Category Conventions

Jul 17 2012

Readercon, My Favorite Speculative Convention

Readercon, My Favorite Speculative Convention

by Bracken MacLeod

This past weekend in Burlington, Massachusetts I attended Readercon, a conference as they describe it, devoted to “imaginative literature” — literary science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the unclassifiable works often called “slipstream.”

Bracken MacLeod and Lucien Soulban at Readercon 23.

This is one of my favorite speculative cons as it is devoted (like my other favorites, Necon and Anthocon) to literature–no cosplay, no gaming, and almost no media (there’s plenty of talk about movies in panels because movies can inform prose story-telling, but no movie panels). Although the conference is usually weighted a little more toward Sci-Fi and Fantasy than horror and slipstream, there are excellent horror writers in attendance like Gemma Files, Laird Barron, Nick Mamatas, to name only a few, and the guests of honor this year were dark fiction legends, Peter Straub and Caitlin Kiernan. Sadly, I will have to defer to other NEHW contributors for a recap of Mr. Straub’s contributions to the con as his panels and readings were concurrent with other panels I attended.1 Instead, let me give you a short recap of what were the high points from the panels I attended.

The dystopian fiction panel led by NEHW member Jack Haringa, “Through a Glass Dystopianly,” was an excellent deconstruction of the recent trend in YA literature to make everything The Hunger Games. I’m not being fair. There’s a lot of good YA (and adult) dystopian fiction out there. But there’s a lot of drek too. As a genre, Leah Bobet seemed to nail the intention of YA dys fic with her deliberate oversimplification of it as the literature of mom and dad (i.e., the repressive government) won’t let me have the car or stay out late, so I’m going to escape to the forest and drink and have sex as much as I want! Or if you prefer that idea to be unpacked, the idea being, that dys fic is a reasonably fertile ground for young readers to identify their own struggles with autonomy and authority by imagining themselves as potent agents struggling under the dystopian regime. When pressed on the issue of dystopia versus utopia versus post-apocalyptic setting, Haringa threw out my third favorite bon mot of the conference: “All science fiction is optimistic because it all assumes we have a future.”

Next on the list of favorites was the panel titled “Wet Dreams and Nightmares” about weird and transgressive erotica. This panel stayed blissfully distant from paranormal romance and actually addressed real erotica and transgressive sex in a mature and unflinching way. Would you expect anything different from a panel featuring Caitlin R. Kiernan? The give and take between Gemma Files and Kiernan regarding their distinct approaches to erotic body transformations and what they individually find sexy made this panel pure gold.

The panel on horror and the social compact (another one featuring Dear Leader Haringa) presented some interesting viewpoints on the scope of horror versus science fiction, wherein it was posited that it is actually very difficult to discuss horror in the context of a Hobbesian social contract. With a few exceptions (e.g., Soylent Green—which I’d say is both sci-fi and horror), most horror is about violation of trust and/or autonomy on a personal scale as opposed to a societal one.

This panel shared an interesting deconstructive quality with one on Sunday titled “Uncanny Taxonomies,” where the conclusion was also reached that taxonomies of speculative fiction (i.e., genres) weren’t all that helpful for anyone other than book marketers and possibly consumers. It was during this panel that Kiernan gave my second favorite line of the convention: “All [novels], by definition, are fantasy; they did not happen.”2

My second favorite session of the weekend was Dr. Laura Knight’s slideshow titled “Autopsy and Postmortem Primer for Writers,” which gave the audience a basic rundown of the process of a typical autopsy and human decomposition. The con organizers grossly underestimated the appeal of a dead body slideshow to fantasy and sci-fi (and a few horror) fans and about a quarter of the attendees to the session were left sitting on the floor or standing when all the seats filled up. One poor woman who was standing in the back of the hot room (possibly with her knees locked) fainted when Dr. Knight put up the slide of decompositional bloat and a little body degloving (I am sure the heat and having to stand were also contributing factors). Sadly, that attendee missed the next slide of the two people whose little yappy dogs had partially eaten their faces. (Cat lovers take note: Dr. Knight commented that in over 2,000 autopsies, she had yet to see a feline case of filiaphagia–but those nasty little dogs… they’ll turn on you in a minute.)

