Meet my Zombie Army

Heavy Metal Hair

I was at the 2nd annual Florence Festival of Books last weekend selling my horror novel Night Walk and my new short story collection The Nose Knows & Other Stories and I had a great time.  Books were sold and drawings were drawn.

I think for any of you who know me, you all know the real reason I attend so many book festivals is to show off my heavy metal hair. Yeah, I'm metal. Deal with it.

But more importantly, I've been building my very own zombie army. Now before you all get up in arms and waving pitchforks around while shouting "David Hudnut is a necromancer!" calm down. When I say I'm building a zombie army, I don't mean I'm actually going to graveyards and morgues in the middle of the night to steal bodies and later resurrect them in my evil wizard's tower. Because we all know, I would never steal bodies. But I do have my very own wizard's tower, and I may or may not have resurrected dead bodies in it now and then.

At any rate, what I WAS doing at the Florence Festival of Books was drawing a picture of each person who bought a copy of my novel Night Walk or my short story collection The Nose Knows & Other Stories in the book they purchased. In some cases, it was a gift for someone not in attendance, so I worked from a photo.

The zombie army

I did all of the sketches using a Pentel 0.5 mechanical pencil, inked with COPIC 0.35 Multiliner SP, and colored with Tombow Dual Brush pens while I chatted with the customers about eating brains and the end of the world. No surprise that zombies LOVE to talk about brains.

The Brain Lovers Society

As usual, The HUDNUT IMP was trying to steal my thunder by crowding me out and getting in the way the whole time. You can see one of his unnecessarily gigantic comic strips right there in front of my booth! What a scene-stealer and attention whore that guy is!

The HUDNUT IMP trying to steal my thunder

The HUDNUT IMP

But I love the little green guy, so I let him get away with it every time.

Now that the show is over, don't fret. You can still buy my novel Night Walk and my short story collection The Nose Knows & Other Stories on Amazon.com.

And if you want me to turn you into a zombie, I will be at Wordstock this coming weekend, October 13 & 14, in Portland, Oregon selling books and drawing people as zombies.

Until next time,

"BRAINS!!!"

Jet City Comic Show 2012

I had the good fortune to attend the Jet City Comic Show last weekend in Seattle, Washington at the Seattle Exhibition Hall. My friend, author James Shipman, was kind enough to share his booth space with me.

James Shipman and David Hudnut, best-selling authors in attendance at the Jet City Comic Show

James is the author of the brilliant new comedy fantasy novel Willie Washer's Local No.38. I have read the book and can attest that it's truly funny. I got a lot of laughs out of reading it, and I know that if you like fantasy novels and a good laugh, his book will do the trick.

Unboxing posters of LifeBringer by David Hudnut

If you've ever been to the Jet City Comic Show, or the Seattle Exhibition Hall, then you will remember how much the space is reminiscent of several 1970s era low budget sci-fi movies. The moment I walked in the front door, I was thinking about both versions of THX 1138, a scene from the original Death Race 2000 in a similarly white and linoleum covered industrial space, and every other episode of either the Six Million Dollar Man or The Bionic Woman. To me, you couldn't pick a better space for a comic convention.

A new addition for me at the show was selling a print of one of my digital fantasy paintings, shown on the left. I was pleasantly  surprised at the response it got from people. I will definitely be selling more prints at future shows, and if anyone has any specific requests for prints from my past art which you can find on my art website at https://www.hudnutart.com/ please let me know.

A high point of the show was when I learned that Kibiri Foxx, a Brigade CO of the Outer Rim Brigade http://outer-rim-brigade.com/, was a big fan of my new horror novel Night Walk. You can see him posing with my book.

Kibiri Foxx loves horror novel Night Walk

For those of you who don't know, it is my understanding that Kibiri Foxx is Boba Fett's older, hipper brother. Long before Boba Fett was cool, Kibiri Foxx was traveling the galaxy, making mayhem wherever he went, and generally paving the way for future generations of bounty hunters like his little brother Boba. I think you'll all agree that Kibiri is 1,000 times cooler than his li'l bro Boba, who is after all, named after a tapioca tea drink that requires kiddie-sized drinking straws to suck up the boba balls. And seriously, who wants to suck Boba Fett's balls through a drinking straw?

I don't.

Kibiri also told me that he tried to get Boba Fett to read my book, but Boba was too scared. Want a wimp.

Another show attendee I met was Lilith Faire, a regular contributor at Geek News Network  and fiction writer in her own right. Check out her ongoing story Book of Souls at her blog. It is dark, grandly Lovecraftian, and creepy as hell. Lilith proves that books really are dangerous, and that she's a writer brimming with fantastic ideas, one to keep your eye on.

While we chatted, I took a moment to draw a sketch of Lilith in a freshly minted copy of Night Walk. I think you will agree that Lilith is a dangerous and witchy woman capable of casting all manner of elaborate eldritch magicks to satisfy her every whim. Do not mess with her or else you might find your soul eternally lost in a dark extra-dimensional abyss. Your mind will be torn asunder by the loneliness and sensory deprivation. The only thing you will be aware of is your own eternal pain, and Lilith's taunting evil laughter.

Author & Columnist Lilith Fiare with her new copy of Night Walk

During the show, I talked to a lot of people, and a common theme was a love of zombies. We can all thank The Walking Dead for bringing some much needed love to the world of zombie fandom. 

I decided to draw sketches of zombies for some of my new readers who purchased Night Walk at the show, in honor of zombies everywhere. You can see some satisfied zombie lovers in the photo below.

By the end of the day I was wiped out from selling copies of the horrifically frightening Night Walk to the hordes of rabid fans. 

Satisfied Night Walk customers & zombie lovers

I had a great time, and look forward to attending the show next year. In the mean time, if you want to purchase a copy of Night Walk, it's available on the Kindle for a bargain at $2.99.

It will scare you to death, or should I say it will scare you to undeath, because I will wager that if you read the book all the way to the end, you will in fact turn into a zombie. For some, I know this is a deterrent, but for most of you, it will be a bonus.

Buy Night Walk Now only $2.99 on Kindle at Amazon

Merchandising Madness!!!

Me and my split personalities.

Good and evil go so well together, don't you think?

There I am, all ready to sell my books: Night Walk, which I wrote and is very evil, and Owie Cadabra's Verbal First Aid, which I illustrated, and is very good.

The print edition of Night Walk was the big seller yesterday. I think in general, people tend to prefer horror over happiness. Just look at the evening news if you don't believe me.

But I did manage to sell Owie Cadabra's Verbal First Aid as well. Some people, it turns out, do have heart.

Note that Mr. Evil Clown was in attendance. He's such a follower, or should I say stalker.

For you writers out there, if I learned one lesson yesterday it was that you can never do too much advertising. I wish I had done more, but it was a balancing act between how much time and money I spent vs. return on investment (ROI for you business-types). In hindsight, a little more "I" would have been a good idea. You sell, you learn. Next time, I'll buy a 30-second Super Bowl commercial spot.

Book Signing

Tomorrow I will be selling and signing copies of my newest book

Night Walk