Clare L. Deming

Thursday brought me into New York City for the first day of Comic-Con. I love Thursday at the con because it is the day with the fewest crowds and still has enought good content to be worthwhile.

Arrival and Priorities

I feel like either I arrived at the Javits Center earlier this year, or there were fewer people in attendance because I was closer to the front of the crowd than usual.

I thought that going to the show floor first would be a good idea, but it was actually quite crowded with the rush of people who wanted to get to specific booths for giveaways and demos. I had already researched the book giveaways, and the publishers have mostly changed their systems so that there is no need to wait in line ahead of time to get into the signings and giveaways you want. I scanned a QR code and put my email address in a form and made a note of whether I was interested in any specific signings otherwise. I missed the tickets for the T.J. Klune signing which is one I would have liked. Oh well!

Then I walked down to the family area to sign up for adult Jedi training. That was easy, with no line, and I bought some raffle tickets to support Make-A-Wish Foundation. I was happy that they let adults sign up for this sort of thing and not just the kids.

The gaming area was across the hall and I wandered in there to find that Dungeons and Dragons games were being held every 2 hours. I signed up for one at 7 p.m. The rest of the gaming area was rather deserted this early in the morning, although the Warhammer Experience was completely booked all weekend. They said that I could see if anyone failed to show up, so we’ll see if I feel like doing that at all.

I took advantage of the plentiful seating to have a pre-lunch snack and then wandered Artist’s Alley before a panel at 12:15 p.m.

Astarion / Baldur’s Gate 3 Panel with T. Kingfisher and Neil Newbon

I was excited to get into the panel for the new book by T. Kingfisher that is a prequel / backstory for the Baldur’s Gate 3 character, Astarion. In attendance were Kingfisher and Neil Newbon, the voice actor who gave life to Astarion in the game and was also brought on to narrate the audiobook.

The moderator had prepared questions (of course), and I’ll put the most interesting parts of the panelists’ answers below. One of the first things that they discussed was how the book came about and how they became involved in the project. Kingfisher was approached to write the book and took some time brainstorming the plot with the publisher and the Wizards of the Coast reps. She had to follow several ground rules and spent time digging into obscure D&D lore.

For Newbon, he wasn’t aware of the book until a few months ago. This was his first audiobook he has performed, but was the obvious choice for the narrator.

Kingfisher had to approach the character of Astarion differently than the one from the game. As a prequel set roughly 50 years prior to the events of the game, Astarion is not the same person that we meet there. She had to work to make Astarion less nice than she was naturally inclined to do, and she had to write his part as a more melodramatic character than her typical work.

Neal spent some time explaining his use of accents for the audiobook and how he was mentored by the great Roy Dotrice. He chose a more neutral accent for narration and then others for the secondary characters. He doesn’t choose favorites with his characters, but did say that Astarion meant a lot to him.                                 

Kingfisher talked about how she builds characters. She doesn’t write out character sheets but often first hears the characters in their dialogue. Her favorite character to write for this book was Rooftop Henry.

As anyone who has played the game knows, Astarion has suffered trauma before we meet him in-game. Kingfisher was not allowed to write a happy ending for the book because she had to make it work with how he starts the game. She did discover a lot of deep lore in regard to vampires and the undead in her research.

There was more, but I don’t think I can do justice to the banter and humor in the panel. I was entertained and time ran out before I knew it. I waited in line for the T. Kingfisher signing and then moved on to explore the show floor.

Wandering the Floor for Books

I browsed the tables at the main publishers that were in attendance, chatted with a friend, and then headed to pick up a giveaway that I had won.

By the end of the day I picked up only three books. Two were free ARCs and one was a book that has been highly recommended and was nominated for a Hugo for Best Novel.

The two ARC giveaways look like they are both variations on the romantasy genre. I’ll  have to squeeze them into by reading plans somehow.

These are the books I acquired on Day 1:

• Soul Sworn by Kate Dylan (ARC)
• The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
• Merciful Carnage by Sara Hashem (ARC)

On to Become a Jedi

It was then time to head over for my session of Jedi training. This was an intro to the style of stage combat the the Saber Guild does and was a small class of eight people.

We were paired up and did some drills to explore the attacks and parries. It was fun and I had a good partner and I feel like we could have done some more advanced moves. However time went by and I had to move on.

More Wandering and Shopping

I had more free time before the D&D game so I wandered back to the show floor and did some shopping.

I picked up a pair of Eye of Sauron earrings, a cat necklace and earrings from a Japanese artist that I like, and this cute little plant. Not shown are the elf ears that I plan to wear on Friday.

Dungeons and Dragons to End the Day

It was already a long day, but I wrapped it up with a short game of Dungeons & Dragons as my last event at Comic-Con for the day.

The DM definitely rushed some parts of the adventure to get us through it, but it was fun and all the players were creative.

We defeated the bandits and their mage then vanquished the shadow monster in the basement.

By that point it was 9 p.m. and time to head home. I’ll be back for Friday!