The Geek Side

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Assembling Avengers

2009-04-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't done any real kind of collecting in a very long time. I used to collect comics - though now, I just read them. In high school, it was important to have every comic bagged and boarded and in mint condition, and to try to get complete sets of things. Back then, there was the belief that you could make a fortune one day selling your comic collection. That dream was part of it. But more, it was just the challenge and adventure of collecting. This was well before the internet. If there was a back issue you wanted, you couldn't just jump on eBay and pick it up. You had to constantly check the back issue long boxes at your Local Comic Store (tm), or check out other shops outside your area, or attend local conventions, or hit up garage or yard sales. In the end, though, the best thing about collection was setting a goal and reaching it - that feeling of accomplishment as your collection grew, and finally, if you were that vigilant, was completed.

But as I said, comics stopped being a collecting hobby for me and became about reading. This is why I much prefer the trade paperback over the individual issues. I no longer have the desire to bag and board, to worry over condition, to keep track of current values on each issue (values which mean little anymore in today's internet buying market). Give me a trade I can read and stick on a book shelf, and I'm fine.

But I recently found myself bitten again by the collecting bug. It wasn't for comics this time. Well...it sort of was...

I discovered a line of lead, hand-painted figurines, based on both Marvel and DC characters, created and sold in the U.K. by a company called Eaglemoss. The figurines themselves were cool enough - all between 3.5 and 4 inches, with great detail paid to every aspect of the character's look - but it was the overwhelming variety that blew my mind. As of this writing, there are 100 of the Marvel ones available, and the next 40 of them have been announced. As a fan of Marvel since I first stepped up from Richie Rich to super-hero comics, I was quite giddy to see that rather than just having the usual Spider-Man, Wolverine and Hulk figures you would expect, Eaglemoss was offering figurines based on the likes of Wonder Man...Quicksilver...Madrox...Doc Sampson...and the Scott Lang Ant-Man! They had a huge range of both heroes and villains (who doesn't want their own Galactus?), and it appeared that they planned to just keep on making more.

I tracked down their web site and browsed through the shots of all the available Marvel figures (as Marvel, not DC, is my primary interest). I found out these figurines are only available in the U.K., which surprised me. But, of course, I also found out quickly that different comic shops in the U.S. were importing and selling them. And I learned, also, how these things are marketed, and it's a really neat idea. Each figurine comes with its own magazine - a magazine filled with nothing but history, info and art on that specific character. The characters, in fact, are listed by issue number - Spider-Man was issue #1 of the magazine, Banshee was #100. Customers are able to "subscribe" to the magazine. Every two weeks (or, as they say in the U.K., "fortnightly"), you receive a new issue and its corresponding figure in the mail. That's a good deal for people who plan to "collect 'em all", and I can see that being a nice goal. But me? I had something else in mind.

Looking over the figures, I was happy to see how many members of my favorite era of The Avengers (late 1970s, roughly issues 140 - 200) were available. And I quickly realized that pretty much all of them were. It was then that I decided if I were to buy any of these, that would be my collection - the 70s Avengers. After a few days, I thought about it again, started looking at them on eBay, and found a good price on a Hawkeye figure. I went ahead and got it, figuring that if I was only to get one of these things, that's the one Marvel character I'd most want to have. Unfortunately, when it came in the mail and I saw how damned cool it was, and loved the not-too-small, not-too-big size of it, I started hankering for more. Maybe just one more, I told myself...

I am now fully committed to building my Avengers team. Though I'm also in no hurry, which is definitely a good thing for someone with...you know...no job. Yeah, not a great time to pick up a new addiction. But that's a good thing, I think. Just grabbing them all up at once wouldn't be any fun. I'm getting to experience that collecting rush again, and the patience and anticipation that comes with it. I can't afford to pay much for any of them, so I'm forced to wait to find good deals...the ones too good to pass up, generally. And the other challenge is that they're not all easy to find. Obviously, the more popular the character, the quicker their figures sold out. This means some are going to be harder to find, and if you can find them, they're going to cost you more. I can afford the occasional luck-out when I'll find a sale at on online store (like I did when I found some selling for $6 each), and the more typical price when I do have a little money available. I'm sure a few months ago if I'd discovered these, I'd have been piling them up and would need a display case by now. But thanks to budgeted living, I'm very pleased to have picked up five of my Avengers (of the twelve of that era that I consider "my" Avengers) and one Avengers villain, and look forward to watching "the old order changeth!" over time.