Finally, at the top of my list of favorite events at Readercon (unrelated to standing in a blacked out hotel bathroom staring at disintegrating atoms in a spinthariscope—look it up—and drunken yoga in the hotel lobby) was “A Story from Scratch.”

The basic conceit of the session (in several parts over three days) was that using models from the audience and props provided by celebrity guests, Hugo-winning writers Michael Swanwick and Elizabeth Bear will crowd source a story outline and write a short story to be professionally brought to life by photographer Kyle Cassidy and illustrator Lee Moyer. On Sunday, the story would be read aloud by Swanwick and Bear accompanied by a slide show of the work that Cassidy and Moyer produced. Bear provided a very condensed version of her course on effective fiction writing and the small crowd of participants began throwing out ideas for the story. What eventually took shape was the sad tale of a Chinese restaurant owner whose wife has been taken hostage by the Yakuza (I know), and must find the ransom before her wife (it is Massachusetts after all) loses all of her fingers and her entire memory (somehow stolen with each successive finger chop).

When the call was made for volunteers to be photographed by the amazing Mr. Cassidy, of course I volunteered. Given my cuddly and welcoming appearance, I was immediately cast as one of the Yakuza gangsters. The short version of the rest of the story is that, as one could predict, this became another instance of “and then Bracken took his shirt off” at a con. Fortunately, this bout of semi-nudity led to Cassidy and Moyer making me look like the coolest fucking American Yakuza since Viggo Mortensen and Bear and Swanwick crafting a Philip K. Dick style story containing my single favorite line of the entire Con: “Tom and Bracken were evil men, but not brutal.” (As soon as the story, titled “Dismemberance,” and photos are posted online I’ll be sure to link to them.)

The bottom line is, if you have a broad taste in genre literature, you could do a lot worse than attend a Readercon, but you’re going to be hard pressed to do better.
Cheers!

1 I know. I know. Revoke my horror fan card if you must.
2  Other excellent lines came from Michael Swanwick: “Wincing equals good fiction,” and Elizabeth Bear, “The worst reaction a reader can have to your story is ‘Fuck you!’”

Jul 12 2012

ConnectiCon Happens this Weekend

ConnectiCon runs from Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15 at the Connecticut Convention Center, located at 100 Columbus Blvd. in Hartford.

Convention guests include Amanda Winn Lee, Jim Cummings, and Margaret Killjoy. For a complete list and guest bios, click here.

The convention brings people the RKO Army, out of Rhode Island, which will perform scenes from the Joss Whedon Universe and “Repo.” There are also events such as ComicStripTease and Cosplay Chess. For a complete list, click here.

According to its website, “ConnectiCon is New England’s ONLY massively, multi-genre pop culture convention, the convention’s focus is on all things pop culture and does every genre of pop culture in as big a way as possible.”

For more information about the convention, click here.

May 29 2012

On the Road to Two Comic Book Shows

On the Road to Two Comic Book Shows

by Rick Silva

Boston Comic Con 2012

Quick introduction: I’m Rick Silva. I’m a relatively new member of the NEHW, but I’ve been involved in the local convention scene for quite a number of years. These days, most of the conventions I attend are in my capacity as a small press comic book publisher, although I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a couple of prose stories published in the last year or two, and have done panels and readings in that capacity as well.

For Boston Comic Con, my Dandelion Studios comics were sharing a table with Joe McGlone of Fallenmage Productions and his comics. We drove in early Saturday morning, and were shown right to our table by the very well-organized convention staff.

The show was held in one of the main exhibit halls of the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. We parked at the Prudential garage both days, which was pricey. I’d originally thought we could get around some of that cost by validation deals, or by moving the car to the street for part of the show, but those options proved to be too much of a hassle and we ended up paying full price both days. I think I will go back to taking the subway in (which I did for Anime Boston) if I attend this show again.

Photo by Rick Silva.

The show itself was lively and well-attended. There were some incredible cosplayers making the rounds. Star Trek, Star Wars, and Ghostbusters fan groups were set-up where the fans entered and the hallway was crowded with people taking pictures. The Ghostbuster guys even had a giant inflatable Stay-Pufft Marshmallow Man.

We had a steady stream of people stopping by our table, and just about all the local small press comic creators I know were present at the show, so I caught up with a lot of friends, and bought some new comics and mini-comics in between selling my own books.

