Peter David and FHM

Cosolidation of blog entries can lead to odd titles sometimes.

Anyway, just got back from the PAD MoCCA event. It was a pretty good time, as, like I've said somewhere, David is a great public speaker. He held forth on various portions of his career (the man apparently once wrote awful fanfic, which makes me feel a bit better about myself), on certain comics and writing issues (including a fairly on the nose assessment of certain recent comics events, and the not-too-startling revelation that Marvel and DC editorial don't deserve nearly as much of the evil overlord credit they get online), and utterly random topics (such as what happened the year a convention center in Atlanta booked a group of fantasy enthusiasts and the Christian Coalition on the same weekend). At the end of the event, I introduced myself as the guy who wrote that thing a week ago, and it didn't go nearly as spectacularly awful as I thought it would. Always nice when I don't make an utter ass of myself in front of one of my idols.

On the other topic: Got my new issue of FHM in the mail today. One of their regular features is "What's Wrong With FHM," in which they basically pay readers to play the part of the corrections department. A month or two ago, they incorrectly identified Hellblazer 1 as the comics debut of John Constantine (which, to be fair, was a perfectly logical assumption for them to make). I emailed them about it, and gave the correct issue (Saga of the Swamp Thing 37). Well, they printed it, and therefore I should be getting a $20 check from them at some point, which will be nice. It's not exactly my first professional publication, but hey, it's a start. They did, however, like everyone who's ever been responsible for reproducing my name in print, spell it wrong. (I put two N's on the end of my last name, but thanks to a certain B-list actor whose work I nevertheless respect, everybody spells it with just one. When I die, I'm going to be cremated specifically so some jackass engraver doesn't screw up the job on my headstone after it's too late for me to do anything about it.) It just crossed my mind that this is probably going to lead to the utterly disturbing scenario of my mother buying an issue of FHM. Shudder.

The dual con reports will stay up because (a) they contain different bits of information I'm too lazy to copy and paste from one to the other, (b) they provide an insight into my revision process (such as it is), and (c) it's hardly my fault that Blogger's been acting like a little bitch the last two days.