*ED. note- I got tired all over again just writing this.

7/ 22

Wednesday morning I caught a flight to San Diego with Matt Sturges because we sometimes catch the same Southwest trip. So, we caught a cab to the hotel and checked in. I was carrying a bag that weighed the size of Willingham’s regrets and I was staggering like I had started drinking early.

After a long elevator ride, Sturges slid his electronic key in the lock and turned the handle and stopped dead in his tracks. “Are those sandals?” He looked at me and I looked in and confirmed that they were in fact sandals. About then a man in shorts stepped out of the bathroom, drying himself with a towel. “What are you doing in my room?” We cleverly turned the tables and asked… ‘What are you doing in our room?” Realizing that both sets of keys worked we decided to head for the front desk. We left our heavy bags in the room and the three of us headed for the lobby. I remember thinking in narration, “And that is how Matt & Bill lost their luggage.” But after many, many jokes about spooning and making new friends, the people at the Hyatt took care of us. We got a room upgrade and breakfast vouchers for the length of the stay.

And that is how Matt Sturges saw a half-naked man and got me a free breakfast.

We went out for lunch and stopped at the Hilton for a quick bite. As we were sitting in the sun so Sturges could have a smoke, Alan Porter wander over and we had tea for a bit. Then I made the annual pilgrimmage to Ralph’s for some snacks for the room and water that was less than $5 a bottle. After a change I was ready for the world again.

Struggling under the weight of those books again, I shambled over to the convention center and put a few trades out on the table of my good friend and occasional collaborator Thom Zahler. The parade of old friends and new customers wandered by the table and we hung out there until it was time to get ready for dinner.

Back in the day, I took Willingham to dinner at the Ruth Chris steakhouse on Harbor Drive on the Wednesday night after the show. We have kept that tradition alive in the years since and this time the line up was my own bad self, Bill Willingham, Brad Thomte, Thom Zahler and the agent to the comic stars Ken Levin.

7/ 23

Thursday morning, I went to the DC Talent Search panel dragging Paul Storrie kicking and screaming into the room. He rightly finds the process a bit demeaning if you have worked for the publisher before. But my desire to work for them easily surpasses any temporary discomfort that comes from a trip to that panel. For some dark reason, the people that ask the questions at the end of the panel presentation just make me feel better about myself.

I lost Paul and headed over to the Longbox Digital Comics presentation. I love the interface. The viewer is very much a Viewer 2.0 kind of upgrade, but the content is not quite there yet. They need more books for the September-ish launch. I pressed a card into Rantz Hoseley’s hand and hope to get some books onto that site, but I have the feeling that LSP is too small a publisher for them to have immediate interest.

I caught up to Keith Wilson and Kerry Gammil who are doing a new horror anthology under the Monsterverse banner. Keith is going to adapt one of my short stories from The Clockwork Bride for the thing. I am supposed to script it from the breakdowns. They might even need me to ink the thing. Who knows?

There were a couple of parties on Thursday night. I settled on the one I could get into and went to the BOOM Studios party at the Hyatt. I hung with Martin Thomas and a few others before calling it a night at 1AM.

7/ 24

Friday I went to a panel on selling more comics that was put on by ComicsPro. David Wheeler was manning the booth out front. Chip Mosher from BOOM and Phil Foglio were inside as well. It was very simple advice, but useful.

Went to dinner in the little tourist village behind the hotel with Paul Storrie and Thom Zahler. We met Amy Wolfram who writes for animation and comics there too. She used to be in the Whedon orbit and the evil law firm in ANGEL is partially named after her.

More drinking at the Hyatt. Willingham won another ‘Best Writer’ Eisner Award. I heard about it in the bar later. Had to cut it a little short for a big meeting the next day.

7/ 25

Saturday morning I had my long-awaited meeting for the ANGEL project with Willingham, my charming editor Mariah Huehner and her boss Chris Ryall. We had the buffet because that was the only choice. The talk went well and a good time was had by all. I think the ANGEL book will be a big deal when it hits. Another project I was working on got stepped on a bit, but it still has a slim chance of success.

Then we went to the panel. Juliet Landau was entertaining. I had bought a still from the BUFFY series in the hope of getting a moment where I could get her to sign it for Katrina. Bill and I got caught up in a bit of bad theatre. And we talked about the new direction of the ANGEL book. I actually got asked a question by a fan and my answer seemed to make him a little happy. All went well. Security was there to get us to the booth for the signing and that was comically bad. We just ditched them and walked over to the IDW booth. I never got a chance to get something signed.

I was planning to go to the Pop Candy meet up, but since Whitney was rumored to come to the suite party on Sunday night, I skipped it. I helped out Paul at the Toon Tumbler booth for a stretch. Late that night I caught up to my old boss Keith Wilson at the Hyatt bar.

