On June 27, 1972, I sent a short story (which thankfully no longer exists) to editor Ejler Jakobsson at Galaxy Science Fiction. Here, in what’s the first installment in a series of rejection slips received from magazines that no longer exist, is what I justifiably got back.

Welcome to the publishing graveyard.

I had a wonderful time at the Nebulas last weekend, which I guess is kind of redundant, since I always have a wonderful time at the Nebulas. I missed last year’s, which were held in Florida, the first I’d skipped in about 20 years, because with two international trips planned for 2010—World Horror in Brighton and Worldcon in Melbourne—something had to give. So I was glad this year’s Nebula weekend was being held in my backyard.

Well, sort of my backyard. The Washington Hilton was 100 miles away, but that was close enough to make it feel local. So I hopped in the car mid-afternoon and drove to D.C., always a hellish thing to do. Once I parked and checked in, the first members of the tribe I found were a group in the bar which included Myke Cole, John Joseph Adams, and a guy I’d never met before who was scribbling away in a sketchpad. I commented that his drawings reminded me of the art of Basil Wolverton, and he was astonished, because he loves Basil Wolverton, and no one had ever caught on to that resemblance before. (Guess having been into comics since I was a bean has its advantages.)

Turns out I was talking to Barry Deutsch, who was nominated for this year’s Andre Norton Award for Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword.

We had a good, long talk about artists most modern comics fans don’t remember, such as Lou Fine and Reed Crandall, and I pulled out my iPad to show him the Eisner-esque Joe Kubert comic Jew Gangster. Meeting someone new who was also entertaining was a nice way to start the weekend.

Next it was off to dinner with John Kessel, Liza Groen Trombi, Paolo Bacigalupi, and John Joseph Adams. We went to Meskerem, an Ethiopian restaurant, which happened to be JJA’s first time with that cuisine, resulting in a lot of teasing.

The fact that an Ethiopian virgin was present led to us discussing other exotic foods, such as the guinea pig I’d had in Quito and the durian Paolo had eaten. A warning: One result of that discussion is that I’ll be bringing durian to Balticon Saturday, which Paolo and I will crack open and share with the masses. So if you’re there, and are adventurous, make sure you’re watching me on Twitter so you hear the call!

When we returned to the hotel, I happened to be discussing Michael Blumlein with John Kessel and Paul Park when the strangest moment of the weekend occurred. A woman in the lobby who had nothing at all to do with the Nebulas perked up at the mention of Blumlein’s name. It turned out that her sister is married to his brother! We chatted a bit, which might not have been such a good thing. I hope we didn’t lower Michael in her eyes by the mere fact of our knowing him!

Then came the evening reception to honor the nominees. You should have been there! Well, actually, you can be there, since I was there, and I happen to be a dangerous guy with a Flip camera. So here’s SFWA President John Scalzi, aided by Steven Silver, handing out certificates and pins to those finalists who were present. (more…)

If you’ll be heading to Balticon this weekend, and would like some advice on where to eat, I can think of no better guide than Adam Richman of Man v. Food. He hasn’t steered me wrong yet. So check out his Baltimore episode below, and think about whether you want to tag along to Chaps Charcoal Restaurant when I put out the call.

Haven’t decided whether I’ll make that trip before or after I carve up the durian, though …

Balticon begins Friday, and now that the pocket program has been released, I can finally let you know where to find me.

So if you’re up for my particular brand of pontificating, here’s where you’ll be able to get a hefty dose of my hot air.

Fantastic Books Presents
Saturday, 1:00 PM
Moderator: Ian Randal Strock; Panelists: Scott Edelman, Walter H. Hunt, Daniel Kimmel
Fantastic Books is a publisher of quality new and reprint speculative fiction. Some of our authors have been publishing and winning awards for decades. Others are brand new, and welcoming the arrival of their first books. Publisher Ian Randal Strock will present the titles he’s recently published, try to explain why “Animythical Tales” and “Jar Jar Binks Must Die” are the company’s two best-selling books, and reveal the exciting books coming in the future. He may also be available to discuss small press publishing with potential authors.

Name-Droppers
Saturday, 3:00 PM
Moderator: Scott Edelman; Panelists: Ian Randal Strock, Thomas B. Talbot, Phil Giunta, Michael Swanwick
Our panelists tell their most colorful stories about their personal contacts with the field’s departed giants. What were they really like?

