Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

Daniel's Adventures in the Windy City

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:27:43 GMT

Last weekend I was off to Chicago to attend one of the biggest comicons in the country, Wizard World. I went to promote The Magic of Eyri (give out cards, pins, etc) but not to sell copies. I enjoyed selling copies at Motor City Comic Con, but doing the same at Wizard World wasn't really in the cards (this time).

The Girlfriend and I took a bus and a train there...which was an experience. We had to stand on the bus for a bit (we actually had seats, but offered them up to a pair of young kids with their parents) and thankfully had seats from Lansing to the train station to Battle Creek. The same could not be said of a few other individuals. At least three other people had to stand the whole way. This happened the last time I took a bus, way back in college. I don't get it. With computers and such, you'd think they'd be able to keep better control of this. And even though we had seats, the Girlfriend and I didn't get to sit next to each other. The same went for the train -- thankfully no one had to stand, but we didn't get to sit next to each other until the guy next to me got off at a couple stops after Battle Creek.

The problem with the train is that you don't have assigned seats, so you just sit wherever -- and to make things more complicated, everyone wants to sit alone, so you have a bunch of single seats scattered around the car. That's a bit of a pain when you are traveling with someone else.

Seating issues aside (which struck us again on the way home) the train wasn't that bad. Oh wait. I forgot about the delays. Yeah, those sucked. We were two hours late getting in and coming home. Lovely. But we had been warned by friends about that so we were prepared. But the biggest pain about the trip? I caught a cold of some hellish nature Thursday morning and it lasted until we got back Monday night. Best way to ruin a trip? Get a cold.

Fever. Night sweats. Fatigue. Vomiting. These are all great additions to any getaway. And the worst part? It prevented me from meeting Stevie Wonder AND Obama. Yes, you read that correctly. I could have met a music legend and a Presidential candidate. Stupid cold.

Picture time!

We stayed with a friend of the Grrlfriend (who was a great host) and she works for the Obama campaign downtown. We got to meet her at her office and got a tour of Obama HQ. Sorry, I didn't take any other pictures, I didn't think it'd be cricket.

This li'l fella was at Wizard World by the Far East Monsters booth (I think).

They had Rock Band and Guitar Hero III set up for any one to play at Wizard World. One of the guys in my group even sang for a bit. If I wasn't feeling like death I might have as well.

This tee shirt amused me, so I snapped a pic of it to show to Grrlfriend's friend. I thought of buying her one as a thank you gift, but they were sold out on Sunday. Turns out she couldn't really wear it anyway, since it isn't 'official.'

This thing is the reason I couldn't really make phone calls in the lobby: the gadget keeping it inflated was LOUD. They had a booth there to promote the latest Futurama DVD and you could spin a wheel to win a copy or something else. I gave it a try and won a tee shirt! Neat.

I met Max Brooks, author of World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. Nice guy--he was a big fan of my shirt.

I also met one of my favorite comic book writers, Warren Ellis. He was the guest of honor at the con this year. I think he's trying to kill me by looking at me here.

I didn't have anything by Warren when I jumped in line (it was nearly empty, so I just went for it--and it was free) so I had him autograph a page from my moleskine book. Probably not the best choice and part of me wonders if he took offense to that (I doubt it though). We exchanged pleasentries and I moved on.

I attended the late night reading/Q&A with Warren Ellis Friday. Rather, I stayed until my cold forced me to leave. Ugh. I enjoyed what I was there for though. It ain't every day you get to listen to a guy while he smokes and drinks whiskey and Red Bull at a podium (the event was dubbed "performance art" so he could get away with it).

I walked by the DC booth and saw that some of the artists there had taken to doodling on the paper top. Don't know who did what, but liked it.

I tell ya, doing a con when you have a hellish cold that sneaks up on you ain't fun. This weekend certainly didn't go the way I'd hoped, but I made due and had fun. I quickly realized that trying to sight see in Chicago and do the con at the same time ain't the way the go. The real champ of the weekend was Chicago's public transit. I could just walk to the train and take that to the con or take it to down town. Easy. It'd be really nice if cities in OUR state would do something similar. Can you imagine how nice it'd be to take a train to and from all the Detroit suburbs?

I did buy some stuff at the con too (my other reason for going). Mostly trades. Got a couple Hellboy trades and a couple by Doug TenNapel (one of them however, Black Cherry, I wasn't that happy with). I also bought a few early Bone back issues and a Hellboy special issue that was an exculsive at another con. I could have got the Complete Bone trade for only $20 (normally $40) but I didn't feel like hauling it around all day (kind of regret not getting it though).

Oh and I bought Grrlfriend a Godzilla figure. She loves that Gojira.

Just a Regular Day Around The Office

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:28:26 GMT

Yes, the Stanley Cup visited the Michigan Capitol Building last week and thankfully I was able to get a picture of us together--without me having to wait hours in line. I first saw the cup during a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame many years ago and then once again during the Stanley Cup parade in 2002.

Stanley's Wrangler--sadly it wasn't the dude you see in all the commercials and such.

Stanley on camera in the secret video room (aka "The Bat Cave") where I work.

Stanley on another monitor. You can really see how bent up the top part of the Cup is--it just doesn't look right.

Stanley on public display in the rotunda of the Capitol.

