While at JAFAX a few weeks ago, my friend, Eric Anderson of Nerd Chapel, and I took a few minutes for me to read one of my entries in our Christian devotional for geeks and nerds, 42: Discoverintg Faith through Fandom.
Tag Archives: Eric Anderson
“But I Digress…” Returns–for Gen-Con 2021!
After the longest of hiatuses, my old YouTube show returns as a live show/YouTube shorts series! I relaunched it for Gen-Con 2021, doing daily recap streams with my friend and co-author Eric Anderson, the founder of Nerd Chapel, discussing what we did at the convention and how our book sales went each day. Check out the playlist below!
My Upcoming Book Signings (as of 9-15-19)
I will be tabling at a small convention, and I have applied to table at another local author event. Both will be in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The first will be Fantasticon Fort Wayne, which is being held September 21-22, 2019. Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel and my co-author on the 42 books, will also be there, but we’re not tabling together. The con announced that they would be selling five heavily-discounted tables last week, so I jumped at the opportunity. I wasn’t sure I’d snag a table, but I got lucky (or was “blessed,” if you’re the religious type). I’ll be selling and signing my books (although Eric will be selling the 42, so get them from him) and promoting my upcoming podcast The Monster Island Film Vault, which is launching September 25.
According to the convention’s website,
Fantasticon is a mid-size show created for true comic book and pop culture collectors and fans. The fans that come to our shows are true collectors that are looking for those rare items for their personal collections. Most leave very satisfied as we pride ourselves on having great dealers and artists at our shows. If you collect it, you will find it at a Fantasticon Show.
Fantasticon is proud to have a presence in multiple cities throughout the mid-west. Currently we are in five different cities, in three different states including Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.
We also, are very proud of the fact that our admission price is the lowest of any other comparable shows. And the cost for being an exhibitor or artist at the Fantasticon is far less than any comparable comic cons out there.
While I haven’t received a confirmation yet, I have applied to table to table at the annual Local Author Book Fair, which will be held November 30, 2019, from 10am-4pm at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library. Find out more info here on ACPL’s blog.
Be there or be square!
Gen Con 2019 Post-Mortem
Another Gen Con has come and gone. As usual, it’s a working vacation for me, but it’s also the biggest show I do every year. I haven’t heard attendance numbers yet, but I’m sure it’s comparable to the years with 60,000 attendees.
Calling it a “working vacation” was more accurate than ever this year. Due to some last-minute financial setbacks, I didn’t have much spending money, so I couldn’t make it to many events or buy new games. Couple that with the fact that I wouldn’t leave my table for more than an hour at a time from 10am-6pm most days, and I spent most of my time in the dealer hall. My friend and co-author Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel, would slip away and play some games throughout the day. In other words, I did all the work, and he had all the fun. (Just kidding, Eric!)
I wasn’t able to get to Indianapolis (or “Indy,” as we Hoosiers call it) until late Wednesday night, which did throw a monkey wrench into the weekend, but that’s what happens when you have other commitments right up to the convention. I stayed at the Sheraton with Eric and his friend Matt Gort (and yes, he has cosplayed the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still), which was a 10-15 minute walk from the Indiana Convention Center. I went to the ICC to get my event tickets, but even at 11:30pm, the line went on forever. So, I decided to wait until the next day.
I scrambled to get into the dealer hall to set up in Authors Avenue before 9am when I thought the VIGs (Very Important Gamers) would come in before everyone else like in years past, but that didn’t happen. There was no early access; everyone came in at 10am. I realized I could’ve gotten my tickets then. That would’ve been nice to know. I’m pretty sure I was told this was still happening this year. Oh well.
I spent the whole day in the dealer hall since I was unable to get my event tickets. I joke every year that I need a “booth babe,” but Eric cosplaying as a bearded Waldo might been even better. While financial setbacks left me with little spending money for the show, I did wander into the play test hall and tried Horrified, a new cooperative board game themed around the Universal Horror Monsters. My fellow players and I managed to defeat Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The day ended with what became my nightly routine with Eric: playing the amazing game Unmatched, which saw an early release at Gen Con. It’s the glorious lovechild of Heroscape and Star Wars: Epic Duels, two of our favorite games.
