Summer Happenings

Finally, the signs of summer are here. If you live in the midwest, you know what a long winter it has been. I dunno...maybe it's just because I'm getting older but the winters seem a lot longer and the summers shorter. I used to love the cold weather and detested the heat but I've done a 180 in recent years. I'm beginning to understand why so many people migrate to Florida from Michigan. One appealing aspect of summer is that I'm off of my teaching. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching and I see that as my "real" occupation but I do take the summers off. I get offers to teach and if that was my sole source of income, perhaps I would be more inclined to teach spring and summer courses but usually my summer is so busy that I just can't. This summer, I have a major book project that I have to get done and I have to put together a number of different compilations for Transfuzion plus I have another book project and I'm writing a few comic series. So, even though I'm not teaching, it's going to be incredibly busy. Plus I have a couple of trips lined up...one for business in Europe and our annual family vacation which this year is heading out west to Las Vegas (in-laws), Grand Canyon, and then taking the kids to Los Angeles. No specific reason for LA, but the kids have always wanted to see California. Not sure what we're going to do there yet, but I'm sure we'll think of something. And of course, summer means conventions. I was planning on tackling a few conventions and hoped to finally make it to Heroes Con but that damn schedule. So, it looks like I'll only be doing a couple of cons. I will be at the Motor City Comic Convention on May 16-18. I'm hoping that this convention can re-establish itself as a comic convention of note as it is primarily a media con but there seems to be a new attitude and so I'll give it a go again. Besides, it's only a few minutes from my house. The attendance is sizable as they get over 10,000 people but the comic part of it is not what it used to be. But with guests such as Bernie Wrightson, Chris Claremont, Arthur Suydam and locals such as Vince Locke, Guy Davis, David Peterson, Mark Bloodworth, and about 30 other writers-artists-creators, it should have a good presence. I'll be there not only representing myself but Transfuzion as well. Then it's off to Wizard World Chicago where I'll hook up with cohort Rafael Nieves and his cronies to set up a Transfuzion display in the Artists Alley. We'll be joined by a number of creators of the "Mob Rules" assemblage. Chicago Con is June 26-29. The good folks at ComicRelated.com have given Tranfuzion a message board and I have to admit that I haven't taken advantage of it that much. It was launched before we had any titles officially released and once they started coming out, I was mired in so many other things, that I have neglected to keep up with it. But that is something I'll start paying more attention to in the next couple of weeks and try and make that the source for providing news and updates. Here's the link to the Transfuzion Message Board. This will be in addition to the revamping of the Transfuzion website. Nothing drastic there as far as bells and whistles go but I figure that it needs to be a bit more streamlined to make it easier to update. So, there will be a new look coming soon. I will also be tweaking the Caliber Comics website. You may wonder why since Caliber hasn't published anything in over 6 years... Well, it's mainly because I get 3-5 submissions a week for Caliber Comics. I especially love the submissions that say they're a big supported and continue to buy all the new releases. It's hard to take those people seriously. I also get a ton of writers who inquire about how to break into the industry and if I could spend some time explaining the process on getting established. I don't mean to sound harsh but why the hell would I do that? I'm short on time as it is and to take time to help someone else out? They need to do some research on their own as often all I do is make a quick search, get some links, and forward it to them. As the saying goes, it's not rocket science to find the information...now to actually break in, well, that is more difficult. For some reason, the Transfuzion MySpace page was obliterated. From what I've heard, this happens occasionally. I plan to get that going again now that some of the titles have shipped and are available. I've held off doing too much in any kind of promotion for Transfuzion since we haven't had titles released but with six coming out in the last 4-5 weeks and another 4-5 shipping in the next month, now would be a good time. I had recently put together the Raven Chronicles trade paperback which collected the seven issues that I wrote. Raven Chronicles was a series that I created at Caliber and I ended up using the characters in other series such as Saint Germaine, Helsing, Red Diaries, etc. and I even "lent" out the characters for use in stories I didn't write such as Ripper Legacy and Black Mist. I forgot how much I liked playing with these characters and I plan on doing something with the Raven crew in the future. And the last thing is that this summer, I plan to put up a few more blogs. I know, that's what everyone says but just like everyone else, I mean it. But you know how it is with intentions and performance....not always the same thing.