Joe was thrilled to get a stack of book autographed by iconic horror artist Bernie Wrightson, and I bought a copy of Womanthology as a birthday present for my wife and got it signed and sketched in by eight of the contributing artists.

Photo by Rick Silva.

Boston Comic Con has been growing every year. I didn’t get too much time away from my table, but the guest list was really incredible this year, and the fans seemed to be having a great time shopping and meeting an impressive guest lists of great comic artists.

Maine Comics Arts Festival 2012

The Maine Comics Arts Festival is one of my absolute favorite shows for a bunch of reasons.

First of all, it’s all small-press creators. As much as I love buying older collectible comics, there is something really amazing about a show made up entirely by comic creators and their labors of love.

Organizers Casablanca Comics does a great job of getting the word out, and the show is always well-attended, and a lot of the audience are families discovering small press comics for the first time. It also helps that the price of admission is only $5.

Then there’s the setting. The venue is the Ocean Gateway terminal in Portland, a cruise ship facility that sticks out into Portland harbor. Forget about dimly-lit rooms or cavernous conventions halls. This place has huge windows all the way around and a spectacular view of the harbor.

It’s also in walking distance of restaurants, and for our son, the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum.

The Maine Comics Arts Festival was the first convention our son attended, at age 2. This year was his third time at the show. He’s old enough to have some input into the plans, and what he wants is a train ride!

Portland is a little over three hours from Cape Cod, so we got on the road around 6 a.m. To make things a bit more challenging, I’d pulled an all-nighter scrambling to put together the newest issue of our mini-comic series Unpopular Species (a science/nature comic about creatures that are, well, less loved). Gynn did much of the driving while I got some much-needed sleep on the way up to Portland. Fortunately, even Boston is quiet traffic-wise early on a Sunday morning, and the trip went smoothly.

We spent the day taking turns selling comics and taking the Kiddo on train rides. Turns out you can ride all day for one price. Kiddo was thrilled. Unpopular Species was a big hit, and we had a really good show in general. The ride home was exhausting, but we got back without incident.

This was the finale to a whole series of Spring conventions we’d done appearances at for the comics. Starting with Conbust at Smith College, we were at Anime Boston, Boston Comic Con, the Rochester New Hampshire Free Comic Book Day festival, the Southcoast Toy and Comic Show, and finally the Maine Comics Arts Festival. Now, we get a couple months break before a major road trip at the end of July to Baltimore for Otakon. See you out on the road!

Apr 30 2012

Chiller Theatre: Then and Now

Chiller Theatre: Then and Now

By Nick Cato

Although I’ve been going to horror film conventions since 1985, it wasn’t until 1991 when I attended my first Chiller Theatre expo, which at the time was called Son of Horrorthon.  I’m guessing Horrorthon had been the name of an earlier version?  Either way, back then the convention was held in Cherry Hill, NJ, at a small but accommodating campus.  Then they began to grow, and eventually moved to a couple of hotels in Secaucus, right across the highway from Giants Stadium, where they held court until about five years ago, when they wound up in the Hilton Parsippany in Parsippany, NJ, where I’ve just returned from their “2012 Spring Spooktacular.”  Chiller runs two conventions a year, in April and again the weekend closest to Halloween.  While the conventions run one evening and two days, I usually attend on Saturday, meet the couple of guests I’d like to meet, cruise the huge dealer’s room, and then leave.

And here’s why Chiller Theatre—at one time my favorite convention—has come to me doing an in-and-out appearance:

At the aforementioned Son of Horrorthon, while crowded, it was still under control.  I was able to meet a couple of my horror heroes (a particular fan-geek moment goes to my discussion with director Herschell Gordon Lewis and his lovely wife) and get some photos and items autographed FREE of charge.  In the early days of Chiller, guests gladly signed anything for free and happily took pictures.  The talk of the day at the 1991 convention was guest star Butch Patrick, the actor who had played Eddie Munster on the 60s sitcom, The Munsters.  People were openly complaining that he was charging $30.00 for an autograph.  I remember countless people bad-mouthing him for his audacity … and yet 21 years later, this practice has become the norm at both Chiller and Fangoria conventions.

