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Join Scott at Comic-Con this weekend!

This is probably my favorite week of the year, the year when my two biggest passions — comic books and audiobooks — collide in San Diego at the San Diego Comic-Con.

For those of you who aren’t aware, long before I narrated my first audiobook, I spent three years writing for the comic book press, turning a lifelong passion into a great way to make a living. I had a blast during those three years, during which I wrote about 300 articles for various comic book and science fiction related publications. (You may remember that the subject of a previous blog from last year was my favorite comics-related article I ever wrote, “Who Killed Gwen Stacy?” If not, you can check it out by clicking right here.)

Well, imagine my surprise when I saw that audiobooks were making their way into this here comic book-centric experience.

Makes sense, actually, since the Comic-Con has long since become more of a pop culture event than merely a comic book convention. Those who’ve braved the convention floor have seen everyone from role-playing gamers to steampunk costumers grab booth space. And around five years ago, the major print publishers started showing up as well — folks like Random House, Penguin, Del Rey and others. Before I knew it, audiobooks had made their way into the hallowed halls of comicbookdom.

And believe me, I couldn’t be happier.

The great thing is that there are actually times I get to combine my two passions at work, as well. I’ve been able to do a handful of audibooks that are comic book-related, including IT’S SUPERMAN! by Tom De Haven, and the novelization of SUPERMAN RETURNS by Marv Wolfman. While narrating those titles, I couldn’t believe my good fortune, getting to talk all day long about my favorite heroes, I mean how cool is that? Then you add to the mix a book like THE BOOK OF LIES by acclaimed novelist and comic book writer Brad Meltzer, a murder mystery that centers around Jerry Siegel, the man who created Superman, and my joy is complete. In many ways Brad was born to write that book, and I felt like I was born to narrate it. Getting to combine my passions that way was a dream come true.

Well, the reason I bring all this up is that I’m going to be doing a few panel discussions in San Diego this weekend, so if you’re going to be in the area, I hope you’ll stop by.

The aforementioned Brad Meltzer has put together an amazing panel, the sequel to a panel we did two years back, one that actually made the list of this “10 Don’t Dare Miss Comic Con Panels” by the Washington Post, of all places. I’ll be shameless and reprint the panel description from Comic Con’s website:

Comics Across all Media (Saturday, July 24, 12:30-1:30 PM, Room 24ABC

Paul Feig (creator of FREAKS & GEEKS), Chip Kidd (SHAZAM!: THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE WORLD’S MIGHTIEST MORTAL), Whitney Matheson (USA TODAY’s Pop Candy blog), Brad Meltzer (THE INNER CIRCLE), and Michael Uslan (THE DARK KNIGHT) are five superstars who make headlines in television, the graphic arts, journalism, novels, and film. But they all have comics in common. As they reunite for another visit, join them for a discussion of all things nerd. It’ll be like a 21st century Breakfast Club — but with even better references. Moderated by audiobook star Scott Brick (THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT).

(I didn’t write that bio, by the way, so I didn’t put in that “star” line, that was all them. And God bless them for saying so.)

And just about an hour later, I’ll be doing another panel, this one specifically about audiobooks. Again, I’ll refer to Comic-Con’s website:

Comic-Con How-To Session: Scott Brick (Saturday, July 24, 3:00-4:00 PM, Room 18)

Award-winning audiobook voice artist Scott Brick will present information on the acting and audio narration process, which will include how to break down a page of script into a narration format.

And just for good measure, it looks as though I’ll even be moderating a panel on Friday, when I interview legendary comic book artist Jim Lee in Room 18 when he spends an hour doing another how-to session.

So if you’re like me and want to spend a weekend hanging out with other fanboys, I hope you’ll make sure and stop by the panels I’ll be on and say hello. I’ll have copies of those two Superman novels I mentioned earlier that I’ll be signing, and I’ll even be offering a special 20% discount for the various audiobooks I’ve got for sale here on my website, such as THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT and THE PHOENIX LEGACY trilogy.