The end of the line to see The Cup. It snaked around a bunch of times inside too (which made getting around for my daily duties interesting), it was very lengthy--which made me happy. I didn't really expect too many people. Sadly, not everyone got to get their picture taken with it. Stanley is on a tight schedule and they packed him up promptly when the time came. I had a friend in line who was only about ten people away from seeing it and spent easily over an hour in line and didn't get a picture taken with the Cup--but I did hear that they lined everyone up on either side of the hallway and slowly walked the Cup down so everyone could at least see it.

In other news, I went to Wizard World over the weekend in Chicago--and well it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Catching a cold on Day One of a five day trip ain't fun. Details later.

He Never Knew When to Quit

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:04:43 GMT

In another attempt to land an agent and to get Magic of Eyri published by a big publisher, I sent out a query letter to yet another agent a couple weeks back. Well, I'm sad to say I met with the same results--a sorry not for us form letter, BUT there was a silver lining.

He hand wrote on the form letter that he didn't think my book was something he could 'pull the trigger on' at the moment (I'm assuming sell) but to please keep him mind for future projects. That's the closest I've ever gotten with an agent, so that was very encouraging. None of the others (I think about six or so) said anything like that, or even hand wrote anything to me (other than one who wrote, "Sorry, not for us"). The more I do this, the more I'm thinking that people don't want to touch a book that's already been published. We'll see tho.

So now I'm trying to think of some other projects I've been kicking around. Perhaps I'll mail him again and say, "Well, then how 'bout this?" I have a couple ideas I haven't done anything with yet. And I'm doing a week long trip to the Upper Peninsula/North Michigan/Bois Blanc Island this summer, I was considering keeping a journal and turning it into some kind of humorous short story collection. I figure as a yuppie "Troll," (slang for someone who lives south of the Mackinac Bridge--under the bridge, get it?) I'm bound to have a few adventures up there.

Not to mention there are my yearly pilgrimages to Sleeper State Park in the thumb and the NASCAR race in Watkins Glen, New York (for the record, I'm not a NASCAR fan. I go to spend time with my dad and for the people watching, and to visit the awesome friends we have out there). So I'll have lots of sources for stories.

EDIT: I am totally going to this place in the UP: http://www.oswaldsbearranch.com/

"If it weren't for my horse..."

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:21:26 GMT

I visited the Delta Township District Library for the third time this week yesterday. Just can't get enough of that place. Well, my second visit was just to pick up the CDs for the box set I got on Monday--they weren't in cases when I checked it out. Simple mistake. The librarians appreciated me not freaking out about it and their repeated apologies made me wonder what sort of tongue lashings they've received in the past. Having spent four years working at a video store, I could relate and I told them so. We shared a "I hear ya bro" moment.

I know I was subjected to obnoxious ranting and raving from unruly costumers during my tour of duty at the video store, I can only image what librarians have to go through. I see it as, I had no reason to get upset about it because I was getting the CD set (a $60+ value) for FREE. But I know there are some people out there who don't see things that way and love any reason to pick a fight with someone. I certainly encountered those at the video store. My favorite was when people accused us of purposely checking movies in a few minutes late so they'd have to pay a fee. Yeah. Because we have nothing better to do than to single out your copy of Corky Romano out of a few dozen others and hang on to it until two minutes after noon and THEN check it in.

Here's a bit of an inside secret--the computers in the store where I worked didn't start recording things late until after 1PM, even though the listed due back time was noon. So there. This was at a Blockbuster if you care, but don't rely on this information because they could have changed it by now.

Yesterday I returned to the library to drop off my book on CD copy of Old Man and the Sea--loved it. I picked out Lewis Black's book Nothing's Sacred AND it is read by the man himself. It is all kinds of hilarious. And the best part was, I used the library's new Express Checkout (or whatever it is called). Very neat--it is a self-check out system. You scan your card and then what you're taking out. Easy.

Li-brary Good

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:39:21 GMT

I visited the brand new Delta Township District Library the other day, and boy is it nice. It is a brand new building with lots of space and it just looks great. It has way more space than the previous library, so most of the shelves are (amusingly) almost empty. But I'm sure those will fill up quick now that they have the room to get more books (SHAMELESS PLUG: I'll be a guest there on August 12th for a panel discussion on self-publishing--I'll have books for sale too).

As a guilty pleasure I went looking for a copy of The Magic of Eyri, I always get giddy when I see my book on a library or store shelf. According to their database, they do have a copy ( I was emailed by a library rep recently letting me know they had one), but I didn't see it anywhere on the shelves. But, it just opened so I think they may still be organizing stuff.

I checked out some fun stuff: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, which I have very much looking forward to reading. I haven't been this excited to check out a book in a long time. So far I love it, I highly recommend it. I'm a fan of hard boiled/pulp fiction detective stories, so this was right up my alley--and it is an alternative history story to boot.

In an effort to shake up my daily routine, I also picked up The Old Man and the Sea on CD to listen to while driving to and from work. I usually just listen to NPR (or the occasional Mojo NIxon album) but I wanted to try something different. It is a nice change of pace, and I'm loving the story.

Finally I got this neato CD compilation set called Left of the Dial, a bunch of indie/underground/punk songs from the 1980s. One problem though: I went to go listen to it yesterday and I come to find out all of the cases are empty. They forgot to put the discs in the cases when I checked out the set. Drat. And I really wanted to listen to Bela Lugosi's Dead.

Stan Winston, RIP.