A few years later (mid 90s) you saw guests starting to charge $5.00, then $10.00 for an autographed picture, or to sign your own item.  Most of them usually still had no problem taking pictures with their fans for free.  I didn’t have a problem shelling out the five or ten bucks to meet some of my favorite actors, directors, and FX people, but by the late 1990s, EVERYONE seemed to be charging $20.00 for an autograph … and today the norm is between $20.00 and $30.00.

Suffice it to say, what was once a great, fun time has become a way over-priced event that STILL somehow manages to draw some of the largest crowds this side of Comic Con.

But what’s more questionable than the prices are the majority of the guests: Chiller Theatre is named after an old TV show, where classic horror and sci-fi movies were played late on Saturday nights.  Chiller has since become an anything goes convention: over the past ten years there’s been more former wrestlers and non-genre TV stars than there’s been horror and sci-fi people.  There was even an F-Troop reunion a few years ago!

I’ve been saying for years that Chiller seriously needs to change their name.  While the dealer’s room is still mainly horror oriented (and as far as I’m concerned, the main reason to attend this convention), Chiller’s guest list reads like a who’s who of has-been’s and have never been’s.  “Actors” and “directors” sit at booths selling their cheap, shot-on-video productions, attempting to lure people in with scantily-clad women dressed like Vampirella ; Former wrestlers justify Mickey Rourke’s depressing convention sequence in his film The Wrestler; Former TV stars attempt to show interest in their fans (thankfully most seem interested, but there are many gems, including a certain cast member from Star Trek—charging $30.00 an autograph—who once sat there reading a book as he signed some poor schmuck’s photo); and possibly the saddest of all, self-published writers who have NO CLUE how the business is run, hocking their horribly-edited novels and wondering why no one is stopping by their table.  In fact, aside from Doug Winter and Jack Ketchum (who stopped attending Chiller a few years back), Chiller is simply NOT for horror writers.  It’s a film expo full of people looking to find horror film T-shirts, rare DVDs and theater posters.

I’m often asked, “Why do you still attend?”  There are two reasons: the dealer’s room and the one or two guests they usually have on hand who I find interesting.  As mentioned, Chiller’s dealer room is one of the largest and best of any film convention I know of.  There’s an endless array of horror-related merchandise that anyone can spend an entire weekend browsing through.

Nick Cato with actress Luciana Paluzzi from the 007 classic Thunderball and the the scifi classic The Green Slime.

At the latest Spring Spooktacular, I found a couple or films I had been hunting down for some time now, and there were two guests I was interested in meeting.  One was Luciana Paluzzi, the beautiful actress who starred in the 007 classic Thunderball as well as the sci-fi classic The Green Slime.  She was every bit as classy as her on-screen personas suggested. And when she found out I was a fellow Italian, she graciously signed a picture of herself for me in Italian.  It’s personal little things like this that separate the thankful guests from the couldn’t-be-bothered types.  Also on hand was actor Laurence Harvey, star of the controversial The Human Centipede 2.  Not only was he a soft-spoken English gent, he had no problem signing anything you wanted, and even hammed it up by donning the bloody lab coat he had worn in the film.  You’d never believe a man this nice could star in such a depraved film!  It’s rare meetings like this that still make Chiller worth fighting your way through the over-priced crowds.

Nick Cato with actor Laurence Harvey from The Human Centipede 2.

At this particular Chiller, the largest line was to meet actor Norman Reedus, who was there as part of a Boondock Saints reunion, and of course to represent The Walking Dead.  I can’t remember the last time I saw girls walking around with autographs so taken aback by someone … you’d think the Beatles were doing a reunion show.

Being a fan of the low-budget stuff, you get to meet the smaller stars a lot quicker as they rarely have long waits to see them.  Of course there are exceptions: the first time Ken Foree from the original Dawn of the Dead appeared, I think I waited close to 40 minutes to meet him. But the wait was well worth it and I’ve since had the pleasure of meeting him several more times and have even exchanged several emails.

The glory days of Chiller Theater are long gone.  It has become an over-crowded, over-priced convention that is more of a nostalgia-fest than a horror con.  But as long as they keep their amazing dealer room, and the one or two genre guests who grab my interest, I’ll probably continue to attend, even if it’s only to pop-in for a few hours during one of the three days. That is, until every guest jumps on the current trend of “photo ops,” where you have to pre-pay $50.00 to meet with a particular guest in a private room to have your picture taken with them by a pro photographer.  Thankfully only a few of the bigger guests have been doing this, but if it becomes widespread there’s a good chance it will mean the end of Chiller.

