publisher trade paperbacks for self-pub. Short summary: The plain glossy cover is default in self-pub, and if it's used on books from regular publishers, people are assuming the book is self-pubbed. And then avoiding it.


I've had this reaction myself. I play "spot the self-pubbed novel" in the huckster's room at conventions. (I'm head of production for a publishing company, so it really is a fun game for me...)

The POD tech has improved immensely. There are basically two digital techs competing in the POD world, but the in-line color laser printer now prints on 10pt cover stock and it looks nearly as good as offset printing. Even I have to look closely to tell the difference. (At least I can still do it without putting on my glasses.)

Regular publishers are confusing the issue by doing some short-run reprints digitally (POD tech, but ordering copies into the warehouse rather than literally printing on demand). A book may not be moving the 2000 copies/year that justify an offset printing, but if it's selling 1000 or even 500 (or, in the case of a small press, 20 or 30 copies), publishers have become more inclined to use POD tech and capture that long tail without cluttering up their warehouses.



Vaguely-related concept: Matte finishes.

The matte finish that msagara indicates would help differentiate is a good idea. It just has a couple of problems.

1. Fingerprints. Works great on light-colored designs, but dark colors show the fingerprints.

2. Also, dark colors get dusty-looking under the matte finish. If the design calls for a really black black, the matte finish is going to ruin the effect.

3. Matte laminate tends to curl more than gloss. You can pay extra for stuff that lays flat.

4. Similarly, it scuffs. There is now on the market a scuff-resistant matte lam, but it is, as you likely would guess, more expensive.

A matte press varnish is now available (press varnish is a liquid applied like an ink, rather than a laminate sheet), but I don't know how durable that is. Mostly it's used for an effect over a traditional gloss laminate.

It's now live: my cover for "Hoodoo Cupid", coming February 4, 2010, from Red Rose Publishing.



Isn't it gorgeous? The artist is Red Rose's Art Director Shirley Burnett, and she totally aced it.
Cheers and big, big smiles,

Allow me to present the US cover of WHITE CAT:



From the flap copy:

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers—people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn’t got magic, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail—he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the con men.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love—or death--and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

Edited to say: releases May 4, 2010

Much better! Took me a while to find the voice, but, overall, I'm pleased with this day's work.

Tomorrow -- is Monday. Steve and I will start off with a bang by giving a talk at a local junior high school, as part of the media center's Visiting Author series. It ought to be both fun and interesting.

Last night's snow piled up seven inches on the ground before it got bored and stopped. Thirty percent chance of snow tomorrow afternoon, then 80 percent on Wednesday.

Suddenly, it's winter.

Friday was my last physical therapy session. I have Epic Elastic Bands and an illustrated list of exercises. If I'm good -- and I intend to be -- I should be pain-free and have unchallenged mobility inside of the next eight weeks. Since the pain is already 'way down and my mobility largely returned, what this boils down to is Not Doing Anything Stupid.

Pray for me.

The to-do list lost a couple items, but I spent most of the day staring out the window, trying to get into the headspace of the character. The exercise was, ultimately, successful, see above, but it took some concentration.

In addition to tomorrow's talk, the coming week's adventures include the threatened promised arrival of Saltation galleys toward the end, and a date with Steve to attend the Carols and Lights program at the college on Friday evening.

Only fourteen more days until winter break.

I can do this.

Everybody stay warm.

Progress on Ghost Ship

11294 / 100000

As an aside, I've recently discovered lala.com and they're kind of awesome. $.89 DRM-free mp3s, and they let you test drive whole songs/albums. And you can pay through Paypal.

And they store your purchases online.

And they have a share/embed function, which doesn't seem to work in lj (just like everything else) but is pretty nifty nonetheless.

And down go the Dallas Cowboys, for a season sweep.

Only a SuperBowl tastes sweeter than a victory over the hated Cowboys. Once again, as in the playoff game at Dallas two years ago, all the talking heads picked Dallas, and once again all the so-called experts were wrong. If anyone had told me yesterday that Tony Romo would complete 41 passes and Eli Manning would complete 11, I would have figured the game for a Dallas blowout... but if anything, the final score should have been more lopsided in favor of the G-Men. The last Cowboys TD was a gimme in garbage time, and earlier in the game our Steve Smith let a sure TD catch go skipping off his hands. The keys to the victory were a pair of amazing plays, a catch-and-run by Brandon Jacobs, and a punt return for a TD by Domenick Hixon. You'll see them on the highlight reels this evening.

