Today I’m not blogging. Today, I’m spending all day writing the script for Dracula #4, and big exciting things are supposed to happen in this issue.

But YESTERDAY I popped in on Joe Mallozzi’s blog to talk about my story in MASKED (that superhero anthology I keep mentioning) — and to kinda sorta refute charges of metafictionalism and deconstruction.

So please, stop reading. I’m not here.

I’m not sure how it happened, but evidently it’s August.  I know there was a July in there somewhere. But suddenly I’m aware of how many things are coming up this month, and surprisingly enough, they’re all good.

This Saturday, August 7, at 4pm, I’ll be signing and answering questions at the Borders store in Camp Hill, PA, just outside Harrisburg. If you know anyone in the area, tell them to stop on down. Don’t make me beg.

Oh, and August means that The Devil’s Alphabet is officially the book of the month at Joe Mallozzi’s blog. Joe’s a fellow contributor to Masked, the superhero anthology, and also a producer of Stargate Universe. I’ll be answering questions on Joe’s blog starting next week. And in September, the BotM will be Masked, and to ramp up, the contributing writers are talking about their stories, why they wrote them, and how they came to be involved in the anthology.  Paul Cornell’s entry up there now.

The official Masked Ad. Accept no substitutes.

Masked is racking up positive reviews all over the place, like here, here, and here. And here. And this io9 review kicked off a buying spree at Amazon.

Plus, Locus and BookList ran print reviews. It’s so nice to see the prose superhero getting some love.

Oh, and it looks like the first issue of Dracula: Company of Monsters is on track for an end-of-August publish date. The issue just went to the printers, and at the end of the month I’ll be doing a signing at The Comic Swap, my local (and wonderful) comic book shop. I’ll have an exact date for you later.

I can tell you that the art for issue 1 kicks ass. Thanks, Scott Godlewski! We showed off the first six pages to a room of fans at Comic-Con a couples weeks ago. And last night I finished the first draft of the script for Issue 3, where I got to introduce the vampire hunters. I’m having having more fun than should be allowed.

Speaking of more fun, August is the last month of full-time employment. Starting September 1 I get to go back to half time, which means I can get a lot more writing done. Or if not more, then the same amount without driving me or my family insane.  Yes, it feels weird to be cutting back on a day job when some friends and relatives can’t find any work. Mostly I feel very, very lucky.

So, August. You’re looking pretty good to me right now. Don’t turn on me, okay?

I’m back from my first San Diego Comic-Con, which was more fun than it had any right to be. Very soon I’ll blog about why it was so fun, and what Daryl Saw at the Big Show and What He Learned There.  But I will say this: the youth and energy of that con blew me away.

Speaking of youth and energy… there’s this girl I know — Kieryn Nicolas? She’s 15 years old, and she just had her first novel published by Echelon Press. Also, the book’s pretty damn good. It’s called Rain, and it’s about a girl who goes to a school for super-spies. It’s like Mission: Impossible meets Harry Potter, and it’s a blast.

Now, this is great news for anyone worried about the next generation. But it does make one member of this generation wonder about how soon he’ll be replaced. It took me until I was over 40 to get my first book out, and now here’s this kid with a 25-year head start on me. She’s already working on her next novel. By the time she’s my age she’ll have more pages out than James Patterson.

Well, so be it. I surrender to the future. If the next generation’s as bright and talented as Kieryn, we’re in good hands. Check out her website and her blog, and read the first chapter of Rain.

Or, meet her right now. I invited Kieryn on to do a guest blog post, and here she is talking about my favorite flavor o’ fiction:

The What-If Genre

I am currently in the process of cleaning my room. And trust me, when I say “process,” I mean it’s a process. I’ve only gotten through my desk and under my dish chair so far…and when I say “gotten through,” I mean most of the items that were in/under said furniture are now spread across my floor waiting to be sorted or placed.

The good thing about this process is that, since I am painstakingly taking the time to actually sort through everything, I find things from years-gone-by. Mostly what I find is writing related, because I almost never toss anything writing related. Words are awesome! Treat them as such, like me, by deciding not to throw them away and stuffing them back in the pile you found them to sit for another X years.

Anyway.

Yesterday, as I was actively organizing, I came across the folder from last summer’s Penn State Young Writer’s Workshop (where I officially met Daryl, incidentally). In that folder was a packet of science fiction excerpts and short stories that we’d been given for our sci-fi elective. Of course, since I was busy cleaning my room, I immediately settled down to read it.

