Toronto - Day Deux!

Went to opening ceremonies. Bunch of introductions. Had my HWA table signing of books. Actually sold three (don't laugh - I think that's not too bad for the early morning slot). Blogging now. Off to lunch to spend the Canadian money I got selling books. Do some souvenir shopping. Then maybe back for an afternoon session.

Toronto!

I have arrived! Just registered at the con. Nothing set up yet there. I'll check back there later after I grab some dinner.

On the Road Again!

Like Willie Nelson! Blogging to you from the lobby of the Syracuse, NY, Ramada. What a dump! Reminds me of South Bend. All dilapidated, but over-priced. The restuarant next door wasn't much to write home about either. Well, tomorrow in Toronto!!

Off to Toronto

Dress clothes for Stoker banquet - check
socks and underwear - check
Ken Foree t-shirt - check (Thanks, Ken!)
2 GOTLD t-shirts - check (got to represent!)
jeans - check (not quite warm enough for shorts, darn!)
books - check
PJs - check
toiletries - check
fifth of gin for the room (booze way too expensive up there!) - check
victory cigars (though they have Cuban up there!) - check

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but, God willing, I'll be there Thursday afternoon! And God willing, holding a Stoker Saturday night!!

NYTimes Article on Horror

Trying to put some limits on advertising:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/movies/24horr.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=movies

As a parent and an author, I'm definitely of two minds. No, make that three. No - four. (Already sounds like the premise for a horror story.)

1) I of course want my kids shielded from graphic or disturbing images.

2) I've already determined that that is hopeless. My 12-year-old sees stuff on TV at his friends' houses that I have no control over all the time.

3) I don't want the genre to be limited, or the artists' ability to produce commercially viable stuff threatened by some pollyannas.

4) But do I really want my work associated with, let alone equated with, stuff that's just imitation snuff-films? Is it really limiting people to say - not that they can't film scenes of rape, mutilation, or torture - but just that they can't ADVERTISE them EVERYWHERE? That seems a pretty basic control.

Making Fun of Writers

I've been successfully avoiding the time-sink of YouTube, but this was funny:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sD-9-PiY0gc

Another great review on Amazon!!!

By a Patrick Dorazio, who doesn't know me from Adam, but clearly is a man of discerning tastes, probing intellect, and rapier wit:

Jonah Caine is stuck in a living hell. The world has collapsed around him. Alone, he travels in the darkness of the world, the living dead his only company. He wanders and hopes for genuine companionship; someone to share in what little is left for humanity. He stumbles upon a group hiding out in a museum in a medium-small city. The group has staked their claim on their little part of the world and have lived, for a year, in relative safety. The group is lead by Jack, who was one of the military that fought against the living dead and helped discover this hideaway, and Milton, who has a special and unique gift, along with a tremendous desire to not only rebuild a better civilization but a passion for learning from humanities greatest weaknesses and strengths. This book, much more so than many other works in this genre, really explores the meanings behind both the good and evil embedded in humankind. Much like the novel "Every Sigh, The End" the author here desires to examine the human condition and does not assume that the living dead are the worst beings out there by a long shot. And how much can those who are "good" tolerate? How much do they want to not only survive, but to live? Don't let this staid description fool you, Kim does a bang up job keeping the action here moving along at a strong pace, with very few lulls. The story is told from Jonah's perspective, who was formerly a College English Professor, so his thoughts conjure up a great deal of references from a variety of literature sources and western civilizations rather vivid images of hell. I guess for me, this book was so entertaining because the author seems so intrigued at the meaning behind both the mind numbing destruction wrought by the living dead as well as the much more horrifying and unspeakable terror brought forth by our own human brethren and how God could allow such things to happen. While I like to read zombie stories to get a jolt of excitement and terror I also love these stories because to me zombies are so incredibly fascinating. Not just for what they are or what they represent, but what they seem to be able to elicit in their human counterparts who are trapped in the same dying and desperate world as they are-what do we all become everything around us is drenched in death and despair. I feel that Kim Paffenroth did an excellent job of examining the boundaries of humanity, both good and evil, and for that I highly recommend this book.

