{"id":5108,"date":"2014-11-18T12:32:35","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T17:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypercastle.com\/blog\/?p=5108"},"modified":"2014-11-18T12:32:35","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T17:32:35","slug":"vortex-book-mini-tour-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/18\/vortex-book-mini-tour-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"Vortex Book Mini-Tour Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started the Vortex Book Mini-Tour with a release party at Floating World Comics in Portland on Friday and Short Run in Seattle on Saturday. The tour ends with an Austin signing at Farewell Books<\/a> tomorrow, Wednesday 11\/9, from 7 to 9pm.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Vortex<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Friday, 11\/14, I got into Portland after lunch, took the light rail and bus to meet Virginia Paine<\/a> (who runs my publisher Sparkplug Books<\/a>). It was my first glimpse of the Vortex<\/em> book – I was overwhelmed! I didn’t even want to flip through it at first. The metallic silver ink on the cover turned out just as I had visualized. <\/p>\n

\"Vortex
Vortex<\/em> in good company on the shelves at Floating World Comics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We took the bus downtown to drop a box of Vortex<\/em> and Reich<\/em> #12 at Floating World Comics<\/a> and then went to Powell’s<\/a>. I’ve been in Bookpeople here in Austin and Tattered Cover’s old downtown location in Denver but Powell’s beats them all! I could live in their sf section. We only had about a half hour but fortunately I have a list for whenever I’m in a used book store. I grabbed The Dark World<\/em> by Henry Kuttner (and an uncredited CL Moore) and Sorcerer’s Legacy<\/em> by Janny Wurts (I want to try a solo book by her before I dive into her unfinished epic fantasy series). I also saw Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped<\/em> by Sheri Tepper but it was $15 and I wanted to get more than one book.<\/p>\n

\"The
I read this on the plane ride back (it’s only 126 pages). An inspiration for Zelazny’s Amber<\/em>. I noticed some additional parallels to Lord of the Rings<\/em> (evil beings who invest their energy in physical objects) and Wheel of Time<\/em> (a glass sword of great power).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The signing was fun, I could spend all night at Floating World Comics. I’d gotten the impression it was small, like a big closet, but their current space is enormous and Jason Leivian has packed it to the gills with fantastic comics. It was good to meet Elijah Brubaker<\/a> and hang out with him, Zack Soto<\/a>, Virginia, and everyone who came by. I had an interesting conversation with Mike Getsiv<\/a> about the boundaries of the abstract comics genre. Then after the signing Sera Stanton<\/a> (who drew the awesome Sparkplug Books cat t-shirt for the Kickstarter) gave me and Virginia a ride to Seattle so I got to sleep most of the way.<\/p>\n

\"Sparkplug
Sparkplug Books table at Short Run. Photo by Virginia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saturday was Short Run<\/a>. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a free one-day show like CAB or LA Zine Fest. It’s in this old, beautiful brick building in downtown Seattle. Every glimpse I got of Seattle was beautiful. If I lived there, I couldn’t get over driving down a freeway, ice-crowned mountains on my left and a shining lake lapping at house-covered hills on my right.<\/p>\n

\"Fry
Delicious fry bread tacos from a food truck at Short Run.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Short Run itself was great! Good energy; vegan treats and coffee by the clean, spacious bathroom; food trucks in the parking lot; and steady crowds all day. Vortex<\/em> seemed to be selling well but I was still able to sneak away from the table to be a good consumer. It was my first time sitting at a publisher’s table at a con and it was exactly what I hoped for – All the interaction and none of the stress about sales. My #1 goal for the day was to meet Simon Hanselmann<\/a> and get a personalized copy of Megahex<\/em> so I did that within the first hour.<\/p>\n

\"Megahex<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I did some drawings in Vortex<\/em> as well. Jen Vaughn<\/a>, Virginia and I’s gracious host, bought Vortex<\/em> so of course, in thanks, I hexed her copy.<\/p>\n

\"Cursed
The inscription reads: “William Cardini curses anyone other than Jen Vaughn who owns this book.” Not sure what face I’m making – I guess it’s my witch grin? Photo by Jen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally put faces to some names I know from the internet, such as Michael Litven of Ebbits<\/a>, Rob Kirby<\/a>, Brandon Lehmann AKA Bobby Mono<\/a>, Shanna Matuszak<\/a>, and Jack Hayden of Snakebomb<\/a>. Austin was represented well – both the Rough House Comics<\/a> crew and Monofonus Press<\/a> were there. It was great to reconnect with other comics folk since I haven’t been to a show since TCAF 2013. At dinner I was missing my family so I showed Virginia and Yumi Sakugawa<\/a> photos and videos of Ruby.<\/p>\n

\"Short
My haul from Short Run, Floating World, and Powell’s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We came back for the after party at Washington Hall, but it was too loud to talk with the bands, so Virginia and I met back up with Jen and she gave us an after-hours tour of the Fantagraphics office. We saw an old Love and Rockets cover divided into Rubylith layers to prepare it for printing! <\/p>\n

\"Fantagraphics
The Fantagraphics basement is filled with comics. Photo by Jen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now I’m back in Austin with my wife and daughter and pumped about comics. There won’t be a new Skew<\/em><\/a> page this week because we’re going to divide it into multiple parts so it doesn’t take too long to load and I need to decide where the split should be and draw a cover for Part 2. If you’re in Austin and I didn’t see you at Short Run, I hope to see you tomorrow at Farewell, so you can say hello to Vortex<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started the Vortex Book Mini-Tour with a release party at Floating World Comics in Portland on Friday and Short Run in Seattle on Saturday. The tour ends with an Austin signing at Farewell Books tomorrow, Wednesday 11\/9, from 7 to 9pm. On Friday, 11\/14, I got into Portland after lunch, took the light rail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[235,297,586,590,709],"class_list":["post-5108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recaps","tag-floating-world-comics","tag-henry-kuttner","tag-short-run","tag-simon-hanselmann","tag-vortex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hypercastle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}