Then again, everyone said the same thing in 1991 when Eddie Munster started asking money for his signature …

Apr 26 2012

An Outing to Boston Comic Con

An Outing to Boston Comic Con

By David Price

I had no intention to attend Boston Comic Con this year. My son’s girlfriend, Amy, had brought it up a few weeks ago, but no plans were made to go. On Friday night, however, she was over visiting and brought it up again. My son, Devon, had no desire to go either, so she was doing her best to convince him. Now, I haven’t been to a comic con in many years, but the prospect of going piqued my interest. I pulled up the website and checked out the details. There was going to be 74 featured guest artists there. 74! Wow, these things have gotten much bigger since the last time I went.

I use to collect comics. I stopped pretty much cold turkey back in the nineties, when all those endless crossovers became big. They drove me nuts, interrupting the ongoing story lines of your favorite series and also forcing you to buy books you didn’t want, just to keep up. It was a sales gimmick that I quickly grew to despise and drove me away from comics completely. I’m still a fan, of sorts. I see every comic book based movie that hits the screen and I’ve been pretty happy with Hollywood’s attempts to bring some of my old favorites to life. I still have probably thirty boxes of comics in storage. It’s like the fan in me is in hibernation, I guess, like my collection.

So when I looked over that list of 74 artists, I didn’t recognize quite a few of them. I’m guessing there are many who have entered the business since my comic collecting days. But still, there were a few that really caught my eye, like Bernie Wrightson, for instance. Wrightson is an artist I have admired since I started reading and collecting comic books. You see, what first drew me into comics were horror comics. I was reading them for a couple years before I even noticed the super hero books. Maybe it was growing up watching Creature Feature on Channel 56, but I’ve always had this fascination with monsters. Wrightson was of course, an illustrator on many of the horror comics that I grew up loving. These had titles like, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Tales of the Unexpected, and Vampirella. Did I mention he was the co-creator of Swamp Thing? Yeah, that too.

Wrightson didn’t stop with comic books, though. He did an illustrated version of Frankenstein, which is absolutely beautiful. Later in his career, he went on to do some illustration for my favorite author, Stephen King. Mr. Wrightson illustrated The Cycle of the Werewolf, The Stand, and even did some work on the Dark Tower series. Needless to say, I was excited at the chance to meet him.

Also on the list of artists, I noticed the name Bill Sienkiewicz. Wow! There was another guy who had impressed the hell out of me with his art. You see, Sienkiewicz brought a style unlike any other I had ever seen when he entered the comic book industry. In 1984, Sienkiewicz took over as the artist for the X-Men spinoff, New Mutants and brought an expressionistic style that was mind-blowing. I’m not sure it was for everyone, but I know he gained quite a bit of recognition and managed to work with some of comicbook greats at that time like Frank Miller and Alan Moore.

There were a couple other names that stood out to me like Bob Layton of Iron Man, Kevin Eastman of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Simon Bisley whose work I remember from Judge Dredd and Lobo. It was enough for me to want to go. To top it all off, my twelve-year-old daughter, who to my knowledge has never read a comic book, begged to go. Between my son’s girlfriend and my daughter, they managed to convince Devon to give it a try. I was happy to drive, so the plans were made. My daughter invited her cousin, Roberta, so she would have someone the same age to tag along with her.

Saturday morning, I picked up Amy and brought her back to the house. She was carrying this trash bag full of costumes because apparently the three girls were determined to dress up. They had the idea that people went in costume to these cons and they wanted to participate. I certainly wasn’t going to put a costume on, but I didn’t mind if they did. There wasn’t a lot of planning involved here, so my daughter Kay ended up as Alice in Wonderland, Roberta was a sort of Victorian age vampire, and Amy wore a Pink Floyd shirt and flag as a cape. With the girls dressed up and ready to go, we headed off to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

The first problem encountered is that the Hynes is near Fenway Park, and the Yankees were playing the Red Sox that day. Finding parking was an adventure. As we passed the Convention center looking for a parking garage, we saw this ridiculously long line outside of the building. That couldn’t be the line to get in, we said. Spotting several people in line dressed as comic book characters confirmed our worst fears, though.