Thanks! I know it sounds crazy, but I don't know how else to say it: when I read a review like this, I realize that what I was trying to say was something that could actually be perceived and understood by another person! Until you see that reaction, you always worry that you're putting all these words down, and YOU know what you're trying to say (well, duh, of course you do!), but there's this nagging fear that someone else will just read it and go "Huh?! I don't get it!" I am so elated by this! I feel like I could take on the world!

Another Great Review for GOTLD!

And you get a bonus - a bang-up review of another Stoker Nominee, Ghost Road Blues, by my good pal Jonathan Maberry:

http://www.downwarden.com/Nick%20Reads%20&%20Reviewspage14.htm#Ghost_Road_Blues

Thanks, Nick!

WHC Final Programme

And wow, what a panel I'm on! I'm a little intimidated.


WEDNESDAY, March 28:

08:00pm – 11:00pm EARLY EARLY ARRIVALS PARTY

THURSDAY, March 29:

06:00pm – 07:00pm WORLD’S BIGGEST BOOKSTORE GoH SIGNING

07:00pm – 08:00pm TWILIGHT TALES LAUNCH

08:00pm – 09:00pm POETRY OPEN MIC

08:00pm – Midnight EARLY ARRIVALS PARTY

09:00pm – 10:00pm WHAT NOT TO DO: MANNERS AND TIPS FOR FIRST-TIME CONVENTION ATTENDEES

10:00pm – 11:00pm THE CARE AND FEEDING OF YOUR WEBSITE AND BLOG

11:00pm – Midnight WHAT EXACTLY IS HORROR?

FRIDAY, March 30:

09:30am – 10:00am OPENING CEREMONIES

10:00am – 11:00am FUTURE CHILLS: UPCOMING MOVIES AND NEW TV SHOWS

10:00am – 11:00am SIZE DOES MATTER: HOW TO SURVIVE AS A SMALL PRESS

11:00am – Noon HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION PRESENTS: AN HOUR WITH GAHAN WILSON

11:00am – Noon HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION PRESENTS: WHAT ARE AGENTS AND EDITORS LOOKING FOR, AND NEVER WANT TO SEE AGAIN?

Noon – 01:00pm GUEST OF HONOUR INTERVIEW: NANCY KILPATRICK

Noon – 01:00pm IN SPACE NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM: HORROR IN SF

01:00pm – 02:00pm Lunch Break

02:00pm – 03:00pm GUEST OF HONOUR INTERVIEW: PETER CROWTHER

02:00pm – 03:00pm SHORT SHRIFT: CAN YOU MAKE A LIVING WRITING SHORT FICTION?

03:00pm – 04:00pm BUILDING A BETTER MONSTER

03:00pm – 04:00pm HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION PRESENTS: WHAT DO NEW WRITERS DO NEXT?

04:00pm – 05:00pm WORLD HORROR CONVENTION 2007 GRAND MASTER: JOE R.LANSDALE

04:00pm – 05:00pm WRITING THE MODERN VAMPIRE STORY

05:00pm – 06:00pm BURNING EFFIGY PRESS/KELP QUEEN PRESS LAUNCH

05:30pm – 07:30pm PS PUBLISHING LAUNCH PARTY

08:00pm – 10:00pm MASS AUTOGRAPHING (Cash bar)

10:00pm – Closing WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION 2007 PARTY

11:00pm – Midnight WRITING HORROR IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

Midnight DARK ARTS BOOKS LAUNCH

SATURDAY, March 31:

10:00am – 11:00am WHAT DO YOU MEAN “EDIT”? HOW HARD CAN IT BE
TO PUT TOGETHER A “YEAR’S BEST” ANTHOLOGY?

10:00am – 11:00am HORROR/ROMANCE/CRIME/FANTASY CROSSOVERS: PUTTING THE SCARES INTO OTHER GENRES

11:00am – Noon MASTERS OF THE CRAFT

11:00am – Noon THE HISTORY OF CANADIAN HORROR

Noon – 01:00pm GUEST OF HONOUR INTERVIEW: MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

Noon – 01:00pm HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION PRESENTS: HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR AGENT IS DOING A GOOD JOB?