Friday was much the same as Thursday, although I was able to slip away for one writing seminar at the Writers Symposium. Eric and I both did Star Trek cosplays, with me as Capt. Kirk and him as Cmd. Riker. That evening Eric and I had dinner with a guy (whose name escapes me now, sorry!) who was curious about Nerd Chapel and our work. I (and eventually Eric) then spent the evening at the Love Thy Nerd meet-up, where I played Dice Throne Adventures. I was a barbarian, so I made sure to crush my enemies and see them driven before me. 😛
Speaking of Star Trek, I met Chris Spurgin from Five Year Mission, who gave me a free copy of their latest album for recognizing him. Score!
Saturday was all work. I wanted to go to one writing seminar, but I was too busy in the hall. I expected as much. It’s usually the busiest day. Afterward, me and Eric’s friend Darrin joined us at the InnRoads Ministry meet-up. There was food (including homemade pretzel bites that were my crack for the evening), fellowship, prizes, and of course, games. I learned about a spiritual warfare-themed dungeon crawl fantasy game called Deliverance, where players take on the roles of angels fighting demons in a church. However, we spent our time playing Unmatched and showing it to InnRoads’ leader, Michael. The evening was capped with Darrin, Eric, and I returning to the Sheraton for one more game of Unmatched. (By the way, I won every Unmatched game I played and Eric lost all of his. I felt bad).
Sunday began with the Christian Gamers Guild’s worship service, which is always a highlight of the weekend. It’s not often I’m in a room full of fellow Christian nerds worshipping God. I was then in the dealer hall from 10am-4pm. Eric and Gort left early, so I alone was left to tear down and return everything to my car (which was in the cheapest parking garage I could find). The shelving I brought was too cumbersome, so a pair of Good Samaritans from Texas named Jim and Kathy helped me get everything there. I never would’ve made it myself. I gave them free books as a thank you, although Kathy had to insist that they take them.
Wanting a little downtime before the two-hour drive back to Fort Wayne, I met up with Darrin, his wife Michelle, and one of their friends. We tried to find a meet-up but were unable to find them, so we set up in the lobby and played “Trogdor the Board Game!!” As a fan of the Homestar Runner website, I loved it. I’m happy to say we won—everything was burninated!
With that, I drove home.
It wasn’t the best year of the con (my fellow authors and I have some things we want to discuss with the managers of Authors Avenue), but it was still a good time.
To see more photos and such from Gen Con, check out the Twitter pages for myself and my upcoming podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault.
Did you go to Gen Con this year? What did you see/do/play? What’s your assessment of this year’s show?
Family in the Endgame
Guest Writer: Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel
This weekend Avengers: Endgame is re-releasing in theaters. I have teamed up with Scott Bayles and Nathan Marchand to provide content on each other’s sites inspired by the great film. Spoilers!
When we first met Tony Stark (Iron Man), he was a businessman who liked fast cars and lived for himself. Now as we enter the theater for one last big hurrah, and a huge one it was, all we knew is that he is stuck on a planet far away. We knew from trailers he seems to be stranded in space, and that is how we find him at the beginning of Avengers: Endgame. In deep space, he has no hope to give.
Captain Marvel finds Nebula and Tony on the last bit of oxygen and food they had left. Stark has even passed out and could barely look up to see her as she came to assist. His morale, like all of them, was so low, it wasn’t even reachable. They had lost and half the universe was disintegrated by the Mad Titan.