The line moved quickly, however, and we probably only waited thirty to forty minutes to get in the building. None of us were prepared for what we found inside. It was wall to wall with people. You really couldn’t get anywhere without fighting your way through the zombie-like horde of comic book fans. At first, this really bothered my daughter. She complained to me quite a bit. I reminded her that she begged me to bring them. After a while, we all just got used to it.

Devon and his girlfriend went right over to the Newbury Comics table to check out The Walking Dead books. My family is a fan of the show, but none of us have read the books. He grabbed the first few, which was okay with me, since I wanted to read them, too. Amy grabbed a few things that she was really excited about, including a Doctor Who book as a thank you present to me. We stopped at an artist who did a portrait of my daughter and niece in anime style. This put them both in happier moods. When we hit the back row, I saw the line for Bernie Wrightson. I stepped up and he asked if I had anything to sign. I knew I had forgotten something. Oh well, he had some prints from his work on Frankenstein, so I bought one of those. More importantly, I got a picture with him.

Bernie Wrightson and David Price at Boston Comic Con.

We fought our way through the mob and did our best to take in the whole thing. I had just about given up on finding Bill Sienkiewicz when we finally stumbled upon him. I got another cool picture and my daughter got an autographed Cat Woman print. We tried to find another vendor called Madknits, who had these handmade stuffed little monsters, on the way out, but after bumping our way up and down a bunch of aisles, we gave up and decided to call it a day. The kids were hot, tired, and feeling a bit claustrophobic.

All in all, Boston Comic Con was very cool, but it definitely needs to find a bigger venue. The Boston Convention and Exhibition center on the waterfront is much bigger and more suited to something that attracts as many people as comic con does. They should probably consider upgrading, even though I heard that this was an upgrade from previous years. We all had fun, which was the most important thing. Well done, Boston Comic Con.

Apr 22 2012

Thousands Attend Boston Comic Con this Weekend

Thousands Attend Boston Comic Con this Weekend

by Rob Watts

Finally, the time had come! The weekend where comic geeks all across Massachusetts could gather together and not hold their heads down in shame for enjoying sci-fi, fantasy and adventure. Myself included. This was a major event.

Over the years, this con had gone from being held in small hotel function rooms, to small-scale expo centers, and finally inside the widely popular Hynes Convention Center located in the heart of Boston’s Back Bay. Judging by the attendance, an even larger facility may be necessary in the future. Literally, thousands of people flowed in and out of the hall throughout the day, many dressed as their favorite film and comic characters. It’s always cool to see parents bringing their young children to events such as this. It’s a wonderful bonding experience when the older generation can expose their kids to pop culture from their youth, as well as the parents learning about the newer culture through their kids. I actually witnessed a young child asking his dad who the two guys in makeup were (2 guys dressed up as KISS), and as he explained who they were, the kid begged to have his picture taken with them because they looked “so cool!” They actually did so I had to follow suit.

Rob Watts with two convention-goers dressed as KISS musicians.

Oddly enough, there were no celebrity appearances at this event, as large of an event as it was. With the exception of high-profile illustrators, there were no “celebrity” signings to speak of. Last week’s Toronto Comic Con, in which I was in attendance, had many celebrity appearances, such as Scott Bakula, Jeri Ryan and Jeremy Bulloch. This isn’t an important selling point for me, I’m just curious as to why celebs (and the con) wouldn’t take advantage of such a largely attended event. I did have the pleasure of talking to some of my favorite illustrators such as Anne Cain, Ming Doyle and Ken Kelly, who designed a few KISS album covers and he was kind enough to give me a sneak peek of what may turn out to be KISS’ next album cover.

Artist Ken Kelly. Photo by Rob Watts.

Of course, the coolest booth of the day was the good folks over at Sci-Fi Saturday Night. They had an ideal spot by the entrance and had a lot of visitors stopping by to chat with the cast. Dome, Kriana, Illustrator X, The Zombrarian and crew were cool enough to include me in their promo package, highlighting my book, CD and theme song I created for their show. Thanks guys. All in all, a fun day with amazing energy. If I don’t get to the Comic Con in San Diego this year, this one will certainly hold me over for a while.

From left to right: Zombrarian, Dome, Rob Watts and Kriana.

