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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Lev Grossman: The Other Introduction.

Yesterday afternoon, Flyleaf Books let me know that I'd have the honor of introducing Lev Grossman at his reading. I put together some thoughts (ok, a lot of thoughts) and cut things down to an appropriate slice of time, and then realized... the introduction was sounding a lot like it was about me: my response to the book, my happiness that his tour included a stop in the area, my fondness for Grossman's criticism and writing not just in his novels but in his essays and reviews and (particularly!) interviews.

And so I scrapped the whole thing and just read what I'd already written for the introduction to the Bull Spec #6 feature on him. Which was good, because after getting to meet and talk to Grossman back stage before the event, my literally fanboyish levels of squee were pegging the Scalzometer:
  • We'd talked about our appreciation of Neal Stephenson
  • He'd referred to William Gibson as "Bill"
  • "Lev" asked me my opinion on whether he should take on a sekrit projekt
  • I'd just met Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians
And so anything more personal I was going to say was likely to emerge as squeaks, alongside my jumping up and down in sheer joy and excitement.

Let me go back.

In early September of 2009 I saw The Magicians in the new science fiction and fantasy releases section of the Barnes & Noble of Brier Creek. One look at the title and the cover:


And I knew I had to pick it up. So I did. And, gently, put it back on the shelf. I don't remember the jacket copy on the hardcover, but apparently it didn't sell me on a hardcover purchase. So I bought a mass market paperback that is still sitting, unread, on my shelf. (Someday, Greg van Eekhout's Norse Code, I will read you. Some day...)

By April of 2010 I started hearing more and more about this book. Some people -- who clearly have no taste -- hated it. Others loved it and it was showing up on year's best lists in both fantasy and "mainstream" fiction. And so, as the trade paperback was coming out and Grossman was touring in support of his NY Times bestselling book, I wrote him about coming to the local area. "I go where they send me," he wrote back.

He wrote back.

But he didn't come. (I hadn't yet figured out how these things worked. It actually turns out to be simple: when you know a publisher is planning a book tour, get your local bookstores to write them, promise, and beg. And plead. And beg some more.) But he wrote back!

In September 2010 he signed a copy of the trade paperback for a breast cancer charity auction on eBay -- I had gone there looking to bid on Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind if I recall, but that auction was much, much too dear -- and I won. (I might have been the only bidder. It's been a while.) The book came, complete with a photo of Grossman, a wonderful personalized signature ("You rock! Thanks for helping to fight breast cancer!") and...


... I still didn't read it. Hey, the stack is long, the stack is tall, and after all he hadn't come here on tour, the clear bastard.

But I was becoming a bit of a Grossman fan for other reasons. Following his articles in Time, the NY Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Diving into the backlog of his online articles and reading his thoughts on Twilight, Harry Potter, and George R. R. Martin. On Neil Gaiman, David Foster Wallace, BitTorrent, Jonathan Franzen, Napster, Facebook, Aubrey de Grey's beard (if only I could tell you...), Ray Kurzweil, ...


And via his online openness, funny remarks here and there (like never wanting to tweet again now that he'd been re-tweeted by @GreatDismal) and the shared human experience that is being a dad.

And in November 2010, after finally hearing too many great things about the book, I discovered and listened to a sample of the audiobook from Audible.com.

I was hooked.

Mark Bramhall brought The Magicians to life for me. I loved it. Loved it. I raved about it to everyone who would listen. I convinced my wife to listen to the audiobook and she really liked it. We talked about a fantasy novel. The book also helped me grow up in a way that was a bit long overdue: I wasn't about to open a door and find my way into a magical world any time soon. Or be plucked from the street and inserted into a secret NASA field team for a Mars mission. Or study really hard and become a karate master. (This is something I should have been able to give up having read Stephenson's Snow Crash but which lingered on. OK, it still lingers on. A bit.)


In March 2011, after a few more rounds of corresponding with Grossman (including getting a very nice quote from him for my article on Lou Anders in Bull Spec #4 and what seemed like very nice yet transparent lies about actually liking the magazine -- sure, Lev, sure it's on your nightstand) something unexpected and ridiculous happened.

I had known Grossman was working on a sequel -- and he'd just written me to ask if I'd take a look at a draft of it as a beta reader.

Of course I said no immediately.

(Are you kidding? I said yes and dropped everything else I was doing. In case you were wondering why issue #5 was a little later than "quarterly" can be stretched to allow...)

