Be in Peace, Sabrina

Our beloved cat of many years has passed away

Posted by Molly on Friday, July 24th, 2009

Our beloved cat, Sabrina, passed away on Wednesday, from complications of chylothorax, which she seemed suddenly to have developed only just over this past weekend.

She was always a good and loving companion, and a trusty friend. We will always love her.

You can visit Sabrina’s home page on Carolyn’s web site for more photos, and Carolyn’s words about Sabrina.

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Collaborative Comics from A-Kon

Creative fun with artists at tables near ours at the comic market

Posted by Molly on Saturday, June 6th, 2009

We organized (using the term loosely…) three collaborative comics with tables around ours at A-Kon this year. Quite a number of artists participated, as you can see from the scanned images of the pages that we got back.

The first version was passed to the left (counter-clockwise around our section) from our table; I drew the initial panel, and the instructions on the page were to simply fill in the panels in order, one at a time.

The second book was passed to the right (clockwise). I drew an initial panel that largely resembled the same one as from the first book, to see how things might develop differently. The instructions were again to simply fill in the panels in order.

The third (and final) book was passed to the left. I drew a sketchy panel in the middle, portraying a somewhat arcane-looking book, with what appears to be a bloody-tipped dagger set beside it. The instructions for this comic were for each participant to fill in a random panel on the page, out-of-order.

You can view all of the pages by clicking on the thumbnail images to the right. Each page also includes any details that the panel artists provided on the backs of the original pages. If you were one of the artists and your information is wrong, or if you are not credited but should be, please let me know and I will fix it.

Thank you to everyone for participating!

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Back from A-Kon 2009

We had a great time, despite some troubles right before the convention

Posted by Molly on Monday, June 1st, 2009

We’re back from A-Kon now. As usual, we had a great time (despite the troubles we had with getting our supplies ready last week). Unfortunately, we ended up forgetting one of our boxes of gear, so we were missing several key parts of our booth decorations, not to mention some of the products that we had planned to have for sale. But things still went pretty well, and of course it is always wonderful to interact with everyone there.

Probably the only down-side (aside from forgetting a box of equipment) was the fact that our tables were directly under a frigid air conditioner vent—and I was wearing an outfit that left my shoulders and upper back totally exposed. Thus, I was basically freezing the whole time. (Each year, it seems to be either roastingly hot or icy-cold in the comic market area. This year was a year of ice….) Next year, my costume will provide more cover.

Kelmar had an amazingly productive time, fielding numerous commission requests—so many that he barely kept up with them, given that he was also serving as a volunteer worker at the convention for several hours each day. I’ve never seen him work so quickly; normally, he takes days to finish a drawing!

I had a great time with the Identify spells and other interactive elements of our booth. The theatrics and interactivity are always my favorite parts at a convention. On Sunday, I had a massive rush of close to a dozen people all requesting Identify spells at once; I think that most of them were from the same gaming group, although it wasn’t entirely clear. One person told me that his D&D Dungeon Master was going to let him use the identified (real-world) items in his D&D campaign as items for his character, using the powers and statistics that I described on the official Identification certificates! I thought that that was pretty cool. (If anyone from that group is reading this, let me know how that turned out for you!)

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. I am not sure when our next convention appearance will be; Kelmar is tentatively planning to attend Anthrocon in Pittsburgh next month, although the rest of us won’t be able to make it there. Beyond that, we’ll have to wait and see; work and home issues will be keeping us busy for the next couple of months, at least.

Thank you to everyone who helped make A-Kon fun for us all again this year!

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