01:00pm – 02:00pm Lunch Break

01:00pm – 02:00pm WORLD’S BIGGEST BOOKSTORE SIGNING

02:00pm – 03:00pm GUEST OF HONOUR INTERVIEW: PETER ATKINS

02:00pm – 03:00pm THE MERRIL COLLECTION PRESENTS: FORGOTTEN AUTHORS

03:00pm – 04:00pm CINEMA MACABRE: WRITING HORROR FOR THE BIG SCREEN (AND OTHER MEDIA)

03:00pm – 04:00pm THE ART OF HORROR: PAINT VS. DIGITAL

04:00pm – 05:00pm GUEST OF HONOUR INTERVIEW: JOHN PICACIO

04:00pm – 05:00pm FEMME FATALES: WOMEN IN HORROR

05:00pm – 06:00pm READING/Q&A: BRIAN LUMLEY

05:00pm – 06:00pm WALKING DEAD VS. UNDEAD: ARE ZOMBIES THE NEW VAMPIRES?

Um – This one would be with moi! On a panel with Brian Keene and David Wellington! Wow. I seem to have arrived!

06:30pm – 07:30pm MEET THE ARTISTS RECEPTION

07:00pm – 09:00pm TWILIGHT TALES’ CRITIQUED OPEN MIC

07:30pm – 10:30pm HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION BRAM STOKER AWARDS BANQUET

Yep – I’m going to be here, too! Look for the handsome fellow – in that Bill Clinton, cherubic kind of way – dressed all in black.

10:00pm – 11:00pm CUTTING BLOCK PRESS LAUNCH

11:00pm – Closing TWILIGHT TALES’ “FLASH FICTION” CONTEST

11:00pm – Midnight THE MERRIL COLLECTION PRESENTS: COLLECTING HORROR LITERATURE

11:00pm – Closing WORLD HORROR CONVENTION 2008 PARTY

11:00pm – Closing HWA WINNERS AND LOSERS PARTY HWA

Midnight – Closing “GOD OF THE RAZOR” AUDIO PRESENTATION

SUNDAY, April 1:

10:00am – 11:00am QUEER FEAR: GAY HORROR

10:00am – 11:00am DON’T GIVE UP THE DAY JOB: THE CURRENT STATE OF HORROR
10:00am – Noon THE WORLD HORROR SOCIETY BOARD MEETING

11:00am – Noon GUEST OF HONOUR INTERVIEW: DON HUTCHISON

11:00am – Noon YOUNG BLOOD: NEW WRITERS TO LOOK OUT FOR

Noon – 01:30pm WHC CHARITY RAFFLE

02:00pm – 03:00pm WRITING ON THE EDGE

02:00pm – 03:00pm THE DIVERSITY OF HORROR: HOW TO REACH A WIDER AUDIENCE

03:00pm – 04:00pm WHAT’S NEXT? UPCOMING CONVENTIONS AND EVENTS

04:00pm – 04:30pm CLOSING CEREMONIES

05:00pm – 08:00pm DEAD DOG PARTY

AAR vs. WHC

The website with info on the upcoming annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion:

http://www.aarweb.org/annualmeet/2007/sandiego.asp

Yawn. I guess I could click on a link and see how I could have a tour to see Shamu and be chastised for how Judeo-Christian, phallo-centric hegemony has caused global environmental disaster. Yawn.

The website with info on the upcoming World Horror Convention:

http://www.smokinghotwaitress.com/toronto

Every day, I find more reasons to be glad I joined this new organization, if for nothing other than as a contrast and balance.

First Amazon Reviews Go Up! Both Sides of the Puddle!

Joe McKinney, author of Dead City, on Amazon.com:

Jonah Caine is alone in a world overrun by the living dead. He takes his meals where he can and sleeps with one eye open. The post-apocalyptic world around him seems devoid of meaning, his survival pointless. But then he wanders into the welcoming arms of an organized group of survivors who have turned a museum into a paramilitary compound. While there, he meets Jack, the compound's military manager, for lack of a better word, and Milton, a prophet, of sorts, with a certain influence in the world of the dead. While assimilating to the compound's culture, Jonah Caine falls into a war with another group of survivors, and the struggle defines a new moral landscape for this post-apocalyptic world. Paffenroth, the author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Vision of Hell on Earth, does several things very well in Dying to Live, his first novel. First of all, the action is wonderfully maintained. He continually escalates the dangers his characters face, which goes a long ways towards sustaining the reader's interest. Secondly, the details of his post-apocalyptic world are exceptionally well drawn. This is not an easy thing to do. Cormac McCarthy did it quite well in The Road. Stephen King did it equally well in The Gunslinger. Paffenroth's world is drawn on that level. Thirdly, this is one hell of an intelligent book. The writing is superb, and richly loaded with references as varied as the Bible, Paradise Lost, and American pop culture. Dying to Live is wonderful first novel. Check it out!

