A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: The blogger    Last Sunday was my first author’s vendor booth at Sacramento Comic-Con since four years ago. The annual pop culture convention, held in downtown Sacramento’s convention center, was the first one since the pandemic began. The attendance was scant but only compared to the other years before the world became stricken by the current plague; because Covid is still around, there’s still a lot of people who won’t go to crowded events. Yet, considering that, it was a good turnout. I can’t say a lot about how good Sunday’s con was since I didn’t get a chance to visit the other booths or go to any panels. However, of what I did see, it all looked like it went by really well. And it went by far better for my booth than I had expected since it hadn’t looked that good earlier.  Preparations Although the con went by fine, it was still a bit of a struggle for me especially in the preparations the day before and the day of. I got my swag, which consisted of promoti...

Credit: The Blogger I would have been happy if people stopped to simply flip through my books at my vendor table at Sac Comic-Con last Sunday. Since that was my first vendor table at a convention, I really didn’t expect to sell anything. I sold five copies of my books! The first sale was actually early on in the convention—within the first 10 minutes of opening! A father with his three kids stopped to look. I started giving my pitch for each book and, before I could finish, he said he would take one copy of each: The Fool’s Illusion and “CircaSixty Years Dead” . Later in the day, two more people made purchases at different times each. I also traded copies with the fellow author whose table was right next to mine, Jay Norry , for two books from his Zombie Zero series . We suggested doing reviews for each other’s books once we read them. I’ll leave reviews at Amazon for sure but may have fuller ones here. However, I may not be to do anything until the beginning of t...

I'm not leaving much of a post here this weekend because I've been busy all day preparing for my vendor table for Sac Comic-Con . The convention is tomorrow from 10 AM to 6 PM. You can read more about it at my Facebook page . This will be my first convention that I've had a table at, so don't be surprised if I seem a little rusty. I hope to see you there. My booth number is B25; I'll have a name sign up. If you can't make it, then . . . Until next time . . . Credit: Pixabay.com

Last week was really busy, so I apologise for posting late again. But I wanted to show you a major alteration I made to my business card (besides the contact info I added). Last post I showed the card bearing the name of my imprint which is “Far Out Phantastic Press”. Or at least that was the name. After doing some research, I discovered that to put that name on a business card may require me to register it with my home city or county and that would cost more than what I am willing to spend right now on promoting my work. Here in California, at least, you can use your personal name as for a sole entrepreneurship and not have to register it. So, for the time being at least, I had to replace my imprint name with my personal name on the card. So here is the revised version: Credit: Steven Rose Jr. As you can see everything else on my business card has pretty much stayed the same. Now I just have to have prints of it made by the end of the week because I will ne...

I’m submitting my complete file for the print edition of “Circa Sixty Years Dead” early next week. Hopefully it will be available for purchase by Wednesday. I’ll post an update for the release on my Facebook page and definitely here next week. As busy as a weekend it has been, I’m squeesing in some time for a summer sci fi flick— Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets . Valerian I’m always looking for the Star Wars -type blockbuster each summer and it looks like Valerian could be it. In fact, according to TheHollywood Reporter , it even borrows from Star Wars . However, according to the bulk of critics , it hasn’t been much of a blockbuster on this weekend of its release. But it’s definitely blockbuster-like yet with its own style and vision from its director, Luc Besson, who also directed The Fifth Element back in the ‘90s and look what became of that. It became a cult classic, and hopefully this movie will too. The reason I say that is because...

Two posts ago I gave a report of two panels that I attended at Wizard World Comic Con in Sacramento. [link] I highlighted the fiction writing advice given at these panels. One of the panels was about the Satan myth in the dark fiction genre and the term for the genre itself. I said that author Richard Kadrey talked about his Satan character in the Lucifer comic book series and that he talked some more about it in his villain creation panel later that same day. That panel is included here in part two of the report of the writing panels I attended. I had also said that the report would be divided into three posts, but it looks like I can complete it in two, so this is the final part.    A "Disco Revolution" band that I watched before attending my first panel on Saturday, Day 2 of Wizard World Comic Con in Sacramento. These guys are really heavy in keeping one of the earliest forms of electronica alive! Photo Credit: the blogger Day 2, Part II So after the ...

Credit: Wizard World I apologise for missing last week’s post. I was busy with a special writing project that was due any day and so I didn’t have time to post anything except to my Facebook page. You can visit my Facebook page for any updates in between blog posts.  I promised you a fuller report of Wizard World Comic Con Sacramento in my last post and so that’s what I have here for you today. However, I don’t have enough time to go over all three days of the con in one post, so I’m going to break up the coverage into three parts. The con offered a lot of great events such as cosplays and panels on comic book creation, including art and writing. I’m not a costumer but I just dug seeing the people who are and that go way, way out with their apparel! And that’s a great thing. To see what I mean, check out the photos in my last post if you haven’t done so yet.  But my favourite part about sci fi and fantasy conventions is talking to the other artists an...