Just for kicks, I threw together a page showing my goal and where I'm at in completing it:

Avengers Assembling

I'm just a fan of checklists. They're both a good motivator and a great way to measure completion of a goal. Not doing too bad so far. Obviously, the bigger-name Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man) are going to be tough to track down. I saw a Cap out there for around $30.00, and that's definitely more than I want to spend on this hobby at this time in my life, so I'm waiting until I find a better deal somewhere. Besides...Cap would be more satisfying to pick up at the end of things. Same with Iron Man...and I'm sure I'll have to, as I've yet to see a single Iron Man out there (the regular Iron Man...there's a special "movie" variant that's the gray armor from the start of the film, so not what I need for my team). If I was going to Comic-Con this year, I'm sure this is what I'd be spending my time and cash on. But looks like I'll be sticking to Comic-Con: The Home Game for my Avengers shopping.

The only one marked off there that I don't have in my hands yet is the Falcon. That's on its way in the mail. The rest you see checked are sitting here in front of my computer monitor on my desk. While I'm looking forward to getting them all, the only one that disappoints me a little is the figurine for the Beast. They based it off the latter-day, Grant Morrison Beast, and I was hoping for the Avengers-era Beast...the more gorilla-based, less kitty-cat-based one. Plus, the modern costume? Really lame. But, that's the only Beast available, and I can't have a 70s Avengers team without a Beast. Who would Wonder Man have to go out and get drunk with? And it looks like my checklist is going to have to grow down the road, as I've found out since that they're putting out a Jocasta figure (who makes a Jocasta figure?! I love these guys!), as well as one for the coolest 70s-era Avengers villain (to me) - the Taskmaster! I might also have to pick up the Scott Lang Ant-Man, even though he technically just guest-starred with my Avengers team. But I still got the love for the Lang (may he rest in peace...sniff...). I figure after I've completed "my" Avengers, I'll probably move on to adding all the additional Avengers from over the years - though part of me does hope, if that's the case, that they don't get around to making a Starfox figure...

If you're a comic fan, I don't see any way you can not love these things. There's something in both the Marvel and DC collections for everyone. Chances are one of your favorite characters, good or evil, is available, or soon will be. You can take a look at all the visuals of the available characters at the Eaglemoss sites, here:

Marvel Figurines
DC Figurines

If you want to take a look at the full current list of available and forthcoming figures, and their order, there are good lists for both on Wiki:

Marvel List
DC List

If you want to see them in person, check out your local comic store, as some do carry them, but most stores only have a handful. Or do an eBay or a Google Shopping search for "Marvel Figurines" or "DC Figurines" to find online options. If you're like me, you'll find a new hobby...and assure that another portion of your home outs you as a big nerd.

The upcoming Black Knight figurine

Shang-Chi will whup your ASS.

Madrox - with modern costume

That's Bat-tastic!

In blackest night...!

A New (Expanded) Hope

2009-03-16T18:42:00.001-07:00

I've made no secret - to anyone - about my, shall we say, "disappointment" with George Lucas this decade and what he's done with the Star Wars franchise. This strikes some as being ungrateful - after all, it is George who first birthed this universe that I've loved so much since that first time, as a kid, I sat wide-eyed and stunned by the original film back in '77. But this universe has turned into something both embarrassing and, frankly, offensive to lifelong fans of it. Lucas has not only turned it into a kiddie property, but has turned it into a completely crappy one, too.

