NEWS:

04.03.06 - Terrence Marks:

So, how was I-Con? Quite simply, it was the best con we've been to. And here it is, categorized by anecdote, because chronological order is for suckers. The Table We shared a table with Peter Prellwitz, who published ND Year One and is an accomplished science fiction author in his own right. He brought along two of his sons to help us man the table, and Dressari, a fan of ours who came all the way from England (and also helped run the table when we weren't there). We wound up getting Mark Goddard's table (He played Major West in Lost in Space, and cancelled at the last minute). We were next to a company selling what appeared to be independent horror B movies. On our other side was a company called Anime Clash. They had, they told us, just sold entirely out of anime and were selling their other products, also independent horror B movies. Was this a good thing? Well, we stood out from our immediate surroundings, at least. We were, more importantly, across from Bill Holbrook and Stan Sakai. I often wished we brought a beachball so we could hit it back and forth when things got slow. We dropped by Bill's table a couple times and he came by ours. The Sketchbook I've been toting around this sketchbook to conventions since DragonCon 2000. Back when I first got it, I'd get a sketch from anybody who'd give me one, but I've become a lot more selective over the years, in part because it's running out of space. They all mean something to me. I got three new sketches this con. Mookie, R.K. Milholland, and Stan Sakai. I already had Greg Dean and Bill Holbrook. I went up by the Goats table once, but Jon wasn't there and I decided not to hang around, partly because I was afraid they wouldn't know who I was and partly because I was afraid they would. I started reading Dominic Deegan because I figured we'd meet at I-Con and it'd be polite. It's an amazing strip. I got a drawing of Dominic; I was thinking of asking for Celesto or Gregory Deegan but didn't. Always better to let the artist decide. I caught Randy Milholland at his table. There was a sign, "free sketches". An eight-year-old boy was in front of me. Randy asked his mom, "He doesn't read the comic, does he?". "No". "Ok, good. Don't let him". So he drew the kid a ninja. He was selling original art from the strips for about $5 each. I bought one. We gave Stan Sakai one of our books and he drew an amazing sketch of Tomoe Ame for me. He spent, I believe, a total of ninety minutes at his table over the three days and we managed to catch him. He works with great speed. I'm married to somebody who can sleep in and still draw seven comics a day; his speed still impressed me. He looked through my sketchbook. He's the first artist in a long time to do that. He took the time to look through all the other sketches I had, and he recognized a number of them.

04.03.06 - Isabel Marks:

I'm going to be short and sweet with this: Terrence got a new job. Terrence + new job + consistently writing a comic= no can do. As it was Terrence was helping me over at namirdeiter.net, sometimes even helping me write- but like with You Say it First, the other comic Terrence helps write, we shared writing duties. The other part of the matter was this: Terrence was getting burnt out, like big time. So I told him to take a break- I didn't want Spare Parts to end up like some of the other projects he worked on and lost steam on. So... six months later... Terrence has some new ideas for the comic, granted they may not be 100% Spare Parts, but they are still along the same lines and I'm sure you all will like them (Yes, I had to dangle "Spare Pirates" over Terrence to get him out of SP-retirement... you'll find out in a few weeks). So the problem was this story arc... Terrence long forgot what he wanted to do. Fortunately I remembered more or less how I wanted to end it... it just needed a few punches- which I gave it so now this story arc will have an ending. Hooray! Now the other issue that has to do with the first part of my short and sweet explanation- now, Spare Parts used to be three days a week- but in order to help keep Terrence from getting burnt out(don't forget, Terrence actually has a day job), we're going to be shortening the schedule, we might (and we mean MIGHT) make the third day an incentive for namirdeiter.net donators... but we have a while before that). So yeah, we'll be at two days a week now- but that's two more comics a week than you all were getting before, so yay. So what else were we up to? We went to I-Con, which was just a lot of cool. I'm sure Terry will have a con report for you all soon.