Editor’s Note: I want to thank Rob for writing this entry for the NEHW website and for his Live Journal page. Check out his page here for other entries.

Feb 26 2012

Timing Not Perfect for Boskone 49

Timing Not Perfect for Boskone 49

By David Price

Would you have the wedding rehearsal after the wedding? No, I didn’t think so. So I am a little confused as to why the sci-fi convention Boskone would be held about a month after the much larger spectacle of Arisia, in the exact same hotel, no less. This would be like going to watch the Super Bowl on the jumbotron of the stadium it was played in a month after it was over and everyone else had left. That would be something of a letdown, right? Oh sure, the vendors would still be open and you could pay ten bucks for a beer if you really wanted to, but it’s not the same thing. Now, by contrast, if they had played the first Giants/Patriots Super Bowl on the jumbotron in the stadium a couple days before this year’s, that might have been cool. It would have been a primer for what was coming.

Photo by David Price

All right, admittedly, every time I have been to some sort of fan convention in the last six months, it has been a first time for me. But maybe, just maybe, that means my opinions should matter, just a little, if some of these cons want to actually attract newbies. Boskone is very much like a primer or practice run for something as grandiose as Arisia. I’m not saying that both shouldn’t exist together in the same world, but I can’t help but feel that Boskone should be held before Arisia, not after. Just four weeks before Boskone was held, I was completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of Arisia. Held at the Westin Boston Waterfont, Arisia seemed to make use of every single conference room in the hotel. To be honest, I’m surprised the Westin had enough space available to accommodate the seemingly hundreds of events that Arisia had going. As I walked around with my eleven year old daughter at Boskone, I found myself asking, where’s the rest of it?

Also, what’s with almost all of the vendors selling books? Nothing against books, per se, but don’t sci- fi fans also like to wear cool geeky t-shirts, watch movies, and own toy props from their favorite series? There hasn’t been as much of that as I expected, at either Boskone or Arisia, to be honest. Arisia had a better mix, to be sure, but still fell short of my expectations when it came to vendors. My daughter was drawn to a woman who sold stuffed animals of every imaginable species. She even had dodo birds! My daughter, Kayleigh, asked for a monkey backpack. Since she was nice enough to accompany me to something that she had no idea if she would enjoy, I bought it for her.

Kayleigh’s squid. Photo by David Price.

We sat down and watched the Higgins Armory put on a display of medieval sword fighting for a while. This was cool for me, because I actually took those classes at the Higgins Armory about ten years ago, so watching it brought me back to the fun I had learning that style. It wasn’t the most exciting thing for an eleven year old girl, however, so we eventually moved on. The most fun we had together was at the art show. I was happy to see how all the artwork appealed to my daughter, since I have loved fantasy art for as long as I can remember. I wish we had more money on hand, because there was a piece Kayleigh really admired, but I couldn’t afford it. We must have walked through the art show a half-dozen times and I saw something new each time. Knowing what I know now, I’ll be more ready for it next time.

I will say this about Boskone, it has a much more personal atmosphere than Arisia. There were reserved tables all over the place for groups to get together and game, chat, hang out or whatever. But since I am not a member of any of those groups, that part of the con was lost on me. As Kayleigh’s enthusiasm started to wane, I finally talked her into checking out the kids section that they called Dragon’s Lair. She didn’t want to at first, since it seemed to have mostly younger kids in there. She gave in at last, because the children in Dragon’s Lair were obviously having fun. While Kayleigh was in the kids’ section, I spent some time going through a display that advertised many of the upcoming cons. I’ll give many of them a try this year, and I have a feeling I will have a much better idea of the what will appeal to me after all is said and one. 2012 is going to be an interesting year. After goofing around in there for a little while, Kayleigh came out with a balloon animal squid. That was pretty cool, since a giant squid attacks my hero and his friends in my first novel.

A lich. Photo by David Price.

