RICHARD EPCAR has voiced over 300 characters and is well known to Animation, Game and Anime fans starting with the original ‘ROBOTECH’ series in which he played  ‘BEN DIXON’, ‘LUNK’, ‘GREL’, and now ‘CAPT. VINCE GRANT’ in ‘ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES’ , which he also directed.

He is the voice of ‘BATOU’ in all things ‘GHOST IN THE SHELL’ including ‘Ghost in the Shell 2-Innocence’, which he also adapted and directed into English.

Some games you’ve heard him on: ‘TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON’, ‘MODNATION RACERS’, all ‘KINGDOM HEARTS’ games (except the first one) as ‘ANSEM / XEHANORT’, ‘MORTAL KOMBAT vs. D.C. UNIVERSE’ as ‘The JOKER’ and ‘RAIDEN’, ‘TOUR OF DUTY 7’, ‘DEAD SPACE II’, ‘SPEC OPS’, ‘BASARA’, ‘STAR WARS-EMPIRE AT WAR’, STAR WARS: OLD REPUBLIC’, a new DC game in which he plays ‘GREEN ARROW’, ‘STAR CRAFT II’ as ‘DARK TEMPLAR’, ‘DEAD OR ALIVE 3-D’, ‘RED FACTION GUERILLA’, ‘COMMAND & CONQUER’, ‘XENOSAGA I, II and III as ‘ZIGGARAT 8’, ‘ACE COMBAT 6’, ‘GUILTY GEARS’, ‘.HACK I, II, III’, ‘BLUE DRAGON’, ‘NARUTO’, ‘SPACE SIEGE’, ‘SUPREME COMMANDER’, ‘PARAWORLD’, BLACKHAWK DOWN’, ‘SAMURAI WARRIORS’, ‘DYNASTY WARRIORS’, ‘WARCRAFT III’, and ‘WORLD OF WARCRAFT III’, ‘STREET FIGHTERS’, ‘DANTE’S INFERNO’,‘STAR OCEAN I, II, III’ to name a few.

Most recently he can be heard on a brand new series from Nickelodeon, ‘AIRBENDER: THE LEGEND OF KORRA’, ‘BLEACH’ as ‘KOGA’ and ‘ZANGETSU’, ‘NARUTO’, ‘GUNDAM UNICORN’ as ‘DAGUZA’, ‘BUSO RENKIN’, ‘HUNTIK’ as ‘GRIER’, ‘GHOST SLAYER AYASHI’, ‘BLUE ELEPHANT’, ‘BLAZE OF GLORY’, ‘BOBOBO-BOBOBOBO, ‘MR. NOISY’ on ‘THE MR. MEN SHOW’ and he is currently the voice of  INSPECTOR LUNGE on ‘MONSTER’.

Shows he’s directed are ‘LUPIN the THIRD’, doing the voice of ‘JIGEN’, ‘NOEIN’, doing ‘KOOYRAMA’ and the first season of  ‘DIGIMON’, doing ‘ETEMON’, ‘MYOTISMON’, ‘APEMON’ and now ‘MERUKIMON’ on ‘DIGIMON DATA SQUAD’.  An original animated movie with an all star cast ‘THE REEF’ in which he played ‘MOE’.  The series ‘FIGHTING SPIRIT’, doing the voice of ‘KAMOGAWA’, ‘PATLABOR III’, ‘THE SECRET OF MAMO’, ‘ ZENTRIX’, ‘TOY WARRIOR’, and ‘POWER RANGERS’ doing many monster voices to name a few.  He also wrote for ‘TRANSFORMERS’ and did the voice of  ‘ARMORHIDE’.

He was named FAVORITE ACTOR by DVD VisionJapan. Some games he’s directed: ‘STAR OCEAN I & II’, ‘BLUE DRAGON’, ‘VANDAL HEARTS’, ‘SHADOW HEARTS II’, ‘ LUPIN the THIRD’, ‘FIGHTING SPIRIT & VICTORIOUS BOXERS’ in which he played ‘KAMAGAWA’ in both, ‘VEGAS’, ‘SMACKDOWN vs. RAW’, ‘JACKASS the GAME’, ‘DEAD-HEAD FRED’,  he co-directed ‘UNREAL TOURNAMENT III’, and co-castthe mo-cap for ‘QUANUM OF SOLACE’.