I read the new book, The Magician King, looking, digging, clawing for flaws and faults. There weren't many. I was blown away, like so many would be when the book came out, by "the Julia chapters". I fell hard for new characters and remembered how much I loved the others. Quentin was more mature -- like me he'd grown up a bit in the three years since The Magicians -- and yet Quentin was still missing something, the kind of something that only taking on an honest to goodness quest can provide. (Or so Quentin thought.)

And some OMFG "no it didn't" things happened in the book. And then the book ripped out my heart and stomped on it a bit. But I was reading so critically and narrowly -- herein I refer to a scene in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five about being locked in place on a train, looking through a long, stationary tube -- that I didn't know it yet. I told Grossman that while I loved The Magicians, that it was a great book, that The Magician King was merely only very, very good. But that he'd tried, and done well, and not to feel too bad about that. (Yes. Yes I did say that.)

Anyway, in the course of giving chapter by chapter feedback, poking at lines, we struck up another conversation about book tours. And now I knew how these things worked, so I started at the top: with the book's publicist at Penguin. I pitched the local area hard. I praised our support of author visits past, with the numbers and newspaper articles to back them up. I promised things I hoped I could deliver.

(Side note: In May I was interviewing Kij Johnson for the SFWA blog (sorry, Kij, I haven't yet transcribed that one...) and was carrying my ARC/galley (I still don't know the difference) of The Magician King and she literally grabbed it. I told her she could keep it if she wrote me a review. She did. It's wonderful.)

Somewhere along the line, Grossman sent an updated copy, some technical term for whatever stage it was in the process but it was a fully laid out PDF updated even from the ARC. I read some key scenes again (the end, oh, my goodness, the end) and starting getting a suspicion that, hey, there is some terrible beauty here that I'd missed by reading from a height of one micrometer.

And then on May 19 Flyleaf Books was able to announce that yes, Grossman's upcoming tour would be including a stop here! This led to a lot of work, actually. Writing newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV outlets. Writing them again. Putting together flyers and putting them up wherever I could, whenever I had time. ("Daddy, you're always doing flyers," my son has begun to recognize.)


 Blogging, posting, tweeting, inviting, begging, pleading. Reminding. Bothering. Pestering. Flyering again.


And interviewing Grossman for Bull Spec #6, which he turned in for me with literally hours to spare before I had to print it. (Not his fault, I only sent it to him with days to spare. Thanks again, Lev.) Not just turning in a boring, ho-hum, things I'd read before -- and I'd been reading his interviews, from Locus to Slice and many more -- but personal, funny, interesting things.

When his book launch was approaching, I sent him some copies of Bull Spec #6 to hand out. I sent him a bunch more for WorldCon. (Where he won a tiara, mind you.) I sent more to a few other of the bookstores along his tour.

(Meanwhile, the audiobook for The Magician King came out as well, and once again Bramhall pulled me back into Fillory, into Brakebills, and along Julia's path from high school to Free Trader Beowulf and beyond. This time, at least a few feet above the terrain of the page, I held onto every word, every phrase. I remembered what a funny book this was. I remembered what a touching book this was. And then I stood, leaning over my kitchen counter, and listened to the ending again. And another time, just to make sure. And I felt a bit like Quentin; the quest over, wanting it back but understanding that you can't have it back once it's gone. And being both incredibly satisfied, as I had been with the ending of the first book, and longing, longing for the next words to keep coming.)

Somewhere along the way, he found time not only for that kind of nonsense (handing around copies, etc.) but also to remind me that, hey, he was coming into town and did I need anything? When he'd already turned in some more interviews for local media (the Independent Weekly, the Flyleaf Books blog) and was all set to go on WUNC's The State of Things as well. He'd given the Raleigh-Durham area plenty of his time and attention.

Now it was time to find out if we would return the favor. And we did. 150 people came and listened attentively and asked great questions, clearly having connected with the books in a significant way.

And then Grossman signed a lot, lot, LOT of books. And then signed some more:


And then we went out for drinks, and had just a wonderful time. It was absolutely amazing to meet someone who had become one of my literary and journalistic heroes (though I think he'd have a few things to say about heroism, in fact he's said some of them in The Magician King) and whose work I had come to love, and find out that, actually, he's a wonderful, sincere, funny, kind, brilliant, funny, very human person.

