FULL BLEED: STAND UNTIL ACHING

Big week last week. Travelled up to the Rose City Comic show, actually worked it this year. Usually I'm up to just get myself out of the house and see people who I ordinarily only see as strings of text scrolling past so fast that you can hear it dopplering into the distance.

Of course, I was there to help promote and sell QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS, which was available in print for the first time there. Once again, let me pause to thank Scott Gable for not only thinking I could deliver a book worth supporting, but putting the needed cleanup work into things. And to Gabriel Hardman for his arresting cover.

Spent most of my time at the show over at the Broken Eye Books booth (shared with Matthew Youngmark who I really hate because he came up with the easiest book in the world to pitch and I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it first. But that's okay, it's not a book I could have written and instead he did. Seriously THE "WONDERFUL" WIZARD OF FUTHERMUCKING OZ is pretty genius.)

The only downside to this, despite the company, was a total lack of space to set out the goddamn beautiful promotional cards I'd made up, or to run the equally goddamn beautiful slide presentation I was going to run as an attractor. Nevermind that even when I did, not a single person paused to look at it. Probably because I was holding the iPad to my chest like some kind of deranged Teletubbie and I really should have thought things through better, I know.

Hell, there wasn’t even room to have a third chair back there. Which had me on my feet on concrete for the vast majority of the show. I'm gonna be feeling that one for a bit. Luckily, I've been schooled in how to upgrade my footwear (thanks Ramon and Justin) so I'm going to change things up for the next show. Which looks like the HPL Film Festival in…Portland, in a couple three weeks. I should have just set up temporary residency there. I mean, my family doesn't need me holding things together or anything.

Got a fair amount of interest in QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS, though I still need to refine the face-to-face pitch a bit. I finally got it down to "Crime/Weird horror, set in 1980s LA. Purple-haired (post) punk Cait MacReady, after forging occult texts for years, decides to write one of her own. Before she's even finished with the book, people start dying in pursuit of it." Not bad. I just didn't get that much chance to hand-sell it 'cause that was Scott's job as the publisher and he's got a whole bunch of other books to move. Anyways, I'll be ready when I'm flying solo.

Which is a lot better than "An examination of the creative process as an outsider and manifestation of transaction-asynchronous faith events as well as a study of an under-examined time in popular culture between punk rock and hair metal mixed in with Lynchian horror." I'll save that for the college circuit when I hit it like the Chixculub meteor.

Also, I'm a little bummed that nobody seems have to gotten my typographic jokes (yes, I lobbied hard for Albertus in the interior titling.) Oh well, there's still time. QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS officially goes on sale sometime in December (but pre-orders will go out considerably earlier). The date isn't set yet. I'll say the 16th, but also reserve the right to change it up.

So yeah, moved some copies, and more surprisingly, sold a lot of books to people who didn't even know me. That's some crazy talk, I know. But let's have a shout-out to Joe Keatinge and Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein, who are friends and went out of their way to stop by and snag a copy.

And yes, to everyone who asked, I'm working on a follow-on, though it's not been officially requested yet. I expect it will throw a lot of people, because it's pretty far from an actual sequel, though I guarantee it will include at least the three major characters from QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS, but maybe not in the way that you'd think.

Didn’t to walk around the show as much as I'd have liked, but I got to say hello to friends and hang out with the Helioscope Studio crew, who've always been super-great to me even though I'm not an actual comics artist. Picked up the newest volume of KAIJUMAX and a couple of Marvel Treasury Editions (AVENGERS for a buddy of mine and some Kirby THOR action – looking forward to digging into those as time allows.)

Otherwise, enjoyed some bacon and peach pizza from Hot Lips (and even snuck in some DEMOLITION MAN and IRON MAN pinball action.) Had some pretty great carnitas Michoacán right by the Columbia river in Vancouver. Even got some Pine State biscuits (just barely worth the wait.) Also got a lot of play time in with a friend's new dog, which was a huge bonus.

Didn't take any pictures. Only did a little work. Probably gonna have to pay the price for that later on, but I'll manage.