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:58:45 GMT

Horrible news movie fans, special effects/monster master Stan Winston died of cancer last night. It is a sad day for movie fans around the world, I know I'm seriously saddened this because I'm a big fan of Stan's work. Finding out he had a hand in any film made it 100x more watchable to me. I loved the quality of creatures Stan and his crew were able crank out. They did the effects for Aliens, Predator, and Terminator to name a few. Oh and of course, Monster Squad.

As a fan of traditional effects instead of the over-use of CGI, this really is a downer. Kind of makes you wonder if there will ever be someone like Stan (or the other effects wizards of his generation) ever again. I hope so. I know I'm not the only one who enjoys a quality made creature costume.

Sigh. I should watch Predator or Terminator tonight in tribute. Right after I pour a 40 on the curb.

Kind of ironic that I watched Godzilla: Final Wars last night too. That was chuck full of great monster costumes, it was a fun movie and very ridiculous (but in a good way).

Daniel J. Hogan & The Case of the Horrible Beard

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:54:53 GMT

So last weekend while Up North, I decided to start growing a beard. I haven't tried growing anything in about eight years, so I figured I was due for another shot (my last attempt was freshman year of college with a horrible goatee-thing).

Now, my genetic make-up is rather ill-suited for such a task--but you wouldn't think so, given blanket of hair that covers my extremities. I sort of got an odd combination of the facial hair growing traits from my parents: I inherited my mother's side's ability to grow facial hair quickly (that'd be the Sicilian side) and inherited my father's side's inability to grow thick facial hair and the tendency for hair to grow in random patches. This makes for an interesting challenge: I can grow stuff, but it is patchy and doesn't fill out that well.

But, throwing caution to the wind I decided to give it a week just to see what would happen. Big Mistake.

I seem to have no problem growing hair on my chin and lower jaw area, but under the nose is a horse of a different color. It doesn't fill in and I look (and feel) like a teenager clinging onto his first ever lameo mustache. This was the reason I went with a goatee in college (and part of senior year in high school...which was forever captured in time thanks to my passport photo. Oy.)

By the middle of the week I had managed to cultivate something that passed as beard, but it was driving me crazy. It was irritating me, itching all the time and felt like it was sucking the life out of me. And the muggy 80+ degree weather didn't help either. I was irritable all week and miserable and couldn't figure out why.

Then it hit me. It was the beard. It was making me uncomfortable and I just wasn't aware of it. I was a different person, moodier, snippy and bitter. LIke Peter Parker finally realizing his black costume was evil, I quickly decided last night I had to rid myself of this vile growth. I smote the hairy beast with my trusty razor, and I've felt worlds better ever since.

This Kids in the Hall skit sums up perfectly what I was going through:

Oh why couldn't it had been more like this?:

I Can Has Bookstore?

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:27:23 GMT

During my lunch break today, I walked through downtown Lansing's popular Washington Square block to a bookstore. I was considering buying Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union because I finished Night of the Avenging Blowfish and Sin City: Hell and Back, so I needed something new to read. And I loved Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, so I am very much looking forward to reading this one.

Sadly, as I finally reached the bookstore I spotted a giant For Lease sign in the window. "Oh no!" I yelled as I ran up to the window and peered inside. Sure enough, it was empty, save for the book racks and cases. I twist of it is that I had been in there barely a month ago and bought the Illustrated Classics edition of Wind in the Willows (which I HIGHLY recommend, the art is amazing).

And on a more personal note, they use to carry copies of The Magic of Eyri. They had at least one I spotted while in there some time ago--which I quickly offered to sign and better still, it was sold.

That's the second bookstore in downtown Lansing to close in the past year. The first was the Waystation, which was a favorite haunt of mine. It was mainly a used bookstore and I found many gems there (including a few Pratchett and Moorcock books).

It bums me out when independent bookstores close. I had asked them during my last visit how business was and they said it had been picking up since the weather got nicer. I guess it just hadn't picked up enough. Sigh. Times are tough in Michigan, and here is yet another causality.

Cheap Sunglasses

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:10:42 GMT

Hard to believe, but June is already upon us and nearly half over. After returning yesterday from what we in Michigan lovingly refer to as Up North (anywhere in the Northern Lower Peninsula, typically) I decided I needed a new pair of sunglasses. Now, the issue for me is that I wear regular glasses already, so I can't just pick up any ol' pair and be good to go. This is a very involved process for me. I had been using a pair of very cheap clip ons, but the nose clip thing was making me go cross-eyed at times (like in The Jerk). I used to have a nice pair of prescription sunglasses, but they are missing in action and haven't been seen in nearly three years and getting a new pair is very expensive.

So my only real option is to find a pair that fit over my normal glasses. This is easier said than done (or I start wearing contacts, but I'm not good at the whole 'touching your eye' thing. And besides I like how I look in my current glasses).

To pull this off, I need sunglasses that:

fit over my current glasses
are comfortable to wear
are reasonably priced
don't look stupid
don't give me that 'Bug Eye' look
compliment or otherwise blend in with my existing glasses. I don't want to look like I'm wearing two pairs if I can swing it.
make me look hip.

A couple summers ago I had a pair of Aviators knockoffs that were OK, but you could easily tell i was wearing two sets of glasses because they were wire frames and my regular glasses are black plastic frames. And they broke. So no more wire frames.

Last night I visited my friendly neighborhood Target and spent some time trying on different frames. To make a long story short, I bought a pair of black plastic frame sunglasses. They fit over my glasses and because the sides are thicker, they cover up the sides of my regular glasses, thus hiding them. You really can't tell I'm wearing glasses under them unless I look down or you are close enough to see through the lenses.

