Back from Baltimore

I had a great time in Baltimore this weekend. Always good to hang out with the Archaia crowd. The Awakening crew of Nick Tapalanski and Alex Eckman-Lawn were there, as well as Dave Rodriguez of Starkweather and the Killing Pickman crew of John Rea and Jason Becker. And of course publisher Mark Smylie and editor Joe Illidge oversaw the ASP booth to make sure all was well.
It was also good to see folks like Craig Rousseau, Todd Dezago, Sergio Aragones, Mike Mignola, and Andy Runton (who was great enough to sign a bunch of Owly stuff for our nieces).

Friday Night Julia and I met with Don and Joanna Corcoran, the developers of the Mouse Guard Board game, for a beta-play-test. This is the third time we have gotten together to hammer out ideas for how a Mouse Guard board game should play and the third time is the charm! There were still a few kinks to be worked out, but they were small changes that I know Don and Joanna can iron out easily. The overall scope, flavor, and look of the game is there. I will be getting my own beta copy in the next week or so, to test out with my gaming group. I'm really excited about it!

Diamond Select Toys came over to the ASP booth Saturday with the paint model of the new Mouse Guard resin statue based on the Fall 1152 hardcover image. Unfortunately, it wasn't all glued down and when pieces shifted, I panicked and ended up letting a bunch of the mice, cloaks, weapons and leaves fall onto the concrete floor. I felt like such a heal. When we were cleaning up the pieces I faked like I was going to eat Lieam's head and a photo was snapped. Fortunately DST was very understanding and says that it happens from time to time.

I was approached by the folks at Blue Line Art to donate a few sketch cards for an upcoming auction they will have to benefit the American Cancer Society in March. I figured better to get them done sooner than later, and hammered them out Monday between unpacking suitcases and catching-up on e-mails. I don't have a link for the benefit yet, but I hope to post one as the even gets closer.

Cthulu Mouse was a warm-up before starting real work yesterday.

Baltimore is this weekend!!

Looking forward to the show. I'll be at the Archaia Studios Press booth all weekend. Stop by and say 'hi'

Baltimore Comic Con website

Signings!

-I will be signing at Ferndale Michigan's only comic shop: Detroit Comics!

Saturday September 22nd from noon-3pm.

-I will be doing an event at the Flint Public Library in Flint, MI

on Saturday November 17th*** at 1pm. Two of the friends Mouse Guard characters are based on will be helping me read chapters of the book aloud. As a voice actor geek, I am excited to essentially be doing a 'table read' with the real life humans that inspired the mice.

I will sign books after the reading.
***The Date has been changed to January of '08. I will update with a date and time as details are available.

Misc:

This last week I was stung by a bee. I was stung by a bee once before, when I was about 5 at my uncle's house. I remeber it hurting (what five-year-old wouldn't) and my Mom and Aunt putting meat tenderizer on it to nutralize the venom. So here I am a 30-year-old man, mowing his lawn, and I hit a ground nest. I'm lucky I was only stung once. I appear to be having a worse reaction. My finger (where I was stung) is swollen, and has hives. We drew a line to see if the swelling and hives were spreading or not and so far it looks like not.

Getting rid of the nest is going to be a trick. It is on the corner of our property along a chain link fence. On the other side of the fence, there is a 8" drop. So the bees also have access to their ground nest along that 'wall' on the neighbor's property. At some point next year, I want to excivate that area for a paver-walkway and patio. I'm tempted to just treat the bees with Borax and a bee trap for now and then try and dig out the hive once the ground is frozen. Although with the reaction I had to one sting, I may just call in professionals.