And now all he has to do is stick the landing on a third book, and I won't have to hate him. No pressure, Lev. No pressure. And I'll understand if you don't let me read this one early. But be prepared to be begged.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Bull Spec local events e-mailing list: September 2011

Vol. 1, No. 4, September 1, 2011:

Welcome to the September events and announcements newsletter from Bull Spec, a few days early again for updates and new events right at the turn of the calendar. One of the big updates motivating this late August "September" newsletter: due to Hurricane Irene's possible impact on the outdoor event, John Claude Bemis's "medicine show" launch party for The White City has been moved from Saturday August 27 to Saturday September 10. Another is the addition of a big, big event on Saturday, luckily indoors and still very much on. That event is the Ultimate Comics 8th anniversary party with a huge lineup of local writers and artists, running pretty much all day from 11a to the early evening. Meanwhile, Bull Spec Issue #6 is in all of the local stores which carry it, and is about two weeks into a Kickstarter campaign for Year 3 which runs through the rest of September: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/830202652/bull-spec-year-three


Anyone going to Dragon*Con next weekend?

-Sam

AUGUST

NEW: 26 (Friday), 7-8p: The Regulator Bookshop hosts Duke professor emeritus Orrin H. Pilkey and his son Keith Pilkey for their book Global Climate Change: A Primer: http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/event/orrin-h-pilkey

NEW: 27 (Saturday), 11a-5p: Ultimate Comics hosts the next in their NC Comicon signing series, this one a huge (HUGE!) spread of local creators. Tommy Lee Edwards (TURF), John Mahoney (LAST MORTAL), Firetower Studios (ORDER OF DAGONET, PRINCELESS), Brockton McKinney, and Angi Shearstone (BloodDreams). It's also acting as their 8th anniversary party: http://www.ultimatecomicsonline.com/?p=1298 and http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150725641679496

27 (Saturday), 11 am: Speculative fiction author Allen Wold, who lives in Durham, N.C., and has published more than a dozen novels, will speak at an Avant-garde Writers event at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 27, at the Danville, Va., public library auditorium.

RESCHEDULED DUE TO WEATHER: 27 (Saturday), 3 pm: Launch party for Hillsborough author John Claude Bemis's closing book in his Clockwork Dark trilogy, The White City, at the Public Market House in downtown Hillsborough. More info: http://johnclaudebemis.com/2011/04/launch-party-for-the-white-city/


NEW: 28 (Sunday) Raleigh Comic Book Show at Crabtree Valley Holiday Inn: http://www.conventionscene.com/2011/01/04/raleigh-comic-book-show-2011-schedule/

*!* 30 (Tuesday), 7 pm: Bestselling author of The Magicians, Lev Grossman, to be at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill on his tour in support of the sequel, The Magician King. To help spread the word, here are PDF flyers in color (http://www.box.net/shared/dyru007atuh9t6nxkajr) and black and white (http://www.box.net/shared/e99je5pozzselcnqb115). More info: http://flyleafbooks.com/event/lev-grossman-reads-his-new-novel-magician-king


31: Local author book release: Lewis Shiner's new novel Dark Tangos to be published by Subterranean Press. More info: http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2011/05/02/announcing-dark-tangos-by-lewis-shiner/ and don't miss his reading at The Regulator on September 7th (below).



SEPTEMBER

NEW: 1 (Tuesday), 7 pm: Chapel Hill's Flyleaf Books hosts "Three Bestselling Adult/Young Adult Paranormal Fiction Authors: Melissa Marr, Jeaniene Frost & Kelley Armstrong." Melissa Marr - author of the Wicked Lovely series (YA) and the adult book GRAVEMINDER. Jeaniene Frost, author of the upcoming ONE GRAVE AT A TIME and the Night Huntress series. Kelley Armstrong, author of the Otherworld series, as well as the YA series Darkest Powers.

6: Local author book release: David Drake (with John Lambshead) starts a new SF space opera series with Into the Hinterlands. From Baen. More info: http://david-drake.com/2011/hinterlands/

7 (Wednesday), 7 pm: Local author Lewis Shiner reads from and signs his new novel Dark Tangos. More info: http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/event/lewis-shiner-1 -- update: there will be a live tango demonstration at the reading!

7 (Wednesday), 7:30 pm: Bestselling fantasy author Terry Brooks comes to Quail Ridge Books on his tour in support of his forthcoming Legends of Shannara book, The Measure of the Magic.


