• Fri, 6-7pm: Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Battlestar Galactica
• Sat, 2-3pm: National Novel Writing Month Workshop
• Sat, 4-5pm: Autograph session

I’ll also be attending a Novel Writing workshop run by Michael Stackpole on Sunday morning, “21 Days to a Novel”. Should be a great warmup for NaNoWriMo 2007 for me.

He brought a microburst with him. One that was perfectly aimed at key areas of Mesa. I don’t know how he managed to conceal a weather tracking and targeting system in his cane, but that’s only my best guess as to where it might be.

It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me… he had mentioned not wanting to burst into flames when he arrived here, and having some rain cool the place down a bit is a perfect way to avoid that. It barely rained in some other areas, but it was torrential in the area around Atomic Comics, and in the hour leading up to when his signing event was to begin.

Country Club (Rt 87), the major road going to that strip mall, was partially blocked in 2 areas south of Route 202 (3 northbound and 3 southbound lanes whittled down to 1 lane in each direction), and continuing southbound it was completely blocked off because a trestle underpass was completely flooded out… blocked by fire trucks. The side roads to take to get to other major roads were swamped under. The parallel major roads were either partially blocked, or barely moving because of redirected traffic (sometimes by both).

So getting to Atomic Comics from the north was a bust, and looping around to approach from the south was no better.

The major highway nearby, Route 60, was diverting all traffic onto Country Club (this is south of said mall) because the area where the highway passed under Country Club was flooded out. All evening rush hour traffic was being forced onto an already choked street. One intersection I sat at was reminiscent of the traffic jam caused in the remake of “The Italian Job”… no movement for any green light for several cycles!

Flooded roads, cars in parking lots suddenly under water, mayhem ensuing in the aftermath? Force of nature in action, all converging on Warren’s very location in Mesa. And I’m sure he did it all with a secret button in his cane. Or maybe his hat. I don’t have proof, and I’m not sure I want proof. That could end up going to scary places where I’m not prepared to look yet.

All in all, what should have been a 40-minute drive from work to the comics shop took a total of 115 minutes. But I got there, dammit… I was on a mission, and no force of nature or interference from the universe was going to thwart me.

This went way beyond wanting him to sign my copies “Global Frequency”… this was a rare chance to show a bit of appreciation to someone who made me cry laughing during a rather dark time in my life. Have you ever read his Ripping Yarns essay? If not, go do so now… I’ll wait.

About a month ago, Brian told me he was coming to town, and I knew I had to do something beyond just asking if his schedule would allow him to drop by the studio for an interview. So I asked the very talented Cheyenne Wright if he could come up with some artwork that appropriately reflected the tone and dark humor of that essay, and he exceeded my every expectation.

Because of that I was able to present Mr. Ellis with a unique piece of art commemorating that essay properly. And of course Brian and I got him to sign copies for us, Michael and Cheyenne.

note: Later, if Warren says that I can send that image out into the wild for everyone to share, I will. I have also sent him the digital version, so if he wants to post it himself, he is able to. It’s not my call, unless he says it is.

All in all, it was a good thing. The rain would have prevented us being able to interview him in the studio and get him to Atomic on time, and I don’t think any amount of good scotch would have been able to make up for that faux pas.

I think asking him for an interview on “Cover to Cover” about his book is a very good idea, and fun to boot.

We’re going to be doing panels and interviews at the Nebula Awards, which will be in nearby Tempe, fortunately. After that, we’re hopping all over the place.

Westercon and Comic-Con in San Diego in July, Worldcon in Los Angeles in August, Dragon*Con in Atlanta in early September, the Portable Media Expo in Ontario CA at the end of September, and World Fantasy Con in Austin TX in early November.

And those don’t include the smaller local cons that we’ll end up going to, either. I’m not sure if this qualifies us as dedicated or crazy.

But definitely this year, I’ll be staying at the con hotel for WFC… three years running I haven’t done so, and I’ve missed out on some excellent late night bar talk. Not this year!

Hi, my name is Joss Whedon. Before we begin the special screening, I have a little story I want to tell you. It’s about a TV show called Firefly.

