SO that’s me, happy little guy tagged and ready to party at the beginning of the World Fantasy Con were I live in Calgary. Take note of my Fire Gods of Venus are behind me, and Burroughs images to the right of me. Not that you can see it, but I even had a print of the banner for my Barsoomia.org site ( which I’m in the process of repainting )

Set up Thursday,met a couple artists. I have to go home and be dad. Check out this 20lb bag of book loot !

Fri- Todd lockwood shows up & shames us all, fortunately he's a great guy.I went to a panel with him & John Picacio on process & learned a few things. I've been playing with digital water color now after he gives us a tutorial on his mac.

My friend Dan & I take Julia, a starving young artist from Denver out to pub & we discover that everyone from the US wants to talk about the election. We thought it would be off limits. Then I had a meeting with a publisher at their party suite & it turns out there are 2 there. I also meet writers Jay Lake and Kay Kenyon.

On Saturday night was the artists reception ( which is kind of odd I thought since we’re already there, an the non artists were ones arriving. I must have that backwards... ) Anyways, here we go, I’ve culled this from a report I wrote elsewhere.

Then we hit the pub again with a herd of artists then wandered back to the hotel for the Artist's reception. That was kind of overwhelming. It was a wine and cheese thing and went from 8:00 to 11: 00 and was packed. I haunted my panels and introduced myself to people. I met a guy ( Del Valdron ) I know from an online with a Burroughs group, AND had a new york publisher mocked the shit out of me because I had stupidly written Burrough's instead of Burroughs or Burroughs' on the Pirates of Venus poster. I shouldn’t have even approached him. I’m an idiot sometimes. There he is yelling at some women ( his long suffering wife ? ) “ who wrote the book ? Burrough or Burroughs ?” Again and again and again.... And I approached. It ended in Mr Suit Man with a really BIG MOUTH laughing in my little face, " unbelievable ! At a LITERARY CON !" That was fun. I needed a shower after that.

As I licked my wounds with a fellow artist, three men appear and stood there pointing at it. Crap. I did speak with one, the other two snorted and sauntered off. He said my art was good but the apostrophe was unacceptable. He said this twice. So I found a marker and marked it off. It is MY poster.

Then this very classy blonde in a skirt came by and we talked about the John Carter movie and possible Venus movie thing. I told her about the " unbelievable" guy and she said she had noticed it but wouldn't have said anything. Then she introduced herself as a senior editor at ******. That was a good experience.

Next I was trapped by a geek who and saw Lou Anders of Pyr books. I introduced myself and gave him my card explaining that I didn't consider my work up their standard yet, so I was just saying hi. That worked and we had nice chat about my work. He was most interested in my new art for my barsoomia.org site. He loved the right half and rightly said that the left wasn't as good, which I new all along, so I have been repainting it since I got home.

Later, my friend Dan and I wandered up to the 5th floor for the Tor books party, but so did EVERYBODY else. So we went over to the con suite down the hall. Dan had to deliver a copy of a book he had done the cover for to the author ( I don't know what that was about, seems weird to me too ) and it turns out to be jerk # 2 with his posse. We all shook hands and his wife was there so he had to be nice. It was fun in a prickly kind of way. Then he and and his wife went on a champaign crazy celebration over the publication his of novel with an itsy publisher.

I then spied ****** of ****** in a corner. So I chatted with him and looks like I’ll be doing something for them. The nasty man watched all of this and I took great pleasure in it. I have to admit it took me about two weeks to detox after the four day con.