Dayton's Blog: A pimple on the ass of the Internet.

I'm already drafting contract language for all my future books, outlining how stuff like this will be included in any and all marketing efforts.


Photo credit: Christine Rideout, aka @Starfleetmom

The lovely model is Mary Czerwinski, aka "@televixen" on Twitter and co-host of DVD Geeks, a weekly radio show, TV show, and podcast that brings you the latest and greatest DVD reviews. This picture was taken at the recent monster Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. Mary is dressed as Seven of Nine from the WWII holodeck simulation in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Killing Game."

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Thanks to Mary and Christine for the pic!

And be sure to check out DVD Geeks. You know you want to.

I know, I know. It's been days since I returned from San Diego, and I still haven't written a con recap. Well, here it is.

( Comic-Con 2009.... )

Getting ready to head out the door and on my way to the airport, bound for San Diego! Kevin's already been there since Tuesday, as part of the contingent representing Hallmark, and I'm sure I'll run into friends (kradical, alpinemaps, Bob Greenberger, and Geoff Thorne to name just a few) at various points throughout the day.

Reports if and when I run into anything report-worthy, which should start somewhere around five seconds after I walk through the door....

This past weekend brought with it our annual pilgrimage to Baltimore for the Shore Leave convention. In addition to the usual assortment of guests, panel discussions, book signings, and sundry other "official" programming events, the con is one of few chances we have during the year to connect in person with friends and colleagues. That last part is really just a lame way of saying it's an excuse to get drunk with friends.

( Let me tell you about Shore Leave.... )

We received the tentative panel/activities schedule for this weekend's Shore Leave convention. Looks like I'll be mildly busy throughout the weekend, but nothing too crazy. For those interested:

Friday

7pm-8:30pm - Charity Roast of Keith Decandido (kradical). The first-evah such activity at Shore Leave, join us as we skewer each other and, of course, Keith. In addition to Kevin and myself, the "roasters" include Kirsten Beyer, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Bob Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, David Mack, and Marco Palmieri. As for what Kevin and I plan to say, well...we'll either bust some guts, or else they'll run us out of town with pitchforks. Either way, it beats sitting at home watching TV. - Hunt Room

10pm-??? - Meet the Pros. The big author book/program/body part signing party - Hunt/Valley Foyer

Saturday

1pm-2pm - Space Grunts: The Anthology - With Scott Pearson (scottpearson) and John Coffren. We'll be talking about the cute little anthology I put together earlier in the year, since we have a few participants on hand to yammer about it. - Salon E

4pm-5pm - Mere Anarchy: The Anthology - With Mike Barr, Howard Weinstein, Christopher Bennett, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Kevin Dilmore, Dave Galanter. We'll ruminate about the mini-series, as well as read a chapter (or a portion thereof) from our respective contributions. - Salon B

Sunday

10am-11am - Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows Anthology. With Marco Palmieri, Margaret Clark, Peter David, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Michael Jan Friedman, Jim Johnson, David Mack (infinitydog), and Kevin Dilmore. After the panelists finish introducing themselves, there should just be enough time left over to take a couple of questions. - Salon E

12pm-1pm - Classic Trek: What Gene Knew. With David Mack, Kevin Dilmore, and Margaret Clark. - Hunt Room

1pm-2pm - Post Destiny: Now What Does the Federation Do? With Margaret Clark, David Mack, and Christopher Bennett. Now that Dave Mack has beaten the Star Trek universe all to shit, what's left? Apparently, plans are afoot. Come and find out for yourself! - Hunt Room

I'm a bit late getting this posted, but here we go:

Long story short: We had a pretty fun time down in Tulsa.

Long story longer:

( The Long Story behind the cut! )


Many thanks to all the fine folks who worked their butts off to make Trek Expo a fun weekend for fans and guests alike. We appreciate your hospitality, hope we held up our end of the bargain, and wish you well until our paths cross again.

This coming weekend, Kevin and I will be author guests at the annual Trek Expo convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to the numerous guests who will be on hand, the big headliners this year are Leonard Nimoy on Saturday and Avery Brooks on Sunday, both of whom I hear are pretty famous dudes.