Forty-three minutes later I had been sufficiently reminded why I like sci-fi so much. I spend half my time thinking “what if?” and science fiction is THE what-if genre. My favorite subset is dystopian, when a flaw in society is grossly magnified and you’re left thinking, wow…that could happen. And if the story is really great, then you’re also left with more chills racing up your spine than someone who’s just watched Hitchcock’s The Birds. (Trust me.)  During the sci-fi class we were instructed to write the start of a novel that was a social commentary about a flaw we see with society. It was hard to choose just one, but I think I went with over-development.

That class and that idea of a dystopian society stuck with me. It’s one of my favorite genres to read, and now write. I was constantly reminded of sci-fi class at the Writer’s Workshop when I was writing my most recent story, a dystopia, which is kind of like Stepford Wives meets Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies. I definitely see myself exploring more sci-fi in the future.

–Kieryn

In July, the comics book faithful turn west and make their pilgrimage to San Diego. It’s the geek Mecca, as 100,000 people swarm the city to talk about not just comics, but movies, fiction, gaming, and which fans should definitely not be wearing spandex.

And next week I’m going for my first time — sink or swim, baby! I’ll be on a couple panels, one about the prose part of my life, and one about the new comic book I’ve been working on (due out in August).

First up, Thursday afternoon I’m doing a panel with a lot of great writers about “Twisting Genres.” Afterward, there will be a signing, where I will sit next to the heavy hitters and watch people line up for them. I’ve become very good at these kinds of things at holding coats, providing extra pens, running and getting gin… you know, just helping out.

On Friday, I’m going to a panel I’m not actually on, but Bill Willingham and I have decided to sit in the audience and interrupt. It’s on creating superhero fiction, and they’ll be talking about Masked, the superhero anthology that’s out now. Anthology editor Lou Anders and my pals Chris Roberson and Matt Sturges will be on it.

Then on Saturday, I’ll be on a panel with Kurt Busiek and BOOM! Studios’ head guy Mark Waid to talk about the Dracula: Company of Monsters comic. Woo hoo!

Here’s the schedule copy-and-paste:

Thursday, 4:00-5:00 Twisting Genres— Fantastic fiction authors talk about pushing the envelope on genre, not confining it to one definition. Participants include China Miéville (Kraken), Justin Cronin (The Passage), Naomi Novik (Tongues of Serpents), Daryl Gregory (The Devil’s Alphabet), Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Cold Black Hearts), Robert Masello (Blood And Ice), Keith Thompson (The Leviathan trilogy), and Scott Westerfeld (The Leviathan trilogy). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 25ABC

Friday, 10:00-11:00 With Great Power Come Great Stories— Authors discuss creating superhero superfiction, including novels and stories in anthologies like Masked and Wild Cards. Authors include Lou Anders (Masked), Jackie Kessler (the Icarus Project novels), Caitlin Kittredge (the Icarus Project novels), Gini Koch (Touched by an Alien, the Katherine “Kitty” Katt series), Kevin Andrew Murphy (the Wild Cards series), Chris Roberson (Book of Secrets), Caroline Spector (Wild Cards contributor), and Matt Sturges (Justice Society of America). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 32AB

Saturday, 3:30-4:30 Editing Comics the BOOM! Studios Way— BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid and BOOM! Managing Editor Matt Gagnon talk with Kurt Busiek and Daryl Gregory about putting together their upcoming BOOM! series Dracula: The Company Of Monsters. Don’t miss this in-depth look into the editing secrets of one of the comic book industry’s leading independent publishers. Join moderator Mark Waid (author of the Eisner Award-nominated Irredeemable, BOOM! Editor-in-Chief) and panelists Kurt Busiek (author of the Eisner Award-winner Astro City), Daryl Gregory (acclaimed sci-fi writer, author of The Devil’s Alphabet), and Matt Gagnon (BOOM! Managing Editor) as they discuss editing do’s and don’ts of today’s comic book industry. Room 24ABC

So this is cool: The Devil’s Alphabet will be the August book of the month over on Joseph Mallozzi’s blog. Mr. Mallozzi is a producer on the Stargate television shows, including the most recent in the franchise, Stargate Universe — but he’s trying to get fans to read SF too. Imagine!