It turns out that the healthy benefits of cranberry juice do not offset the bad juju of vodka.

7/ 26

It was the last day of the show and I still had nothing for Katrina. Juliet Landau was not signing at the IDW booth again. So, I waited for the inevitable tweets from Felicia Day. She was the one person on twitter whose tweets went right to my iPhone. In the back of my head, I was still planning to get her to sign something to bring back for Katrina. The phone chirped and I was off across the hall battered on the sea of fans. As I drew closer to her booth, my heart sank.

Felicia Day is the Homecoming Queen of the Nerd Prom.

There was a very long line capped by a guy with a sign. So I asked him if the sign was accurate. He said. “Yes. I am the end of the indoor line. The line continues outside in Section E.” And that was the last time I considered getting something signed at the show. My time is limited.

I spent the rest of the time at the show helping Paul at the Toon Tumblers booth. There was a last minute rush of people who didn’t want to carry glasses around all day. Seth Green came through and bought some. There was a little crowd while he was there.

I packed it in and helped Paul load up his glasses and drifted back to the hotel. I wanted to sleep, but I went to dinner with Thom and Paul. Martin Thomas and Shannon Wheeler wandered over from the direction of the bay. We chattered until Martin came over and got us. Chuck McCann from the Far Out Space Nuts was at Martin’s table in the outdoor food court area. We all walked over and chatted with him until Martin ran us off.

Then we went to the suite party. Brad did not want to tend bar all night like last year, so we were to take turns. I took the first shift which ran from 8:30PM to 1AM when I went back to the room. In tending the bar all night, I got to talk to everyone and I had an excuse to stay sober. I met Paul Tobin who writes excellent stuff for the Marvel Adventures line. Mike Carlin came over and chatted for a bit. I felt like I owed a bartending shift to Willingham to make sure he threw an excellent party. He had been kind enough to help me get my foot in the door with the ANGEL gig. When I was on the way out, people lined up to shake my hand. A good time was had by all.

7/ 27

If I sleep more than six hours, I get restless, so I was wide awake at 7 in the morning. I called aound and Willingham was out cold. Ditto for Brad. I had hurt him the night before with some White Russians. Sturges was trying to get some sleep before his wife and kids arrived on Monday morning. It felt like a walk of shame as I slinked out of the hotel and to the airport a couple of hours early. A plane got delayed in El Paso where I bought a little internet service and whittled down the stack of email. Ten hours after checking baggage, I was back in Austin. Katrina picked me up at the airport. And I finally slept in my own bed for the first time in a while.

7/ 28

I dump out a bag of business cards and start writing new pitches.

I’m home for a while, but not at rest.

I recently gave the following advice to an artist who started drawing before he had a script…
It is always easier to move words around on the page than drawings.

.

Hello out there in webland!

I have a new writing job that will be announced at the Comic Convention in San Diego on Sat July 25th. I’ll have a post up that afternoon talking about the all new cool job. As opposed to some of the things I have worked on in the past, some of you out there might have even heard of some of the characters in the new title.

More to come soon.

Bill

.

Hello there, interweb readers and Lone Star Press fans. There is a new competition up at ZUDA and I have a strip running. Its called The Urban Adventures of Melvin Blank and it is a collaboration between myself and Thom Zahler. Among other things, Thom does the LOVE and CAPES comic and does some of the work on the SIDECHICKS webcomic.

Getting the whole strip down the road and on the ZUDA page has been pretty fun. I wrote it as a complete 4 page story and Thom did everything else. The inspiration was a little bit of HERBIE and a little bit of LENNY from OF MICE AND MEN. Here is the long version of the pitch–

“Melvin Blank has the mind of a child and the strength of a brute. After the passing of his parents, he lives in his Mother’s house in the heart of a big decaying city. He works as a dishwasher at a nearby greasy spoon and he has his urban adventures as he travels to and from work. Melvin thinks its hilarious that the mass transit system he rides, the City Area Rapid Transit System, is called “the CART”, but he doesn’t understand why a nearby diner is called “Joe Mama’s”. In a world of grays, Melvin sees things in black and white. Good and bad. Day and night. Cereal and pizza.

Melvin is pretty sure that the house down the street is haunted, but don’t worry, he plans to do something about it. He is in love with a beautiful co-worker who has an abusive boyfriend, for now. He is selling items from his parent’s estate to pay for an elaborate headstone for the pair. At home, he has an angry cat named SOCKS and he never, ever misses SPACE PATROL RANGER. Melvin is absolutely sure that he is living the American Dream and he wants to share it with the rest of the people in his neighborhood whether they like it or not.

The first story is a complete eight screen story. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. Melvin is like that, he likes things simple.

Melvin Blank features a script by Bill Williams (SideChicks) and art & colors by Thom Zahler (Love & Capes).”

I would appreciate it if you would go to the ZUDA page and view and vote. Call us your favorite!

