New Orleans Comic Con

This past Sunday I attended my first “Comic Con.” This is the first big one they’ve ever had in New Orleans. It was put on by Wizard World, the same people associated with the bigger Comic Cons that everyone raves about. Apparently it was successful enough to bring them back next year and I’ll probably try to attend again. I liked it quite a lot, and my son seemed to like it as well. He’s 23 and I told him I was glad he wasn’t “too cool” to attend a comic con with his old man.

It was smaller than I expected it be, and there weren’t as many costumers as I thought there might be. The cost for a single day pass was 35 bucks, which I thought was a little high. I also wish there’d been more booths selling the “graphic novel” formats. There were quite a few selling individual collectable comics but only one that had a selection of graphic novels. Those are the less positive things.

On the positive side, I got to renew friendships with quite a few folks in local SF/Fantasy fandom. I got to talk to a number of comic book artists, although I’m not really enough into the comic book scene to know people’s names. I picked up a number of cool book or comic book items that I most likely would not have found elsewhere, and got much of it signed.

I met Walter Koenig and Adam West and thought that was kind of cool. I got “Chekov’s” autograph on a photo. There were also a number of other celebrities there that I recognized, although I don’t know their real names. There was “Xander” and “Spike” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the mom from No Ordinary Family. There were several actors from the Walking Dead series that I really enjoyed this past year on AMC. There was a lady named “Claudia” something from Babylon Five. I recognized her but can’t recall the last name. One of the “Monkees” was there. I have no idea which one. There was a woman who played a demon on Buffy, and there was Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters movie. Apparently Burt Ward (Robin) was also there but I didn’t see him. I met a “character” in a graphic novel that I recently read and did an article on. He was one of the folks featured in A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge.

There were also quite a few very cool posters, including a zombie Clint Eastwood in one of his Spaghetti western poses. I almost bought that one, but with all of the paintings we already have up at home and the wall space taken up by bookshelves I don’t have any place to hang it. All in all, it was fun, and afterward my son and I ate at Mulates across the street and had frog legs and alligator with cold brews. That might have been the best.
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A Writing Group Blogs

My writing group talked mostly about blogs last night. Three of six members have them, one more will be joining shortly, and a fifth member is considering it but is holding off for now. Mostly we talked about whether blogs are at all helpful in introducing our work to new readers and, perhaps, in helping sell our writing. So far, those of us who have books out have not noticed any avalanche of sales that could be related to our blogs. However, I have had a couple people tell me here that they would buy my novel, Cold in the Light, which probably doubled my sales for the month.

We also talked about ways to increase our blog traffic and wondered why some blogs attract a lot of attention while others garner mostly silence. I think most of us realize that posting on other folk's blogs helps attract readers to our own blogs, but you're not going to be able to post on enough blogs every day to make a living out of it. We also decided that "controversy" and "personalities" attract a lot of readers to blogs. Both of those might be a bit of a problem for me.

For example, I don't know anyone tremendously famous. Except for Stewart Sternberg, of course. That means I don't have much ready gossip to draw in the readers. And I'm not a terribly controversial guy. However, working with what I have, I introduce my new blog style below:

Razored Zen E. News:

1. A photo was taken of Stewart Sternberg without his underwear on while he was getting out of a car with Paris Hilton. Apparently, something horrible happened to the photographer immediately afterward, however, and the photos have yet to appear. Your intrepid correspondent for RZ E NEWS will remain on this story and will attempt to cover...it up before the world as we know it ceases to exist.

2. Wayne Allen Sallee, noted horrorist, appeared recently with Supermodel Tyra Banks and some bimbo in a black dress. Wayne was clearly bloody about the face and your intrepid correspondent believes that he was badly beaten when a "multi-way" with the two models, William Shatner, and a bunch of kinky tribbles went wrong. If you doubt this story, check out the photograph.

3. Tune in tomorrow when I blow the lid off Sidney Williams' double life.