I mentioned last time that I would have a review of Steve Sabatka’s YA sci fi novel, Mr. Fishback’s Monster . However, this weekend was Wizard World comic con in Sacramento which your blog host, Big Bro Steven of the UnOrthodox Geek Church, has been attending and will attend tomorrow (the last day) as well. So I’ll save the review for another time, since I’m not even going to have time for a full write-up of the con this evening. As far as the con goes, though, I’ll give a small brief. There has been some some really great panels on fiction and comic book writing at this year’s Wizard World, one about creating villainous characters and another about the Satan myth in horror and other dark fiction. I met some really interesting fellow authors there who were really helpful with advice at their panels. And the dealers’ room is always big . There must’ve been at least a hundred booths there, which is a lot for a comic convention in Sacramento. Even though much of the dealers’ room ...

An attendee in a costume resembling the Spider-Man  villain, Doctor Octopus, at the 2015 Wizard World Comic Con Sacramento. Photo Credit: Steven Rose, Jr. Last week I talked a little about Wizard World Comic Con  and said it wasn’t all comics but other forms of popular media such as movies, television, video games and, to a certain degree even literary fiction. It ran the whole weekend, Friday through Sunday, but I only attended Sunday. But the one day alone still had more than enough to see. Because I wanted to look through the dealers’ room, which covered nearly the entire convention hall of the Sacramento Convention Center, I had to limit myself to three of the 14 panels scheduled for that day. All three were about storytelling to some extent, but I found one particularly helpful to writers such as myself. It was entitled “Where the Synergy of Video Games, Books and Films Collide”. Wizard World Synergy “Where the Synergy” was a panel of artists and writers,...

A Wizard World Comic Con in Manhattan, NY Photo Credit:  © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons I know I said I would have a review of a Philip K. Dick short story for you soon but my writing project schedule has become a little jumbled this past week. I was especially held back when my Internet went out on me yesterday afternoon for no apparent reason. And it came back on, also for no apparent reason, but not until the evening. It was really frustrating, but the most important thing is that it’s back on so I can write and post this entry for you. So I’ll have to hold off the review until a later date because an event I want to tell you about is already going on. It is Wizard World Comic Con and it has returned here to Sacramento. If you are not in the Sacramento area to attend Wizard World, there’s good news. This is a touring comic convention that hits several cities throughout North America so there may be one near you in the upcoming months. If you’re not in t...

Warning: This post may contain content or links to content considered to be obscene/objectionable by some viewers. A completed drawing of the cover to The Fool's Illusion . The final version will be digitally enhanced. Photo Credit: Steven Rose, Jr.  Another Sac-Con comic book and collectors' show is coming tomorrow (Sunday) here in Sacramento. I will be there and have book marks of The Fool's Illusion at the information table, so if you're in the area, please swing by and pick up a free book mark! It's at the Scottish Rite Center . Admission is only $6 a person (children 8 and under are free) and if you decide to go with the early bird special you can get in at 9 a.m. (regular start time is 10 a.m.) for $10 and receive a free Sac-Con bag !  Here's the link for more details: http://www.sac-con.com/ . I was going to make an addition to the book marks. The original copies I made for December's Movies On A Big Screen have the Far Out Fantast...

(Photo removed for reasons of copyright.) Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons  I just got back from seeing The Dark Knight Rises . It was awesome! I'll admit that I liked the first and second of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy better, especially when I prefer the Joker much more over Bane since he's Batman's arch enemy and the most grotesquely psychotic of the Batman villains. Even so, out of all three of the movies, I like Batman Begins (the first in the trilogy) best simply because I'm one that believe's no sequel or remake can beat it's original (with very few exceptions). But Dark Knight Rises was good. It went further into Bruce Wayne's character and his interaction with the other characters, including Alfred the butler, Salina Kyle/the Cat Woman, and Commissioner Gordon. And Bane's character was chilling especially with that mouth mask that he wears which looks like a pair of an alien monster's jaws but is really an oxygen mask ...

     (Photo removed for copyright reasons.) Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons This hasn’t been the best Cinco de Mayo or Free Comic Book Day for me.   I was supposed to attend a mini comic con at Empire Comics Vault in Sacramento but had to cancel all because a stupid glitch in the ATM at the bank in Woodland of No Return held me back.   So I drove over to the comic book store in Davis, Bizarro World, which is a lot closer to where I live. But I wasn’t able to get there until late in the afternoon so when I asked the owner, a really nice guy, if he had any free comics left he said he didn’t. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was a good thing because it drew a lot of people to read comic books who don’t often read them.   It was a bad thing in that some people didn’t get free comic books and yours truly was one of them. Actually, I didn’t even care that much. If I cared that much about the free comics I wouldn’t have planned to take ...