However, I had to tweak them a bit. I walked over to Meijer and bought sticky nose pad things to make them sit up a little bit on my nose and were lined up correctly. Problem solved. I have neato sunglasses again.

"I gotta say it was a good day."

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Yesterday was fun:
Found out two copies of The Magic of Eyri were sold. This puts me at 123 sold with 205 copies in print (includes freebies, donations, copies I ain't sold -- don't worry, I don't have 80 copies in my closet, I think only about 5). I've sold six copies online since April (so since my stint at Penguicon), not too shabby. I may not sell a bunch of copies at once, but sales have been pretty steady. I'm still hovering around my ten copies a month average.

I think these two copies were bought on Amazon, because I noticed my ranking changing a bit here and there over the past couple weeks. I really wish Lulu specified who was buying copies from where. Sales that are through non-Lulu channels are all lumped together, be it Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a store buying copies for their shelves through a distributor. I'd really like to know how people are buying copies, especially if a store is buying copies to sell.

Finally got Juno on DVD from Netflix. My only real complaint about Netflix is the difficulty in getting popular new releases right when they come out. Juno has been out on DVD for at least a couple months (or close to it) and it has been at the top of my queue since before its street date. Oh well, regardless I'm excited to watch it.

Oh, and the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. Now it is time for my obligatory "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"-and I didn't even have to use my AK."

Chicken Tacos and Golion

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:58:36 GMT

I (finally) had the chance to do some cooking tonight and I was fairly happy with the results:

Chicken tacos, with a side of refried beans, tomatoes and an nicely chilled Oberon. Yummy! Although the taco seasoning packet I picked up was a bit lacking. That's what I get for buying the Mild I s'pose. Thankfully I had hot sauce on hand to remedy that. I realized while taking this picture that my food pretty much matches my place mat. Neat.

I got this great DVD from Netflix today, GoLion: King of Beasts. It is the Japanese show that was re-edited into Voltron here in the States. I was skeptical at first because some of those shows don't hold up too well or aren't that interesting. Well, this wasn't the case here. They cut A LOT out and changed a bunch to make this show into Voltron.

Biggest changes (so far, only seen the first episode):
GoLion (aka Voltron) was a going around fighting anyone and anything in the galaxy and eventually had the nerve to take on the goddess of the universe, so she split him apart into five lion robots. In Voltron, the main villain's evil witch turned into this goddess and then separated Voltron.

The main heroes start out as slaves of the main villain, and when they returned to Earth (where they were captured) from a mission in space, the planet had been destroyed by World War III after the "east and west' used their nukes against each other. in Voltron, the Earth government sent them out on a mission and then they were captured.

Way more violence. Way more fighting. Lots of darker stuff. Swearing!

This is like finding out GoBots was edited from the Terminator movies or something. This is some crazy--but good--stuff. I really like watching the original series when it comes to these crossover series, it is neat to see just how much they are chopped up and changed.

Stanley Cup Finals Game One Pictures

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:13:59 GMT

I had the extreme fortune of going to game one of the Stanley Cup Finals two weekends ago and here are my promised pictures.

a FanFoto of Jon and I (he's the one who gave me the ticket to go). I can't believe (well, yes I can) that they charge you to get these photos from them. I got my curtousy of my screen capture software. Ha! Anyway, we're posing in front of the Gordie Howe statue with Jon's homemade Stanley Cup. I'm wearing my Vlad Konstantiov jersey from his team in Russia. Jon is wearing a Chris Chelios jersey I think.

Inside the Joe, pre-game. LOTS of Penguin fans. It was a sea of red, white and black. Sorry for the blurry picture, I only have a point and shoot camera.

In our seats, pre-game. We got there kind of early. When asking the usher where our seats were, she added "And be LOUD, there are a lot of Penguin fans up there." That was an understatement.

Lots of Crosbys.

Crosby. Lemieux. Crosby. Lemieux. Crosby.

During game play, 19:10 to go in the first period. It was good to see all the seats filled again. And was it LOUD. Yowza.

Bonus Picture: The girlfriend and I outside Comerica Park this past Saturday. We volunteered at the Detroit Race For the Cure (hence the matching t-shirts. We don't normally dress alike. Honest.).

Ye Olde Career Faire

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:47:36 GMT

I had the pleasure of talking to students at Haslett Middle School today about being a writer (and self-publishing, etc). It was fun, the kids (ages 11-12ish) were very polite and many had a lot of questions for me. I gave each of them a promo card and those who answered certain questions got a free mini-pin.

They started paying more attention to my questions after I started handing pins out. I think I did a pretty good job talking about writing, self-publishing and self-promotion. I donated a copy of The Magic of Eyri to their library, which they were happy to take. I grumbled a bit at first about having to be all the way in Haslett at 8 in the morning, but it was worth it.

I asked some fun questions to keep them involved, like if I pay $16 a copy to have a book printed and sell them for $20 at a con, how much money do I actually make? And what is that amount of money called? They all knew the answers, which was good. I had fun explaining what a satire/parody was too.

Hopefully some of the kids visit my sites and check out my book from their library, some seemed excited when I told them I was donating a copy. I also gave a copy to a lucky kid after drawing a name from a hat. Thankfully, there were four different groups so by the time I got to the last one I had my routine down pretty smoothly. I also mentioned National Novel Writing Month and having to write 50,000 words in less than 30 days. I asked the kids to shout out the longest thing any of them of written, I think the longest was 35 pages.