Will the G-Men make the playoffs? Well, they have a chance now... but the road ahead still looks pretty damn rough, with the Iggles next week and the Vikings at season's end. But for this one week, at least, life is magical and full of joy.

Pretty amazing week in the NFL all round. Evil Little Bill and his P-men were upset as well, the Saints had a close call and an amazing win (has Dan Snyder fired that kicker yet?), and the Raiders knocked off the Steelers with Bruce Gradkowski doing his best Kenny Stabler imitation. Things are getting really interesting.

And Dallas faces the Chargers next week. Maybe I won't need to kill Pat after all.

(P.S. Flozell Adams is a thug, and may be the dirtiest player in the NFL).

The Interfictions Auction has 7 great pieces up, most with still pretty low bids. The Auction ends tomorrow (Monday), so don't delay!

Not the bidding kind? No worries! We've added, for a flat fee of $25, 5 signed prints of Connie Toebe's "In the Moonlight," which was also the cover of the first Interfictions anthology (see my icon, here). It's a gorgeous print, on beautiful paper.

Will you be my friend?



Ebil Inside.

This is total WoW geekspeek, so skip this if you're not into WoW.

( ganked without a clue )

But it snowed. Last night. There was snow. All over the world. Outside the windows. Ewwwww.

I suppose it was rather pretty when I got up. (Before 7:30. Ugh.) Then later in the day the wind came up and knocked all the snow down that'd been piled up on the branches looking like cotton flocking. Temporary blizzard conditions. It was snowing snowballs.

The kid created a belf hunter and we leveled to 10 with her. (If only she were as dedicated to other characters...)

Oh, Starmouse -- poke me sometime and we can try to arrange to get you into the guild so you can grab any of the cloth stuff? You're the only clothie I know of who isn't the kid's (abandoned) priest!

I crumbled up all the cornbread, chopped up about half an apple, added 2 cups milk (well, 1 and something cups milk and the last of the egg nog...), a quarter-cup sugar, 2 eggs, and 1/4 tsp vanilla and combined them. I'm baking 40 minutes or so, at 350F. We will see if this works or if it is horrible.

If it's horrible, I hope the wild turkeys like cornbread. >_>


INwatch: Core Rules: 438, Lilith: 379, Eli: 355, Liber Umbrarum: 223, Litheroy: 217, Asmodeus: 189, Infernal Player's Guide: 117, GURPS In Nomine: 80, Zadkiel: 58 (yay!).
Adventures: City On Fire: 116, Strange Bedfellows: 93, Feast of Blades: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4127, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2688.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 77, GURPS IOU: 62, GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 60. Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 224.


( Dragons under fold )

What do you get when you outsource zombies?








Brain drain.

Via several people on my f-list -- 20 years ago today, A misogynist asshole who thought feminism ruined his life murdered fourteen young women -- for being women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal.

To have been at a prestigious Engineering college in 1989 -- well! They must have been amazing people. We all lost.

I somehow didn't hear about it till today, but if I'd heard it at the time, knowing of Canada as "safer" than the US, would I have dared move out here for college? I was 12, then, and clueless, and I've surely dared more so far because of cluelessness (and the privilege to be clueless) than because of courage. Would I have been able to focus on anything at college if I'd understood that every man who walked in every door was a potential threat?

I just don't know.

And, 20 years later --

Via rm, ‘Whitening’ the Résumé

And via a friend who locked the post about it, Why you need to write like a bad girl.

It is all still so very far from over. But we keep going. I've been clueless, but I'll just have to learn to be brave.

...But I think I'll post my good news later, when I'm more in a good news mood.

Evan Goldfried

Okay. So this is my first time posting here, and coincidentally, my first attempt at poetry. So naturally, I'd like you to give me your worst. :)

Note: This is tied to northern english dialect. It's kinda like Maya Angelou's "When I think about myself" only it's not about slavery and it's much, much worse.

( Family Values -click me! )