Firefly went on the air a few years ago and was instantly hailed by critics as one of the most canceled shows of the year. It was ignored and abandoned and the story should end there, but it doesn’t, because the people who made the show and the people who saw the show (which is… roughly… the same number of people) fell in love with it a little bit… too much to let it go, too much to lay down arms when the battle looked pretty much lost.

In Hollywood, people like that are called ‘unrealistic’ … ‘quixotic’ … ‘obsessive’.

In my world, they’re called ‘Browncoats’.

Whether you’ve watched the show, or saw the DVD’s, or whether you’ve never set foot in the Firefly universe before tonight, the fact that you’re here means that you are part of something… something that is a little bit remarkable. This movie should not exist. Failed TV shows don’t get made into major motion pictures unless the creator, the cast, and the fans believe beyond reason. It’s what I’ve felt. It’s what I’ve seen… in the DVD sales, the booths at the cons run by fans, the websites, the fundraisers… all the work the fans have done to help make this movie.

It is, in an unprecedented sense, your movie… which means, if it sucks, it’s your fault. You let us down, but let’s not dwell on your failures because the work is not done. I have to finish making it. Obviously not quite the final cut and you will notice some placeholders in music and effects, but we’re very close.

Once we are finished, we have to get people to see it. Now, obviously the studio is going to do their thing. There will be ads and trailers and all that joy, but this movie doesn’t have stars and it doesn’t have a giant mega-budget or even a simple salable premise.

What it has is us, the people who believed unreasonably. If this movie matters to you, let somebody know. Let everybody know. Make yourselves heard. If you don’t like the movie, this is a time for quiet, silent contemplation. But, when the unfinished credits roll, if you still call yourself a Browncoat, remember the millions of people who don’t… who might.

I want us to do this together. The cast is going to be appearing wherever they can. I’m going to be blogging and stumping and whatever I can think of. We’ve got Can’tStopTheSignal.com up and running… I’m fairly certain. We’re all doing everything we can to make this the event that it should be.

Just remember, they tried to kill us… they did kill us… and here we are. We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty. Thank you for helping to get this movie as far as it has gotten.

Welcome to Serenity.

Most of the Dragon Pagers headed the panel on Podcasting Saturday afternoon, and that turned out to be a fun, highly interactive and informative 90 minute session. Unfortunately the Sunday morning “Dragon Page Update” session was devoid of the same size crowd, but we did talk to an older gentleman who seemed to be enjoying all the panels on the hard science track, so Evo had a kindred soul to chat with for a while.

Do yourselves a favor, head over to Dragon Page and download every episode of “Wingin’ It” you can find. Each and every “Different Point of View” segment, Stormtrooper TD-0013’s field reports about the war between the Empire and the Rebellion, from the Empire’s point of view, is worth listening to. They’re hilarious, and actually seeing some of those performed live, in character and in costume: priceless [pffft].

I also participated in my first art auction. One piece I wanted went up for bid because there were two of us who kept bidding on an impressive artist’s proof of a dragon by Ruth Thompson. Funny thing is, the other artist’s proof of her’s that I bought is the black dragon image on her main webpage. The other piece I bought was an impressively colorful Yin/Yang styled circle, done with a Chinese dragon and a tiger.

The most fun time of the weekend, however, turned out to be when I played the role of chauffeur for authors Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. Kevin was the Guest of Honor at the con, and Michael and Evo wanted to get him on the show again, this time live in the studio. So when we were done at the convention, I got to pack them into my Xterra and drive them from Carefree to Phoenix to do the interview, actually do the interview, stop off for dinner at a cool Greek restaurant, then drive them to the airport (since going past the airport was on my way home anyway).

3 hours of talking books and movies with nice people who not only know some of the people behind the stuff I like, but are also fans of most of the same types of books and movies, was a special treat for me. That the show with this interview will be one of the first ones going out on XM in June is a bonus.

Now if I can only start getting tv and film related publicists and such to start returning my phone calls and emails, I’ll be all good.