All in all, it was a great time and I hope I got some kids interested in my book.

Wifi Walden

Wed, 28 May 2008 21:47:33 GMT

I'm on my balcony using my iBook with my wifi and loving every second of it. I can be outside AND waste time on the internet, how great is that? The only thing that could make this better was if I had some Oberon. Mmmm.

I picked up the Hellboy Companion today , as well as the last three issues of Scud: The Disposable Assassin. I was instructed by friends not to read the rest of Scud until I pick up the huge omibus collection that comes out this fall. They said not only would I have no idea what is going on, but that it wouldn't be the same without reading everything else first. Fair enough.

The Hellboy Companion is pretty neat, and something I certainly needed to help fill in a few gaps in my knowledge of Hellboy canon. I'd recommend it for any fan.

I had the great fortune of going to Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals in Detroit on Saturday. I took pictures, I'll try to get those up soon. I was surrounded by Penguin fans in my section. It was a great time though, I had a blast. The Joe was LOUD.

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Tue, 27 May 2008 23:47:17 GMT

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I am a big Indiana Jones fan, so I have been waiting for this movie ever since they started filming it. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my all time favorite movies, so I was really excited when I heard that Karen Allen was reprising her role as Marion Ravenwood for this final(?) installment of the adventures of Henry Jones, Jr.

The important thing to remember when going in to see Crystal Skull is that you really can’t compare it to the original trilogy, nor is it fair to. Many things have changed since 1989’s Last Crusade, including the way films are made—which brings me to one of my first criticisms of the film, its occasional over-use of computer generated effects.

Yes, I’m aware that Indy movies are meant to be over the top pulp-fiction-comic-booky fun, but I really think there is such a thing as too much special effects when it comes to using computers. Thankfully, this did not plague the entire film, only in a few spots was this apparent—and even then it was towards the end when you’d expect nothing less from a Spielberg/Lucas film. But there were a few times where I found myself thinking, “OK, this is a little much.” I can’t really go into too much detail without giving away spoilers, but the final climatic/big special effect money shot really reeked of overkill.

Next is the subject matter/theme of this chapter.
Lost cities? Yes, please!
Haunted graveyards? Awesome!
Stolen treasure? Woo-hoo!
Aliens? Huh?
Physic powers? Uh…what?

While I was originally intrigued by the idea of Indy visiting Area 51 and being connected to the Roswell Crash, I decided that Indiana Jones and aliens just don’t mix. Save that stuff for X-Files. It was just too left field for an Indiana Jones movie. There are plenty of other cool legendary artifacts they could of have centered the film around. What about the Spear of Destiny? The plot could have been that Hitler originally had it, lost it, and the Russians are trying to find it and Indy gets mixed up in the whole mess (and he’d have to fight the Nazis and the Russians! How crazy would that have been?)

Or what about something with Atlantis? I could go on and on. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed the movie, it was a lot of fun. I just didn’t like all the alien stuff.

Harrison Ford did a decent job reprising the role and once they finally got the ‘Oh man, I’m too old for this’ jokes out of the way, I found myself forgetting how old he really is. Some of his stunts and action scenes could have easily been from any of the older Indy movies—he’s still got it.

One thing that didn’t seem to stand the test of time was the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Karen Allen. I don’t know if it was just the script or what, but some of their lines between each other seemed forced or lacked any kind of spark. But they had a few exchanges that were pretty darn good, usually when they were fighting with each other.

I’m still not sold on Shia LaBeouf as the big blockbuster star that Spielberg seems to think he is. Sure he was ok, and he had a few good scenes but overall I wasn’t that impressed with him or his character, Mutt Williams.

Oh and Jim Broadbent was horribly underused. He was a great choice as a replacement for Marcus, but I would of liked to see a little more of him. And I got sick of all the Red Scare stuff they kept throwing at us. Yes, I get it. It takes place in the 1950s and that was going on, and the bad guys are Russians in the film, but c’mon.

I also wasn’t a fan of some of the cinematography and lighting. Some of the film had this ‘made for TV reunion movie’ look/feel to it; I felt that lighting could have been way more interesting at times. There were parts where it was very flat and boring.

What I DID like: the casual references to what Indy has been up to for the past 20 years. Very neat, especially what he did during World War II (“Colonel Jones…”). John Hurt was great and Cate Blanchett was convincing in her role. The chase scene in the jungle with the trucks and such was thrilling to watch on the big screen, I loved that part. It was wonderfully over the top.

Thankfully, this film did not suffer from the same fate as Episode I: The Phantom Menace, it captured some of the charm of the original and is fun to watch (which can be chalked up to the fact that Spielberg has been making movies for the past 20 years, unlike Lucas who had a very long hiatus between Howard the Duck and Phantom Menace).

Despite its faults, this is a film worth seeing in the theater and a fun way to spend two hours. My expectations weren’t set too high going in to this, so thankfully I wasn’t too disappointed.

And to be honest, I can’t wait to see it again.

The Kingdom of the Awesome Saturday

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:08:26 GMT

Tomorrow is going to be a pretty amazing day: I'm seeing Indiana Jones in the morning with Lovely Assistant and later that night I'm going Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals! Woooo! Let's Go Red Wings! (and a special thanks to my buddy Jon for getting me a ticket)

AND to kick off this awesome weekend, Lovely Assistant and I are going to Famous Dave's for dinner tonight. Hmmm, BBQ. We ate there last weekend at Motor City Comic Con and loved it (NOTE: not going back to the same one). I'm usually not one for chain resturants but Famous Dave's is a tasty exception, along with Red Robin. I'm a sucker for good BBQ (and good burgers).