I was there opening day for Episode I, and I was deep into fan nirvana. I'd waited for twenty years. Finally, more Star Wars! And I was also one of the people who, because of this, lived in denial for a long time. I saw it several times in the theater - because that's what us old Star Wars fans do - each time convincing myself that it wasn't the garbage that it really was. I held out hope that things would get better with the next one. I ended up practicing the same denial for that one. By the third film, I had finally become jaded. I only saw this one once on the big screen. And by that time, no amount of Kool-Aid-drinking fanboy obsession could hide the truth. Lucas had lot it. He was a terrible director. He was a terrible storyteller. And he was ruining the franchise.

One would assume, based on these films and the animated things that followed, that all hope was lost.

"No. There is another."

(You see what I did there?).

What few people in the mainstream know is that the Star Wars universe is much, much bigger than just the six movies. There's something out there called the Star Wars Expanded Universe. This began when it didn't look like any more Star Wars films would be coming in our lifetime. And it was realized that film was not the only venue to tell tales of this enormous universe that we all craved more of. Star Wars novels began. Most dork franchises have novels to go with them, often just throwaway things to make money that sell in supermarkets and severely lack quality. But the people at Lucas' empire decided to do something different. They created novels that picked up after Return of the Jedi left off, and continued the story of all these beloved characters and explored all the different parts of their universe that we only ever got glimpses of in the films. The first big hit was Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, and the fan response was enormous.

Not so much for me. I tried them. I really tried. But I'm just not enough of a fan to be able to overlook bad writing to get the stories I want. To me (and a lot of people disagree, and I understand that), Zahn is just a crappy writer. I forced my way through the first book - after a couple of attempts - and started the second one, but I couldn't finish.

Due to this popularity, more books started to be produced. I would occasionally try them when my Star Wars jones got too frantic. I don't think I ever finished one of those, either. Again...bad writing. It seemed I wasn't able to share in this new movement and follow along with the future of Star Wars like so many others.

But in the year 2000, a year when I still hadn't quite accepted what Episode I truly was and was still in a place of renewed Star Wars love, I read about a new series of books called the New Jedi Order. I was intrigued to discover that the books coming out had been building a timeline all this time (as had the Star Wars comics that had been coming out), and that this big, epic story, which was to take place over nineteen novels and be published over five years, was one that took place twenty-five years after Return. I was very curious to see what happened to my beloved characters, ones who, in some cases, now had kids. And I was more intrigued by the idea that instead of using the same crap writers they had been (again, just in my opinion), they were pulling in veteran sci-fi and fantasy novelists to tell the monster tale. I was intrigued enough to grab the first book, take a deep breath, and plunge in.

Wow.

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but it wasn't this. This was a great story. The first book, Vector Prime (written by R.A. Salvatore), really blew me away. It was dark. It was violent. It was actually scary. There was no Jar Jar, no exclamations of "yippee!!", no poodoo jokes. This book began the tale of a war - a real war, with all the horrors and death and destruction that came with it. And right in the first book, a major Star Wars character died (I won't say who in case you missed the news), something I wish I hadn't been spoiled on in the article where I'd first heard of the series. I loved seeing all the old characters again. I loved seeing them having to react to this devastating series of events. And I loved the fact that I knew enough about this Expanded Universe to know that the books were pulling in characters from all the previous Star Wars novels. Even if I didn't want to read many of those books, I loved the fact, from a fan perspective, that they were sticking sternly to ongoing continuity and using everything that had come before. I was completely hooked.

And I followed the whole story, waiting for each new novel with great anticipation. In fact, I even heard about a contest on the official Star Wars web site where you could win a chance to get the next novel in the series well in advance ("Edge of Victory II" by Greg Keyes) and get to review it on the site, and I entered it and won (how THAT for fanboyishness?). As you might have guessed, I'm really picky when it comes to novels and writers - but in this series, there was only one novel in nineteen that I didn't enjoy. Not bad at all. It was epic - huge things happened, characters changed, characters died, the whole face of the Star Wars universe changed. It was immensely satisfying - and yet, published all during the time that George was screwing everything else up with his prequel fetish, a tale about whiny, emotionally infantile people in the middle of a war between clones and wacky robots.

