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Day 2 of BEA produced more sore feet and shoulders as books were schlepped everywhere. but also books, authors, talks and even a few comics.

The Beat’s day started with an Author’s Stage interview with Bill Willingham on the subject of his new YA prose novel, DOWN THE MYSTERLY RIVER. Author’s Stage interviews are kind of like Inside the Actors Studio — they take place on a stage …in front of people…sitting in a chair. No place to hide! They are not meant to engage a sense of comfort in the interviewer! Luckily Bill is such a great raconteur and talker, I had no worries. Publisher Tor has written up the talk:

As opposed to his successful comic epic, though, the author readily admitted that prose takes more ongoing commitment. Willingham discussed going through an extensive rewrite of his original draft of Mysterly River, tightening up the text, patching up plotholes or lacking character motivations, adding chapters, and even adding an entirely new character viewpoint*. (One audience member in the panel likened this to hell, which Willingham was happy to say he avoided this time around, simply because of how the new character interacts with the existing plot.)

Later in the day New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler interviewed New Yorker legend Roz Chast on stage, and event we could not attend. However Shannon sent us a picture. Our intern, DaYoung Jung did go and said it was very informative as Chast talked about what she likes and doesn’t like.

Elsewhere, we popped our head into BlogWorld, a concurrent expo of blogging … stuff and all day talks and panels. As the BEA show floor is different this year, there is room for an entire BlogWorld conference downstairs, and one badge gets you into all the fun. The room was sparesely attended and very cold, broken up only by the occasional krunking (for reals) and a woman suggesting you get your picture taken with a Cloris Leachman cutout. WordPress was exhibiting, and gave us a few ideas for upgrades. We should note that every tabel in the “Sitting down area” included lots of power outlets, meaning you could go in and recharge things to your hearts content.

Later in the day Dark Horse threw a small reception spotlighting The Last Dragon by Rebecca Guay, a gorgeous painted collaboration with Jane Yolen (Guay was on hand.) They also had ARCs of CHIMACHANGA, a self-published B&W book by Eric Powell which Dave Stewart has colored — also drop dead gorgeous — and the long awaited