NEW: 10 (Saturday), 3 pm: Launch party for Hillsborough author John Claude Bemis's closing book in his Clockwork Dark trilogy, The White City, at the Public Market House in downtown Hillsborough. More info: http://johnclaudebemis.com/2011/04/launch-party-for-the-white-city/

15 (Thursday), 7:30 pm: Raleigh authors Clay and Susan Griffith launch book two of their Vampire Empire series, The Rift Walker, and Quail Ridge Books. More info: http://www.quailridgebooks.com/event/clay-susan-griffith-rift-walker-vampire-empire

20: Local author book release: Pyr to publish The Rift Walker (Vampire Empire: Book 2) by Raleigh's Clay and Susan Griffith. Sequel to last November's The Greyfriar.

27: Local author book release: Random House Books for Young Readers to publish The Death of Yorik Mortwell by Durham's Stephen Messer. More info: http://stephenmesser.com/?page_id=119


OCTOBER


18 (Tuesday), 7 pm: Durham author Stephen Messer will be part of a two children's authors in one (though I would argue he is a middle grade / young reader author to be specific!) for his September 27th published book The Death of Yorik Mortwellhttp://www.quailridgebooks.com/event/stephen-messer-kathleen-churchyard-two-childrens-authors-one-program

NOVEMBER

1: Local author book release: John Kessel’s next anthology for Tachyon, Kafkaesque, collects “Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka”, including stories from JG Ballard, Terry Bisson, Borges, Paul Di Filippo, Jeffrey Ford, and more. More info: http://tachyonpublications.com/book/Kafkaesque.html

5-6 (Saturday and Sunday): NC Comicon at the Morrisville Outlet Mall. Also check out theirsummer signing series which has June 25 and July 16 events already scheduled.

15 (Tuesday), 7:30 pm: Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books hosts Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow, to present her latest novel Doc, a retelling of the life of "Doc" Holliday.

JANUARY 2012

3: Local author new edition: The David Drake onmibus Voyage Across the Stars collects his Hammer’s Slammers novels Cross the Stars and Voyage. From Baen. More info: http://www.baen.com/order_isbn.asp?isbn=9781451637717

13-15: New local SF convention illogiCon (January 13-15, 2012) in Raleigh with literary guest of honor Joe Haldeman. More info: http://illogicon.com/

31: Local author book release: Solaris Books to publish the first book in a new fantasy series from Hillsborough author James Maxey, which starts with Greatshadow.



MARCH 2012

2-4: StellarCon (March 2-4, 2012) in High Point with literary guest of honor Patrick Rothfuss. More info: http://stellarcon.org/

JUNE 2012

1-3: ConCarolinas (June 1-3, 2012) in Charlotte with writer guest of honor Jack McDevitt. More info: http://www.concarolinas.org/

21-24: ConTemporal (June 21-24, 2012) in Raleigh with literary guest of honor Cherie Priest. More info: http://contemporal.org/

UNDATED

A trio of forthcoming first novels from local authors without confirmed release dates:
  • Jay Requard: The Night from Apex-based Peak City Publishing, Late 2011. "This new dark fantasy story takes place in Tarinthol, a world fueled by action, magic, intrigue, and dark plots." More info: http://jayrequard.blogspot.com/
  • Natania Barron: Pilgrim of the Sky from Candlemark & Gleam, Late 2011. "A novel that might be best described as mythpunk. With elements of fantasy, science fiction, Romantic poetry, steampunk, and multiverse theory, well, it isn’t exactly the sort of book that finds a comfortable little niche to sit in." More info: http://pilgrimofthesky.com/
  • JL Hilton: Stellarnet Rebel from Carina Press, early 2012. "A science fiction romantic thriller." More info: http://jlhilton.com/stellarnet-rebel/
END

Bull Spec Poetry Reviewed!

New speculative poetry review site Versification reviews the poetry in Bull Spec issues 1-6! I'm particularly happy that Versification's Erik Amundsen is the reviewer, as I've enjoyed his other reviews there. Overall, he provides a solid critique for our work with poetry over the last year and more, ending with: "Bull Spec seems to be developing quite well as a poetry publication. I know that poetry is not ever going to be its first priority, but its choices are showing signs of steady improvement, and I’m glad of that."

