Busy is No Excuse but It's All I've Got

Busy writing

Hectic days. Just wanted to take a moment and express my appreciation for those who pop by the Fies Files now and then to see what I'm up to. The answer: too much.

My day job is picking up, and will get exponentially busier through year-end. In addition, I'm doing some special projects for my daughter, the USS Hornet Museum staffer. In addition addition, I'm preparing to head to Toronto the week after next for the Third International Comics & Medicine Conference, which I'm helping organize and will give a workshop for.

I'd like to draw some new "Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian": no idea when I'll be able to. I'd like to draw some new pages for "Mystery Project X": ditto. Forget about "Mystery Project Y." I'll save that one for retirement.

The big Comic-Con International (CCI) starts tomorrow night in San Diego. I won't be there. I love the con, it's been very good to me, but getting passes and hotel rooms has become such an expensive hassle--even more than it was three or four years ago, even for a pro--that I've decided there's no reason to go back unless I'm invited to be on a panel or have something to promote. I can get my comics convention jollies at the local WonderCon (assuming it returns to San Francisco after a year in Anaheim; please come back!). I have a lot of comics friends who've concluded the same. CCI has become Yogi Berra's favorite restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded."

I understand the irony of that complaint since the first year I attended was 2005. Old-timers have been saying the same since at least the '80s.

I nevertheless feel a familiar aching itch coming over me. Like I'm missing out on something I should be a part of. Comic-Con is a raucous party by and for 120,000 people who are family, even crazy Uncle Tito and slutty Cousin Vivian. My people. I always met someone I was awed to meet, and invariably walked away with two or three friends I didn't have before.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you're going to San Diego this week, have a good time for me.

EDITED TO ADD: Forgot to mention! Just because I'm missing San Diego doesn't mean my books are, too! Editor Charlie and the Abrams gang will be in Booth #1216, and according to this here press release they'll be selling copies of the WHTTWOT paperback.

Among the books highlighted, I've read My Friend Dahmer and thought it was great (and said so in my review), and saw an early galley of The Carter Family and thought highly of it as well. There'll be an entire panel dedicated to Abrams  ComicArts' upcoming releases, and Editor Charlie will appear on five or six other panels besides.

If you're at the Con and interested in the paperback (only $14.95!), it'd mean a lot if you'd buy it at the booth and tell 'em you're a fan. If you are. Don't lie on my account. But it's a big help to me if they hear it directly from you.

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Does anyone else ever get the inkling that the Internet may just be a big waste of time? Crazy talk, I know, but sometimes I wonder . . .

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