Posts Tagged ‘Space Squid’

Armadillocon 2011 Photos for Friday, August 26

Saturday, September 10th, 2011


Mark Finn, rocking the cutting edge of FEZ NATION!


Howard Waldrop.


Dwight Brown gets the pre-convention lunch off to his usual facepalming start. What set him off this time was Todd saying “Look! We’re haircut twinsies!”


DUFF winner David Cake.


Early Turkey Citizen Joe Pumilia.

There was a picture of William Browning Spencer, but he has evidently grown disenchanted with his own visage, and asked that it be removed..


Al Jackson. For once I snapped a picture with his eyes open. Thanks for lunch, Al!


Dwight, mournful that his mama took his Kodachrome away.


Michael Sumbera, taking a break from assembling his retail sales empire.


Aaron Allston. Generally, I only see Aaron at: A.) Cons, or B.) Indian restaurants.


James Reasoner.


John DeNardo: “You know I hate having my picture taken.” Naturally, after he said that, I’m required to take his picture several additional times.


Like this one.


And this one.


Bruce Sterling was having a garage sale of books at the con. Here he is holding aloft the (true story) Rudy Rucker books I had pulled from the pile, refusing to sell them to me. Including the copy of The 57th Franz Kafka I had given him as a gift 15 years before. “I’ve got to donate these to UT.” Thanks a lot, Bruce.


Bill Crider, reenacting a scene from Daredevil.


Bill again, now with added sight.


Stina Leicht, with her hair in the traditional Blue Con shade.


Two people, both of whom complained that I took their picture too much. You can see how well those complaints worked out for them.


Rocky Kelley, artistic dandy and man-about-town.


Jessica Reisman. The camera is set properly, it’s just that Jessica lives her entire life in soft focus. Doctors keep doing tests to determine the cause.


Jasmina Tesanovic and Bruce Sterling. “It’s a 110° out today! I’m feeling pretty darn good about my Global Warming predictions!”


Derek Johnson. You can’t see it, but just below the frame of this picture, he’s clutching a snifter of brandy with one hand and stroking a white cat with the other.


Gretchen Peterson Johnston shows that she is totally ready for the Fetish Boot Ball.


Chris Nakashima-Brown n. Brown this guy I know.


Yvonne Daily and Phil Brogden, who you may remember from such hits as “Goddamnit, Lawrence, you sure take a lot of freaking convention pictures, don’t you?”


Robert Jackson Bennett, author of the spiffy first novel Mr. Shivers, copies of which can be obtained in the usual manner.


Bradley Denton assumes the now-traditional “Oh yeah? Then I’ll take YOUR picture!” position.


Jessica Reisman Redux.


Paolo Bacigalupi and Bruce Sterling, debating whose global warming future is more wretched and dystopian.


Rich Simental.


“NEVER MIND!”


The Space Squidians, shortly after freebasing some ink.


Brad Foster, with a Hugo that might seem familiar.


“You so naughty!”


Kasey Lansdale, mooning over Mark Finn. (I warned you, Finn! I said UNMARKED twenties!)


Scott Cupp, James Reasoner and Joe R. Lansdale, talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and why you can’t get good belt onions anymore.


Ben Yalow.


It was….the unnameable.

Now If They Could Only Make Them Talk

Monday, May 16th, 2011

The final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour will be carrying baby squids into space.

I’m sure that both Margaret Atwood and the staff of Space Squid are delighted at the news.

Library Curiosities: The Space Squid Cuneiform Clay Tablet

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

You may have heard about science fiction fanzine Space Squid printing one of their issues on the ultimate form of Dead Media: inscribed in cuneiform on a baked clay tablet. Of these, I think they auctioned off five at Armadillocon.

Being one of the few people in the world with a complete collection of Space Squid issues (they actually told me that Nova Express was one of their sources of inspiration, the poor deluded fools), naturally I had to pick one up, which I did for the munificent sum of $11. (Bidding seemed more brisk for the usual cats-with-wings and dragon-related art items.)

My tablet. Let me show it to you.

Click to gallery-ize, the click again to embiggen. The first picture is of it sitting in it’s resting place on my mantelpiece, and the other two pics are close-ups of the front and back. (And here’s another Wired story with pics.)

In truth, the tablet (which contains the Kevin Brown story “Hunting Bigfoot”) is actually pretty hard to read, and I’m not sure how permanent the medium is; the clay has a tendency to flake off. Still, I’m sure that some 50 years hence an insane fanzine collector will be paying big bucks for one…

Here’s Matthew Bey’s step by step tutorial on how he created them.