Also invited as author guests are Robin Wayne Bailey (robinbailey), who will be acting as MC, and Selina Rosen, founder of Yard Dog Press and the Bubbas of the Apocalypse anthologies, for which I have a confessed fetish. Both Robin and Selina were contributors to my recently released Space Grunts anthology, and we're hoping to have a few copies of those lying around, as well.

So far, our schedule is largely open, which means we'll be hanging out, hoping to sell and sign a few books, wandering the con floor, pestering the "real guests" and so on. Kevin and I also are scheduled for an hour or so on the main events stage, starting at 11am on Saturday. There's no telling what we'll do with that one, but it's possible poultry will play a role.

(Just seein' who's paying attention....)

So, if you're in the vicinity and/or planning to attend to the con, we hope to see you there!

I keep forgetting to post about this, but seeing robinbailey's post about this reminded me that I need to get on the stick!

Kevin and I will be guests at this year's Trek Expo convention, the weekend of June 26-28 down in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We were guests there back in 2005, along with kradical, and when we ran into one of the con promoters during our recent jaunt to Denver for Starfest, he invited us back. We've actually been invited back a few times, but schedules and whatnot prevented us from taking them up on their kind offers. Not so, this year!

Also in attendance will be my friends and fellow writer Selina Rosen, founder of my favorite little kick-ass micropress, Yard Dog Press. Acting as Master of Ceremonies will be the aforementioned robinbailey, and having him and Selina there means we can do some serious Space Grunts pimpin'! Also in attendance will be writers R.A. Jones and Michael Vance and artist Keith Birdsong!

What, you say you want to know about "real" guests? Well, I suppose Leonard Nimoy, Avery Brooks, Marina Sirtis, John DeLancie, Cirroc Lofton, Anthony Montgomery, Garret Wang, Corin Nemec, Mira Furlan, Phil Morris, Chase Masterson, and Tony Todd fit the bill rather well. Still, you know you're gonna want to hang out at our table.

If this one's like the 2005 show, we should have a lot of fun. I'm even bringing Michi and the kids down for this one. I know some folks on my f-list are within spitting distance of the con location, so maybe we'll see you there!

It dawned on me as I transcribed some notes Kevin and I took about this that I keep forgetting to mention it here.

This year's Shore Leave convention will feature something new: a comedy roast. Cooked up by myself, Kevin Dilmore, and infinitydog along with the able assistance of a few folks who are better off remaining anonymous at this stage, said roast is to be a fun way of honoring -- to say nothing of mericlessly ripping on -- one of our favorite Trek scribes, with proceeds being donated to the American Red Cross (which has a long association with the con) in the roastee's name. For our first attempt, the decision on a roastee was as inevitable as it was quick: Keith R.A. DeCandido (kradical). He'll be our target for 45 mins or so, after which he'll have his chance to fire back. If it goes off the way we hope it will, I expect the event to be the thing everybody's talking about for the rest of the weekend....for good or bad.

Acting as Master of Ceremonies will be the one and only Bob Greenberger. Roasters will include Kirsten Beyer, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Glenn Hauman, David Mack, Marco Palmieri, as well as myself and Kevin Dilmore, tag-teaming (no, *not* tea-bagging) all comers.

As the information on the SL website says: "Warning: This event will contain crude language, vulgar jokes, and visual gags guaranteed to offend just about everyone. There might be a disturbing puppet involved."

That's right, bitches. A puppet. Consider yourself warned.

Check out all the details, as well as a downloadable flyer with at least one bit of disturbing imagery, HERE.

Yeah. This is gonna be fun.

Still playing catch-up, but here's a rundown of our trip to Denver for Starfest 2009.

( Read all about it! )

Earlier today, I received an e-Mail from one of the fine folks at Starfest who work so hard every year making it look like putting on a con is easy. It was from a fan who attended the convention with her young son and daughter. We'd already seen them a time or two before the kids performed in the talent show held on Sunday morning (Kevin acted as emcee; I was a judge). During their act, the son got a bit flustered, flubbed his lines during the song they were singing, and then stage fright set in and despite our best efforts to encourage him he opted to step down. His sister, awesome little trooper that she was, stayed put, and belted out the rest of the song to earn a standing ovation. Though they ended up not winning, we made sure they received a prize when it was all over.

