Easy Money!

And I'm not talking about that Nigerian prince I'm cashing checks for.


I'm talking about the Lee Marvin movie contest I posted a few days ago. We have a winner! Becky, of Ellicot City, MD (where we shot a great deal of Soft for Digging) correctly guessed the movie as "Pocket Money," a Terrence Malick-scripted Lee Marvin/Fig Newman movie about dusty, smalltime hustlers. A signed copy of The Hobgoblin Proxy is racing through the post on its way to congratulate her. Coincidentally, I went to high school with Becky. When I offered to post her yearbook photo with the announcement of her victory, she defended herself with this picture with her lovely daughter Samantha.

To the hundreds of runners-up who guessed "The Iceman Cometh," please click this link to claim your prize.

And to my uncle, Kyle, who correctly guessed "Pocket Money" within twelve minutes of my posting: please read the rules regarding PettyOfficial contests. You're inelligible to receive a prize if you work for PettyOfficial.com, have won anything in the last six months, or swung the author around by his ankles when he was six.

And if you're in the New York area, I'll be reading from "The Hobgoblin Proxy" on Saturday, June 3rd, at 3:00pm at the Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The address is 267 7th Avenue, in Brooklyn, NY, and you can find more info here.

We don't wait for anybody, Leonard

I can barely contain myself. I should probably hire some people to do it for me. Tomorrow is the official release date for THE HOBGOBLIN PROXY! There's a chance your local book seller already has a few copies on the shelves. If you try to buy it tomorrow and find it sold out, please behave responsibly.

Today's link comes by way of The Sect of Homokassu, a weird enough name that I worry I'm being tricked into spreading some kind of innuendo I'm too dense to get. (Like Moe Szyslak asking the tavern to help him find Amanda Hugginkiss.) But they seem far too mature to engage in such lowbrow humor. At any rate, they've created a tool called the Rasterbator that makes some mean wall art. You can upload, blow-up, and output any image. This is a picture of Lee Marvin, a demi-god at least, for sure. Email me the name of the movie it comes from and I'll send you an authographed copy of The Hobgoblin Proxy, with little moustaches and devil-horns added to all the illustrations.

Four More Days

Four days to the release of The Hobgoblin Proxy. Bate your breath.

I'm experimenting in video today, courtesy of the cultural guardians at YouTube. This video comes from the world of LARP, a world I was only vaguely familiar with from having worked in the video game industry, where sometimes people would show up at the office in puffy shirts with plastic battle-axes strapped to their backs. I learned a little more from the SXSW Film Festival winner Darkon, an extremely fun Medieval epic in the world of soccer moms and minivans.

And then today, I'm lead to this video of a Golem constructed by some extremely dedicated Larpers somewhere.



Man, I wish I had a golem. Then those jerks at the post office would be sorry. Also, they would be crushed.

Hobgobprox Countdown

Only five days to go before The Hobgoblin Proxy is out in the world. I've started lining up some appearances and readings and such.

The first will be at 3pm on June 3rd at the Park Slope Barnes & Noble. It's at 267 7th Avenue, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The following weeks will find me (if I don't see them coming first) at Books of Wonder, Book Court, and a few classrooms. If you're within an hour of New York City and can come up with the slimmest justification for me showing up and peddling my book, don't hesitate to email me. Seriously. I'll give pedicures to the criminally insane if you let me read an excerpt from "Hobgoblin Proxy" while I do it.

That's a sneak peak of one of Will Davis' illustrations off to the right.

Today's guest site comes from my time researching the NSA for Splinter Cell. It's an advice column from the world's second most powerful intelligence-gathering agency. Check out DearNSA, ask them anything. ANYTHING.

because I STARTED the penguin bandwagon

I was just sent the first review for the second Clemency Pogue book, THE HOBGOBLIN PROXY. It comes from the-trades.com and is very kind. R.J. Carter calls the humor "some of the cleverest ever invested into modern children's literature. "

(Here am I doing my Raggedy-Anne-with-a-melted-candy-heart impersonation.)



A little praise puts me in a self-indulgent mood, and I did some vanity googling. But since I already know what I've been up to, I decided to google one of the things I've created, namely "Mortified Penguin," the code name of a trained assassin in the second Splinter Cell game, "Pandora Tomorrow." I'm punched as please to find that Mortified Penguin has taken on a life of it's own. M.P. has become an online Windows users'resource, a design studio, a Teutonic blogger, and much, much more. The attached picture comes from the always brilliant work of Brian Froud.

Less than 20 days until The Hobgoblin Proxy is in stores!