Before we left, Kayleigh insisted I buy something for myself as well, especially since we couldn’t afford the art we had been admiring. I finally settled on a small statue that truly embodies my two favorite genres; horror and fantasy. The statue is of a lich. If you are unfamiliar with the term, consider it an undead sorcerer. There is just something about it that is inspirational to me. I guess when I look at it; I imagine that it is what my muse probably looks like, when I am writing my particular brand of monster fantasy. Anyway, Boskone 2012 was also Boskone 49. I imagine the organizers are planning something big for the fiftieth anniversary of Boskone next year. Maybe that’s why this one seemed a little small to me. Perhaps they are saving up the big guns for next year. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Feb 21 2012

Pictures from Queen City Kamikaze

Pictures from Queen City Kamikaze

by Jason Harris

Winner of the MS "Hell in a Hand Basket" Linda Jacobi, of Nashua, New Hampshire

From left to right: Pembroke, NH residents Gifford Scanlon and Kayla Scanlon, who was dressed as Saya Takagi.

Zombie on a leash.

Author Kristi Petersen Schoonover posing with Star Wars' characters.

The NEHW tables.

A convention-goer checking out a book.

Shea dressed as Vriska from Homestuck.

Sian Thomas, an intern at Dandelion Studios.

Feb 20 2012

The NEHW Survives High School a Second Time

The NEHW Survives High School a Second Time

by Stacey Longo

Nobody really wants to go back to high school, but that’s exactly what the New England Horror Writers did when they attended Queen City Kamikaze at Memorial High School in Manchester, NH on Feb. 18.

The NEHW had four tables set up at this anime and video game convention. While some skeptics might think that an auditorium filled with gaming consoles and Japanese animation may not be the best fit for a group of horror writers, the event was a huge success for NEHW. All throughout the day, fans young and old stopped by the booth to meet the authors, buy some books, and learn more about what it is, exactly, that is so fascinating about the horror genre. NEHW members Tracy Carbone, Alyn Day, Sarah Gomes, Scott Goudsward, Jason Harris, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, Nathan Schoonover, Rob Watts, K. Allen Wood, and myself were on hand to meet the convention-goers. Author T.T. Zuma and Sci-Fi Saturday Night creators The Dome, the Dead Redhead, and Illustrator X stopped by the booth as well.

The attendees were largely made up of high school age students, dressed up in creative costumes that varied from anime and manga characters to the occasional Darth Vader and assorted storm troopers. While this particular writer would have never been allowed by my father to leave the house dressed in some of the outfits on display, the mood of the crowd was upbeat and squeals of excitement could be heard as each new Pikachu and Vegeta costume came through the door. Despite not really knowing who these characters were, the attendees’ enthusiasm was contagious, and the NEHW members had an entertaining day.

The Women in Horror panel. From left to right: Stacey Longo, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, Alyn Day, and Tracy Carbone. Photo by Jason Harris

Tracy Carbone, Alyn Day, and Kristi Petersen Schoonover participated in a panel on Women in Horror, moderated by myself. The panel debated such topics as victimization of female characters in the horror genre and who would win in a catfight between Halloween’s Lori Strode and Nightmare on Elm Street’s Nancy Thompson. They were followed by a panel on Trends in Horror comprised of Nathan Schoonover, Rob Watts, K. Allen Wood, and myself. It was moderated by Jason Harris. This group discussed the cyclical nature of horror trends and deliberated over the future of shows like The Walking Dead and Finding Bigfoot. Audience participation was high for both panels, and both groups received enthusiastic applause at the end of the day.

Personally, I had a great time at Queen City Kamikaze. I gained a new fan (thank you, Artie!) and was able to visit with old friends and new. Book sales were high, buoyed by the morning’s announcement that the NEHW’s first anthology, Epitaphs, was now officially a Bram Stoker Awards nominee. Going back to high school wasn’t bad at all, but of course that should have been a given—no matter what the age, horror writers are usually considered to be the cool kids in class.

Feb 19 2012

Organization’s First Anthology Makes the HWA Final Ballot

Organization’s First Anthology Makes the HWA Final Ballot

by Jason Harris

It became official on Saturday, January 18, the New England Horror Writers’ first anthology is now a Stoker nominated collection.

Epitaphs is on the final ballot of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Awards for works published in 2011. The Awards will be presented at a gala banquet on Saturday, March 31, at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“It’s a great achievement for the NEHW to have its first anthology get this far,” Carbone, who is the editor of the collection, said on her Facebook page. “We all put in a tremendous amount of work in a short time to get this off the ground and I want to again thank the board and all the contributors.”

To purchase a copy of Epitaphs, click here.