Conventions, Conventions, Conventions

The Savage Troll and Duck are convention bound. As I type, Duck is in San Diego attending Comic Con. Expect a blog post later in the week containing all his wondrous discoveries and adventures.

One bit of news I've just seen announced is the next Superman movie will feature Batman. I can't wait.

On August 2nd I, your humble Troll, will travel to Houston to attend the 2nd annual Space City Con. I had a great time last year and hope to discover more about the upcoming Matt Mercury Movie - The Future, The Way It Used To Be. As a tribute to MMM, I plan to run a Savage Worlds Space Pulp game. Maybe I can get Bill Hughes to make an appearance as Professor Brainwave!

In January, Chupacabra Con is coming to Austin for its debut convention. I hope to be there to run a Savage Worlds  Edge of Space game featuring everyone's favorite sociopath, Sarge Montpellier.  We'll use the soon-to-be-released Science Fiction Companion.

One of our favorite Cthulhuist will be there, Shane Ivey of Arc Dream Publishing. Shane develops games such as the Victorian Supers game The Kerberos Club. He also publishes a Mythos based quarterly titled The Unspeakable Oath. In honor of Shane, I'll run a 30s based horror scenario set in the Thomas Gunn universe aka Gunniverse.

On a sad note, I can't find anything this year for Austin's Armadillo Con. I looked forward to attending Austin's longest running SciFi convention but find no mention on their website, Facebook, or Twitter feeds. Please post a comment if anyone has any news.

Mono: Prospero Rising. The 1939 hero lives again with new art by Gary Gianni. And more Cthulhu!

Mono, the gentlemanly ape-man, spy and adventurer, first appeared in his own self-titled pulpagazine between Jan 1939 and Mar 1941, published by Struth and Shaw Pub. NY. Originally written by the elusive and enigmatic Englishman, Anthony Brock, with later novellas from 1968 to 1974.  Mono was created to cash in on the success of Doc Savage, The Shadow, and The Avenger but he never achieved the same popularity despite the superior prose and enigmatic protagonist. [ Adapted from the Introduction by Liam Sharp  ]

The Troll and I really like pulp adventures. We've been playing a Savage Worlds Pulp adventure for years and its always fun to discover a new (to me) pulp property.  I was stunned to discover that this isn't a new but actually quite a vintage find.

At the Spotlight on Gary Gianni panel in room 4 on Saturday at noon, Gary shared his new projects. His recent departure from the Prince Valiant strip freed him to explore new projects. His discovery of MadeFire and their partnership brought us Mono, Prospero Rising. The original words by Anthony Brock have been published with new Gianni art, previewed here below. Of note, MadeFire is working on a web comic app for iPhone / iPad that really expands upon the capabilities of comics on these devices. Some motion is involved in the demo we saw but its more like the iPhone or iPad screens were windows that you can move around in and see more for an immersive feel.

Gianni's remarkable pen and ink's have a classic look and feel that first drew me to his work on Solomon Kane. If you haven't seen his Solomon Kane work, take a moment as it inspired my Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane adventure one sheet I wrote. ( I'll link it up soon!)

In the past year he illustrated a short story by Ray Bradbury called the Nefertiti-Tut Express that is also visually stunning. I won't give the story away but maybe you shouldn't use old mummies for burning in your steam locomotive.






The panel also shared Gianni's next project: The Illustrated Call of Cthulhu. Here are some sketches in progress:

Until next time!

Step Dancing Zombies at J. Michael Straczynski's New Studio JMS Announcement

Step Dancing Zombies at J. Michael Straczynski's New Studio JMS Announcement! Only at Comic-Con.    Saturday, July 14th, 2012

With much anticipation, J. Michael Straczynski (of Thor, Babylon 5, etc..fame) announced his new studio's launch! Studio JMS is his baby and he's excited to have full control over all his properties. One of the new properties is Living Dead: The Musical.  I am not kidding. He teased us with footage of Riverdance, while  under cover of darkness, a Zombie Step Dancing company shambled in and lined up on the wooden floor in front of the stage.

We knew something was us as a crew came in and frantically quickly put a wooden floor down before the panel began.  I began wondering if the Robot from Lost in Space that was in the Sails Pavilion all week was going to run in on the new floor.




Here is the video I took and put up on YouTube:

Crazy fun at Comic-Con!!!

San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Buck Rogers Panel ends with a Crazy!

The Savage Duck continues his San Diego Comic Con Trek. Be sure to check out the YouTube video at the end of the article

Hermes Press presents Buck Rogers: Past, Present, and Future panel took place from 6p to 7p on Friday the 13th, in Room 4. The big news was Howard Chaykin is doing a new 4 part Buck Rogers comic book in 2013. They were kind enough to hand out a promo poster and Howard signed it. The panel was moderated by Daniel Herman, Publisher, Flint Dille, Erin Gray (if I have to explain the connection...), and the excellent artist Howard Chaykin.

[Editor's Note: Any geek male between 45 and 50 will admit to having a huge crush to Erin Gray from her portrayal of Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers from 1979-81 - Troll]

Flint, Erin, and Howard

My inital draw was I could finally get Erin Gray to sign a picture I have of her and Gil Gerard as Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering on the 1980s movie and TV show. I was successful!!!