Fans And Writers
Saturday, 6:00 PM
Moderator: Carl Cipra; Panelists: Michael D’Ambrosio, Scott Edelman, Douglas C. Fratz, Neal Levin
A panel of writers, fans and publishers discuss the pluses and minuses of the sometimes close relation between the creators of SF and its readers.

Autographing
Saturday, 7:00 PM
Scott Edelman, John C. Wright and Izolda Trakhtenberg

Unfortunately, even though I’d indicated early on that I was only going to show up either Saturday OR Sunday, I’ve been mistakenly scheduled for both. And since I’m only finding this out after the pocket program has been printed, without getting a chance to vet my schedule, and they’ve got me down for a Sunday night reading I won’t be at the con for, I’ll end up disappointing some folks.

Sorry about that!

My original plans for yesterday included puttering out in the garden, hitting the local farm market, recovering from the Nebula weekend and writing up a post about how much fun I’d had there. But that all changed Friday night when I discovered that though I was able to make and receive calls with my iPhone, and could see the seconds ticking away, I couldn’t hear or be heard once the call was made. So those plans were replaced with a trip to the Apple store. And the closest Apple store is 86 miles away …

Luckily, my son and sister-in-law live along the way, so I was able to combine it with a visit to them … and with a trip to an Asian market to pick up the durian you’ll be forced to eat this weekend during Balticon.

We got home late (with a replacement iPhone thanks to the warranty), and there was no time to catch you up on the Nebs last night. Nor is there any this morning, as I dive into my workday. Maybe I’ll find time much later tonight. Meanwhile, here’s a trifle.

I downloaded the Everyday iPhone app two months back and have been snapping a daily picture of myself ever since. So here’s a video of my face from March 23-May 22. As you’ll see, I tried to grow a beard for a week to make the transition more dramatic, but I gave up as it began to feel as if weasels were eating my face.

I won’t be sharing a similar video again until I’ve got six month of my mug, so you should be safe until September!

I wish I could share many wonderful memories with you about my encounters with Jeffrey Catherine Jones, but I can’t, even though I’m pretty sure our paths must have crossed dozens of times from the early ’70s through the early ’80s. I have a couple of scraps of proof of that, too, in the form of autographs I collected when I was one of those annoying kids with a sketchpad you see at comic conventions.

I started attending cons in 1970, started on staff at Marvel in 1974, and burned out on it all by around 1982, but between the beginning and the end, I can picture chatting with Jones many times, even remembering the rooms in which we spoke. I can see her now scribbling her name on the sheets of paper below, and in front of one of her massive paintings at a Phil Seuling con as I said how much I loved it, and at a 1973 Cosmic Con in Toronto, where I bought one of her drawings which had been a spot illo in an issue of Amazing. (Art I’ve been fruitlessly trying to locate for years, BTW, and another quick search today continues to leave me puzzled.)

But as to the content of what we said … nothing. It must have all been inconsequential small talk.

Which bothered me at first, until I started thinking …

In the long run, does it really matter? Because with her art, she moved me. Her paperback covers made me buy books that I would never have otherwise bought. Her comics, particularly a Wonder Woman cover that sticks in my mind, showed me that comics could be done differently. Her career choices proved that a comics creator could expand beyond the limits of the comics themselves, and evolve to encompass greater ambitions. And her bravery regarding gender issues opened minds, spread understanding, and taught tolerance.

And wouldn’t she, wouldn’t any artist, rather I remember all of that than any trivial anecdote of a brief encounter at a con or at a party? I’d like to think that she would.

Jeff Strand beat me to the punch yesterday by telling me he’d already watched the Long Island episode of Man v. Food in preparation for next month’s Stoker Awards weekend. The guy (who made quite a dent in the BBQ at the Salt Lick last month) put me to shame!

But I have a good excuse. It’s hard to be thinking about the Stokers when I still have to survive the Nebula Awards in D.C. this weekend and Balticon over in Baltimore next weekend.

But assuming I do survive, these clips will give you an idea of where I’ll end up. Adam Richman didn’t steer me wrong in Columbus (during World Fantasy Con) or Austin (for World Horror), so why should Long Island be any different?

I’ll be looking for victims … er … volunteers … from June 16-19th. Which meal do you want to have over at Ciao Baby, Jeff?

Those Bronze Age Babies are at it again. Yesterday, they were talking up the character synopsis blurbs that used to appear on top of Marvel splash pages, and today they wrote about house ads and other comics ephemera. Which, though anonymous, also had authors.

