Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Comicon and beyond...

“as tends to happen when the long-arm of the touring law starts dictating my schedule, it gets harder to blog. fuck. really hard. sorry.
 drafts are started, but sometimes even just a few days makes an update feel like it was written years ago.”

--This quote was taken from miss Amanda’s Kickstarter update that was inboxed to me today.

She nails it there, I just did four back-to-back tours with an art opening in between and then frosted it all off with four days at Comicon. I am Still picking up the pieces.... the news that was so present and kicking even yesterday has turned to ash as the future marches on.

Well-said, Miss AFP. Thanks for the word-loan.

Good news, I have just turned down 2 different tours that would have taken me back out on the road (so so very hard to turn them down, but baby Neverwear is glaring at me from the corner, and nobody puts Baby in a corner..)

Comicon 2012 was an amazing string of coincidental meetings, one after the other. Really, if you zig instead of zag there, whole miracles may be missed. Drew and I both worked the @CBLDF booth, pitching the value of free speech to modern mankind.

Patrick Rothfuss came by the booth! Love that man. (foreshadowing: Stay tuned for some news soon from his world...)

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Went to the Roman Dirge panel, where he entertained while his publisher toasted him with Bailey’s Irish Crème (or is it Cream??)...LENORE looms on the horizon, more on that soon...

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a rare ALLAN AMATO sighting!!

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me in my Axl Rose hat, with the lovely Brianna...

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It was the debut of the Threadless DAY THE SAUCERS LANDED comic tees, four shirts telling the story of Neil’s classic take on tunnel-visioned obsession.

Ang & Charles (my personal heroes) at the @CBLDF party on Thursday night:

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It was a huge success as we whittled away the t-shirt piles. We found that hanging one of the beautiful Jouni Koponen SAUCERS prints was super helpful in showing people the order of the capsule-story. You can still get PRINTS HERE and TSHIRTS HERE.

Threadless is one of those companies like Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab that Neverwear hopes to grow up to be like.

I saw that uber-human David Mack, all too briefly, which is the nature of Con. I brought with me the remaining FIRE prints (which he signed with his flowing grace).

Long story short, we are nearly out of these hand-pulled silkscreens (by the ever-hot Brian Rise of Austin, Texas) and I am going to raise the price of the signed-by-David only to $50 on Friday, so if you didn’t get yours, now is the time.

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When Neil was here in LA recently, he signed a few as well, you can get those HERE.

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There are three whole boxes of things ready to ship off to Neil Headquarters-- I don’t think fanmail is most accurate term for what comes into the mailbox on West Sunset Blvd...It is such a mix. Books from Neil’s peers, congratulations from so many corners of the world, school letters, art inspired by his literature.

We try to answer it all, and we thank you for the patience if you have sent something in. A full “Neil mailbox” will come next blog, but as the Fabulous Lorraine often tells me, you don’t have to cover it all in one update….oh but how my Irish guilt tries to get the best of me…

I will leave you with my favorite of all the packages I opened for @Neilhimself—from the Iowa City Public Library. The staff had asked permission to use this quote on the back of their shirts: “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right answer.” —Neil Gaiman

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Those lovely people in Iowa City sent 3 shirts, one for me, one for Quiche and one for Neil. (*Q, dig through the boxes, there are a few things in there for you!)

So stay tuned as I catch my grateful breath, o constant ones.