Charming Monsters

Technically, con season has already begun – Jim, Omar and Christine were at Emerald City in Seattle last month, representing UDON – but *my* first show is the Calgary Expo in Alberta this weekend, April 24-25th. Calgary is a great show, really well organized with a stellar guest list, so it’s a nice start to the season.

We head in a day early to help with a few pre-con events, and stick around for a few days after to hang out in Banff for some networking events. Which is awesome, but I’m rapidly reaching the point of being pinched on deadlines all around, and I suspect there’s some awkward “working from the hotel room” in my future.

May gets a little wacky, with local Toronto cons to bookend the month: TCAF on May 8-9 and Anime North on May 28-30. UDON doesn’t have a booth at either show, although some of our artists have personal booths, which will need a bit of support. TCAF will actually be busier for me than Anime North, even though it’s a smaller show: I’m friends with the organizer and will be helping with a few events, plus hosting some out-of-town friends. Not to mention that Jim is sandwiching some more travel in between the two shows, which is going to make for a fun juggling act!

CAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival) is coming up this weekend – I’ll be manning the UDON booth in the Owly kid’s section, where we will have the first three books from the Manga for Kids line available for purchase! They turned out great and I’m excited to start getting the books into people’s hands.

I’m also moderating a panel on Sunday (gulp! How did that happen? Oh, that’s right, Chris asked me in the middle of a party…. whoops). Details are:

12:30pm-1:30pm: Graphic Novels for Young Adults
Creators of young adult comics and graphic novels discuss what it’s like to write, illustrate and create for teen readers. Panelists include Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole), Cecil Castellucci (The Plain Janes), Derek Kirk Kim (Eternal Sunshine), Jeff Lemire (The Essex County Trilogy) and Mariko Tamaki (Skim). Moderated by Stacy King, middle grade author and Marketing Manager of UDON Kids.

Learning Centre 2

The only thing that’s keeping me from imploding with anxiety is the presence of Cecil on the panel – she is awesome and I know that anything she’s involved with will wind up being Good Times. Also, my job is mostly to keep the conversation balanced and on topic, so the pressure is pretty minimal, really. The full TCAF programming schedule is here – some great panels are planned, if you’re around Toronto this weekend, you should definitely check it out! Also, it’s FREE. Free is awesome.

Speaking of FREE and awesome, last Sunday was Free Comic Book day. Chris & Chip Zdarsky edited a book of comics for kids, including this Uh-Oh the Crow strip by Jim. Pancakes! Syrup!

Yes, breakfast around our house is sometimes like that. But only sometimes!

Also FREE and awesome is the new story by Ray Fawkes, Black Strings, which just launched on Tor.com.

AND Megan Crewe recently posted the cover for her upcoming YA novel Give Up the Ghost. So pretty!

I’m not writing as much as I should be: three cons in six weeks plus a back injury, house guests and a metric ton of work will do that to you, I suppose, but it’s still frustrating. For those of you who’ve wondered how much work is involved with book publicity, let me tell you: it’s a lot. More than you might think. I’m doing some rewrites on a few chapters from BEARERS, which is great, but I’m feeling the need to make time for something new before my brain starts to itch.