Conspiracy Interview

Greetings fellow conspirators!

Our first Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes interview is up! The good folks over at the Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing podcast have been doing a bunch of post-SDCC coverage, and as I mentioned back here, Lou Anders had interviewed me for the show.

The main interview for this episode, conducted as always by host Shaun Farrell, spotlights two of this years L. Ron Hubbard Presents: Writers of the Future contest winners. The SDCC interviews, beginning with mine, come in at around the 37:26 mark. It's OK if you skip ahead to listen (I won't tell), but don't forget to check out the rest, as I've said before AISFP is a podcast worth subscribing to.

Episode 83 of AISFP is available now, go listen and spread the word!

SDCC ’09 wrap (finally!)

Well, at least from me—others in the BLAM! clan may have final thoughts to post yet. It’s past time I finished the tale of my SDCC odyssey, however.

But first, pictures! That have nothing to do with Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes! But do have a Star Wars theme!

Apparently Darth Vader and a squad of Stormtroopers
ventured through a Stargate, held a blonde woman captive
while a bunch of soldiers tried to shoot her. Or something.

And… The Littlest Stormtrooper in Pigtails.

Really, there’s not much left to talk about after the above, other than to say I had a really good time at this con. The best I’ve had in years, actually. I got burned out on them and had put a moratorium on attending for the past year or so, but I’m glad I finally made it to Comic Con. My only regret—and this is common to cons I attend away from home—is that I really don’t get to see too much of the host city. If it weren’t for the ever present Day Job and the tiny amount of vacation days I am allotted, I would love to take a few extra days to enjoy the sights, sounds, tastes and whatnot.

Enough of my lament, time to leave San Diego Comic Con 2009 to the history books.

Later, Conspirators.

Good Neighbors

I spent most of last week down with the flu, but am feeling much better now. Just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to out neighbors at Comic Con this year, a bunch nicer people you couldn’t have asked to be next to.


The people at Haunted Memories make creepy changing portraits–lenticular pictures that transform rather nice looking folks in antique photos into all sorts of undead, invisible, anthropomorphic and other assorted wonders.

I picked up a trio of pictures while there, one for myself and the other two as gifts (well received gifts). They do custom jobs as well.



On the other side were the folks at BOOM! Studios (oh the irony, BLAM! Ventures and BOOM! Studios next to each other, now if there were only a POW! Press to complete us). They get cool points for making sure our booth stayed open to traffic when their singing lines got long.

I wanted to get a chance to peruse their fare, but unfortunately my other duties called. Someday I will pick up their Farscape comics, as I miss that show and am keen to see where they took it.

(Hey - if you look below their banner, you'll see the banner for Archaia, the publisher that is putting out our creator owned comic Critical Millennium next spring - a busy time for us)

* * *

Getting late and sleep calls, I will do a final wrap tomorrow with a couple of amusing pictures I took on my limited journeys around the main floor.

Sleep well, conspirators.

Robert J. Sawyer blogs us, Lou Anders stops by

I've been negligent in mentioning this, mainly due to the fact that the blog app I've been using on my iPhone to blog the con not having the functionality to do links easy (we'll forget my laziness in not wanting to type out the url), but we got another author talking about us!

Robert J. Sawyer was cool enough to give us a mention on his blog the other day when our editor Rich dropped him a line about the project. Mr. Sawyer is a well known and respected author and futurist, and he's got a new TV show being adapted from his novel FlashForward set to go on ABC soon. He's a big fan of the POTA movies, and from his reaction to the news of our novels, I'd say we caught his interest.

* * *

Among the many fans and convention-goers who stopped by over the weekend was Lou Anders, editorial director for Pyr Books. Lou had given us a mention last week on his personal blog, and along with the many other things he was doing at San Diego, he was out and about conducting quick interviews for the podcast Adventures in SciFi Publishing, of which I was one (my first for this project). I'm not sure if I will make the cut or not, but don't let that stop you from checking out the podcast. Hosts Shaun and Sam do an excellent job of bringing you entertaining and informative interviews and industry news, and if you have any interest in SF/F publishing and how it works you should check out the show archives, it's a treasure chest of awesome advice. I know Sam was at the convention, and she was on my list of people to track down and stalk--uhm, I mean talk to, but I sadly didn't get the chance.

