Since I’m having too much fun at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto to write up a full report just yet, let these six photos suffice for now to let you know what my first day was like.

Vatican City burger at Burger’s Priest

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I’d planned to fly down to Florida Saturday afternoon, and was going to be spending today working on Blastr from my mother’s dining room in Boca Raton instead of my home office in Glengary, West Virginia. I’d have had no trouble getting south, but you all told me there was no way I’d be able to get back north again tonight, even though based on initial reports, it didn’t look as if things were going to get bad around here until tomorrow.

So based on your advice, I went ahead and canceled my brief trip, and it’s a good thing I listened to you …

I only hope the same thing doesn’t happen to my 8:08 a.m. flight Thursday to Toronto. I have too much fun planned there, both at the World Fantasy Convention and at some mighty fine restaurants!

As for our safety here, don’t worry—we’re on high ground, and won’t flood unless the whole country’s under water. And since our most fragile large trees got taken down by the derecho, we should be safe as far as the wind is concerned, too.

I hope you’re safe today wherever you are as well!

And when I write that I’ll be eating in Toronto during World Fantasy Con, I mean, yes, I’ll be eating in Toronto during World Fantasy Con … which though it bills itself as a Toronto convention, is actually off in Richmond Hill. But I’ve rented a car so I can head off on foodie expeditions, bringing along with me as many other victims volunteers as I can stuff in the car.

Assuming, of course, that the coming Frankenstorm doesn’t mess with my plans.

All six of these buzzworthy destinations are in Toronto, about a half an hour away from the hotel, and some have asked—how can I dare to tread so far from the convention itself? Won’t I be missing out? Nope! When I go, with four or five others in the car, it’ll be like I’m taking the con with me!

So … what’s on the menu?

Thursday’s lunch: The Burger’s Priest

When I asked for advice on which Toronto burger joint was the best, the responses got so heated you’d think I was in a conversation about the presidential election. But a consensus soon formed around The Burger’s Priest, which has a secret menu not posted at the restaurant. Which means you can only order something like The Vatican City—”a double cheeseburger squeezed between two grilled cheese buns”—if you find out about it online. (more…)

I just ran across a yellowing four-page flyer, “A Field Guide to the Readercon 2 Program Participants,” and it gives an interesting snapshot of who we were back in 1988. Both in that some of the attendees are sadly no longer with us—such as Algis Budrys, Stan Leventhal and John Morressy—but also for the ways in which those of us still around have progressed—such as Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who back then had just been named (respectively) Tor Books’ administrative and managing editors.

Wonder how that worked out for them?

Take a look below to see what (almost) a quarter of a century has done to us.

Let’s hope that those of us still around have every day in every way continued getting better and better. We can dream, can’t we?

Comic book artist Mike Zeck—who drew the Drax the Destroyer/Thanos story I’d written that was published a lifetime ago in Logan’s Run #6, recently uploaded to Facebook some photos he’d taken at the 1971 Phil Seuling 4th of July Comic Art Convention. (They’re here, but unless you’re Facebook friends with him, I don’t think you can see them.)

I enlarged his pics of the dealers room until they were nothing but pixels, because I was on the hunt for a very special photo—one of me and Irene from the years before we met on my first day at work at Marvel Comics. I’ve always hoped that serendipity would deliver to me a photo of us in the same room at some early con, perusing boxes of comics, unaware of each other’s presence, blind to the future that lay ahead.

When I mentioned this to Mike, he sent along his outtakes, and though I didn’t find that Holy Grail of me and Irene, I did come across one photo which included me in the crowd. Check it out below and see if you can spot me.

Did you find me? Probably not. I’m a little … incomplete. So let me give you a hint.

Got it figured it out now?

I just received my programming assignments for next month’s World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, and unless there’s shuffling about to accommodate the schedules of others, here’s where you’ll be able to find me.

REMEMBERING TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE
Thursday, Nov. 1, 9:00 p.m. (Vaughn East)
Our panelists—several of whom contributed to the late, great Twilight Zone Magazine—will include writers discussing how they broke into the TZ market, their relationships with TZ editors (including the legendary T. E. D. Klein), and their own personal memories of the magazine. Other panelists will reminisce.
Lawrence C. Connolly (M), Nancy Baker, Scott Edelman, Elizabeth Hand, Darrell Schweitzer, Steve Rasnic Tem.

OUR SELVES, OUR MONSTERS
Friday, Nov. 2, 2:00 p.m. (York B & C)
The best monsters—ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies—all begin as human beings, as US. All have their roots in the ideas of lost/strayed/stolen humanity. Freud alludes to the factor of semblance in The Uncanny, and that idea, with the tensions inherent in duality/dichotomy—an otherness both projected, and found within—is crucial. Think of works such as Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and Dracula like a hall of mirrors, begetting their own reflections. Is our continued fascination with these monsters our way of grappling with our own demons? And which fantasy characters are most persuasive in convincing us that they are not really monsters; that they are, in reality, a reflection/distortion/creation of us? A second opportunity to hear this fascinating discussion with an alternative set of panelists.
Ellen Klages (M), Patricia Briggs, Scott Edelman, Jo Fletcher, Anya Martin, Ben Percy.

