My Comicpalooza Experience

A week has come and gone since I was at Comicpalooza in Houston, Texas. The first thing I have to say about the expo was that it was very small and as a result, it was actually quite refreshing compared to what I am already used to.

My regular readers already know that the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo had just shy of 100,000 attendee’s this year, so even though the expo in Houston was exceedingly busy on Saturday, it was still refreshingly small in comparison. Although it, like the expo here in Calgary, just continues to grow with every passing year.

I must say that it was really quite nice to finally meet with my editor Michael Varhola and several of the others such as William Thrasher, Clint Staples and Brenda Cass that I have been in contact with for several years. Talking to these folks online is one thing, but it’s far more enjoyable to meet them face to face.

A week has come and gone since I was at Comicpalooza in Houston, Texas. The first thing I have to say about the expo was that it was very small and as a result, it was actually quite refreshing compared to what I am already used to.

My regular readers already know that the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo had just shy of 100,000 attendee’s this year, so even though the expo in Houston was exceedingly busy on Saturday, it was still refreshingly small in comparison. Although it, like the expo here in Calgary, just continues to grow with every passing year.

I must say that it was really quite nice to finally meet with my editor Michael Varhola and several of the others such as William Thrasher, Clint Staples and Brenda Cass that I have been in contact with for several years. Talking to these folks online is one thing, but it’s far more enjoyable to meet them face to face.

I spent most of the time that I was helping Skirmisher at the booth, answering questions and trying to sell the plethora of books we had for sale. Of course I was pushing my own work, and generated a little interest in my novel ‘Sword of Kos: Dark Inheritance’ but that was about it. Didn’t sell a single one of the Sword of Kos: Hekaton anthologies. Those I was really pushing for since I was kind of hoping to be able to autograph at least one!

Yeah, me and my ego.

Oddly enough I hardly met any celebrities when I was there. For me going to the various expos, that is the major draw. I love to get my photos with them and speak to them. My regular readers already know that this year was my favorite, bar none, for meeting folks.

I don’t know, maybe it was how much the trip ended up costing me, maybe it was other factors. Really I met only two people there. Bret Hart (for my wife, she was tickled to meet him), and Kevin J. Anderson.

Meeting Mr. Anderson turned out to be the highlight of the trip for me. Skirmisher hosted a big party after the expo ended on Saturday night, and I was invited. Normally I am not a party goer. I simply don’t know what to say or do. This time around it was a different story entirely because I was dealing with peers and other writers.

Much to my surprise and delight, Mr. Anderson showed up. I didn’t go all fanboy on him but I started to talk to him and ended spending about 20 minutes or so talking shop with him. What a great guy! Learned a great deal from him and was really surprised to discover that he started out writing much the way I did… fan fiction.

And of course when he invited me to his panel the next day I had to attend. When an author personally invites you, you take it!

I’ve never really mentioned this before, but I’m not a fan of Wrestling. There are those who would scoff at this, insult me, and so forth but I’ve never been a fan. Just not my thing, although over the years I have met several wrestlers and they’ve all been pretty cool.

One particular wrestler was at the party and I started to talk to him without even knowing that he was a wrestler. His handle is ‘Hurricane’ and he’s a really entertaining guy to talk to. Had lots of fun speaking with him and going on about training and the like. When he found out that I train Shaolin Kung Fu, he asked me if I wanted to fight.

Turned out that this was a little test. Of course I turned him down! He was pleased with the answer because that proved to him that I am a true martial artist, that I would never willingly start or go into a fight. He related that as a wrestler, too many guys want to take him on because of that, and that he had spoken with other martial artists and really only the posers ever wanted to just fight for the sake of it.

I like the guy and it was a very enjoyable experience meeting him.

I have to admit that standing on the other side of the booth instead of being one of the spectators was quite the experience. It wasn’t bad at all, and I learned a great deal about promoting and how expos work from this trip.

I also have to point out that I really admire the amount of work and effort Michael Varhola put into the convention. The poor guy was running himself ragged! I won’t deny the fact that I could not have done what he did. As it stands, I ended up getting sick when I was there, and this guy was running panels, making sure everything was set up properly, organizing events, you name it.

If it had been me, I would have slept a week once I returned to Calgary. So serious kudos to him. Well, not just to him but to everyone I already mentioned and many others that I only met in passing, who I didn’t mention here.

Was the trip worth it? Yeah, I believe so, but it did cost me far more than I had hoped. Most things I do are learning experiences to be sure and I did learn a great deal on this trip to the States.

Also I now have a game plan in place when it comes to a lot of my work. Once my current project, posting the conversions on the Skirmisher site is complete, I’m going to take all my issues of Wisdom from the Wastelands and post them in Bookforge, and after that I’ve got some major work to do.

On a personal note, I’ve finally managed to get back into a gaming group. I haven’t sat down and played a tabletop game since late November 2009. A friend of mine started a Pathfinder game this week and I’m in on the action. Really quite excited about this, since it has been far too long. Best part is that it’s on the weekend as well.

With training, work and life, I just can’t play during the week.

I have already mentioned this, but it is important so I’m going to bring it up again. My conversions are rapidly coming to a close. I should have all the conversions posted on the site by the end of the month. I haven’t taken the time to count the conversions, but there has to be around 200 or at least pretty damn close to that many up. Once they are up I will no longer be posting them on a daily basis. I need to concentrate on my short stories and my novel. This does not mean that the conversions will stop, but I will be dropping back to post only a couple times a week, a minimum of one conversion per week though. Hey, anyone who reads my conversions has to realize that it takes typically thirty minutes to an hour (in some cases, longer!) to write up the conversions. Writing these conversions is quite time consuming. Don’t get me wrong, I really am happy that people are using them (see the little mini-adventures that Eric Fabiaschi write up and I share on my author page) but I feel that I should be expending my time and effort on many other projects that have fallen to the wayside.

That reminds me, all these conversions will be posted to the Bookforge page soon enough. It won’t take me as long to post them there as it has to post them on the Skirmisher page, believe me.

And on that note, I’m pretty much finished for the week. As always I would like to invite my readers to like my personal author page on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Until next Sunday, peace!

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook Creatures of the Tropical Wastes sourcebook, co-author of its Wisdom from the Wastelands game supplement and contributor to the 'Sword of Kos: Hekaton' Anthology.