This is an excerpt from the e-Mail the con representative received:

-----

I never got a chance to thank you for the talent-show-consolation-prize-Star-Trek-bracelets you left for my kids, , at the authors' table. That was very kind of you and the children were thrilled. My daughter left you a note with a man at the information table before we left on Sunday. It was just a quick note to thank you for the bracelets, but since I couldn't be sure you ever actually received it, I thought I would send you a note myself.

And speaking of those two authors, Dilmore and Ward - if you have access to an email address for them, I wish you would forward this note to both of them so that I could thank them for how kind they were to my children throughout the weekend. They were really a couple of class-act guys, and my kids were delighted that one or both of them would take time to chat each time we went by their table. I had a chance to thank Mr Ward before we left, but Mr Dilmore was busy talking to someone at the time, and I didn't get a chance to thank him.

-----

Maybe I'm turning into a big softie, but reading that was the high point of my day.

Tags: cons, starfest

After a leisurely drive out from Kansas City, Kevin and I arrived in Denver around 4:30pm local time. We grabbed some dinner and then checked into the con hotel (the Denver Tech Center Marriott), and also scoped out the Barnes & Noble where we'll be doing our signing on Friday. I was pleased to see Trek nicely represented on the store's shelves, including a couple of our titles, as well as Wet Work, The Last World War, and even The Genesis Protocol. There were a few signs posted around store, including at the front door and at one endcap which had been loaded up with assorted Trek titles.

The Starfest folks are already hard at work setting up for the con, which will be officially underway Friday evening at 6pm. There's supposed to be snow on the way for Friday, but...hell, this is Denver. People live with snow pretty much all year long (except for a couple of weeks in September during NFL pre-season), right? To the snow, I saw "Pfffft."

Bring on the con!

Included among the bills and other detritus in yesterday's mail was a letter from the San Diego Comic-Con with my registration info. Kevin and I will be making the trip out there again this year. Kevin's actually going as part of a contingent from Hallmark, who will have booth space on the exhibitor floor. His higher-ups have graciously allowed me to bunk in with him. I just have to cover half the room rate for the nights I'll be there, and I've also offered up time sweat during the weekend (such as during the tear-down phase on Sunday night).

I'm not sure yet if Pocket will have any panels going relating to Trek or other stuff, and it's way to early to talk about scheduled signings or anything like that, but I'm sure something will be planned.

Anybody else gonna be there?

Finally, here we go....

So, last Thursday, Bubba and I left on a jet airplane, fairly sure when we'd be back again, and headed for sunny San Diego and the 2008 Comic-Con International. 


Will we go again next year? Almost certainly. We'll have a new Vanguard book to pimp, after all, and it will be the con's 40th year, so I expect that'll be a sight to see. 

I screwed around and put this off, and by now everybody in the known universe has commented on their experiences at last weekend's Shore Leave convention. I tried writing a detailed recap, but it was in essence a repeat of what other folks had already said. Therefore, I'll boil my weekend down to the important points:

I say "updated" with all due caution, as the schedule continues to evolve. I think this is pretty close to the real deal, though:

Friday, July 11th:
"Pocket Books Preview" - 9pm-10pm - Hunt (Not a participant; just in the peanut gallery)
"Meet the Pros" mass author signing - 10pm-12am - Hunt/Valley Foyer

Saturday, July 12th:
"The Sky's the Limit: 20+ Years of ST:TNG" - 12pm-1pm - Salon A
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Post-mortem" - 2pm-3pm - Salon E

Sunday, July 13th:
"The 4400 Goes to Book!" - 11am-12pm - Location TBD
"Star Trek: Corps of Engineers/e-Book Post-mortem" - 12pm-1pm - Salon B (I think I'm on this panel)
"The Bionic Woman: Past and Present" - 2pm-3pm - Salon F

There will also be other panels and such that I'll be checking out, and there may be one or two other activities for which I'm scheduled that haven't yet made the list.