1. You wear so many hats in the creative industries, which one gives you the most satisfaction, and why?

Well acting is my first love and I do really love it. But I also really love directing. The difference is when you act you create your character and have some control over that-but when you direct-you have control over the entire project. And I have to say I do like being in charge. Of course with being in charge comes great responsibility. I really enjoy being creative and I think all of this-acting, writing and directing come from the same place in me.

2. What current or upcoming projects are you excited about?

I’m Skywarp in the new Transformer game-War for Cybertron. I really love being part of that franchise. I’m also working on a new animated series for Nickelodeon-it’s the sequel to Avatar and I’m very happy to be part of it. I really enjoy working with Andrea Romona. I’ve been very fortunate to be part of some really great games recently. Some I can’t mention unfortunately because of non-disclosure clauses.

3. What’s your key to time management?

I wish I had a great answer for this. I’m basically a lazy work-a-holic. I work constantly because if I didn’t I’d turn into a giant slug. So I keep moving. Fortunately I love what I do. The best thing I do-I guess- is try to schedule everything so it fits-not always successful-and I try to get up early and take care of the things I need to do. I’m usually in the studio part of the day-so the scheduling thing can be very challenging.

4. You attend many different conventions each year – do you have a favourite?

I have to say that most of the cons I’ve gone to have been wonderful. I loved going to Australia, and I hope I can return sometime soon. Ialso love Mechacon in New Orleans. First of all it’s in New Orleans and Jon and Peter who run it are the best. They really run a great con and take great care of us when ever we’re there. My friend Manny who runs a lot of cons really takes care of us too. We will miss Anime South because they really spoiled us. Generally it’s a joy to go to these conventions and be appreciated by the fans who know our work. It’s great to meet them and share stories. By the way when I say ‘we’ I’m talking about my wife Ellyn Stern-who generally goes with me on these cons-she has done a bunch of voice and directing work in her own right.

After the success of the first Superstars Writing Seminar in Pasadena, Kevin j Anderson and Rebecca Moesta will again be joining bestselling authors Brandon Sanderson, Dave Wolverton, and Eric Flint to present another three-day set of intensive lectures.  This time, the team will be joined by guest instructor Sherrilyn Kenyon, author of the popular Dark Hunter series; she’s had fourteen #1 New York Times bestsellers in the last two years!

The Superstars Writing Seminar is a practical, no-nonsense course on business topics for the professional writer.  Topics include:

Economics of Commercial Publishing

How Editors Look at Manuscripts, Novels, and Short Fiction

Dissecting a Book Contract

How to Read and Understand a Royalty Statement

Dirty Secrets: What You Need to Know About Being a Professional Author

How to Leverage Your Intellectual Property

Balancing Acts: Writing World and Real World

Agents

Networking and Self-Promotion for Authors

Understanding E-Books

Pitching the Big Proposal

Two Heads Are Better than One: Collaborations

How to Get an Edge with New Media

Movies, TV, and Authors

How to Increase Your Writing Productivity

—and more, including open Q&A sessions, a special limited-seating VIP banquet to get to know the instructors, and plenty of networking opportunities among the teachers, other writers, and fellow students.

Dates are January 13–15, 2011 (Thursday–Saturday, the weekend before the national holiday of Martin Luther King Day).  Early-bird pricing is still in effect, but prices will go up at the end of October.  For more information and to sign up, go to www.superstarswritingseminars.com.

…And A Side Order of Romance

Two readers walk into a bar. “Read any good books lately?” one reader asks the other.

Two authors walk into a bar. “Sold any good books lately?” one author asks the other.

