Priscilla Spencer has been Jim's creative consultant since 2007. In addition to managing content for Jim-Butcher.com and its social media channels, she beta-reads all of Jim's works, serves as a thematic consultant on the graphic novels and role playing games, and illustrates the maps for his books. The whole "Year of Dresden" thing is largely her baby. Her latest claim to fame is directing the official book trailers for Peace Talks and Battle Ground.
In her professional life, Priscilla is a Producer, Writer, Photographer, and Fantasy Map Illustrator working towards a career in producing TV. She enjoys musical theatre, gluten-free cooking, sci-fi/fantasy, and weightlifting. She aspires to travel the world and pet every dog.
Another awesome news story that couldn’t wait for the next Dresden Drop: Emerald City Comic Con is hosting a 20th Anniversary Party at 6pm on March 12th, and tickets are on sale NOW! This event is available to anyone with a ticket–you do NOT need to have a con badge to attend the event.
Here’s the press release:
Celebrate 20 years of the Dresden Files with Jim Butcher! At this intimate event, fans will have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A with Jim, have their books signed*, receive exclusive swag—and be the first to hear some very exciting news!
The price of the ticket includes: 1 copy of the special Storm Front Con Edition hardcover (available only at select conventions throughout the year) a Dresden Files tote bag, 2 enamel pins, a Harry and Mouse magnet, a Peace Talks sampler and signed bookplate, and 2 drink tickets to toast Harry Dresden!
*Limit 3 items/person. A bookseller will be on-site if you would like to buy books at the event.
The party will be held at the Sheraton Grand Seattle’s Ravenna Room, 1400 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101.
Tickets permit one person only. Kids will need their own ticket.
Please note that alcohol will be served at the event, so remember to bring photo ID, as you will be carded. For non-drinkers and guests under 21, soda and other non-alcoholic beverages will be available.
Subscribe to the Jim-Butcher.com newsletter and follow @JimButcherNews on twitter to ensure you’re always the first to hear about exciting new developments in the Year of Dresden!
Last Thursday, Entertainment Weekly revealed Chris McGrath’s cover of Peace Talks and an exclusive excerpt from the book. So while we’ve got visuals on the brain, we’d love to see YOUR version of Harry’s world. For this week’s Dresden Drop, we’re launching the Official “Year of Dresden” Fanart Contest!
(What is the Year of Dresden? 2020 is the 20th anniversary of Storm Front, and we’re celebrating with weekly “Dresden Drops” of artwork, microfiction, interviews, sample chapters of Peace Talks, contests, and other goodies every Tuesday throughout the year. Catch up in our introductory post, then join our announcement list and follow @jimbutchernews on twitter to ensure you don’t miss a beat!)
Contest prizes includes a signed ARC of Peace Talks and poster prints by fan favorite illustrator Mika Kuloda (aka Mika Merrylark aka Mika Blackfield). Submissions are due Thursday, February 13th, and winners will be announced Tuesday, February 18th. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for all the rules!
To get your creative juices flowing, over the span of the contest, we’ll be spotlighting some of the fabulous official artists who have contributed their visions of the Dresdenverse to alternate editions and tie-ins. (No need to feel intimidated–the official artists featured in these Spotlights are ineligible for this fanart contest. We want as level a playing field as possible!)
Artist Spotlight, Part 1
Fans worldwide know and love Chris McGrath’s gritty, iconic style, but he’s not the only artist to lend his talents to Dresden covers! Today’s three spotlight artists have created covers for “special editions” of Jim’s material.
Dan Dos Santos is best known in the Dresdenverse for creating the illustration of Harry riding Sue into battle, originally commissioned for the SFBC omnibus Wizard at Large, and since enshrined on TV Tropes as the definitive representation of the series’ Crowning Moments of Awesome.
As far as official art goes, he’s also illustrated covers for two other omnibus editions and the short story anthology Naked City (featuring the Dresden story “Curses”). But fans were in for a rare treat when a client commissioned him for another piece, and Dan generously documented his process: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. His unused “sketches” are some of the most striking images in the fandom!
You can buy prints of Dan’s art through his store.
Mike Mignola, best known as the creator of Hellboy, lent his bold, graphic style to the novella “Backup,” our first taste of the Dresdenverse outside Harry’s point-of-view. This Subterranean Press limited edition is long since sold out, but copies are easily found through used book resalers.
Vincent Chong has been consistently producing eye-catching covers and dreamlike, evocative illustrations since Subterranean Press began publishing their illustrated special editions of the Dresden novels in 2008. Ghost Story is in preorders now! Check out the full gallery of his Dresden cover work, then enjoy a sampling of his interior art. Inquire about prints here.
Fanart Contest Rules
Now that you’re all sufficiently inspired, here are the details of the Official Year of Dresden Fanart Contest!
3 Runners-Up: 12”x18” Mika Kuloda art print, signed by Jim Butcher
As Many Honorable Mentions As We See Fit: Eternal Glory and Bragging Rights
Note: We’d love to see entries from all around the globe, but regretfully we can only send physical prizes to residents in the United States. Therefore, international entries are eligible for Honorable Mentions, but not for the other prize tiers.