He is essentially carried home to Earth and painfully steps out of the ship dehydrated and barely able to stand. We soon learn how angry he is about everything. This was the man who had risked a one-way trip during the invasion in New York during The Avengers to save the Big Apple and stop an invasion; who tried to build “a suit of armor around the world” in Age of Ultron; who implored Captain America to stay on his side during Civil War. Now, it was time for, “I told you so.” Captain America had left him and wasn’t there to fall with him, even though he did protect Earth while Tony was away helping Dr. Strange. Tony is angry about the separation, but he’s also beaten and almost out of health points. Tony doesn’t even go with the team to face Thanos when they find out where he is. Dr. Strange had given up everything to save him, but when they first go to take the battle to Thanos, he is passed out in a hospital bed.
After finding out that Thanos has destroyed the Infinity Stones, they all come back cope with defeat and loss. Each one in his own way. For Tony, it means starting a family. He and Pepper get a house on a lake and begin raising a little girl named Morgan. Their form of coping is through family and solitude.
Family is an important theme in Scripture right from the beginning. Genesis tells us that Adam does not have a suitable “helpmate,” and so God creates a wife for him. God then tells them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 2). As we continue reading, we find that many Bible heroes had families. Abraham had two sons, one of whom was born miraculously in Abraham’s old age. This same Abraham rescued his nephew Lot after he and many others were captured. David had many children. Unfortunately, he did not always make good choices, and so not all of them made good choices, either. Gideon had over 70 children and multiple wives.
We are not meant to live alone in isolation. Not all of us need to have five kids, but we should all have family of some form. Family can sit with us even without the words we need and still comfort us. They know what food will calm us down and how to make us laugh. On the flip side, we can fill those same voids for them on their rough days.
The other way Tony copes after all of this is solitude. In Psalm 46:10, we are commanded to “be still and know that I am God.” This means ignoring the five thousand needs to step away and pray. Jesus Himself stepped away and prayed in lonely places on many occasions. He sought a refueling from His Father in isolation. Again, family and solitude together.
Finally, Tony’s solitude is interrupted by Steve, Natasha, and Scott with a wild idea. Tony blows it off at first, but it lingers. They go back to experiment without him, but he does his own research. Now, in much better health, he reluctantly rejoins the fight. They use Scott’s 12 percent of a plan and, with some more input for the plan, they get the Stones. While Bruce Banner is the one to bring everyone back, in the end Tony pays the high price of his life and a snap to stop Thanos once and for all. The man who started this journey 22 films and 10 years ago as a self-absorbed party animal gives his life to save the world. All he needed was to see the great needs around him and take a break from it with solitude and family before sacrificing himself to save this planet. It didn’t need “a suit of armor around the world,” but we did need an armored knight to accept the winning blow for the world. Nothing is more Christ-like than that.
My Life: The Reboot
It’s been a crazy few weeks. I’ve had two book signings. My website was shut down to transfer it to a new host (thanks, Nick! [My apologies if his site is still being transferred]). Sadly, I did lose the short blog I wrote at Gen-Con, but all it said was that I was at the convention, wouldn’t be writing a blog, and that you all should come see me at my table.
As for other changes, I gave one day job a letter of resignation. I start grad school at a local university next week, as well as working as a graduate teaching assistant and writing center consultant for said university. I’m moving to be closer to the school. And these are just the changes I can talk about right now.
It’s…overwhelming at times.
My pastor told me Sunday that this isn’t so much starting a new chapter as it is opening a new volume. I said it might be more apt to call it a “reboot.” And why not? Reboots are all the rage in Hollywood right now. Most of them suck (I’m looking at you, Ghostbusters 2016), but then you have that handful that are amazing (like Batman Begins). Perhaps it’s more of a “soft reboot” like the 2009 Star Trek: it’s starting fresh, but it wouldn’t have happened if not for the events of the previous movies/series. I’m embarking on a new adventure where most everything is different, but there were many things in my life that led to this point.
But with change comes grief.
A coworker (at a business named Reboot, ironically), who also works as a pro-bono pastor, told me that grief is more about change than it is loss. Even positive change requires losing something, whether that be singleness for marriage or freedom for parenthood, among other things. I’m going to miss where I was because it was comfortable and predictable. I was used to it. It was safe. But where’s the adventure in safety?