And now that I have the full schedule in hand, I can decide which of the other panels and readings I want to attend and finalize my culinary adventuring.

Last month, I expressed my regrets for having gotten rid of whichever Marvel comic book it was that had included my name as one of the early members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. (Printing 25 different names in each issue every month was a thing Marvel made a habit of back then.)

I had a memory of my name appearing in an issue of Tales from Suspense which pictured Iron Man battling the Titanium Man on its cover, and I asked for your help in tracking it down. Well, some has tracked down my name—though where exactly it was tracked down from remains to be seen.

Over on LiveJournal, Doc Hermes posted the following scan, and if you look at the box of names, you see mine in the third column, four up from the bottom.

So if I now have a scan of the page containing my name, then why did I state in the header above that my mystery wasn’t fully solved, but “almost” solved?

Well, first of all, if you click on the image above, you’ll see that as of yet, I don’t have a full-sized scan.

But the real reason the mystery remains is because Doc Hermes scanned the page without making a note as to where it originated. Also, he thinks “this was from an issue of STRANGE TALES, early on in the Nick Fury run (before Jim Steranko),” which completely contradicts my Tales of Suspense/Iron Man memory.

So—I’ve got the puzzle partially completed. Any chance these additional clues will help you fill in the final piece?

Next, the restaurant which reinvents itself several times each year, offering up a cuisine for several months that then vanishes, never to be seen on the menu again, has asked over on Facebook what we’d like to see in the future. So far, the query has received 772 comments, which represents an even greater number of suggestions.

Since I learned during my Sicilian meal that Next serves the platonic ideal of whatever concept they’ve chosen—so much so that I was moved to purchase Kitchen Table tickets for its Kyoto dinner—I feel very invested in the outcome.

So which three menus should they serve in 2013?

Here are the most intriguing suggestions so far. (more…)

I was tweeting last night about Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, which I’m currently about 75% of the way through (more on that later), and in response to my statement that I was glad I’d left Marvel before things got truly ugly there, I was asked whether I’d moved on before or during the Jim Shooter era.

Well, not only was I there during the beginnings of the Shooter era, but he and I actually once fell from the sky together!

In case you didn’t know that, check out this sidebar I wrote that appeared in the December 1976 issue of Marvel’s fan magazine FOOM.

And since the pics accompanying the article are quite fuzzy thanks to FOOM‘s far from state-of-the-art printing process, here are some of the original pics to show how insane (and young) we once were. (more…)

I remembered fewer dreams than usual during September, thanks to my lengthy trip to Chicago for Worldcon and many culinary adventures. Dreams tend to fade before I can scribble them down when I’m exhausted and in a strange bed, which always gives me a sense of loss, because I enjoy my dreams, revel in them, really, and hate to forget even one.

But what remained was still choice, and as always, the dreams benefit from being collected and allowed to rub up against each other this way. September’s guest stars included David Boreanaz, George R. R. Martin, Alanis Morissette, Tom Hanks, Harlan Ellison, E. Nelson Bridwell, and many others.

SEPTEMBER 2012

I dreamt I was in The Colbert Report live audience, and when he introduced Alanis Morissette, the camera instead cut to him dressed as her. 30 Sep

I dreamt I was on a train to Machu Picchu, and when I looked up from my iPad, I saw Tom Hanks and Will Sasso (as Bill Clinton) were there. 30 Sep

I dreamt @scalzi got mad at me because while visiting him, I destroyed my first drafts. But more because in doing so, I flooded his house. 29 Sep

I dreamt three old guys drove to our door to deliver a kingsized mattress, only I looked at them and thought … no way they can lift it. 28 Sep

I dreamt my wife was cradling my son, suddenly a baby once again, and then passed him to me, and I rocked him. Oddly, he could still speak. 28 Sep

I dreamt I talked to my grandmother about my memories of my great-grandmother (even though grandma is dead, and I never met great-grandma). 28 Sep

I dreamt my boss @CraigEngler drove up, and I served him most of a chocolate cake with my bare hands, saving one slice for @IreneVartanoff. 26 Sep

I dreamt I worked as a baker at my friends’ cafe, and decided I was going to attempt to convince them to sell me part of the business. 25 Sep

I dreamt I was on a pitch black cruise ship searching for a light switch, as I was scheduled to teach a juggling workshop and needed to see. 25 Sep

I dreamt I came up out of the NYC subway to discover fanciful architecture that never really existed — stone towers, ornate gardens, etc. 24 Sep (more…)