Here's Lou at the booth, doing what I like to call his "Action Lou Anders" pose:


We were both wearing orange shirts. I was much less action oriented in the picture he took of me, however. I'm thinking it was just a coincidence.

I still have a couple of bits left over from SDCC, not all necessarily Conspiracy related, which I'll put up tomorrow.

Lost in the shuffle

Here's a picture I seem to have forgotten to post. It was the other art wall.

Look close, you'll see a sketch of Steranko's cover! Click for a bigger view.

Sanjulian Draws!

Both of the artists who provided the images for our exclusive prints had been signing for us daily at the con. I showed Joe Jusko hanging out and being interviewed on Thursday, now it's Sanjulian's turn.

Here he is on Saturday signing and sketching on the large banner featuring his art that we had made for our booth.



And at the table during the signing.


Despite the fact that none of us spoke Spanish, and Sanjulian didn't speak English, we got along really well and he's wonderful person. Joe Jusko had said that Sanjulian was a big influence on him as a kid, and ironically enough, their booths were next to each other in the artist's section of main floor (nothing we planned, just happy coincidence).

A fan of Sanjulian's who had just met him the first day of the con was kind enough to hang out each day and help us with translations (his names escapes me, but I will find out and update as we owe him a thanks).

The Apes universe hasn't seen the last of Sanjulian's brush.

Hello, New York

Just landed. An hour's drive, a little breakfast, and a lot of sleep for me.

The rest of the gang are still at SDCC, I'll try and get the day's doings -- and like I said I still have a few reserve posts for later today.

More soon.

So long, San Diego

On my way home, but I have to say my first San Diego Comic Con treated me well. I'm not quite done with the reporting, after doing a little recovering on Sunday morning I have a few more Conspiracy related posts and one or two SDCC entries to make, too.

Co-writer and BLAM! Ventures creative director Drew Gaska will be signing on later in the week to give his take on SDCC and the future.

My flight awaits, good night San Diego, good night my fellow conspirators.

The other wall

I got one more shot for you of our awesome booth, check out the signing table. You can see Joe Jusko's original painting is on the corner of the table to the left and Sanjulian's is on the wall behind.

San Diego goes Ape!

We were invaded!








Thanks to Jeff & family, and Kevin for letting us share their pictures. You guys are great!

A Conspiracy artist stops by

Leo Leibelman came to the booth last night to say hi and was kind enough to pose by his contribution to the book, a painting called "The Song."

Why is it called that you may ask? You'll have to wait until spring 2010 when you can buy the book to find out.

Comic Con - Saturday

They just opened the doors not even 5 minutes before this.

Madness, I tell you.







Edit to add: Apparently Saturday isn't quite the monster day it once was, seems preview night on Wednesday had it's eye on the title. It didn't seem that way to me that morning, however.

Friday afternoon, late

After a long day on Thursday that became a long night for most of us, we returned somewhat rested and ready to go back to the floor.

Things started a little early when the con organizers decided to let everyone in 15 minutes before scheduled. We had to get the booth up and running while helping con-goers looking for the free replicas of Landon's dog tags and today's free Matt Busch card (Ursus for the curious).

Speaking of the dog tags, I'm told a set has already gone up on eBay, selling for $18.00. They could've at least waited until after the con, maybe they would've gotten a better price.

Joe Jusko was onboard to sign his print "Alpha" again, and the legendary Sanjulian stopped by to sign his print "Omega." Both will be back on Saturday and Sunday, Jusko from 1-2 pm and Sanjulian from 3-4pm. Stop by and pick up a set and get them signed and personalized by the artists. Here are the prints on display:




Some more pictures of the booth, and a hint of some of the other art we got coming.

Getting press!

A local film crew from Platt College is covering the convention and they're interviewing Andrew about the book. Joe Jusko stopped by for his signing just as they were getting started and joined in the fun.




There they are, looking good.




We'll link to the interview when it's up.

I present to you the Booth

Just arrived at the convention center and the booth looks awesome!

If your here, stop by.

San Diego bound

Just a quick note, primarily to test out my new blog app for my iPhone, but also to let you know I will be heading out to Comic Con early tomorrow (and hopefully have better luck on Delta than the rest of the BLAM! Crew who flew out ahead of me on Monday.

Hopefully I'll get to do some live blogging from the convention floor, give you a look at our booth, and show off some of our artists. More later, be good until then.