I became such a huge fan of the novels after this, and was able to fill in the gaps of my Expanded Universe knowledge with handy Star Wars Guides to characters, races and planets (all of which is more easily available online now). The problem with this love was trying to share it with other fans of the big SW. You see, even amongst nerds, there are lines in the nerdy sand. I'll know someone, for example, who'll be completely into the films, and will even collect action figures and all the Star Wars Legos. But the minute I mention I'm reading Star Wars novels, that same person will look at me like I just told him I play with Barbie dolls. Any attempts I make to try to convey how cool I think they are hit a big "loser!" brick wall and fall on deaf ears. It's an interesting contradiction. And one that generally means that I'm a Star Wars fan who'll be taking this Expanded journey without most of his fellow Star Wars fans. So be it. Embrace your Count Dooku, you nerf herders!

What makes the novels work is all this post-Return stuff clearly holds no interest to George. Yes, I'm sure all this stuff has to get run by him at some point. But he seems (gratefully) to just rubber stamp it and go back to playing in his Clone Wars era where droids say "roger, roger" and kids get to be Nascar champs. Couldn't...be...happier with that. The less his hands are on this part of the universe, the better for all of us. I know...it's sad to say that. But I just can't continue to defend a guy who's so clearly lost it and refuses to listen to critics (and why would you if you had millions of Stormtrooper-costume-wearing fanatics telling you that everything you touch turns to gold?). I respect the man for what he created. But it's what he created that I love, and watching him, year by year, contaminate and dismantle it is something I can just no longer stomach.

So let him, I say, keep making properties for the kids. I hope the kids love it. I really do. But for those of us who grew up with Star Wars and are now grown-ups, who realize that stories can be told FOR grownups within this vast world, there are, thankfully, the novels. Which I will continue to read as long as the quality is there. It's not always. I tried my best to read the trilogy that took place after the New Jedi Order, but couldn't get through the first book. The story being told there just had no interest to me. The nine-novel series that followed, though, did interest me, so I was able to find a web site that summed up the bizarre bug novels that I couldn't stomach, just to be up to date on what happened to the characters, and jump into the first book in the Legacy of the Force series just recently, written by one of my favorite Star Wars writers, Aaron Allston. The good news is that I haven't had time to read in so long, the series is now over. So now that I'm unemployed, I've got all nine novels ready to be enjoyed. And I guess I'd better hurry, because another series, apparently, has already started after THAT one.

If you're a Star Wars fan, and I mean a fan of the original trilogy, I'd highly advise getting past the stigma and trying the novels out. There are plenty of places online where you can find a chronology so you'll know where to start. And chances are you won't have the same overly-picky writer problems that I do (I have issues...), so you'll be able to enjoy a lot more of them than I have. If you've ever found yourself wondering what happened after Return of the Jedi, there are thousands of pages just waiting to answer that for you. Not only can you watch your favorite characters grow (and grow old - the current book I'm reading is up to 35 years past return), but you experience their children being born and follow along as THEY grow into adulthood and become the newest heroes of the Star Wars galaxy. And you'll meet plenty of fantastic new characters along the way, too. Give one a try, see what you think. The grown-up Star Wars universe awaits you.

Unless you're into poodoo. If so...well, may the poodoo be with you. As long as George keeps calling the shots, I guarantee you that it will be.

The Finding of Fray

2008-06-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, so recently, I realized that there was Jossness I’d never experienced before. For some reason, I’d never gotten around to reading Fray, Joss’s Dark Horse comic mini from 2001-2003. I even had the trade. For a long time now. Maybe it was the close of Astonishing that made me think about it, I don’t know, but I realized I was way overdue. So, because I despise comics in print form now, I left the trade alone in my closet and downloaded the issues for hot laptop reading action.

Answer me this. How, after all this time, did I NOT know that Fray was a Buffyverse property?

I had no idea! I got through the first issue and was in full-on holycrappity mode. And then, I think, less than an hour after I finished that issue, I found out the next Buffy Season 8 arc is going to be the (apparently long-awaited, though I didn’t even know enough to be awaitin’) Buffy/Fray crossover. More crap, even holier.

