Writer's Grove

Phoenix Comicon Day 1

SO MUCH FUN!

And I only got to stay a little while. I had dinner plans with friends so I had to jet out of there at 5 pm, but wow, what a good time! Tomorrow I’ll have a proper camera and lots more time to spend, but there’s still plenty to show n’ tell!

GEEKOUTS: I got to meet Robert J. Sawyer! And John Scalzi! While I was in full fanboy mode, I may have drooled on Mr. Scalzi when I asked him to sign Old Man’s War for me. Both authors were super nice. Also met some other spiffy authors whose work I’m ashamed to say I haven’t yet read: Aprilynne Pike, Jordan Summer, Gini Koch, and Janni Lee Simner.

SCUTTLEBUTT: Heard some film/tv stars might be selling their autographs for as high as $65. Letting you all know now: you can have mine for free. Always. I can’t imagine a universe in which I’d charge someone money to watch me scribble on a piece of paper.

COSTUMES: I didn’t nearly as many pictures as I would have liked—and again, these are going to be kinda low quality since my camera phone doesn’t rock very hard. In general, though, I saw some really cool stuff—lots more video game gear than I was expecting, honestly, and some of the stuff from manga was really well done but I didn’t know what I was looking at aside from impressive costumes. There was some awesome steampunk going on—I snapped a pic of this one fella with a spectacular hat and goggles, but it didn’t come out all that great so I didn’t include it below. You should be able to click on all these bad boys to enlarge ’em.

Above: fangs and steampunk. Girl to the right was told by several people, including me, that she looked like she stepped off a Gail Carriger cover.

Queen Amidala and her servant thingie. The headgear is really puzzling when you think about it. It’s almost like it’s intended to be a service ladder or something. I’m wondering about the backstory on that now.

These kids were super spiffy and asked me to sign a copy of my book for them. The girl on the right says she was supposed to be something called Gir. I didn’t write down what the girl on the left was supposed to be, except that it was a manga character that started with the letter P. Petaluma? Petsmart? Sorry, I’m rubbish at remembering these things.

OK, wow. The Darth Maul dude went all the way and stained his teeth. The cyborg ladies on a leash were wearing really tall platform shoes and wore some impressive ink as well. Right before this pose, Darth Maul was kind of carrying a girl in either arm, and they were smooshed against him. After he set them down, he turned apologetically to the girl on the left and said, “I may have gotten some makeup on your breast.” Only at Comicon.

More tomorrow. :)