On the subject of writing related news, I'm almost done with the revision of my short story, Slow and Steady. Lovely Assistant checked the spelling and grammar last night, so after those ~~many~~ changes are made I'm gonna send it off to Jay at Comics Obscura so he can decide if he wants to adapt it into a comic. I'm excited.

And I sent Michael a list of what drawings I want for the first ten chapters of The Magic of Eyri. I think I did a good job at keeping my requests simple. I'm looking forward to what he comes up with, I'm sure it'll be nothing less than amazing. These will be for the long promised 2nd Edition (or Special Edition, whatever I end up calling it) and the serializing of it on magicofeyri.com

I'm a Reference on Wikipedia

Thu, 22 May 2008 03:10:51 GMT

I was scanning my website referral data today and found that there is a link to magicofeyri.com on the Wikipedia page about one of my favorite comics, SnarfQuest. And I'm the first reference too!

For the record, I didn't cite myself--someone must have come across my page while looking for citations and saw how I compared it to Bone. I guess it pays to look how people are getting to your websites.

Magic of Eyri 2.0

Tue, 20 May 2008 20:59:16 GMT

Great news! I talked to Michael Church, my cover artist, and he agreed to do drawings for each of the chapters of the second edition of The Magic of Eyri that I'm planning. This means 50 drawings kids, which I know is quite the task. But I told him just black and white and no shading, so that'll make things a little bit easier for him.

I'm also decided that I am going to serialize the book with weekly chapters on magicofeyri.com, and use Michael's art for that--which was the main reason I asked him to do it. People like his art and it'll add an extra li'l somthin' to the whole affair. Yep, a free chapter a week, for 50 weeks. Although, I may considering doing two a week (maybe two chapters once a week). We'll see.

This isn't something I'm going to start tomorrow, that's for sure. I want to plan this all out and have an actual start date so I can advertise it, and I want to have the second edition ready for sale when I start serializing it (so if people don't want to wait, they can just buy the whole thing, which would be nice).

My reasons for doing this are:

the book has been out for over a year.
people do like it (and the idea of it based on the reactions I got last weekend at Motor City Comic Con).
giving it away for free will help get me more attention, and create more of an Internet Buzz.
the book keeps selling, which means I'm doing something right.
it is a good excuse to revise the book.
getting a good fan base for the first book will help me with the second book.
I don't have any other convention appearances planned until the fall.

Now, which I say revise, I don't mean I'm going to change the story. I'm gonna clean up the grammar a bit and cut out some of the wordiness. I may reword a few things here and there, perhaps even rewrite some things, but the overall story isn't going to change. Y'know what that means for those of you who already have a copy? You'll have a collector's item ;)

Motor City Comic Con ReCap

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:49:20 GMT

Motor City Comic Con was a successful adventure for me. I got to see some old friends I haven't seen in long while, sold 3 books, traded 2 and made some great contacts. Oh and Erik Estrada winked at me.

I was upset because my order of 500 promo cards did not arrive from Lulu.com by the time I left for the con, and they still haven't come yet! Looks like I'm gonna have to do something about this...Anyway, picked up Lovely Assistant Thursday night and headed down to Novi Friday morning. We grabbed a quick lunch at Twelve Oaks Mall before heading over to the Con to set up. Checking in was a breeze, thankfully. However, locating my table was a bit of a challenge. Lovely Assistant and I spent ten minutes walking around trying to find it before another artist said "You look like me ten minutes ago!" he then quickly pointed out that our table numbers were written in chalk on the floor under our table. D'oh.

Lovely Assistant and I at my table.

We set up the table and got to work trying to sell books. Thankfully we were across from the guys and girls of Comics Obscura, an indie comic done right here in Lansing. I had requested to be by them in my table form/contract and thankfully they were able to make that happen. Woo hoo! And to my right was artist/writer William Messner-Loebs, who I didn't know much about until Jay from Comics Obscura told me he worked on The Maxx--which I didn't really read, but I watched the cartoon of it on MTV religiously. After learning that, I chatted with Bill about it and sure enough he worked on cartoon a bit. Neat!

The Comics Obscura booth.

Didn't sell any copies on Friday, but Saturday I sold two (joking over dinner that my sales increased by "200%") and I sold one on Sunday. But I traded a couple of copies--I gave one to Tom Sullivan, the special effects genius behind Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2--too of my favorite films. I went up to him and said that I was a fan of his work and wanted to give him a copy of my book. He gladly accepted it and the people in line behind me were amused to see Tom getting an autograph for a change as I signed the book. I wanted to buy one of his prints (see photo) but he wouldn't have it: "No,no--it is my gift to you!" He's a very nice guy and is very appreciative of fans. I just think it is really cool that someone who worked on the Evil Dead series has a copy of my book.

My autographed Tom Sullivan print--I gave him a copy of The Magic of Eyri, so he gave me this.

My other trade was to Star Wars artist/Michigan native, Katie Cook (aka smarbaby ) We've talked a bit online prior to the Con and I told (warned) her I would stop by her table on Saturday. During one of my other visits to her table I asked her if she'd trade a sketch for a copy of the Magic of Eyri, and she had no problem with that. She did a great sketch of Boba Fett for me (see photo) and an amazing little sketch card drawing of Godzilla for Lovely Assistant (and she let me take one of her pre-made sketch cards too!). I am in awe of her skill, especially when I watched her do the sketch card of Godzilla and how it only took her a few seconds. Amazing. She had a big weekend herself, when she stopped by my table she told me that the 501st made her an honorary member. Very cool (I told her how jealous I was).