A lot of things, both good and bad, related to my past have fallen away. I had to get a new car six months ago after an accident. My writing mentor retired in disgrace. That’s a few I can name. I still have plenty of constants (my friends, my family), but everything is changing.
Perhaps it’s appropriate then that Eric Anderson and I are working on a sequel to 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom, and its central theme is how God changes things. I’ll be writing from experience.
What are some big changes you’ve navigated? How did you go about it? What did you have to “grieve” in the process?
Upcoming Book Signings for 2017
Hello, True Believers! It’s October, and the nip in the air signals the oncoming end of 2017. But it also signals Halloween and the holiday season. This is one of my favorite times of the year.
My book signings have been a bit sparser this year, but I do have two more coming up in the next few months. One I’ve been committed to for several months and another that I just applied for. Here’s all the pertinent info.
Fantasticon Fort Wayne, Oct. 28-29
I’m returning to my new “hometown” comic-con! Once again, I’ll be joined by my co-authors/collaborators Nick Hayden and Eric Anderson. Nick and I will hopefully have copies of our new book, Zorsam and the God Who Devours, which we co-wrote with Aaron Brosman, available for purchase. The guest list will include several actors from The Walking Dead, a few comic book artists, and a replica of the Optimus Prime truck from the Transformers movies (if you can call that a “guest.”
The venue will be the Grand Wayne Center in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. Admission is cheap, so don’t miss it!
According to the show’s website:
Fantasticon is a mid-size show created for true comic book and pop culture collectors and fans. The fans that come to our shows are true collectors that are looking for those rare items for their personal collections. Most leave very satisfied as we pride ourselves on having great dealers and artists at our shows. If you collect it, you will find it at a Fantasticon Show.
It’ll be a great way to your Halloween weekend!
Seventh Annual Allen County Public Library Author Fair, Nov. 11
Another returning favorite. I’ll be one of 70 local authors attending this event at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. There will also be author-led panel discussions (fingers crossed that I get in one) on various subjects. Best of all, admission is free!
You can learn more about the event and the library here.
See you around, True Believers!
Weekend Report: Michigan Statewide Youth Convention
My friend/co-author Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel, tabled at a convention last weekend, though it wasn’t a comic-con. No, it was the Michigan Statewide Youth Convention in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Eric got a table there to promote Nerd Chapel, part of which was selling our devotional, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom. He asked to attend to help him out. I was only able to make it Saturday (the event ran from Friday to Sunday), but Saturday was when most of the action happened.
It took me a little longer than I expected to arrive (closer to two hours instead of 90 minutes), but that gave me extra time to listen to the audiobook of That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, which I’d been meaning to read for a while. I arrived at the Radisson Hotel in downtown, and after fighting with way too many one-way streets (and I thought downtown Fort Wayne had too many), I barely stepped out of my car before an older black woman came up to me begging me to give her money for gas so she could get back to Gary, Indiana, going on about loving Jesus and thanking Him like a southern Baptist. Against my better judgment, I gave her some money. She said she’d pay me back through the mail the following Monday, so I wrote my address on one of my bookmarks and gave it to her. Honestly, I feel like I got suckered. I’m going soft.
Anyway, I walked inside and connected with Eric. Since it was lunchtime, we explored the area looking for a place to eat. We had a short time because he was holding a session at 2pm about using your passions missionally. We tried Subway, but the line was too long. Then we walked a few blocks to a local McDonald’s.
I watched the table for a bit while Eric was downstairs for the session. He asked me to join him a little later because he wanted me to talk a bit about the work I’d done as a Christian in the publishing industry. I mostly stood to the side while Eric did most of the talking, which is a switch for us, usually. I spoke about meeting a young would-be writer at Gen-Con a few years ago at my table and talking with him for almost 45 minutes. Then a bit later he gave me the floor to talk about working in the publishing industry. Eric closed the session with a Q&A. First, he asked if anyone had any serious questions, of which there were few, and then he opened it up to “nerd” questions, of which there were many. A few students even specifically asked me questions about writing. I spent a half-hour talking with several students about comics, Star Wars, and anime afterward.