And Sarah Hapgood, over at Amazon.co.uk:

Jonah is cut adrift in the world, living by his wits, trying to avoid being attacked by the walking dead who have risen up to bite and infect the living. He has lost his family, and civilisation has crumbled around him. He makes his way to a ravaged city, and there is taken in by a community of survivors who have holed up in a large museum by the river. Of course all this sounds very familiar (zombie horror is usually great stuff, but there's a limit to how many variations on it you can do!), but the author makes this a cut-above by creating resourceful, well-rounded characters, and by not being afraid to show his own intelligence. In "Dying To Live" the main characters haven't lost touch with their humanity, even though they've witnessed horror beyond belief, such as Tanya, who had no choice but to wall up her own children in their bedroom when they became infected. Some of the relgious symbolism I could have done without (comparing Milton, the commune leader, to Jesus for example), but this doesn't detract from the story at all, and it's refreshingly differeent to have a post-apocalyptic story that gives hope for the human race. I would also have liked a bit more of how it all started though. Jonah was on a ship when the epidemic broke out, and they arrive at land to find the world has ended. (But perhaps this is a separate story, a sort of prequel, who knows?). All in all though, I'm always pleased to find an author who treats fans of zombie horror as if they've actually got some intelligence for once. Recommended.

Wow. And this before the "official" release date. I'm thrilled.

"The Most Complex Character Ever..."

I was with you up until that line, Kurt, but I hear ya:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20015465,00.html?cid=recirc-instyleRecirc

I want an Orgone Blaster!

Or was it an Orgasm Blaster? Maybe an Organ Blaster? Organism...? Oregano...? Now I'm all confused.

http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/strongholds.html

Anyway, clearly They Live! was a documentary and no one told me! Until now! I'm putting an extra layer of aluminum foil around my head before I go to bed now.

Back from IAFA

And what a great bunch of people. Met a lot of people I only knew on message boards and from emails. Had a fine panel on zombies. Learned about that "classic" Cannibal Holocaust. Can't wait for Toronto. Never got to the pool, but did get to two Fort Lauderdale beaches, and they were awfully nice - water was a little too cold at one, but at the other it was really comfy, and on the beach wasn't so hot, but a nice 80 degrees.

Here's a new zombie game. I haven't gotten the hang of it yet:
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/Zombie-Horde-3.html

Off to IAFA

That's the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts meeting in Fort Lauderdale. The two days should go something like -

Day 1: Shmooze, Listen, Shmooze, Eat, Shmooze, Listen, Talk, Shmooze, Eat, Pool, Drink, Sleep

Day 2: Beach, Eat, Beach, Pool, Eat, Shmooze, Drink, Sleep

Busy schedule. Wish me luck.

Rejection Letters (x2)! Double Ouch!

What more can you say? One was for my first attempt at flash fiction, so I had very low expectations. But the other was for a very nice novelette that I slaved over till every word was just where it needed to be. Well, don't worry, loyal fans! Both will one day be published, and in much better venues. This I swear! So it shall be!

But, I got home from the store with my frame, and the Finalist certificate looks AWESOME! Any of you who know me better than just as a presence in the blogosphere - stop by and see it!

Suitable for Framing

That's what my certificate from the Horror Writers Association is! It has a nice, big, black raven on it, and announces I'm a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement. I got a spot all picked out for it! I just need to find a frame today.

Great Description of Current Writing

People keep asking me, in my very limited capacity as a first-time editor of an anthology, what it's like reading all those submissions. This article captured it perfectly and explained to my newbie experience what was happening:

http://www.storysouth.com/fall2004/shortshorts.html

(The anthology I'm editing isn't flash fiction, but some of the stuff on MFA and mediocre writing rang totally true with my experience.)

