Back from Texas

My visit the the Texas Library Association in Houston was a whirlwind of activity and excitement. My first visit to Texas was brief, and I can’t say I really got to see much of it, but the people were friendly and the Texas librarians are true crusaders for reading. I expect I’ll be back there someday.

One of the highlights of the trip was chatting with the renowned Orson Scott Card at dinner, trading books and talking about history. I’ve been a fan of his books ever since a friend handed me a copy of Enders Game in college. The next morning (was this only yesterday? Oh how travel warps time...) I was up bright and early for a panel discussion about comics and storytelling with OSC and authors Shannon Hale (Rapunzel’s Revenge, The Goose Girl, Princess Academy) and Gareth Hinds who uses his excellent draftsmanship to create graphic novel adaptations of classics like The Merchant of Venice, Beowulf and The Odyssey. It was universally agreed that Shannon Hale won the day.

The most personally exciting moment for me, tough, was getting my very first look at a real physical copy of Legends of Zita. I’d say First Second did a pretty bang up job with production. I thought the printing looked great. In fact, here, take a look:

Legends of Zita flipthrough from Ben Hatke on Vimeo.

So here’s to everyone I met in Texas! You made my short visit a delight.