But for those of you who can’t make it to San Diego, or who are too intimidated to face a hundred thousand comic book fans — you know who you are — you too can get those self-same Superman audiobooks or the coupon code for our titles for sale here at Scott Brick Presents. If you’d like signed copies of either IT’S SUPERMAN! or the SUPERMAN RETURNS novelization, just email me here at the website
and we’ll shoot you the details, or if you’d like to take advantage of the Comic Con discount code, you can plug in the word “comiccon2010″ (without the quote marks) into the coupon field and receive your 20% discount for any book we sell. And even though the Comic Con only runs this coming weekend, that coupon code will be good through the end of July.

Well, that’s it for now. Got to head back to the studio so I can finish up PLAY DEAD, Harlan Coben’s very first novel, before I head south to the convention. Hope to see you there!

Thanks for listening,

Scott Brick

Want Scott to narrate this blog to you?

Right-click here to download this Brickcast.

If you have purchased the first two PHOENIX LEGACY books and have not yet received your coupon code for HOUSE OF THE WOLF, please email den@scottbrickpresents.com. Thanks!

Ah, February. Valentine’s Day is near. And guys…? Do you have wives or girlfriends who maybe don’t listen to audiobooks, but you’d like to get them to? Or are you by any chance science fiction fans, but your significant other doesn’t seem to enjoy the genre as much as you do? Then have I got a gift idea for you: this here trilogy, The Legacy of the Phoenix. If there was ever a series well suited to bring new fans into the fold, this is it. And it gets better: it’s 10% off the purchase price if you purchase the entire thing (or if you’ve already purchased the first two volumes and want to finish it off, you’ll get the discount as well; details elsewhere in this blog).

Click here to hear Scott read from HOUSE OF THE WOLF
and buy the digital download

Now, I’m not just being mercenary here, I swear. I say this not just to sell books, but as an utter truth. No lie: I have given this series to at least half a dozen women over the years — girlfriends, girl friends, and even my mother — and they have all, every single one of them, loved it. Know why? Cuz it’s got a really terrific romance at its heart, one that appeals to women of all ages, and if you’re anything like me, it’ll appeal to you as well.

This series grabbed me on an emotional level in a way no other ever has before. A short while back, Election Day in fact, I was standing in line for ninety minutes at my polling place, and figured I’d finish off reading the series to prepare myself to narrate it. I brought Volume Three with me, this month’s selection, HOUSE OF THE WOLF. I was about fifty or so pages from the end, and didn’t really anticipate I’d get to the conclusion, but lo and behold, the line was over a hundred people long, so before I knew it, I was reading the last chapter, surrounded by dozens of people I’d never met before. Now, I’d read this series at least four times before, just for pleasure, so I was intimately familiar with the events in it, especially the ending. Nevertheless, it was like I’d never encountered it before, and even though it ended exactly the same way it had the FIRST four times I’d read it, there it was, nailing me in the guts again. I literally had to fight not to cry in front of all those people. It was extraordinary, really. Made me wonder what I’d be like when I reached that scene in the booth while narrating it.

I’ve been asked many times in various interviews, “Has there ever been a book that was so emotional you started crying, so emotional you just couldn’t get it done?” Well, the answer is yes, there have been occasions where I got choked up to the point where I had to take a timeout, had to get myself together before I could proceed. The time I usually point to is the end of REPORT FROM GROUND ZERO, the book I did about 9/11 about six months after the tragedy. Man, that last page just killed me, such a beautifully written passage that I was blubbering no matter how many times I attempted it. And sure, a handful of other times over the years, great authors have written passages that made it nearly impossible to read them cleanly, without breaking.

Or at least, that’s what I usually tell people. But the truth? I’m a crybaby. At least on the titles I’ve been doing here at Brick by Brick Audiobooks.