Joseph’s gotten a wide range of writers to do BotM — including Michael Moorcock, Jeffrey Ford, and Jasper Fforde. Ellen Kushner is finishing up June, and Alastair Reynolds will be doing July. The blog also covers an entertaining mix of TV, SF, and general weirdness.

Anyway, I’ll be answering questions over there starting in August, so drop on by.

Oh, and on the Dracula front, Kurt Busiek and I opine about impalements and the new comic on Newsarama.

This week, I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about impaling, impalers, impalees. The whole impalement spectrum, really. Early in the week I finished the first draft of Dracula: Company of Monsters #1, then had the Clockwork Storybook pros review it and give me notes. (Like: “Daryl, you can’t introduce two new characters, have a dense conversation, and put seven panels all on one page.”) Anyway, Kurt Busiek and the Boom editors are looking it over, and I’ll finish the final edits this weekend.

And in the past couple of days I’ve been doing PR for the book, mostly doing email interviews with the comics press. Kurt Busiek is doing all the heavy work on the interviews — the book was his idea, after all, and he’s the architect of this narrative edifice — so while he offers cogent explanations of the story and its genesis, I interrupt with wise-assery. It’s a job I like.

But the other day I had to fly solo. I had a great conversation with Sean and Jim of the comics podcast Raging Bullets. Oh wait, let’s get the logo:

See how it says “fan podcast”? These guys really are fans, and they talk about books they love — and it’s clear they’re having more fun than anyone else. They’re lifelong friends, and they’ve been doing this podcast for years.

They mostly concentrate on DC books, but lately they’ve been branching out, and they took time to have me on to talk about Dracula, the difference between working in prose and comics, and yes, impalements. I had a blast. You can listen to me at the 88 minute mark on Episode 212, if you’re into that kind of thing. (Thanks, Mom.) But  why not just subscribe to the podcast? You’ll have fun. Sean and Jim are the Click and Clack of Comics.

Howdy, folks. It’s been busy times at Rancho Del Daryl.  #1 daughter graduated from high school this weekend, which we celebrated with a Chicago Hotdog Party. If you’ve never had a true, Chicago-style hotdog, words cannot express the pity I have for you. The neon relish I slathered on my dogs took the sting out of feeling like an old man whose daughter is old enough for college.

Then on Sunday I put the finishing touches on the first draft of my next book—working title Raising Stony Mayhall—and sent that off to agent and editor. And then I started serious work on issue #1 of Dracula: Company of Monsters. In the middle of all that I got addicted to Plants Vs. Zombies on my wife’s iPad. Life is hard.

Oh, and before I go, two items on the reviews front:

BookMark is our local PBS station’s radio book review program, and a couple weeks ago Noah Schoenholtz reviewed The Devil’s Alphabet—and a very nice review it was, too. You can listen or download on WPSU’s site.

And then there were a couple reviews on “Masked”, the anthology of superhero stories edited by Lou Anders, that’s coming out in July, and some reviews are appearing. One hand, we have the prolific reviewer/ human spambot Harriet Klausner, who is the sausage grinder of internet reviewers: books go in, and unrecognizable reviews come out. Her review of the book is a marvel of incomprehensibility.

And on the other, we have this just in from Publisher’s Weekly:

Anders (Fast Forward) delivers an ambitious collection of superhero tales that provide top-notch plots and characterizations while honoring their four-color roots. In Daryl Gregory’s superbly metafictional “Message from the Bubble Gum Factory,” a former sidekick finally realizes the broader implications of superheroes. Stephen Baxter nicely applies hard science to the futuristic “Vacuum Lad.” Gail Simone’s “Thug” and Mike Carey’s “The Non-Event” bolster predictable plots with solid characters and prose. Joseph Mallozzi’s “Downfall” and Marjorie M. Liu’s “Call Her Savage” embrace comics clichés and make them both more complex and more entertaining. Only Mike Baron’s dull, heavy-handed, and predictable “Avatar” stands out as noticeably weak, though Peter and Kathleen David’s witty “Head Cases” feels more like the opening of a novel than a complete story. Overall, Anders has assembled a solid anthology that provides first-rate entertainment. (July)

Oh, and Lou sent the contributors this link: The art director for the book, Richard Yoo, blogged about the cover — with some interesting alternative approaches they tried before arriving at the final product.

Okay, gotta go write about Vlad the Impaler. Happy summer, everybody.

