I’ve really got to get this blogging thing down better. \u00a0What I should have done was post a nice blurb here and on the various other social media outlets that we were going to go to Phoenix Comicon and where we were going to be. \u00a0Not that I think it would have brought anyone extra to the booth…but hey, it would have at least been the smart thing to do. \u00a0Oh well, there will always be next year.<\/p>\n
For the uninformed, Phoenix and the state of Arizona in general seem to be nature’s way of sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of creatures that survive there, humans included. \u00a0The flora is all some degree of scary, sporting spikes and blades, and I didn’t hear about a piece of fauna that wasn’t deadly. \u00a0At one time during the trip Black Widow spiders were an actual concern, some being far too close for comfort. \u00a0Glenn (mighty artist of Edge of December<\/a>) was far too nonchalant about their presence. \u00a0My default reaction to venomous spiders of that variety inevitably involves the proper application of fire, but I’m not even sure that would work since Arizona is actually an oven on a state sized scale. \u00a0Lets not even talk about the scorpions with hundreds of young upon their back. \u00a0In short, I found Phoenix to be an environment hostile to my flesh. \u00a0I feel that this should lend more glory to our victory there. \u00a0Really, I’ll take tornadoes over Arizona any day.<\/p>\n Phoenix Comicon was my very first Comicon experience, and holy hell, was it an experience. \u00a0We’ll completely leave out the booth for now. \u00a0I don’t think that I’ve ever been in a crowd like that before, and I’ve been to Disney during their busy season. \u00a0The event was massive on a scale that I did not appreciate before trying to navigate it for myself. \u00a0The thing takes up at least three buildings whose size is roughly akin to our biggest convention center here in Omaha. \u00a0The Exhibition floor alone was easily twice as big as the exhibition floor at the CenturyLink Center, if not more. \u00a0And the cosplay! \u00a0The wonderful cosplay! \u00a0I saw a couple of people dressed up as bride and groom zombies, shambling across the floor, grunting in undead confusion, then pausing for photo ops. \u00a0I saw every Disney princess in various flavors; vanilla, warrior, undead, etc. \u00a0I saw a fantastic Avatar Aang. \u00a0 I know, some photos here would be ideal, but here’s where the bit about being in a booth comes into play.<\/p>\n Most of the convention I was on duty at the Edge of December booth (Booth 890, we’ll be right there next year). \u00a0Whooo boy. \u00a0You think actually going\u00a0<\/em>would be exhausting, you should try running a booth. \u00a0You are on all the time. \u00a0And I mean\u00a0ON<\/strong>. \u00a0A smile for every person who passes by, conversation with every person who looks even remotely interested in what you’re selling. \u00a0Over the course of four days I got my Edge of December<\/a> pitch down to a science. \u00a0I could segue into talking about the book from just about anything. \u00a0“Interested in prints? \u00a0Why don’t you consider our comic?” \u00a0I had a bit of a rocky start, but picked up the knack of things pretty quick. \u00a0If I’m painting a negative picture in your mind, then I’m just not doing things justice. \u00a0It was exhausting<\/em>, but a ton of fun. \u00a0I got to tell tons of people about Edge and even sold more than a few books. \u00a0Books I got to sign! \u00a0I’ve never signed books before, and it was pretty cool. \u00a0Still, by the end of the con I was thoroughly jealous of the other authors who just got to sit and sign books. \u00a0I would have killed to have been able to just sit for a while. \u00a0Such was not my fate though. \u00a0I had to remain standing and approachable. \u00a0And that was probably the real kicker that made things exhausting for me; the standing. \u00a0I’m a big dude, and standing for that long does horrible things to my feet and ankles.<\/p>\n Still, we did really well with the booth; well enough to ensure that we’ll have a booth in the same awesome location next year and then some. \u00a0Beyond that, I’m hoping that we see a steady uptick in traffic over at Edge Of December. \u00a0Other than that, I met a LOT of the authors who I look up to, like Chuck Wendig<\/a> (who’s awesome), Seanan McGuire stopped by our booth (I squeeeeed!), I went to a great class by Michael Stackpole, and got a lot of other books to read and met several other authors. \u00a0I met a few other web-comickers, such as the author \/ artist of JEFbot<\/a>, and the author \/ artist of Mystery Babylon<\/a>, both of which I can strongly recommend now. \u00a0 Not only are they good reads, but they are fun people too. \u00a0And the art at Mystery Babylon<\/a> is completely kick-ass!<\/p>\n Oh. \u00a0And I met Nathan Fillion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve really got to get this blogging thing down better. \u00a0What I should have done was post a nice blurb here and on the various other social media outlets that we were going to go to Phoenix Comicon and where we were going to be. \u00a0Not that I think it would have brought anyone extra […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sswanson-001-site2.gtempurl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}