Seriously, I’m not just poking fun at myself: for all the times it’s happened over the years, it’s happened a great deal more often since I started doing books for myself. Maybe it’s because I’ve been choosing books close to my heart…? In fact, the amount of times I’ve ever broken down in the studio might be evenly split between the books I’ve done for other publishers in ten years, and these titles I’ve done for myself in the last eight months. It’s the kind of thing that I may have never noticed, had I not been doing this series.

Click here to hear Scott read from HOUSE OF THE WOLF and buy the digital download

I think I first noticed this soggy trend when I did my first BBB title, LORD FOUL’S BANE. The sample file I’ve got up here on the site that you can listen to (click here to listen), the brief snippet of the action, is from my favorite scene in that book, and it wiped me out, its beauty was so sublime that it just knocked me over. Then along came the second book in the series, THE ILLEARTH WAR, and when I hit Covenant’s scene with High Lord Elena at Revelwood, I got wiped out again, and that was only the first time in that book, there were at least three or four others.

I didn’t exactly see a pattern, even when I hit A CHRISTMAS CAROL in November, and one line was so difficult that it didn’t matter how many times I took a timeout, I kept screwing it up. The line came in Stave Four, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come scene, where Bob Cratchit laments the fate of Tiny Tim. The line goes something like this: “‘My little child,’ said Bob. ‘My little, little child.’” The thing that killed me was that little phrase, that “said Bob” that came right in the middle of everything. I was crying from the get-go, and I couldn’t get my voice under control after the first “My little child,” I couldn’t sound normal immediately after on the “said Bob” part, and then be emotional again so quickly thereafter. I kept choking up, I just couldn’t shake the emotion off. I tried it over and over and over, crying each and every time, until I finally gave up and decided to cheat. I read the line of dialogue straight through, “My little child, my little, little child,” as though the “said Bob” weren’t there, then got myself under control and read those two words separately, then finally edited them in between the appropriate phrases in the sentence. I’ve never had to do that before, not once in ten years. It all goes to show: I’m a wuss, a sucker for a sad line.

(Funny story: those “he said/she said” lines, like the one I had to cheat on, those are called attributions, and you hear that phrase a lot in publishing. It’s pretty simple, it’s taken from the root word “attribute,” to attribute the words to the person who said them, right? Only thing is, I couldn’t get the word right, I used to think the root of the word was “assign,” not “attribute,” you know, as in “to assign the words to the person saying them,” right? So I used to call them “assignations.” Which was wrong. And I said it A LOT, to a lot of different people in this industry. And if you haven’t already gotten the joke, an assignation is another word for a sexual liaison, so when I’d say something like, “Yeah, the biggest challenge to me in the book were the assignations,” man, people looked at me funny.)

Well, as I said, the reason this all hit me is cuz I wept like a freakin’ baby doing this here book, HOUSE OF THE WOLF. The real strengths of this series are its relationships, and whereas the bond between Alexand DeKoven Woolf and his brother Rich was the emphasis of the first volume, this final chapter really focuses on Alexand and his star-crossed lover, Adrien Camine Eliseer. Their relationship is amazingly drawn, literally from the moment Adrien walks onscreen. Far from being a simpering heroine or a two-dimensional love interest, Adrien is dynamic, and really drives the action herself. (Are you listening, guys? Seriously, the women in your life will love this series, but trust me, so will you. You may never agree on who gets the remote, but on this at least, there’ll be accord.)

For those of you wondering how I was when I read the finale here in the studio…? C’mon, haven’t I already admitted to being a pushover? I was a wreck. When these emotional timebomb scenes came up, I broke down like it was the first time I’d read them. I’m sorry, to get choked up after the SIXTH time I read something? Well, I’ll be fair to myself here. As much as I may be a pushover, it’s a far better indication of how terrific an author M.K. Wren is than a sign I’m a wuss or something. Or at least I like to tell myself so.

Click here to hear Scott read from HOUSE OF THE WOLF and buy the digital download