300

Wow. That was only the most fascistic movie I've ever seen. (It edges out Starship Troopers, which is a fascistic movie I LOVE! But that movie does it all with a wink and a nod, and this has that overblown, Wagnerian seriousness that Miller can dole out like, well, like he's Wagner.) And I have a pretty high tolerance for any kind of political subtext in a movie, so long as the action is good and the heroes admirable and the villains nasty. But wow. I tried to keep saying to myself, "Well, maybe they didn't mean it that way... Maybe it's just harmless action..." But about 2/3 of the way into it, I was just cringing at most every new, blatantly offensive image (and I thought this was just going to be eye-candy, so I was seeing every such image SIX STORIES HIGH in IMAX). There's no one thing that is so outrageous you couldn't forgive it, but rather it's the slow accumulation that makes you cry "Enough!"

First, this is a story. So there are protagonists, and there are antagonists. Heroes and villains, more commonly. Let us start with the latter, as it is here where the imagery is the most overwhelming, when you take it in toto:

Politicians are evil. (Well, pretty forgivable, if pretty predictable theme. You couldn't show a double feature of movies where politicians are the heroes.)

Priests are evil. (Well, a little less common, but still pretty forgivable - if the movie were set in modern times! But when you factor in how wildly fanciful it is for the Spartan king to be talking like a combo of Voltaire, Martin Luther, and Karl Marx on how irrational and superstitious religion is, you see what a deliberate swipe this is at religion.)

Deformed people are evil. (This is just weirdness for visual effect. Forgivable in Disney animation for kids, as kids need visual cues for who are the bad guys, but it did seem pretty ridiculous here.)

Dark skinned people are evil. (That Persian empire, no matter how many times they keep reminding us that it's "All of Asia" has a hell of a lot of people in it who look African.) This one and the next are the ones that put it over the edge, I think, for sheer gratuitousness.

People of ambiguous gender and/or orientation are evil. I can't think what other message they're trying to send by casting Xerxes as 7-foot-tall, multiply-pierced man with glowing, smooth, clean shaven skin, and a resonating, throaty, female-impersonator voice, who keeps asking the Spartan king to kneel in front of him. I know, I know, I'm reading way too much into it. I do that so much.

Giant Jabba the Hutt / Lobster Men are evil. Um. Okay. I'm gonna have to give you this one.

Okay, maybe all those were accidents, or standard tropes, or just visual cues. So who are these "heroes"?

Pretty nice guys. They must be in the gym a lot. They don't like to wear shirts, even in the snow. Like red capes for some reason. They don't talk much. Mostly quip. Their roars are really cool, as are those of their non-human opponents. Oh, wait, I forgot: they're genetically selected, remorseless, raised-from-birth KILLING MACHINES. Yeah, I knew there was something I was forgetting. (Though, to be fair, compared to Miller's Sin City characters, these guys are pretty civilized. They don't torture or mutilate people, at least. Just decapitate them.)

"But come on, that's not their fault. That's how things were back then!" (you say)

Ok, then let's think about how things were back then, and how they weren't, and how warm and gaga we want to get over these buff dudes and their big, sharp swords. The king and queen must say "freedom" in every speech they give. The idea that ANYONE in the ancient world could mean "freedom" in the same way we mean it today is absurd. There was no sense of PERSONAL freedom in the ancient world, and on this the film is somewhat honest, in a brutal way: the first haunting and horrible shot of the film is of a mountain of Spartan babies' skulls, and it is a good encapsulation of what the 300 are fighting for. Their idea of "freedom" is the "freedom" for a mother to hand her child over to a city official for that child to be killed, if the city official deems it necessary. I'm willing to assume that what Xerxes had in mind for them was considerably worse, but let's not jump to the conclusion that these guys were "freedom fighters" in any way that we would recognize or approve.

"Oh, but come on, it looked SO COOL! Forget all this supposed political subtext!" (you say)

Did it? I must've missed that part. Even at six stories high, I have to admit to being unimpressed. I thought the alternation between slo-mo and real time was cool for about 5 minutes, like any new gimmick that's tried in filming action sequences. (Remember the Blind-Man-Cam from Daredevil? Looked pretty cool for the first fight, didn't it? For the rest of the movie - um, not so much. And really, the slow-fast-slow-fast effect here looked super hot in the oracle scene, which was early, so it was already getting threadbare by the time of the first battle.) The rhino, elephants, and grenades amounted to NOTHING. The guys in masks and the giant were probably the best fight, and even there, I thought the roaring was cooler than the actual clash - you got some sense of animal brutality, whereas the fight looked like a ballet with chocolate syrup flying across the screen. You know what I think has happened? LOTR set the bar so unbelievably high on pre-modern fight scenes, that if anyone ever tops it, you'll be able to tell they have when everyone in the theater is dead from heart failure.

