I just got to give a tour to

(of Schlock Mercenary) and

and their awesome kids. They’re in town for the Emerald City Comicon–which is this weekend, if it somehow slipped your memory, so if you’re going, stop by the Blank Label booth to talk to them. 

All the kids knew so much about making books that I didn’t have to tell them all the boring details–instead we got to the fun stuff. And they all love reading enough that it was gratifying to see how interested they were in our books. The most fun part was bringing them to the desk of our art director, who had a couple sample sketches from A Practical Guide to Monsters on hand and was able to tell them how they ask artists for sketches then comission finished art, and then finally how everything goes into the book. (The kids have A Practical Guide to Dragons, so I hope it was fun for them to see how the next book was progressing.) It looked like it was especially interesting to their nearly-12-year-old daughter (codename Kiki, I think?) who had all sorts of questions about the process. Perhaps a future art director? (Or artist, given her family!)

Of course, the next most fun part is always at the end of the tour when I have free stuff to give away, and today happened to be a good day for that–our receptionist happened to have a whole bunch of NeoPets and DuelMasters, not to mention many handfuls of Magic cards. (Sometimes she gets damaged boxes, that sort of thing.) I also wanted to get some minis to give to Howard and Sandra, but due to the afternoon receptionist being on jury duty the product room was closed. Never fear, the good people of Wizards came to the rescue and I had offers of more minis than I could use, and Howard went away with as big a smile as his kids. I love how the things my company does makes people smile!

So thanks for coming, Taylers! I had a great time showing you around.

Also along for the tours were two Dans–one, a friend of the Taylers with whom they’re staying while in town for the Emerald City Comic Con, the other was my friend Fellfrosch, in town coincidentally on the same day because he happened to be interviewing here at Wizards in a different department. My Evil Plan to convince all my friends to move to wherever I live is going to succeed, I just know it! (Okay, so that’s just one person and his family so far, and that’s if he gets the job. But another friend applied for a job out here recently, too, and several other friends say they want to end up in this area, so you never know–within a few years… 🙂 )