The folks at Fractal posted up the video of my Philip K Dick talk from April. It was 8:30 in the morning and outdoors at Medellin’s botanical gardens. Kind of mind-blowingly beautiful, actually.

Don’t try to sit all the way through the talk (unless you’re a hardcore PKD head), but check out the surroundings — it was a great place to hold a conference.

If the player doesn’t run, you can view the video here.

Okay, as a kid my dream was to write a science fiction paperback. Not a hardback — those were for dictionaries — but a cheap, lurid paperback that I could buy on the rack at K-Mart.

Done and Done. Well, almost done. K-Mart still doesn’t stock me. But cheap and lurid? Check.

But before THAT dream, there was this out-and-out fantasy: to write and draw my own comic book. Then I found out around age 12 that my artistic talent went no further than being able to draw Captain America’s face. Just one expression, a kind of Kirbyish rectangular smile. Though I have to say, I totally nailed the cheek bones.

So, then, just writing a comic. Wouldn’t that be great? Alas, even after I grew up and started generating facial hair, I had no idea how to break into comics.

Then I met Chris Roberson and his wife and business partner, Allison Baker. I told them my fantasy (always a dicey proposition). They nodded sagely.  See, Chris and Allison run indie publishing house MonkeyBrain Books, and Chris writes prose as well as comics, so as far as I’m concerned, they’re living the dream.

Fast forward two years. I get this email from Matt Gagnon at Boom! Studios, saying, Chris Roberson said you might be interested in writing comics — how about this one? With Kurt Busiek? (For those of you not into comics, replace the name “Kurt Busiek” with “Jesus Christ”.) I think I clicked Reply before the email had fully loaded onto my screen.

So the comic series is called “Dracula: Company of Monsters.” It’s coming out at the end of August. And here’s the marketing pitch:

He’s back from the dead and starring in a new ongoing horror series from the mind of Kurt Busiek. A powerful, predatory corporation acquires a valuable asset – Dracula! They think they own him, but no one can own the Son of the Dragon. There’s a monster in their midst that puts Hannibal Lecter to shame – and he plans to gain his freedom in blood. It’s bloodsuckers vs. bloodsucker, as Busiek brings an incredibly modern spin to the Dracula mythos. Joining Busiek is award-winning author Daryl Gregrory (Pandemonium) and rising star artist Scott Godlewski (Codebreakers). The epic journey starts here, so don’t miss the debut issue of Dracula: The Company Of Monsters, the next breakout ongoing series from BOOM! Studios! Featuring covers by Ron Salas and fan-favorite The Nocturnals artist Dan Brereton.

Kurt (I call him Kurt now, or just JC) came up with the idea, the background, the main characters, the outline of the plot–basically, the story bible. Scott Godlewski is the artist. And me, I’ll be writing the word balloons. Now, that may sound like a trivial thing to you, mister, but I’m nervous but amped up beyond belief.

Fortunately, last week I was at the Clockwork Storybook retreat. Did I mention that Chris and his friends invited me in to to their rock ’em sock ’em writer’s collective?  Last week was my first time to attend their annual get-together, and Chris, Matt Sturges, Bill Willingham, Mark Andreyko, Bill Williams, and Mark Finn gave me a crash course in comics. Everything from how many words fit in a balloon, to why five-panel layouts work so well, to who the best people are to work for in the biz. (As well as who the crazies are.)  Every day was an eye-opener.

And now I get to try it out for myself. Issue 1 ships in August.  Let the biting begin.

And all you people googling for Final Fantasy, the video game? Sorry about that, I just couldn’t pass up the title.

Hey, I’m back from Las Vegas, after five days of high level talks and important diplomatic initiatives with the Clockwork Storybook gang. (Clockwork, for those just tuning in, is a fine group of prose and comics and screen writers who invited me in to their happy band last year — our group blog is at clockworkstorybook.blogspot.com) I’m a little fried from taking the red-eye home, so someday soon I’ll blog about why the writer retreat was so darn useful, eye-opening, and well-timed: especially considering my Super Sekrit News, which I hope to reveal extremely soon.

But here’s something I can reveal: my story “What We Take When We Take What We Need” is now online at Subterranean Online Magazine. It’s an alternate take of some themes and characters from my book The Devil’s Alphabet, so you English majors out there can Compare and Contrast.

Okay, now for a nap.