HOW TO ENTER
Email the file to yearofdresden@gmail.com. Accepted file types are jpg, png, and gif. Must be under 30MB.
Please include the name you’d like to be credited as, a link to your portfolio (if you have one), and your country (mostly for the prize tier thing, but also because we’re nosy).
Submissions are due February 13th, 2020 at midnight Pacific time.
Winners will be announced February 18th.
RULES
This contest is open to fans at all skill levels,
professional and amateur alike!
Feel free to create in any medium, though keep in mind that this contest is not for cosplay or fan films. Creators can submit up to 10 works, though each entry will be considered individually. Sequential art of maximum 8 pages can be considered a single work.
Entries do not have to have been created specifically for
this contest—you may submit prior work.
You’re welcome to make use of characters, quotes, and other elements from the Dresden Files novels, shorts, comics, RPGs, and other tie-ins, but note that the art itself must be your own original work. If integrating existing imagery, it must be royalty free and follow the rights holder’s terms and conditions for use. “I found it on Google Images” does not mean “royalty free.” 😀 Photomanipulations of official Dresden artwork and stills from the 2007 SciFi TV series are ineligible.
Try to keep entries at or below an “R” rating, in line with the spirit of the books. Pornographic, abusive, or excessively vulgar entries will be disqualified.
THE FINE PRINT
This contest is all about elevating the incredible artists who make this fandom a vibrant, thriving creative community. To that end, we want to show our admiration by respecting their rights and not taking advantage of free labor. In submitting to this contest, participants give us permission to post their submissions WITH attribution on our website and various social media platforms, but the artwork remains the artists’ property. We make no claim on the art and will not repurpose it for merchandise, media tie-ins, or other use without securing additional permissions from the artist and negotiating additional compensation. Because y’all are awesome and deserve nothing less.
Special Bonus For Reading To The End
To celebrate the upcoming release of Peace Talks, Penguin Random House is giving away a signed set of every novel in The Dresden Files so far! Enter before January 28th for your chance to win.
We try to avoid posting more than once a week out of respect for your inboxes, but this time, we have to make an exception. Part 2 of this week’s Dresden Drop: Entertainment Weekly has revealed the cover for Peace Talks, as well as an EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT from the book!
Now that the exclusivity period is over, we can share both below…
And that was when every hair on my neck suddenly rose and stood on end, all the way down to my heels. Gooseflesh erupted over my entire body at once, and a primal, primeval wave of utter terror flickered through my lizard brain, utterly dislodging every rational thought in my head.
For a wizard, that’s . . . less than ideal. Control of our own thoughts and emotions is vital. Otherwise, all kinds of horrible things can happen. The first lesson every practitioner learns is how to quiet and focus his or her mind. And in the face of that mindless fear, I ran to that first lesson, allowing emotions to slough away, seeking calm, patience, balance.
I didn’t get any of those. But it was enough to let me shove the terror back and to start processing some degree of rational thought.
That hadn’t been the result of some random eddy of energy. Terror that focused was nothing less than a psychic disruption, a mental attack, the psychic equivalent of an ear-piercing shriek, loud enough to burst eardrums—and whatever had done it wasn’t even in sight yet.
In the sleeping city around me, hundreds or thousands of people had just been seized in the talons of nightmares of pursuit and mindless fear. Those who were awake and didn’t know what they were dealing with would interpret it as a brief, frightening hallucination or a migraine or simply a dizzy spell.
The old man had recovered faster than me, and by the time I’d cleared my head, he was already staring out at the night, his jaw set.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked him, my voice shaking.
“Outsiders,” he confirmed grimly. “Someone just whistled them in.”
“Super,” I said. “Just once, I’d like to be wrong about these things.”
The old man snorted. “Now, if you were an Outsider, what would you be doing in Chicago the night before a big peace conference?”
The question was almost meaningless. Outsiders were creatures from beyond the borders of reality, from outside of our universe. They weren’t human. They weren’t anything close to human. They were hideous, and they were dangerous, and they . . . were just too alien to be understood. There are Outsiders who want to eat your face off, and then there are the rest of them, who don’t go in for that kind of namby-pamby cuddly stuff.
Demons they might be. But demons summoned by mortals, the only way for them to get into our reality. They always have a mortal purpose, if not always a rational one.
“Trying to interfere with it in some way,” I suggested. “If a senior member of the Council was torn apart by monsters, it would tend to tilt blame toward the Fomor.”
“Definitely a poor way to begin negotiations,” Ebenezar agreed. “And I don’t think that we—”
He suddenly froze and stared.
I followed his gaze.
In a corner of the alley, where one of the building’s cornices formed a shadowy alcove, blue lines of light had appeared at the intersection of the ground and the two walls.
“Oh, Hell’s Bells,” I breathed. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Belike,” growled the old man, his eyes shifting around. “How well do you know this block?”