The rest of the afternoon was relatively quiet. I spoke with some of the people from the other ministries around us. Eric and I had dinner at the fancy bar and grill in the hotel (courtesy of the convention). When the main session was about to start at 7pm, lots of students and youth leaders came to us wanting to learn more about Nerd Chapel or buy books. They said they loved what we were doing and that they’d never heard of ministries like this. Eric and I were encouraged to hear that.
It was once again quiet during the main session. Eric ran lights during it, while I stayed outside the auditorium to watch the table and do some writing. Then for about 30 minutes afterward at 9pm, I was talking with people and selling books. I even met a teenage girl who was once part of a nerd ministry/club/Facebook group with us. She had pink hair to boot.
With that, I joined Eric downstairs in the game room where teens could play video games—include Nintendo 64(!)—and board games. I brought my copies of Star Wars: Epic Duels and Sentinels of the Multiverse. As you’d expect, Epic Duels was a big hit. I played with several teen boys who’d seen me earlier in the day at Eric’s session. We geeked out and had a great time. One of their mothers watched for a few minutes, knowing her son would probably want the game. He did. I told him, “Good luck. The game usually sells for a hundred dollars now.” He seemed determined, though.
I departed for home after that.
All in all, it was a good weekend. Eric and I sold many books and made ourselves known to more people.
Here’s Eric’s blog about the weekend.
This weekend I attend Hall of Heroes Comic-Con in Elkhart, Indiana, though not as a vendor.
My (Overdue) Alma-Con Report
I’m getting into a bad habit of not blogging in a timely fashion. Or on time. My friend/co-author Eric Anderson definitely kicked my butt on this one since he blogged about it two weeks ago! Hence why you’re getting this and another blog today.
Anyway, Eric asked me to join him at Alma-Con, a small but growing anime/fandom convention held at Alma College in Alma, Michigan (seeing a pattern here?) 😛 He purchased a table to promote his nerd/geek outreach ministry, Nerd Chapel, but he was selling copies of our devotional book, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom, so he wanted me present. He’d asked me to attend other cons with him, but I wasn’t able to make it, so this was exciting.
What follows will be similar to write Eric wrote about, but we did have some different experiences.
I arrived an hour or so after the con began. The vendors’ hall—at least the one we were in—was only open for a few more hours. Not much happened while I was there except we met a panelist (whose name escapes me) who saw the title of our book and said, “That sounds like something Vic would say.”
Quoting Korath from Guardians of the Galaxy, I said, “Who?”
He explained he was friends with Vic Mignogna, a popular anime voice actor (among other things). I was surprised to (re)learn that Vic was a Christian and went to panels to discuss faith in anime. This gentleman, Eric and I learned, was a practitioner of sect of Buddhism strangely similar to Christianity. He shared his story of how he came to this faith. He said he’d come back later to talk with us, but sadly, he never came. (If you’re reading this, please contact Eric and/or I!)
Saturday was the long day. Eric and I cosplayed. He was Martian Manhunter and I was Superman. I enjoyed wearing the costume because I’ve gotten into better shape since the last time I wore it, and given that it’s, well, spandex, I was glad for that. The most interesting stories that came from that day was meeting a young man who was a member of the “Church of Satan,” yet they didn’t worship Satan or even believe he existed, which was interesting. While Eric was gone, though, a belligerent cosplayer dressed as some blue-haired anime mad scientist (or something) came over and proceeded to insult me and denigrate Christianity while in character. I wasn’t sure what to think of it, so I just ran with it and smiled.
Two Alma College students were kind enough to give Eric and I their lunches from their meal plans, so we got some food from the college diner, Joe’s.