And sometimes that author was me.

I’ve mentioned before how I wrote the Bullpen Bulletins page for a couple of years (save Stan’s Soapbox, of course), as well as a set of Marvel Slurpee cups, but I also wrote a whole bunch of house ads. Here are just three of them, plucked from a portfolio I assembled when I started looked for a publishing job outside of comics.

And as for who drew that illo in the last ad, well … I don’t have to tell you, right?

The graphic gurus over at Bronze Age Babies (which you should be reading daily, of course) were pondering a bit of Marvel Comics arcana today—who wrote those intro blurbs that started appearing atop splash pages during the mid-’70s?

Who do you think?

Yes, that’s right. Me, when I was an assistant editor back in the Bullpen.

I didn’t originate the idea—that would have been Stan Lee, who felt that new readers needed an easy entry way into the convoluted Marvel Universe—or start writing them—I’m pretty sure that would have been Roy Thomas—but I wrote enough of them that I included seven examples in a portfolio I put together after I quit my staff job and started looking for a new publishing position elsewhere. Which means that, luckily, I don’t have to rely solely on memory.

The seven I thought worthy enough to show off were those for the Black Panther, Captain Marvel, The Champions, The Inhumans, Killraven, Skull the Slayer, and the X-Men.

I guess I figured that these were enough to demonstrate my ability to digest and regurgitate Stan. I believe I did others, though after this length of time I can’t say for sure which ones they would have been.

Does that answer your question, you Bronze Age Babies, you?

One of my favorite parts of the World Horror Convention—and the final thing I want to tell you about that weekend—doesn’t really have anything to do with World Horror Con at all. Liz Gorinsky invited a bunch of us along with her on what she termed an “illicit cultural outing,” which really meant we were sneaking away from the con Friday night for a performance of the play “I’ve Never Been So Happy” by the theater company Rude Mechanicals.

I knew nothing about the troupe other than the fact that Liz called them “reasonably experimental,” and nothing about the play other than what I could glean from this poster.

Which wasn’t much.

It was definitely not a poster designed to have independently induced me to want to see the play, and as I was to learn, it wasn’t at all an accurate indicator of what we were to see once we got there. Later, after being blown away by the amazing evening, I realized I could have come up with a dozen posters better designed to draw people to the theater, but … that was still in the future.

After dinner with Liz, Nick Mamatas, Eugene Fischer, Meghan McCarron and Jen Volant at Casa Columbia, we walked to the theater, where we immediately learned there was a lot more than just a play planned for that night. We were met by cast members in western gear who convinced us to dress up to get the total experience.

So we were led through a “transmedia shindig” (a carnival-like set-up out front about which more later) to a room filled with clothes which we all tried on until we found something suitable. Since I’m tall, I despaired of running across anything that would fit, but luckily I discovered a long circus ringmaster’s jacket with tails. And since my head’s large, and none of the cowboy hats would fit, I took a scarf and rather than wearing it around my neck, well, take a look at me and Eugene below to check out my ensemble.

Now suitably garbed, we entered the theater, found some seats (since it was general admission, we didn’t all end up together), and I opened the program to discover what the play was about. Or perhaps I should say, discovered that there was no way I would understand what the play was really about without actually seeing it. Because here’s the description of Act 1, Scene 1:

“Annabellee’s Dream” — Annabellee dreams of a mountain lion and plans her escape from her father, Brutus, with help from her dachshund, Sigmunda.

At that point I realized that reading the program was pointless. I’d just have to let the performance wash over me. Which it did, going something like this …

Annabellee and her father, Brutus, run something called Brutus and Annabellee’s Country Western Family Comedy Variety Hour. Then there’s a brother and sister pair of dachshunds, Sigfried (owned by Brutus) and Sigmunda (owned by Annabellee). Annabellee dreams of getting the heck out of there, sings a duet with her dachshund about it, and then she and her father race those dachshunds to determine whether she can strike off on her own. And then there’s Julie, who lives on a wymyn’s commune, and when her son, Jeremy, turns 18 and can no longer live there because he’s now a man, she ties him to the last mountain lion in Texas so he can learn all the things she wasn’t able to teach him. And then …

And then …

Well, this is pretty pointless. Because telling you the bare outlines of the plot tells you very little. So how about giving a look and listen to that first scene I described above? (more…)