The sketch I got from Katie Cook in exchange for a copy of The Magic of Eyri. Neato!

The sketch card Katie Cook whipped up for Lovely Assistant. Awesome!

Another sketch card that Katie Cook let me have because she's super-cool.

Getting my book in the hands of people like Katie and Tom is a good thing and that is why I don't mind trading with them (or even just giving it to them--the trade part was a bonus). I should have given one to Bill as well or even Guy Davis (another comic book artist/Michigan native). Next time. But the mini-pins were a success, I only have 3 (out of 40) left. Not bad. And if I had put the rest on the massive freebie table at the front of the con, they would be gone. I got a lot of people to come up to my table and to talk to me because I had a sign that said "Free Buttons and Candy" (I gave out Air Heads, which I had Lovely Assistant cross out Air and write Eyr on each of 'em).

And my other bit of guerrilla marketing was that I had a couple proof copies of t-shirts with the cover art (and the website on the back) that I don't really wear, so I threw those on the freebie table as well. They were gone moments later. Bingo bango. All in all, it was a fun weekend. I sold books, which was nice considering I wasn't on panels or anything like that. I don't know yet if I'd do this again, because I had more than a few people look at my book and say 'OH! It's a novel...?" and were surprised I was there promoting it. Oh well. It certainly didn't hurt any to be there.

Bonus Pictures!

Cloud from Final Fantasy VII

Joey Pants left early on Saturday and didn't stick around all weekend :(

This Jawa costume was pretty great.

Vader telling me to stay off his lawn.

Motor City Comic Con Starts Today!

Fri, 16 May 2008 13:39:31 GMT

That's right kids, I'll be at Motor City Comic Con all weekend! I'll be a guest there and I'll be selling copies of The Magic of Eyri for a special Convention Only price. So if you're in the 'hood, swing by and say hi. I'll have free mini-pins and Air Heads candy at my table.

Learn more at: http://www.motorcityconventions.com/motor_city_comic_con/

In other news, my promo cards from lulu.com didn't come yesterday so I WON'T have them for this weekend. I'm all kinds of pissed off about that. I only have about 50 cards left, which should be OK...but having a fresh batch of 500 would have been nice *grumble* I blame the pokey process that lulu.com uses for ordering said cards. They should really stream line it. Watch, I bet they'll show up today, but I won't be there to get 'em. Grrr. So I whipped up some proxy cards last night before getting on the road. They ain't that pretty, but it is better than nothing. Gotta make due "Adapt. Improvise. Overcome," as Dad likes to say.

Magical Memories

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:40:54 GMT

I came to the rescue this afternoon at my local comic book shop. I was scanning the racks for the latest issue of B.P.R.D.: 1946 when I overheard a pair of young teens asking one of the employees about the value of their Magic: The Gathering cards. One claimed that he had been told a few of his cards were worth in excess of $50, perhaps even way more.

The problem was that neither of the kids nor the employee could tell which set/edition the cards were from, which affects the value of the card. For those who don't know, some Magic cards are reprinted in different sets with the original sets being the most valuable. The early sets didn't have much in the way of identification, but Wizards of the Coast quickly figured out a system--hence expansion sets and reprint sets having little icons.

Anyway, back to the story. I walked over to the counter and offered my two cents worth. I looked at the card and quickly recognized it as a Revised Edition, Force of Nature, which much to the kids' disappointment was only worth about $1.75. Discouraged, the kids left the store and the employee thanked me for me help.

I use to play Magic a lot about ten years ago, but I probably haven't touched a deck in the past five years (give or take). Once I got to college I stopped playing as much, aside from a game here or there with friends for sheer nostalgic value. I just couldn't keep up with all the sets and all the wacky rule changes. I'm sure all of my painstakingly fine tuned decks are verboten in tournament play now. I used to play in tournaments back in the day, and I even won a couple (or placed pretty high). There was a Media Play store about 20 minutes from home that had weekly (or bi-weekly, can't remember) Magic nights on Fridays.

Yeah, so my Friday nights in middle-school/high school were spent playing Magic, watching X-Files or playing Mario Kart 64 or Golden Eye at a friend's house. I was (was?) such a geek.

The other issue I had with Magic as I got older was that I didn't like having to dump a bunch of money into it all the time--and there was the ever present complaint of having to play against people who would just buy the super-rare cards worth hundreds of dollars so they could easily win. I hated that. I really liked playing sealed deck/draft tournaments--you were given a brand new starter deck and a couple of boaster packs and had to make a working deck out of it. Those were a lot of fun, because some of the people I played against who'd just buy the super rare/game breaker cards didn't know much about strategy or how to work with less.

I still enjoy the game and think it is fun, even though I haven't played it in a long time. Where's my Red/Green Erhnam Djinn deck?

Movie Review: Iron Man

Tue, 13 May 2008 20:56:56 GMT

Movie Review: Iron Man

I’ll admit that my expectations were set very low when I finally went to see Iron Man this past weekend. And perhaps this was the reason why the film was able to exceed all of my expectations. It certainly can be added to the list of very enjoyable comic book adaptations, and most of that credit goes to the wonderful acting by Robert Downey, Jr.

