The Temple of the Exploding Head

Whew! Spent a long three days at Millennicon in Cincinnati. It was a great show: sold some books, made some new friends–lots of fun.

I met the incredible Stephen Zimmer, author and filmmaker, and plan to hit a few shows with him this summer. There was also the amazing duo of T.R. Chowdhury and T.M. Crim of The Shadow Over Shandahar series (who are joining me in the Loconeal fold–Welcome guys!) Can’t wait to hit the circuit!

Of all the wacky events I attend, the craft shows and bake shows, yard sales and pretty much any place I can set up a table, conventions are by far the hardest to attract buyers. People there are often on a mission for a certain kind of book, either by genre or author, and aren’t really interested in looking for anything else. Also, there’s lots of competition from other authors who are sharing space with you on the floor. Still, perseverance will win out in the end and if you’re tough and do plenty of smiling, you’ll come home with fewer books than you brought with you.

At this convention we had Wi-Fi access and were able to get Carol Phillips, the Queen of the LoE Universe, to do several live paints. I dragged her out of her warm bed on the west coast to work on an illustration and she didn’t disappoint. We beamed her in via web conference and away she went, pulling and dragging, picking up color and causing an attendee at the Con to lose his heart (“She’s a Goddess,” he said).

That she is.

She started off with a flat sketch of Lt Kilos and Tweeter standing in front of the mysterious Cat God Pub in Blanchefort Village. Then, live before our unworthy eyes, the painting took shape, first the background and then the foreground. Due to a scheduling snafu on my part, Carol couldn’t quite finish the pic, but she’s getting close.

She knocked in the cobbles and added texture to the village in the background, rolled in some fog and added the “Octagon” to Elyria (the moon). She really wanted to have it finished before the Con ended, but that’s how life goes. People had various questions for her–mostly regarding layers, as Carol has over a hundred created for this painting and only very few of them are labelled. Next time, we’ll have to mic her up so she can talk as well as paint.

Next–I’m going to Piqua.

Bowl Naked

RG