“It’s Chicago,” I said.
“Good. We need a place without people or much that can catch fire.”
I eyed him and said, “It’s Chicago.”
The light in the corner shifted weirdly, warped, spun into curlicues and spirals that should only have existed in Escher drawings. The stone of the building twisted and stretched, and then rock rippled and bubbled like pancake batter, and something started hauling itself out of the surface of the stone at the intersection of the three lines of light. My chest suddenly vibrated as if I’d been standing in a pool in front of an outflow pipe, and a surge of nausea nearly knocked me down.
The thing that slithered into our world was the size of a horse, but lower, longer, and leaner. It was canine in shape, generally—a quadruped, the legs more or less right, and everything else subtly wrong. A row of short, powerful-looking tentacles ran along its flanks. A longer, thicker tentacle lashed like a whip where its tail should have been. The feet were spread out, wide, for grasping, kind of like an eagle’s talons, and where its head should have been was nothing but a thick nest of more of the tendrils. It had something like scales made of mucus, rather than fur, and flesh squelched on flesh.
“Cornerhound,” Ebenezar said, his voice purely disgusted. “Damned things.”
The old man looked weary and obdurate, like a stone that had been resisting the sea since the last ice age. His expression was annoyed.
But then I noticed one of the more terrifying sights I’d seen in my life.
Ebenezar McCoy’s hands were unsteady.
The end of his staff quivered as they trembled.
My mentor, my teacher, the most feared wizard on the planet, was frightened.
He stepped between the hound and me and lifted his left hand as the thing stood there for a second, dripping slime onto the ground beneath it and seething. Dozens of little mouths lined with serrated teeth opened along its flanks, gasping at the thick summer air as though it was something that the creature found only partially breathable.
Then the cornerhound crouched, its body turning toward us with serpentine fluidity. The cluster of tentacles around its head began to quiver and undulate in weird unison, the motion becoming more and more energetic, and a weird moaning sound erupted from the creature, descending swiftly down the scale of audible sound until the tentacles all undulated together in a single quivering movement, and suddenly flew forward at the same instant, with a sound so deep I could feel it more than hear it.
The old man lifted his hand with a single sharp word, and a wall of pure arcane power blazed into light between us…
You can preorder Peace Talks (or catch up on any material you’ve missed) through our store.
For those just tuning in, this year is 20th Anniversary of the publication of Storm Front. To honor that milestone and to thank the phenomenal fans who got us there, we will be posting weekly “Dresden Drops” on jim-butcher.com every Tuesday, featuring new artwork, microfiction, interviews, contests, sample chapters for Peace Talks, or other tasty tidbits.
As we announced earlier this month, every Tuesday in 2020 will feature weekly Drops of never-before-seen artwork, microfiction, interviews, contests, sample chapters for Peace Talks, or other tasty tidbits. Join our new mailing list and follow @jimbutchernews on twitter to ensure you don’t miss a moment in our 20th Anniversary celebration! Check the announcement post to catch up on prior Drops.
This week’s Dresden Drop: The official series reread has begun with Storm Front! Join us on Goodreads for an epic undertaking as we reread and discuss all 15 published novels, then take on the 16th! The schedule:
#14, Cold Days: 7/13 – 26 (Peace Talks out 7/14th!)
#15, Skin Game: 7/27 – 8/9
#16, Peace Talks: 8/10 – 31
(Note: This schedule may seem counter-intuitive, as Peace Talks comes out just as we’re diving into Cold Days. The advantage is that it gives all fans the opportunity to read and digest Peace Talks before diving into group discussion four weeks later–we know not everyone is going to be able to devour the book the week it’s out! You’ll definitely want to read ahead on your own and make sure you’re caught up before reading the new release.)
EDIT: The schedule has been changed in response to reader feedback!
Missing any books in your collection? Snag a copy through the jim-butcher.com store! You can also preorder Peace Talks, due out simultaneously in hardcover, ebook, and audio July 14th.
Storm Front was first published April 1st, 2000, which makes this year The Dresden Files’ 20th anniversary! To honor that milestone and to thank the phenomenal fans who got us there, we will be posting “Dresden Drops” on jim-butcher.com every Tuesday this year. Dresden Drops will feature never-before-seen artwork, microfiction, interviews, sample chapters for Peace Talks, contests, and other tasty tidbits throughout 2020.
We’re also recruiting some of your favorite geeky and literary websites to help us celebrate the series with readalongs, giveaways, and more, and we’ll be announcing the first tie-in event later this week. Be sure to join our new mailing list and follow @jimbutchernews on twitter, so you don’t miss a moment in this fuego-licious fiesta of fansquee.
Hang on tight, because this year is going to be lit! Because it’s on fire. And it is definitely Harry’s fault.
Now without further ado, here’s our first piece of microfiction, “Mike.” It’s set between White Night and Small Favor–shortly after the graphic novel Wild Card. Spoiler Level: LOW. Read it here!