Honest, that’s the truth. The problem is that the second question is a lot harder to answer than the first. Which is why when I’m asked to wax poetic about the state of the science fiction romance genre, I’ll look at my wristwatch and ask, “Do you mean the state of SFR now or a half-hour from now?”

Adult science fiction novels, according to my agent, Kristin Nelson, are on the down-trend. http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2010/09/when-its-not-hot-passion-can-carry-it.html “This week I went on submission with an adult SF novel. Ask any editor and they will tell you, adult SF is not hot. Fantasy is hot—particularly urban fantasy,” Nelson says.

This obviously is not happy news to anyone reading this blog. Nor is it startling news. Statistically, science fiction has always been a low point-scorer in the game of fiction, accounting for about 8 to 10 percent of all paperback sales. Mystery clocks in around 15 percent.

Which brings me to my title… a side order of romance.

Romance fiction accounts for about 45 to 50 percent of all fiction paperbacks sold. This is a whopping huge number to those of us who follow the business of writing fiction (ie: the second set to walk into the bar above.) So one would think that combining a romance plot with a science fiction plot would bring that additional 10 percent of readers to the game.

It hasn’t—yet. Or it hasn’t to any great extent. A lot of the reason is marketing. Publishers are sincerely confuzzled on how to market science fiction romance or romantic science fiction (and the two are not the same, no.) When publishers hype the romance with kissy-covers, the science fiction fans flee. When the publishers slap a starship on the cover, romance readers recoil. No, not all. I’m exaggerating to make a point (and to have fun with alliteration, obviously). But in the six years I’ve been on the shelves with SFR books, I’ve not seen the barriers come tumbling down from either side when it comes to a side order of romance with SF.

There have been high points. SF readers who like the character-driven visual media tend to be more accepting of SFR. Romance readers who watched FIREFLY and aimed to misbehave along with Captain Mal found the same kind of hi-jinx on the pages of an SFR. But there are still barriers—there are still readers (and bloggers and reviewers) who thrust their heels into the mud and refuse to budge on the issue of mixing SF with R.

The reality is that a goodly amount of SF is plot-driven and/or theme-driven, with the characters simply as vehicles for the plot or analogies for the theme. If that’s the kind of journey a reader wants then, yes, any character-driven novel is going to feel strange to her. It doesn’t mean that plot is better than character, or character than plot. It’s what the reader likes or expects to find between the covers of the book.

And various publishing marketing departments haven’t had much success in telegraphing just what it is between the covers, so that readers can judge whether or not they like it. Which, of course, affects sales and, of course, affects an author’s “numbers,” which of course affects whether or not the author’s next manuscript will be picked up. Which affects the state of SFR as a genre overall.

Dorchester’s SHOMI line and Silhouette’s BOMBSHELL are almost poster-children for this dilemma. Both had SFR/Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Romance plots. Both lines folded. Both were—in the opinions of just about every editor and agent and author I’ve spoken to in the past two years—horribly mis-marketed. And when a line goes down, detractors love to point to that and say, “See, I told you SFR doesn’t sell.”

No. SFR poorly marketed doesn’t sell well. But with romance readers making up danged near half of all paperback sales, and with SF books traditionally having the longest shelf-life of any paperbacks in a store, there’s every indication the combo CAN and SHOULD work.

If only someone can figure out how to market it.

Maybe we need some guy in a trench coat standing in the bookstore aisles going, “Psst, hey, reader! You want a little side of romance with that?”

Bio:

A former news reporter and retired private detective, Linnea Sinclair writes award-winning, fast-paced science fiction romance for Bantam Dell, including Gabriel’s Ghost, Games of Command, Hope’s Folly, and her current best seller, Rebels and Lovers. Her short story, “Courting Trouble,” is featured in Songs of Love & Death: Tales of Star-Crossed Love, a cross-genre anthology edited by Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin (Simon & Schuster, Nov. 16. 2010). Sinclair splits her time between Florida (winters) and Ohio (summers)—and the Intergalactic Bar & Grille at www.linneasinclair.com.