So, Zack Snyder, I went out on a limb in my book, defending your Dawn of the Dead as an excellent zombie film, and dismissing the accusations that it was a reactionary, xenophobic fantasy. Several reviewers of my book even singled this out as a weakness of my analysis. And this is how you repay me?

Stoker Voting Ends Tomorrow

Thanks again to all my supporters, and good luck to all the nominees. I am proud to be on the same list with you all.

Now, as for some other people, my detractors, and especially Little Tommy Sipos - you've been served. I have much more vitriolic versions of that sentiment, but let's leave it at that.

Super Villain Quiz

Ooh, I'm Magneto, with Apocalypse and the Joker close in 2nd and 3rd. But of course, with that lineup of awesome badness, there's no wrong answer, is there?

http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/villain/

Neat Concept

I don't usually advertise for other people's publishing projects (much better to front for my own) but this one's quirky and interesting enough I thought I'd give it a post:

http://postcardtales.blogspot.com/

Newer High Score - Ankle Shots!

Here's the ticket on De-Animator. The skinny zombies (the one whose head pops off and the one whose ribs you can see through) can be taken down to the ground by shooting them in the ankle. Then it takes one more hit to take them out. This is far fewer than if you try to shoot them in the head and torso standing up. NEWEST HIGH SCORE (03/10/07) = 210.

New High Score!!

It's nothing like I used to do on BATTLE ZONE back in the day (played it till my eyes bled), but I got 116 on De-Animator:

http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu/~lee/deanimator.html

I wish I had some secret (and probably if I ever do, the score will hit 4 digits), but all I do is shoot and reload as fast as I can. My only regular visitors who seem to be hooked on this are from Burbank and Denver, so go to it men. Let's see what you can do.

Black Sheep

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/blacksheep/trailer/

Wow, that plays it as close to serious as you could. Until the shot with the "mint sauce" and "You wouldn't understand," I really thought it was meant as a horror flick. Then I started laughing till I hurled.

WHC 2008

The main guests of honor have been announced for NEXT year's World Horror Convention:

http://www.whc2008.org/

Sorry, loyal fans, but your humble Doctor of the Living Dead hasn't made the Big Dance card (yet). He should, however, be attending, maybe in some other "official" capacity. Plenty of time for World Domination. It works better when you kind of sneak up on 'em.

Cover Art for History Is Dead

I remember in 1997 when someone told me, "Man, you've got to hear this Ripper Owens sing Diamonds and Rust! It's wicked sick! He's sick as a dog, man!" Well, this cover is definitely sick like that. Oh, and sick the other way, too.

http://permutedpress.com/smf/index.php?topic=434.0

Satire So Subtle

I'd be curious how long it takes those who don't frequent horror-related message boards to catch on, since even those who do frequent such places have to look twice before we blow coffee out our noses at the satire. To be fair, I think it's more like The Onion than anything else.

http://upfromtheunderground.com/index.php

Horrorfind This Weekend - Some Class Acts

Just got back from the Horrorfind Weekend in Baltimore. Small display, especially for the vendors' room. But the autograph room had a good assortment. Friday the 13th and Hellraiser fans must've been happy. And the two celebrities I wanted to see were really class acts. I mean it. Ken Foree was a very soft-spoken gentleman who actually took an interest in my book on Romero's zombies, and when I gave him a copy, he waved away all payment for his autograph. Now that's a nice guy, I think. I'm sure dealing with fan boys all day can make you pretty disinterested and immune, so I was very impressed with his demeanor. And Adrienne Barbeau had an even harder time of it, I'm sure, and she was just as patient and generous. The guy in line ahead of me had some breathing disorder that necessitated him taking a long, wheezing gasp after each syllable, so you can imagine how hard it was to listen to him tell her how great she is, but she sat through it without betraying the slightest annoyance or impatience. That's classy. I hope everybody had a great time. Oh, and I laughed as I checked out: the hotel had posted little notes on the check-in desk, telling their patrons that they were sorry, but there was a horror convention there this weekend, and they should not be scared by anything they see, everything's under control.