I shot through all eight issues in the mini. Damn! It was really, really good! All this time I’d been thinking it was just some other project of Joss’s, some futuristic thing, self-contained. How did I get through all this ‘Verse living and go to all those panels and hear people whine about wanting more of it AND read Whedonesque semi-regularly and not NOT know this was his future-slayer book?! Like Shakespeare’s Dogberry – I…am an ass!

I seriously dug it. Probably more so because I read them all at once. Apparently, being Joss, he took, like, three years to get eight issues out (what, was he busy writing TV shows or something? Psh! Oh…actually, he was working on three…). I also did this, FYI, before I read Big-Ass Astonishing X-Men – I realized I was totally lost on the plot, so I went back and read the whole arc from “Oops, we’re in space” onward, or from #19 on. Made a HUGE difference when I got to the finale. This comics-once-a-month stuff is tough enough. The way JOSS does it? I’m surprised I remembered who Colossus was.

Running through the whole Fray, I found it so, SO Joss. I could even hear Buffy/Angel ass-kicking (or tear-jerking) music going off at just the right points. It was a little over-the-top in its wacky futurism from time to time, but hey…I dig six-shooters in space, right? And I had no idea how much love from this got carried out the “real” projects. Case in point – the scythe. The freaking scythe from the Buffy TV finale first appeared in Fray?! No kidding? And this also ended up being the first place where Joss ever used the word “rutting” (at least as far as I know. Maybe he talks like that in letters to his Mom. “Yeah, mom, I’ll be home for ruttin’ Christmas!”). I’m ashamed to say I TOTALLY misread what this series was all about. I thought it was just Joss trying comic writing for the first time. I had no how much pure Whedon love was pumped into it. It’s a really great story. Well, no doubt there, sure…but it’s a Buffyverse story, and a damned fine (and, in its own small way, epic) one. I found myself emotionally hooked, and Joss played the aging, dorky violin that is me just perfectly, leading me one way, surprising me when I least expected it. Melaka Fray was a rockin’ character. One I ended up caring for.

And the best part of my ignorance and slowness of clue-having is that now that I’ve just finished totally loving Fray, I find I just have to wait a couple of months to see her 5-year delayed return to comicness. I am so damned ready. And I’m quite excited to see that the same creative team (Joss and Karl Moline, whose art just got better and better with each issue (which happens over three years of your life, I suppose)) will be doing it up. Wow. I knew I was a Joss fan, but I never knew I was a big enough Joss nerd to be totally psyched about a comic character slayer meeting a TV slayer for the first time. Damnit, Joss! I am TRYING to be cool!

By all means, go out and grab that handy trade for yourself. Or, if you want to learn more, you can check out this page from a guy (guess I’m just assuming it’s a guy) who makes me realize I’m not THAT big of a Fray nerd. Take caution – he actually summarizes the whole series in text. Because that’s SO much more exciting than actually reading the comic… Guess that’s a nice community service for people too poor to buy it. Hell, they could just download it. Wait…are you talking to me about .cbr files on a cellular phone? I don’t know you. Prank caller! Prank caller!

The Company of (My) Heroes

2008-02-03T01:14:00.001-08:00

Just a few of my City of Heroes characters during my time with the game.

You Belong to the City (Of Heroes)

2008-02-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

Man, did I ever get a flashback last night. I was working on something else, but I got a call from A.T. He was trying to get his old City of Heroes account started back up, and couldn't remember his username or password. He thought I might have them somewhere, since the account was set up here at my place. Long story, but he couldn't really play at home, so any playing he did was over here on my other computer, so the account was set up while he was here.

It was while trying to aid him in this that I ended up restarting the City of Heroes software...for the first time in forEVER. I got the game back in 2004. I'd never played one of the big online games before. I had a few friends trying to push me into trying this one. It did sound like fun, but it also sounded like a lot of time to spend, and I was trying to spend more home time on writing and such back then. But, finally, I'd given in and grabbed myself the game. I got home, did the install, set up the account, and jumped into creating my first hero. And what a lot of fun hero creation turned out to be. You could totally create your own costume. Choose your own hair! Control your height and weight! It was definitely more creative freedom than I'd seen in other games.

