Writer's Grove

SDCC 2012 Day 3

Can you guess how I started my day? That’s right, I went to Upstart Crow and got myself a Mexican Mocha! Nom nom nom! But this time when I went there were spiffy people to meet me there. These were people who wanted to say howdy but couldn’t make it to the con itself, so they brought some books with them, I signed ’em, and then we had a lovely time chatting together out on the patio while birds sang to us. Look! I has proof!

I didn’t spend too much time on the floor; I have this book called HUNTED due at the end of August and I really need to write all I can, so for much of the day that’s what I did. But I was a good boy and took a few random cosplay pictures as I walked around. Behold!

You know, you see a lot of the new Jokers based on Heath Ledger these days, and it may be easier to pull off in many ways than the old school ones. But Holy Wax Replica Batman, this one guy really nailed the old-school comic book Joker better than I’ve ever seen. I mean, his FACE! It’s perfect! The eyebrows! The jaw! The damned smile! Honestly this guy was kinda scary because he made the Joker real:

One of the coolest bits about Comic Con is that you can randomly run into legends. I happened to run into sic-fi legend Peter Hamilton at the Random House booth:

My wonderful editors took me out to dinner at Roy’s or Ray’s or something. Honestly I didn’t pay that much attention because on the way in my eyes were traumatized by the sign for another restaurant called Tequila in that execrable Papyrus font. DAMN YOU PAPYRUS FOR RUINING TEQUILA FOR ME!

We entertained ourselves and probably annoyed our waiter by complimenting all the food using largish words in the completely wrong way. He’d come by and ask how the appetizer was and we smiled and told him it was “perspicacious and stoic.” The beer we tried was “extremely bouffant” and the main course was “flippant yet sonorous.” For dessert I had a WTF moment. I ordered this one thing because once I read the menu it was sort of like a dare. It was called an “Almond Joy?” with the question mark being entirely intentional. Apparently you’re supposed to order it and sound like a Valley Girl: “I’ll have the Almond Joy?” But check out the description:

Okay, WTF! I thought there was only one form of coconut and it’s called A COCONUT. And what in nine hells is chocolate soil? Why would a chef ever offer to soil a plate? I had to order it just to see. So it turns out I was partially right: there was only one form of coconut on the plate and it was coconut; it did not vary from coconut at all. But they were not kidding about the chocolate soil. It had the appearance and texture of soil and it fucking tasted like soil too. I paid them to serve me dirt. WELL PLAYED, SIRS.

After dinner I went to the Penguin party because they were very kind to invite me. I got to meet authors Amber Benson and Myke Cole and Kat Richardson, all fabulous people. Kat is in The League of Reluctant Adults and I’ve wanted to meet her for a good while; she has a giant smile and we talked about how awesome her covers are. (Have you read Kat’s books, by the way?) And then I was entertained by Erica, who works for Penguin and I think may have been hired because she is the world’s leading expert in giving Anton Strout shit. Now, many people give Anton shit because, like a mushroom, he thrives on it, but Erica is a virtuoso at slinging it Anton’s way. At some point Myke Cole got up and took a picture of us with his phone and his flash lit up our eyes with the fires of hell:

If I ever run for office this picture will resurface because it looks like we are planning some seriously evil shenanigans. In truth our plans were rather tame: We planned to have another drink. Except for Anton. He planned to sit there while Erica gave him shit. Heh! Anton has a new series launching this fall, the Spellmason Chronicles, starting with ALCHEMYSTIC, so I’m looking forward to it.

Today (Saturday) I have my urban fantasy panel and I’ll do my best to take pics! More later!