First Day Down

First for me, the others have been here a day or two already.

Settling down finally after a long day of travel, booth monitoring, premise explaining, convention wandering and dinner searching.

Dinner was something of a comedy of errors, pretty much all on the kitchen staff's part. From a late entree to an undercooked burger most of the stuff that could've gone wrong did. The waitress was good though, got everything right in the end and took my dinner off the bill.

I'm alone in the hotel room right now (I'll post a view later) and enjoying the quiet and not having to walk or stand for a while.

Time for sleep.

Edit to add:

San Diego Comic Con

This is a big convention:




More later...

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Today is my sister Dana’s birthday. I can be pretty crappy at showing the love, but I’m trying to get better at it. So here’s to you, sis, enjoy your day. See you at The Olive Garden for dinner tonight and for Chocolate-covered Strawberry Short(Cup)cakes later!

Birthday bonus: Cuteness abound!

The Ultimate RickRoll!

This is awesome! How come this did not happen before now?



I'm a fan of Nirvana. And, yes, I even like Rick Astley (go ahead and do your worst). So this so works for me.

Cobain on the other hand, probably Rickrolling in his grave.

Other things that occupy my time

News of the POTA novel I posted earlier is the highlight of the day, and indeed we've been getting a steady stream of people signing up for the mailing list and I expect we'll start hearing from news outlets shortly, but I’ve got a few other doings in the works.

I’ll be continuing my Tales from the Tomato Patch series shortly, with an eye for finishing up by month’s end. I’m enjoying these stories, but they’re not always as easy to write as I had hoped. That, and I have, you know, a novel to work on and stuff. There’s six more to go, and it occurs to me now that I should pop over to the Jason Webley forums at his site and maybe let them know about it. Something to do this week maybe.

I will also be starting my I Haven’t Read Your Angry Robot Book Interview series soon. My first interview will be with Chris Roberson, author of Book of Secrets, which is due out on August 6 (I hope to have it up by then). Chris will be at San Diego Comic Con to promote his newly announced Vertigo series I, Zombie. Follow the link for a brief description, it sounds cool (and I’ll sneak in a question about that for the interview). I still have yet to choose who my next Angry Robot interview victim subject will be, but I’ll wait until after the con to decide.

Also, I have a few scripts to write in what I believe will be our second Critical Millennium series from Archaia. The first series, set in the Dark Frontier time period, is scheduled to debut in the spring (which, along with the POTA book, means a lot of product coming out from our camp next year).

That’ll do for now. Talk to you soon.

Beans. Spilled. Finally.

So, I hinted earlier in the year about a big project I was working on. If it hasn’t already, news should be filtering out soon, though for the sharp eyed among you, you probably already know this. While we waited for a few things to fall into place before the news could be officially released rumors have been circulating among fans for a few weeks now, and the news broke on one the Planet of the Apes fan groups a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, that’s what I said. Planet of the Apes.

To add to the pre-announcement hype an image was posted last week on Joe Jusko’s DeviantArt page.

Yeah, that’s what I said. Joe Jusko.

What do Planet of the Apes, Joe Jusko and I exactly have in common? We’re both working on a new illustrated novel set in the POTA universe (the Heston one, not the Wahlberg one, you can breath easy now) and being put out by the company I started with my friend and co-writer Andrew E. C. Gaska, along with our other co-writer Erik Matthews.

Yeah, that’s what I—waitwaitwait. Neither Andrew, Erik nor I are gonna really spark any name recognition in you. At least not yet. Back to the news:

The book is called Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, it’s the first of two we have signed on for with Fox (though I’m only in on the first one), and it’s going to be a wild ride for long time fans of the series. We’re staying true to the spirit of the original films, filling in gaps while revealing untold tales, and generally having a grand time with it all.

Conspiracy centers on the character of John Landon, the navigator of the Liberty One mission that crash lands on a mysterious planet ruled by Apes. Where the movie focused on Heston’s character George Taylor, Conspiracy shows you what happened to Landon. Those who have seen the movie will know his fate, what you don’t know is how he got there. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

The coolest part, at least to my mind, is the fact that this is an illustrated novel. That means we were able to bring on board a lot of top notch talent from the comic book and illustration worlds. Not only did we get Joe Jusko, but Ken Kelly, Matt Busch, Tom Scioli, Arthur Suydam and more. Twenty plus artists have contributed, along with a cover image by the legendary Steranko! These guys are pouring their hearts into the work they are doing and what I’ve seen so far is amazing.

I've been sending out press releases all weekend and forwarding links to our website to get the word out. Take a click over to the site we’ve set up for it and have a look around. Also, be sure to visit us at Comic-Con International in San Diego this coming week (July 22-26), we’ll be exhibiting at booth 2547, showing off a handful of paintings, offering a couple of prints for sale, along with their respective artists at the booth to sign them (Jusko and Sanjulian!), and have a couple of other “while supplies last” assorted goodies.

You can, of course, check back here for periodic updates, where I’ll hopefully offer some different perspective than you will find on the official site (hey I like traffic, too). Either way, take note of the progress, because it’s going to be awesome.

Edit to add: Oh yeah, the book will be out sometime in the Spring of 2010.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #5

Hello!

Once again, long time between entries. And yes, the Eleventh Anniversary show has passed us by. That's OK, I started the celebration here early, I can stretch it out. For those new to the blog (and I expect some new people shortly with news that will be breaking in the next day or two), start here to find out what this whole Tales from the Tomato Patch business is about. The rest of you press on!

I've been busy with Day Job, and busy with some other matters which have caused me to hold off on entries for a bit. While Day Job must continue, and other matters still prevail, I promise to get cracking and bring the remaining stories to you by month's end. Six more to go from this point, and without further delay, I give you tale number five:

"Clown Car to Mulberry"

They had packed into the car, less like sardines, but still way beyond what they should have.

Springtime was a powerful elixir to the young, many songs were sung of fortunes lost and status won. From the tundra of the campus to the ivory tinted beaches, the blinding white light would not be the same. Neither would they, each secretly hoped.

It’s funny how something so small as a used condom on the road could stop your progress (best not to ask how). And an evening spent on a damp roadside, watching dreaming buffalo float in sharp contrast to a moonlit field of lime green grass, can leave you wanting cookies.

BONUS! Check out the song that inspired it. It was written by Jason Webley with a bunch of college kids while he was on tour in late 2007 and a lot of fun:

Story title from Jason Webley's collaboration with a bunch a show stragglers and/or college kids from Nov/Dec 2007 (Sorry, I have no more information, but if you do let me know in the comments!)



Tales From the Tomato Patch #5: Clown Car to Mulberry by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.