Versification: Bull Spec Poetry Issues 1-3
Versification: Bull Spec Poetry Issues 4-6

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Blurbing the blurbs.

Well, it's not terribly often I run into books with local authors as the source of short reviewer quotes, a.k.a. "blurbs". But recently I've seen not one but two such books.

The first is Southern Gods by debut novelist John Hornor Jacobs, out from Night Shade Books both in print and (from Brilliance Audio) in audio:


Here's the publisher description:
Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music--broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station--is said to make living men insane and dead men rise.

Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil.

But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell . . .

In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.
And here's what Pittsboro author David Drake had to say, printed at the top of the front cover: “Southern Gods is scary, smart, and effective both as Lovecraftian fiction and as a Southern Regional novel set in 1951.” While best known for his millions-in-print science fiction and fantasy novels, Drake is both a great writer of short horror fiction (the cover blurb attributes him as the author of Balefires, Drake's short fiction collection from Night Shade Books) as well as a voracious reader and collector of "weird tales" short fiction.

The second concerns Isles of the Forsaken by Carolyn Ives Gilman, out from ChiZine Publications:


Here's the publisher description:
The Forsaken Isles are on the brink of revolution. Three individuals are about to push it over the edge and trigger events that will lead to a final showdown between ancient forces and the new overlords of the land. Spaeth Dobrin is destined to life as a ritual healer—but as the dhotamar of the tiny, isolated island of Yora, she will be caught in a perpetual bond between herself and the people she has cured. Is it slavery, or is it love? Meanwhile, Harg, the troubled and rebellious veteran, returns to find his home transformed by conquest. And Nathaway, the well-intentioned imperialist, arrives to teach Spaeth’s people “civilization,” only to become an explorer in the strange realm of the Forsakens. These two men will propel Spaeth into a vortex of war, temptation, and—just possibly—freedom.
And here's what Raleigh author Kij Johnson had to say: "Vivid world-building, fascinating characters, and a rich, complex story - I love this book!"

Well, that's pretty much all I have today. Blurbing the blurbs!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

WorldCon fun! Just not for Sam.

Well, I see a long contrail (ha ha) of "See you guys, I'm off to World Con!" so it must be that time again: time to live vicariously through others, and try to get the word out about Bull Spec. First, I hope you all have a great time. No, really, I do.

Secondly, some flyers! I've lately enjoyed peeking at the participants lists of these conventions and noting how many folks can be found in the pages of Bull Spec. This time, I spy, with my little eye, 10 -- count 'em, TEN! -- such folks at World Con:
  • Lou Anders (interviewee, issue #4)
  • Lev Grossman (interviewee, issue #6)
  • Joe Haldeman  (interviewee, issue #3)
  • Daniel M. Kimmel ("Them!", issue #5)
  • Mur Lafferty (review of The Wolf Tree, issue #6)
  • Nick Mamatas ("Oh, Harvard Square!", issue #4, and a growing list of reviews)
  • Tim Pratt ("Hell's Lottery", issue #5)
  • Brandon Sanderson (interviewee, issue #3)
  • Jonathan Strahan (interviewee, issue #5)
  • Jacob Weisman (interviewee, issue #3)
And what I wanted to do was put together a BINGO sheet and have folks scavenger hunt their way to prizes via stalking and forcing these folks to sign said sheets. Well, we'll skip the forcing and go straight to stalking and the prizes. This flyer is double-sided. The first side is for me. The back side is for you -- easy reference to the published panel schedules for the above folks. (And a few extra things.)


And here's a color version of the first page, suitable for posting on walls, doors, etc. You know, generally wallpapering, etc.:


Now, what this doesn't have is the long list of "Friends of Bull Spec" or even the full list of contributors who will be out there. M. David Blake ("Absinthe Fish" in issue #5) is heading to Reno, as is Preston Grassmann ("Cael's Continuum" in issue #5, along with an interview with Hannu Rajaniemi in the same issue), and I'm sure there are more. But, sadly, you don't have to collect them all. You just have to find Marc (M. David Blake) and ask him nicely, and, while supplies last, he will have some Bull Spec goodies for folks.

So: enjoy! Print! Share! Have a blast, and good luck also to all the Hugo and Campbell nominees! (Particularly including Bull Spec contributors Lou Anders, Jonathan Strahan, Lev Grossman, Kij Johnson, and Brandon Sanderson. But, yeah, all of you.)