I, too, wandered around. It was then I learned one of my few gripes with the con: the buildings it was held in were too far apart. It was a Michigan winter, so obviously it was cold, and tights provide little protection against such weather. I did go check out the other artists and vendors, and as usual, I had to refrain from buying a bunch of stuff (including a book self-publishing comic books). I did purchase a replica of the fob watch used by David Tenant in two episodes of Doctor Who, though. It went great with my cosplay.
Speaking of which, once the vendor hall closed for the day, I changed into my 10th Doctor cosplay. Eric and I got dinner at Joe’s, where we met a fellow Whovian/cosplayer.
We then went to see MacSith, a play performed by a traveling theatre troupe from Chicago. It is Shakespeare’s MacBeth if it took place in the Star Wars universe. It. Was. FANTASTIC! It combined two of my favorite things—Shakespeare and Star Wars—in a seamless and wonderful fashion. Thankfully, I don’t have to describe it all to you since, unlike most theatre, they allowed (non-flash) photography and video to be taken. The costumes, the fight choreography, the little Star Wars flavoring to the original dialogue—it was amazing.
Here’s a taste of the awesomeness that was #MacSith at #AlmaCon2016. pic.twitter.com/aOOnRMjFcE
— Nathan Marchand (@NathanMarchand7) February 7, 2016
Sadly, I couldn’t say the same for the next event Eric and I attended. It was billed as a “masquerade ball.” Since we’ve had ballroom dance training, we were interested in going to this unlike the rave that was held the night before. The con program even said there was a dress code, and the organizers reserved the right to turn people away if they didn’t abide by it (hence my 10th Doctor cosplay). But when we arrived, this “ball” was essentially a rave with fancier clothes and no glow sticks. Seriously. The attendees broke off into a few cliques like this was a school cafeteria and gyrate to the music…sometimes. The liveliest they got was during a line dance I didn’t know. I asked the DJs to play “Tank!” by the Seatbelts, which is the theme song to Cowboy Bebop, since the Pokemon theme song was played earlier—and almost nobody got excited! “Haven’t they seen this show?” I wondered. The kicker, though, was every girl Eric and I asked to dance either didn’t know how or flat-out turned us down. The best I could get was doing a line dance when “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show played, and even then people didn’t seem that excited and even fewer knew the line dance, so I wasn’t able to learn it. Eric and I left after an hour.
Seriously, Alma-Con. If you say it’s a “masquerade ball,” make it a masquerade ball! You have a swing dance group on campus: try appealing to them a bit better to run this event.
::steps down from soapbox::
The next day was gonna feature our big event: the Nerd Chapel worship service…
…and nobody came. L
So Eric and I shared communion and I recorded his sermon (which, come to think of it, I need to send to him to post online…).
I left soon afterward so I could return in time to go to work that evening.
All in all, not a bad weekend.
Alma-Con and My New Writing Regimen
First, I want to announce that I plan, schedule permitting, to attend Alma-Con in Alma, Michigan, February 5-7. My friend/co-author Eric Anderson will be running a table for his ministry Nerd Chapel in the vendor’s hall, where he will also be selling our devotional, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom. I’ll be there helping him with his table and a worship service he plans to have that Sunday. Feel free to come see us.
Now on to the main thrust of this blog.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I need to manage my writing time better, especially when I keep getting projects thrown at me and/or I bite off more than I can chew. So, in light of this, I wanted to share with you what I think should be a reasonable amount of material you can expect from me. It may take me a bit of time to get used to this new schedule, so don’t expect me to get into the rhythm immediately. I also reserve the right to change my output at any time.
Regardless, here it is:
-one (maybe two) articles a week for Examiner.
-at least two articles a month for GigaGeek Magazine.
-one (maybe two) blogs a week on my website.
-one “But I Digress…” video a month (with intermittent “Digression” videos as they come to me).
These are the things I want to do with regularity. I’m seeking other freelance opportunities while also writing books, among other things.
Did I mention I’m crazy?