A couple of days ago, I told you about some Silver Age comics art my wife was auctioning off through Heritage Auction Galleries to help fund a future trip to Machu Picchu. The bidding begins today, I think at 11:00 p.m. EST, with the auction ending next Sunday at the same time.

But it strikes me I should also show some love for my sister-in-law, who has eight amazing originals in the auction that some of you might be interested in. Check them out below, and if you know of anyone who might want to own these particular pieces, pass it on!

First up, a 1966 Ben Casey daily comic strip by Neal Adams.

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While attending the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus last weekend, in addition to escaping the hotel to hit all three restaurants spotlighted by Adam Richman of Man v. Food, I also snuck away to visit the James Thurber house. I’m afraid I didn’t really feel Thurber’s presence there—I might as well have been visiting the O. Henry house that I toured during the 2008 Nebulas.

It was a certain house of a certain era, and while it was a very nice house, it seemed as if it could have been any house. (I felt differently when I toured homes belonging to Thomas Wolfe, Jack London, and Carl Sandburg. Those writers seemed to be looking over my shoulders.)

Oddly, the thing I enjoyed most about the visit was a framed letter I discovered in a small room being used as an office. It was from Milton Caniff, and I think, based on the date, that it was written as part of a fund-raising drive when the Thurber house was in need of restoration.

Anyway, for those who love Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon—or just Caniff’s familiar handwriting—check out the letter below.

You helped send Irene and me to the Melbourne Worldcon this year by buying some of my artwork last year. Maybe you were the one who bought my Bob Stanley oil painting, or the Johnny Romita comic-book cover, or maybe even those signed prints by Berni Wrightson, Jeffrey Jones, Bruce Jones, and Mike Kaluta. If so, thanks!

But this year, we have a new destination in mind—Machu Picchu!—and therefore some new … well, old … well, let’s just call it additional artwork to sell. This time around these six pieces are from Irene’s collection, and they’ll be on sale from Nov. 7 through Nov. 14 through Heritage Auction Galleries.

First up, a cute page by Dick Dillin and Sid Greene from Justice League of America #61 (1968). It may only be 2/3 of a page due to a house ad, but it manages to pack a lot into a small space—Hawkman, the Atom, Green Arrow, and Superman. (And the Penguin, too!) Bidding will begin here Sunday.

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Considering this morning’s political landscape, particularly the election of Rand Paul (at least my adopted state of West Virginia elected a Democrat, which I wasn’t confident would happen), I am reminded of what H.P. Lovecraft had to say about Republicans in 1936.

The following quote is taken from S. T. Joshi’s Lovecraft biography A Dreamer and a Visionary, and was brought up recently on an email loop in which I take part:

“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”

Replace the word “Republican” with “Tea Partier” and you get a sense of how I’m feeling today …

I appeared on the panel “The Moral Distance Between the Author and the Work” yesterday afternoon at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, along with Eric Flint, Nancy Kress, Paul Witcover, Kathryn Cramer, and Jack Skillingstead.

Minutes before we were to begin, I forced my Flip camcorder on Andy Duncan, who was kind enough to record the whole thing. The room was packed, with several hundred people present, and the discussion grew so lively near the end that we almost failed to yield the room.

Here’s how the panel was described in the Pocket Program:

What do we make of good art by bad people, or at least people of whom we disapprove? Richard Wagner was a particularly vile anti-Semite, but he still wrote “Kill Da Wabbit!” and other great music. Should we listen? The official Nazi film industry made one very good fantasy film (BARON MUNCHAUSEN, to which the Terry Gilliam version owes a good deal). Should we watch this? What about an author who is a convicted child molester? Should we read his novel? CAN we read it for itself? Is it possible to truly experience any form of art as a thing until itself, rather than the product of its creator?

The whole thing is embedded below.

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Here are two more readings I attended at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, bringing the total up to seven. I’d planned to catch one more, but my visit to the James Thurber House caused me to miss Geoff Landis. Sorry, Geoff!

But here’s Jeffrey Ford:

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I appeared on the panel “The Moral Distance Between the Author and the Work” at the 2010 World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, along with Eric Flint, Nancy Kress, Paul Witcover, Kathryn Cramer, and Jack Skillingstead. The room was packed, with several hundred people present, and the discussion grew so lively near the end that we almost failed to yield the room.

Here’s how the panel, which is embedded in four parts below, was described in the Pocket Program:

What do we make of good art by bad people, or at least people of whom we disapprove? Richard Wagner was a particularly vile anti-Semite, but he still wrote “Kill Da Wabbit!” and other great music. Should we listen? The official Nazi film industry made one very good fantasy film (BARON MUNCHAUSEN, to which the Terry Gilliam version owes a good deal). Should we watch this? What about an author who is a convicted child molester? Should we read his novel? CAN we read it for itself? Is it possible to truly experience any form of art as a thing until itself, rather than the product of its creator?

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If the three readings I’ve shared so far from World Fantasy, designed to make you wish you’d made it to Columbus, weren’t enough for you, here are two more.

First up, Kij Johnson, reading two short shorts.

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As I indicated yesterday, I won’t fully enjoy the World Fantasy Convention here in Columbus unless I know you’re watching from afar and are kicking yourself for not being here. To make sure you’re doing just that, here are two additional readings I attended Friday.

First up, K. Tempest Bradford, who is accompanied in the reading of her short story by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Next, Kathe Koja, reading from her new novel Under the Poppy. (more…)

You all remember Edelman’s First Rule of Convention-Going, also known as Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting, don’t you?

It states that all convention reporting must occur while a convention is still ongoing, because it’s insufficient for me to be having a wonderful time. YOU must KNOW I’m having a wonderful time and be miserable because you’re not there also having a wonderful time, and kicking yourself, thinking, “If I jumped in my car, hopped on a plane RIGHT NOW, I could be having a wonderful time, too!”

Which is why I’m sharing the following video taken a scant 12 hours ago here in Columbus, Ohio at the World Fantasy Convention. Alaya Dawn Johnson read from a work in progress, and you could have been there.

Nyah, nyah, nyah!

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