Popgun Snowtopia

It all started with a signing. I’ll be the asshole sitting on the back of his chair.

(In order L-R: Vito Delsante, Elizabeth Purvis, Adam Knave, Frank Stockton, Jeff Powell, Joe Flood, me, Maximo Lorenzo, Jason Ibarra)

The southern New York area got pissed on the Tuesday before the signing: sleet, snow, freezing rain, regular rain. Basically, anything the sky could throw at us that was (mostly) seasonally appropriate. As such, I wasn’t sure a lot of people would make it to the signing. Sure, NYC is hearty (and, in this case, managed to escape with less damage than we did further north) but who likes coming out when the world is a mess of grey/black sludge? When the signing started, it seemed that everyone had rushed to their shelters, giving nary a thought to the stalwart group of Popgun Volume 4 contributors desperately awaiting their love at Jim Hanley’s Universe.

We laughed and joked, we heckled the one or two people who were there at the onset (shit, I even signed a guy’s Spider-Man comics for fun. Confession: Never worked on a Spider-Man book, still waiting for Marvel to call. The guy didn’t care though, so I signed happily). Then, after about 45-minutes, it seemed as though floodgates opened.

There was a line-up of people and we were moving books down the table like a well-oiled assembly line. To those watching closely, it was weirdly reminiscent of an old New York sweatshop. When the dust settled and we looked around us, tended our wounded and mourned those lost, we all realized something:

We sold out of books.

The event was a huge success and, honestly, even if we’d sold one book I still would’ve had a blast hanging out with new and old friends like Vito, Adam, and Maximo. To everyone who made it out, thanks for coming. To those who couldn’t, it’s cool, we’re still friends. I mean, you DID pick up a copy of the book, right?

In other news, this is what it looks like outside the house right now:

Snowtopia

Remember I said that the Tuesday before the signing was a bit of a mess? Well it was nothing compared to the day(s) after.

All told, at present we’ve had between 16″ and 18″ of heavy snow come crashing down on us. It’s still flurrying just a bit, but the majority of the excitement is over. After all, how many more trees can come crashing down across our street?

None Shall Pass

Yeah, that puppy’s blocking one end of the street. Luckily, when it came down it just missed our neighbor’s cars and, even though it knocked down a couple of telephone cables, managed not to disconnect any.

The other end of the street?

Yep, those are power lines

What this picture doesn’t show is the fact that, after 1am last night when the tree came down, no plows were able to pass through. Between being unable to pass and those low-hanging power lines (zap!), they would be completely stuck after a certain point. The one unfortunate sucker who happened across the tree had to back his plow allllllll the way back down the hilly, icy, barely-wide-enough-for-one-normal-car road. Did I mention the precariously parked cars on the side of the road? As such, both ends of the street are, for all intents and purposes, impassable.

But hey, what’s wrong with being shut in with the family for a while, right? I mean, I’ve got plenty of work to do, plus we’ve got movies to watch and LOST to catch up on (we’re starting from the beginning, since Jackie’s never seen it and I haven’t watched since the start of Season 3. We’ve already cleared Season 1). Even now, there’s certainly at LEAST one or two other things I should be focusing on. I’ve got a pitch brewing (and, therefore, an artist to find) and a screenplay (yar, that’s right) that begs for development.

But we’re going to be stuck here for awhile, no way out to the main roads, and we can’t let it, can’t can’t let it get us. You hear it, don’t you? The skittering in the walls and the scratching at the window?   Maybe I’ve been down here for too long.  I think I hear LOST firing up.

All work and no play…

Right?