Thom and I were interviewed here– http://ncane.com/hvs2

Info on LnC– http://www.loveandcapes.com/

Here’s MELVIN. Go VOTE!– http://www.zudacomics.com/node/1220

Thanks for reading.

Bill Williams

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I am running an experiment from deep in the Lone Star bunker. It is an
experiment with fiction, but I still wear the protective goggles just in case. There
is an ebook reader over at the SHORTCOVERS website that will work online
or on some mobile devices like the 3G iPhone. The stories are chopped up
into smaller iPhone sized pieces, so some of the content is broken down
by chapters.

I have posted some of the content from the Tokyo Pop and Other
Quinn Stories collection there. So, if you like free fiction, swing by and
check it out. The stories include–

the short story REFRIGERATOR WHITE

As well as–

the short story TOKYO POP

and the short story 96 DOLLARS

So swing by and check out the free fiction. And poke around while you are
there. I’m in good company with Neil Gaiman and David McCullough.

.

So, we finished the Great February Writing Contest and it seemed to be a
rousing success. I wrote until I was bordering on being sick of the process
and I knocked out almost 70K words. (That’s the same as writing a damn
novel in a month.) Along the way, I got a few short stories finished and
kicked a bit of a novel out of my head. 
You can find the final score by clicking here.

The trash talking was here.

.

I am now twittering, so if you have a need to know what I’m doing with a
slightly creepy Seinfeldian level of detail, click here.

Hello all,

We are having a writing contest over at the Clockwork Storybook Blog, so come on over and cheer for somebody. We are all working on random stuff and I can chat about mine, but as you might guess, Willingham is reluctant to tell you what is coming up in FABLES. Ditto for Sturges and the HOUSE OF MYSTERY.

.

There is news in the world of comics distribution and it goes like this… Diamond Comics Distribution has decided that they are going to raise the minimum Purchase Order that they are going to cut from $1500 to $2500. On comics like the ones we make here at LSP, Diamond makes 20% of the retail dollar and out of that they receive and sort and ship the merchandise. Apparently, that is not enough to keep the de facto monopoly in business, so they have decided to change the rules. This is nothing new for Diamond. Once upon a time, I got a hand full of guarantees from Diamond only to have them change their mind a few months later. In my case, it meant that Heroic Tales #9 & #10 never made it to the comic book stores because Diamond decided that material was not worth the financial dollars it took to get them there.

The Diamond decision on a new PO benchmark (like most decisions) will have unintended consequences. The world of the Top 300 Comics will tick along just fine, but the damage comes on the graphic novel side. Looking at the Top 300 Graphic Novels for December and doing a little basic math will tell you that a lot of those books will just lose the chance to go to market. A chunk of the Tokyo Pop books fall below the new bubble. This change will put entire publishing lines and publishing entities at risk. And it will foster a less dynamic marketplace. Think more crossovers and less Scott Pilgrim.

Since this move does not take place in a static environment, the people involed will try to compensate for the change in Diamond policy including…

* Many publishers will have to jack up cover prices to compensate for the new benchmark.

* Many publishers will have to try to go around the Direct Market.

* Many publishers will kill projects and fire freelancers.

* Many freelancers will take these projects to the remaining healthy publishers.

* Many freelancers will distribute electronically.

The 1000 retail stores that carry a vigorous line of graphic novels will have to get books from somewhere. So, will a company like Haven Distributors step up? Can they?

For small publishers like my pal Thom Zahler, it will be a brand new headache. His critically acclaimed book Love and Capes is one of the entertaining new books on the P.O. bubble. I hope his book is not legislated out of retail stores by a stroke of Diamond’s pen.

NEW YORK, New York — Jeremy Piven is ending his run in Broadway’s “Speed-the-Plow,” due to a condition caused by a high mercury count, according to Variety.

The “Entourage” star missed a Tuesday evening performance and a Wednesday matinee due to his high mercury count health concerns, but David Mamet, the playwright of “Speed-the-Plow,” appears skeptical of the actor’s exit.

“I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury,” Mamet told the entertainment trade mag. “So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

But, the show will go on said Mamet. ***

*** This story was stolen and abbreviated in a self-serving way from elsewhere on the Interwebs.

In a move that is kind of out of nowhere, that issue of JLU that I wrote back in the long long ago is getting reprinted in April. So, if you missed The Ghosts of Atlantis the first time around, it would be an excellent chance to see me happily write for the man. Here is the solicit–

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED: HEROES TP
Written by Adam Beechen, Mike McAvennie & Bill Williams
Art by Carlo Barberi, Rick Burchett, Leigh Gallagher, Sanford Green and others
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #23-29 are collected in this new title starring The Worlds Greatest Super Heroes!
Advance-solicited; on sale April 8 * 144 pg, FC, $12.99 US