Daniel Herman had a short movie prepared going back to the original newspaper, radio, and serials including a very special 1935 reel shown at the Chicago Worlds Fair of a Buck Rogers episode made in Flint Dille's uncle's basement with neighborhood friends. I have the audio of the session and will have to put it up so you can get the remarkable story of how the reel found it's way to Flint 60 years later. Chaykin insisted he tell the story. 


We all asked questions and got wonderful answers. Lots of on set stories from Erin Gray were alot of fun including how she almost wasn't cast! The last question was asked by a self identified "Tycho". He was recognized by Flint and his conspiracy theory rant began. I immediately popped on my camera phone and recorded this which captured all but the first sentence of "you all know what's going on."   When Tycho was grabbed and escorted out, he dropped some of his conspiracy posters and I was able to grab 3 of them. Here's a mystery to solve for sure. Nothing like a little crazy to spice things up!!!


Here are "Crazy Tycho's" posters. They are signed Tycho: 3 of 5 (green headless), 4 of 5 (bottom), and 5 of 5 (blue '2 will die?' on top right).



And now for the crazy. 


[Editor's Note: A convention goer believes there is a grand conspiracy wrapped around Buck Rogers involving actual portals to other realms. I just hope the gentleman gets his medication adjusted to the proper levels. - Troll]

World creation panel by Maxwell Alexander Drake - 10 Thinking points

The Savage Duck continues his trek at Comic Con 2012. In this mini-blog he fills us in on World Building with advice srom Maxwell Alexander Drake.

A packed room listened intently as Drake worked thru his 10 "thinking points" of World Creation. You can find his writing guide online along with the forms he uses. Drake made clear that almost nothing will be directly used for your novel but it will give you all you need to make your world real. "Remember,"  he said, "you aren't creating an RPG adventure." 

"Well," I thought, "what if I am?This is an excellent exercise for world building for an RPG setting."

You can find his site at http://www.maxwellalexanderdrake.com/. His guides are located at  http://www.maxwellalexanderdrake.com/pages/MADWriting.html


Look for his 10 Thinking Points and Building characters.


His advise is excellent if you just ignore the  obvious novel specific info and stick to the world and character building advice.  He does several panels here for fantasy writing.

Enjoy!
The Savage Duck

Savage Duck at San Diego Comic Con finally meets Cheyenne Wright!

Savage Duck at San Diego Comic Con  finally meets Cheyenne Wright!

Thursday late: I finally got back to my excellent room at the Sheraton Marina with a beautiful skyline view of the home of Comic Con!

This is my postcard to you. The 5 to 7 right most buildings are the hotels clustered around the Convention Center.

Hotels become huge posters for upcoming computer games, movies, and TV series.The Marriott just to the right of the convention here is home to Anime and many sessions of DnD and Pathfinder as well as others. But no Savage Worlds!  I have to work on that.

The Hard Rock Cafe and Hotel was covered with Total Recall!

Once inside, the madness begins.

The Trolls from the upcoming Hobbit loomed large over the crowd.  I wish pictures of the Hobbit posters at the pavilion they built could convey the awesome 3Dness.

 I found such imagination inspiring things. Weta had Greg Broadmore's excellent Victorian Ray-gun wielding Lord Cockswain zapping Moonmen and Venusians

That's Lord Cockswain on the right again taking target practice.

Now this I'd love to have as a poster!

Lastly and most importantly, I caught Cheyenne Wright at the Girl Genius booth with an excellent limited edition print from Pinnacles upcoming Deadlands Noir. Naturally I picked it up.

He also had a sketch book with drawings of badge and robots from Machination: A Game of Evil Genius that I supported on Kickstarter. Nice!

Several of his badges were for sale. I'll stop back by tomorrow and pick some up!

Until Then!


Goodnight!

The Savage Duck at Comic Con

Tales from The Savage Troll contributer Derek Brown aka The Savage Duck is at Comic Con having a wonderful time. Luckily he survived the Zombie Horror that awaited him.

Professional Art for Your Savage Worlds Character - Three Artists I Met at Wondercon 2012

by Derek B., The Savage Duck

A Little Background - 

or Why I love going to Comic Conventions

I've always been a very visual, creative type.  In my gaming group, I was the one spending hours creating terrain, buildings, and paining figures. It had to look realistic.  Growing up in Texas and being an hour away from Dallas meant that conventions were within easy driving distance. It was there in Dallas, during the early 1980s, that I encountered the artists behind my favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy worlds. Ralph McQuarrie creating the first images of Star Wars, the Brothers Hildebrandt and their wonderful visions of Middle Earth, Chris Foss and his remarkable spaceships, H.R. Giger's nightmares, and just as importantly, a diverse group of awesome comic book artists, like John Byrne and Jack Kirby and, slightly later, new-comer Frank Miller.

Confession: My parents were both fine artists who were lovingly dedicated to keeping me out of the artist's lot in life. I was drawn to technology but always had an eye for art. I decided RPGs were a cool way to be creative as a hobby. 

A Fun Discovery

I discovered that most artists at the conventions are very approachable and some will create works of art for you at very reasonable prices. These experiences became some of my favorite moments at Comic-Con, Wonder-con, and a slew of other Cons starting way back at Bulldog Production's DallasCon / Dallas Fantasy Faire 1982. Here's a link to a sketch by John Byrne from that Con.