And, of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the bar.

I was checking the TrekMovie.com site, where there's currently an excerpt from Geek Magazine's interview with Wil Wheaton in their current issue:

Wheaton Talks More Trek + Added To Comic Con Book Panel

The TrekMovie piece also reports that he's been added to the "Star Trek without a blueprint" panel at Comic-con, representing the Tokyopop Trek manga efforts. Nootch!

For those who only know Wheaton as "Wesley Crusher" on TNG, you're missing out. He's an accomplished author in his own right, and maintains an awesome blog which should be required reading for fans of Trek, pop culture, or just witty observations while making one's way through this weird-assed pastime we call life. Among the many guest-blogger stints he's done are a set of various TNG episode retrospectives, which are part review, part anecdotal stories by the fireplace as he recalls his days on the set filming said episodes, and all hilarious (Hey, he had me at "Star Trek: The Motion Picture award for unnecessary and entirely too long visual effects jerk off"). Check 'em out. He's also written at least one story for Tokyopop's Star Trek manga, and hopefully will have some news about that at the panel.

I was already looking forward to this panel, anyway, just because of the energy any Comic-con panel seems to generate (What is it about that place?). Now I'm actually psyched, and looking forward to meeting the real Wil Wheaton.

An addition to my schedule arrived today. In addition to the previously announced panel with folks from Pocket Books and IDW, we've now got book signings on the docket!


Thursday, July 24:

5:30pm-6pm
Kevin Dilmore, Dave Mack, Dayton Ward - signing copies of Star Trek: Corps of Engineers - Creative Couplings

6pm-6:30pm
Andy Mangels - signing copies of Star Trek: Excelsior - Forged In Fire


Not sure if other signings are being scheduled, but hey: if this is it, that means my "Got to be some place at a specific time" requirements are over before dinner time Thursday. Sweet!

Got info about the still in-flux schedule for Shore Leave 30, which is only ONE WEEK AWAY! As things stand now, this is when/where I'm slated to be:

Friday, July 11th:
"Pocket Books Preview" - 9pm-10pm - Hunt (Not a participant; just in the peanut gallery)
"Meet the Pros" mass author signing - 10pm-12am - Hunt/Valley Foyer

Saturday, July 12th:
"The Sky's the Limit: 20+ Years of ST:TNG" - 12pm-1pm - Salon A
"Star Trek e-Book Post-Mortem" - 1pm-2pm - Salon E
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Post-Mortem" - 2pm-3pm - Salon E

Sunday, July 13th:
"Star Trek: Corps of Engineers" - 12pm-1pm - Salon B (I think I'm on this panel)
"Vanguard: Summon the Harbinger of Whirlwind" - 1pm-2pm - Salon F

I'm also liable to check out the goings-on in other panels, and there may be one or two other activities for which I'm scheduled that haven't yet made the list.

Then there's the bar. There's always the bar. It tasks me, and I shall have it.

As noted here at TrekMovie.com, I can at least say that I've got one panel that I know of going down at this year's Comic-con:

"The two publishing licensees for Star Trek (Pocket Books and IDW Comics) are going to hold a panel on Thursday (room 32AB, 4-5PM). Here is the description:

Star Trek without a blueprint. How books and comics keep expanding the boundaries of the Star Trek universe. Andy Mangels moderator, Margaret Clark (executive editor, Pocket Books), Andy Schmidt (senior editor, IDW) and writers Kevin Dilmore, Dave Mack, Scott Tipton and Dayton Ward."

I expect that the panel will highlight both Pocket's and IDW's forthcoming Trek titles over the next year or so, along with attempting to answer questions put forth by the audience. I was at the combined Pocket/Tokyopop/CBS Licensing panel like this at Comic-con 2006, and it drew a pretty damned impressively-sized audience. I'm hoping for similar turnout this time around. Otherwise, we're gonna hafta feed Kevin to the pigs out back.