We are getting the Ascension Epoch booth ready for Retro Con, this weekend (Sept. 12-13) in Oaks, PA. Retro Con is a celebration of the cartoons, toys, and games of the ’80s — which sounds pretty rad to me, since I grew up in the ’80s! If you’ve read any of the Ascension Epoch books or the online material, you may have noticed a lot of influences from the fantastic toy and cartoon lines of that time, like GI Joe (Aegis, ASP, not to mention books like House of Refuge), the Inhumanoids (Boojum, ‘Geo’ Templeton, etc…), Silverhawks (Void Knights!), and so on. I think the con will be a great fit for us and we hope to make a lot of new fans there, as well as reconnect with friends we made back at the Great Philadelphia Comic Con in April.
As usual, we will have our books and e-books for sale, plus t-shirts, Shell’s art prints and original fan art and art from the Ascension Epoch (see some examples in our gallery). As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we’ll also be giving away previews and taking pre-orders for our forthcoming release, The Dismal Tide, the second book in the East End Irregulars series. If you pre-order for $10 + $3/shipping, you’ll get the paperback signed and autographed, plus Shell will draw a character sketch in the back of the book; we’ll mail it when it comes back from the printers, expected to be the first week of October.
We’ll also be selling off some of my extensive toy collection. I’ll be hawking a bunch of classic GI Joe vehicles that I have doubles of, plus some new GI Joe Collectors Club exclusive figures, loose Marvel Legends, and so forth.
And if you’re not interested in any of that, then drop by anyway and ask Shell to draw you a picture of Grimlock or D’Compose or something. (Shell says she would love if someone asked her to draw Allo from Dinosaucers!)
Tickets for RetroCon are $18 at the door on Saturday and $15 on Sunday, and there will be plenty to check out besides us, including a trivia contest, the Angry Video Game Nerd, and several cartoon voice actors including Michael Bell and John Moschitta. It’ll be a great time, and we hope to see you there!