Monday, August 15, 2011

Yeah, more DNS fun.

DNS servers all went berserk today, so I may have lost more e-mail, and all the folks who were so good to check out the Kickstarter (and thanks big time to all of you who shared the link!) were probably a bit confused when they, er, couldn't actually go see the magazine website, sample issues, etc. Hooray, technology fail! Trying to sort things out, but also need to go to bed.

A lot of random stuff.

In the spirit of "not enough time to even tell you what I'm going to tell you" some random stuff:

  • Issue 6 is in pretty much all the bookstores it goes to, but ... sorry to the last couple of holdouts. It's been a crazy few weeks for me.
  • I'm not quite sure what the final fiction lineup for issue 7 will be, but at least have settled on having Jason K. Chapman, Jason Erik Lundberg, and Ken Thompson in there. Others will remain to be seen.
  • I may actually run out of fiction before filling up issue 8. To remedy that, a couple of things, starting with taking a closer look at a couple of "man this is so close" rewrites that are time consuming but rewarding when it can work out.
  • THE BIG NEWS! Finally took the covers off of the Bull Spec: Year 3 Kickstarter campaign! With rewards ranging from goodies like t-shirts and pendants and freakin' plasma-cut steel visors, to critiques from Kij Johnson, James Maxey, and Gray Rinehart, to original art, to ... well, go check it out.
  • The other thing is that we're ready to put a bit of a real line in the sand on something that's a long time coming: we're going to be opening for fiction submissions again on October 1.
OK. Enough randomness. Thanks for bearing with us for what has really been a FULL summer. Heck, a full YEAR already.

Monday, August 1, 2011

NC Comicon signing series: new event added!


I didn't know about this one in time to make the August e-newsletter, but there's going to be an absolutely great lineup of local comics creators (artists and writers galore!) toward the end of the month at Ultimate Comics:

Local Creator Spotlight!

August 27 Ultimate Comics welcomes a heap of local comics creators to showcase their work and talent. This event will take place at Ultimate Comics Farrington Rd. location from 11am-5pm. The proceeds from this event will go directly toward the NC Comicon Guest Fund, so come out and Support Your Local Convention!

Ultimate Comics Exclusive Turf HC
Tommy Lee Edwards
Artist

Turf, 1985, Bullet Points

Well known for his work at Marvel on such projects as Bullet Points andMarvel 1985, Tommy Lee Edwards is fresh off the first volume of his & Johnathan Ross' Alien-Gangster-Vampire epic, TurfUltimate Comics will have an exclusive cover to the Turfhardcover available for the first time Aug 27! Get it Signed & Sketched!

Last Mortal #1
John Mahoney 
Writer
 
Last Mortal
 
Chronicling the misadventures of a small time criminal who discovers he cannot die (no matter how much he might want to), Last Mortal is a well crafted noir adventure debuting the writing talent of series co-creator John Mahoney. Come support this slick new series from Image!
Order of Dagonet
Firetower Studios
Jeremy Whitley - Writer
Jason Strutz - Artist
 
Order of Dagonet, Princeless  
 
Firetowers Studios brings us two fantastic series from writer Jeremy Whitley,Princeless and The Order Dagonet.Order artist Jason Strutz will also be on hand doing sketches! Firetower Studios now has an Order of Dagonet trade available, so you can get the pick up he whole run and get it signed!
Ehmm Theory
Lost Story Studios 
Brockton McKinney - Writer

EHMM Theory
 
Imagine everything you grew up believing was lie. Imagine your best friend was a talking cat with a penchant for bad movies. Imagine there is an entire world beyond the one you know and you just discovered you're connected to it by blood. Welcome to Gabriel Ehmm's world. Come meet local filmmaker Brockton McKinney and take a look at the art for the upcoming issue #2 of this diabolically awesome series.

Blood Dreams #1
Angi Shearstone
Writer, Artist

Blood Dreams

Angi has worked in children's books with Mercer Mayer, in comics on Batman: Gotham County Line with Scott Hampton, collaborated with Mur Lafferty on Beyond the Storm: Shadows of the Big Easy, and otherwise has self-published a handful of comic book projects, two of which with Joe Sutliff Sanders. Her current project,Blood Dreams, is notable for Angi's use of Kickstarter.com to fund publishing of the comic.
All of the signings will take place at Ultimate Comics Farrington Rd. location on Aug 27 from 11am-5pm.