I’ll openly admit that my knowledge of Iron Man canon is minimal at best (I’m more of a Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman and Hellboy fan), but I know enough that the film did a more than passable job of condensing over 40 years of Iron Man lore in a way that is pleasing to both comic book and non-comic book fans.

Now back to Mr. Jr’s acting. Robert Downey’s portrayal of playboy/inventor Tony Stark was, aside from the lovely effects by ILM, the high point of the film. This role could have very easily been turned into another brooding Bruce Wayne/Batman- like character—both have similar traits: orphaned, very intelligent, non-super powered, inventor billionaires turned crime fighters– but Robert Downey made this character his own, and I’m very thankful for it.

The scenes I enjoyed the most were those in which Tony is fine tuning his suit and figuring everything out through trial and error (usually with comedic results). This adds a great human element to the story, even a super genius like Tony Stark makes mistakes—but he learns from them and keeps going. When he finally finishes his Iron Man suit, the audience shares Tony’s feeling of accomplishment and is excited to see what the suit can do.

The first act of the film drags a bit, especially while Tony is held captive in Afghanistan, but after that things kick into high gear. The special effects are great and look very believable, I found myself forgetting at times that the Iron Man on screen was just computer generated. I love the shots where we see what Tony is ‘seeing’ through his suit’s heads up display, those were very detailed and great eye candy.

I really enjoyed that they didn’t turn this into some kind of love story and just focused on building the romantic tension between Tony and his assistant (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) Pepper Potts.

Iron Man was an enjoyable kick off to what will surely be a fun summer movie season and hopefully things just keep getting better.

Oh and make sure to stick around after the credits for an extra scene. It is worth the wait.

That Darn LOLcat

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:44:57 GMT

I did my first ever submission to icanhascheezburger.com today. It stars the girlfriend's new kitteh, Butters (yes, named after the South Park character) and a purse my aunt made. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. Ain't he cute? Make sure to vote for it here.

I was also considering "Purse Cat Questions How You Spent Your Economic Stimulus Check" but I didn't want it to look like I was making fun of the purse.

Where are Mah Buttons?

Fri, 09 May 2008 20:51:01 GMT

My order of 40 mini-pins through CafePress is seven days late. I need these bad boys to give out at Motor City Comic Con next weekend. Needless today, when I got home today and they still weren't here (should have arrived on the 2nd according to my email) I was not a happy camper. But, one quick phone call to CafePress later and they have re-sent out my order and upgraded it to One Day Shipping. I should get this new batch by Tuesday. Phew. However, I'm never using their Economy Shipping again.

They also said that if I do in fact get the original order to just keep it as a "thank for shopping with us." Bully. That would be kind of nice, to have an extra 40 buttons to give out after this little fiasco. The original order was sent out on the 23rd of April and whenever I went to check the UPS tracking info, it said none was available. Grrr. Thankfully it looks as if this situation has been taken care of and it should all work out in the end.

The only other thing I gotta worry about is if my promo cards (all 500 of 'em) I ordered through Lulu.com get to me in time. I did tell them that I needed 'em by Thursday after I emailed them back about making a few changes, so hopefully I don't hit any snags there. If it came right down to it, I'd rather have the cards than the pins. They are more useful. But then, if I don't get my cards I can always improvise something at the last minute before leaving for the con. It'd be like taking your cousin to the prom: it wouldn't be pretty, but at least you wouldn't show up empty handed. While I like getting those cards through Lulu.com, the process through which you get them is a tad clunky.

First you order them. They, usually the next day or so, they email you and ask you what you want on them. You send back the info and then, usually a day or so, they email you back what they came up with a soft proof .PDF to approve. If you don't like it, you email them back and say 'hey, change this.' Up until this time, they used the same layout for me each time and it was great. But it looks as if they redid their design because the front and backs are different. Plus they put the link to my book on lulu on the front and back cover . While that's nice, "www.magicofeyri.com" looks a heck of a lot better than "http://www.lulu.com/content/572500" and I don't want people to go right to my lulu page. I want them to go to my site, look around and hopefully get very convinced to buy the book.

Sigh. The joys of self-publishing.

Back on the Horse

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:17:01 GMT

I started expanding/revising one of my short stories this morning, Slow and Steady. It was a submission I wrote for Shimmer's Clockwork Jungle issue, but it wasn't accepted. However I got back some positive feedback, so I figured I was on the right path. It was my first time doing a short story for a submission, so the draft I sent in may not have been the strongest because I was still learning how to write a short story--and how to work within a word limit.

Slow and Steady is pretty much a steampunk Wind in the Willows. As you can probably guess by the title, It is based on the Tortoise and the Hare fable and involves two inventors who race their mechanical animal machines. The heroes are an old owl woman named Theena and her young duck apprentice, Phillip. Their vehicle is a giant turtle shaped machine that runs on steam. The villain is Count ~~Boodle~~ Bodell, a stocky well dressed cormorant man from parts unknown. His machine is a biped rabbit, but it runs on a mysterious element (the main hook of the story).

Reading over this story again, I realize just how much I like it and how much fun I had writing it. I'm hoping that by expanding it I can make it into the story it should have been. I can expand a few parts and build some things up a bit. I'm glad I finally got around to writing again, I haven't done much since I finished A Queen's Tale back in March.

I haven't decided yet if this story takes place in the Eyri universe or not. It has references to Magic of Eyri, so I think I might just say that it does but at a different time. We'll see.