DragonCon Line-Up
In which we set out our wares in Atlanta and talk about stuff.
As this edition of the newsletter drops we, and around 80,000 of our closest geek friends, will be one hour into the first day of DragonCon, the massive annual pop-culture and media convention that takes over downtown Atlanta every Labor Day weekend.
Those who might be attending this amazing geek-fest will be able to find us at Table 432 in the Comic & Pop Artists Alley on Floor 4 of the AmericasMart Building.
If you prefer to catch up with me while chatting about various topics you can find me at the following panels throughout the weekend:
Friday 10:00 am - Crossing the Pond: Travel to the UK - Galleria 5 Hilton
Friday 2:30 pm - Comics & Rock Music - 204J Mart2
Friday 5:30 pm - James Bond's Golden Anniversary - Galleria 5 Hilton
Saturday 4:00 pm - Classic Doctor Who - Galleria 5 Hilton
Sunday 5:30 pm - Brit Pop - 60th Anniversary of the Beatles Invasion - Galleria 5 Hilton
I hope to see some of you there.
Next week we will be heading to Austin for another favorite convention, ArmadilloCon where this year I’ll also be helping out at the pre-con Writers’ Workshop.
At the time of writing, I’m also scheduled to be on panels covering:
Stories on the High Seas.
Multimedia and Non-Traditional Storytelling Models.
Where Do Ideas Come From?
Telling Stories for Corporations and Public Agencies.
Marketing.
Plus a signing and reading session.
So notes from both will possibly have to wait a while, but I'll get to them as soon as I can.
Alan
Other Stuff
You have subscribed, haven’t you?
Each week when I sit down to put one of these newsletters together I’m always grateful to my subscribers. If you aren’t a member of that wonderful group of folks yet, then click the button below and join our growing community of readers and commentators to get these missives delivered directly to your email inbox every Friday.
Word Slinging
This past weekend Gill and I attended the latest monthly get-together of the Maryland Writers Association. The focus this time around was on self-publishing tips. We both took a lot of notes during a very informative session. It’s been around twenty years since I last self-published the Before They Were Beatles book and the market has changed considerably since then, so it was good to get the latest information.
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2024 - “Caesar Versus Pompey” by Stephen Dando-Collins
The subtitle of this volume teases that it will determine who was Rome’s greatest general, statesman, and nation-builder by comparing the lives and accomplishments of two of its most celebrated and contemporaneous over-achievers, Julius Caesar and Pompey The Great.
The dual biographies are well balanced with both getting equal weight and detail. Their achievements, faults, and contentious relationships are all fairly examined and analyzed.
For those interested in the transition from the Roman Republic to an Imperial power this is an informative read that balances the views and influence of one man who wanted to preserve the republic and one who wanted to seize control of it.
But it falls short of its promised conclusion for the answer to which was the greatest general, statesman, and nation builder appears to be - it depends on which question you ask.
Our online bookstore at Bookshop.org is fully up to date with the books read so far in 2024, so you can pick up copies of any that interest you, while also helping out local independent bookstores .
Weekly Web Round-Up
Batman On The Cover - The journey through Batman’s comics publishing history continues over the week with comics as we move into June 1969 with new issues of Detective Comics, Batman, Brave & The Bold, Justice League of America, and World’s Finest.
The one that caught my attention from this batch was Brave & The Bold #84. As with any of the Batman / Sgt. Rock team-ups the cover prompted the question, how is Batman in a World War 2 story?
Where on the Web is Alan?
You can now find links to all the places you can find me online, websites, newsletters, social media, and more in a single LINKS page on my personal website.
As always, thanks for joining me this week. If you know someone else who might enjoy the contents of this week’s newsletter, or just my weekly ramblings in general - please feel free to share by clicking the button below.
See you next time
Alan J. Porter
The Can’t See The Forest (TM) newsletter is a production of Megrin Entertainment, a division of 4Js Group LLC