Pat,
I had to miss San Diego ComicCon this year. It’s my first one I’ve missed in five years. Many tears.
What did you think of it compared to last year? This was only your second ComiCon, wasn’t it?
Michelle
This was only my second ComiCon, Michelle. But I have to admit that it felt a lot different than the first one.
Part of the difference was that this year I knew the lay of the land. I knew where the all night deli was. I knew the layout of the dealer’s room and how to find the place with the good seafood.
The other big change was that this year I’m a dad. This was the longest stretch of time I’ve spent away from Oot since he’s been born. It was harder than I expected, and I missed him from the very first day.
For example, last year when I went to the con, my mental commentary was like this: “Hey! Hot girl dressed as Poison Ivy! Hot girl in chainmail! Hot catgirl! Batman!”
I make no excuses for this. I am who I am.
But this year when I walked around the con, I was thinking, “Oh, look at that baby! Cute baby! Baby dressed up as Yoda! Hot Catgirl! Batman!”
Also, this year I was smart enough to schedule times to meet people instead of just hoping we could get together. As a result, I got to have dinner with Brandon Sanderson and Christopher Paolini on Saturday night.
We had a lovely conversation, and at some point Paolini told us that in an early draft of his first book, the main character was named Kevin, not Eragon.
Not to be outdone, I said that in an early draft of The Name of the Wind, Kvothe was actually a lesbian unicorn.
I didn’t think much of it. This is the sort of thing I say all the time, and I don’t expect people to pay much attention to me.
But I failed to take into account twitter. Which led to someone sending me the profoundly bizarre e-mail.
So the next day when I was doing a reading and signing at Borders, one of my lovely readers brought me a present:
It is, of course, a lesbian unicorn. His name is Kvothe. You may of heard of him.
I had a good laugh over it, and thought that would be the last I ever heard of it. But after I get back from the Con, I find one of my friends has sent my the following surreal e-mail.
Pat,
Okay, so I am doing a search for “pink unicorn gay” in Google Images because, well, it’s a long story… (Shut up!)
Thing is I spotted something very odd pretty early on in the results.
I swear to you this isn’t a set up or faked or anything. I just typed in “pink unicorn gay” and this is what I got!
[name withheld for blackmail purposes]
So yeah. That was the unexpected result of this year’s ComiCon. Permenently linking Kvothe’s name with the phrase “Lesbian Unicorn.”
Working to make your day a little more surreal,
pat