But getting online was when it got interesting. Oh, man. That first time I showed up at Atlas Park. These days, City of Heroes isn't as popular as it once was. World of Warcraft took care of that (and emptied out a lot of other games besides CoH, too). But back then, it was jammed. My character jogged up toward the big statue of Atlas up front (and I had to pause and look up at it in awe...and appreciate the graphics), heard the heroic music playing (that always comes up when you get near the city hall area), and saw dozens and dozens of other heroes gathered there - chatting, leveling up, dancing (yes, dancing...not something you often see super-heroes doing, I know), taking part in costume contests, looking for teammates to go off on missions with... It was this huge community. And what a sight! Costumes of every color in the rainbow, character names, one after the next, that made me go "Man, why didn't *I* think of that one?! That's hilarious!".

I really got into the game for a while, and spent most of my evenings heroing. I finally understood the addiction factor of online gaming. There's so much to do! So much to explore! So many goals to reach! And so many new characters to try. I don't know if character-making is as fun in other MMOGs, but I just loved making new heroes. It was tough sticking to one - which, of course, is the only way to really progress in the game. My first one that really stuck for a while was Dr. Redstar, a big, cool Russian dude (pictured above). He was my go-to guy for quite a while. And while playing him, I learned about the social aspect of the game. I started getting together with teams of other players to do missions. Sometimes it was just one group for one night, and that was it. But I did find some regulars, and found we worked well together. In particular, I met a lawyer and his wife, both of whom played (each of them in a different room in their home). We made a great team, and met up regularly for a while. We'd draw in other folks. Some were lame. Some were okay. Some were quite good, and, more importantly, were fun to chat with between the combat moments (they could actually use the English language, in other words). Dr. Redstar racked up quite a burgeoning little career, and I even got far enough with him to FINALLY attain flight! You can't just choose flight as a power in this game, you see. Your movement power is something you choose along the way, and have to build up to with experience. There is nothing like that first time you level up to just that right level you've been waiting for, spend your experience, and get to turn on that flight power and float up into the sky. The first time you stop looking up at the big Atlas statue and soar up and stand on the globe on his shoulder and look down over the whole city.

My solo playing on the game wasn't to last, though, as soon, several of my friends decided to try it out. Now THOSE were the good times. We'd hook up online some, but for some reason, everyone preferred to be playing on the same home - MY home. On the weekends for a while, the guys could come over, some dragging their own PCs or laptops (I had my PC and one in the living room to share). A.T would quickly wire up everybody to my network (amazing how fast he can do that stuff) and boom...the "LAN party" was on. We would spend hours running around with our heroes as a team, ordering and eating pizza (in the real world, not in the game), yelling stuff back and forth between rooms ("Dude, where are you? We're at the END of the tunnel! Hurry up!" - "Focus on the master! Focus on the master! Now!" - "Run!!! Everyone out! RUN!!!" - "Oh, man, did you die again?" - "Everybody wait, I gotta go level up"). We'd sometimes do this until the sun came up. And sometimes our timing sucked when doing it, too - like the time my hot neighbor decided to drop by to introduce me to her two hot friends before they went out clubbing - and walked in on an apartment full of guys on computers fighting crime? It simply does not get much funnier than that.

That lasted for a while, but soon, people started playing less, dropping their accounts, moving on to other games. I kept it going for a while. But I started playing less myself and focusing on other things. And then, once, I tried to get back on, and a software error (or something) kept me from completing the sign-on...even after reinstalling. Couldn't figure it out, didn't care enough to pursue it too far at the time. When that PC crashed and I got this new one, I went ahead and reinstalled it, but didn't actually do anything with it. I didn't jump back into good ol' Atlas Park until last night.

It was great to see all the old sights, hear the old sounds, and let the memories come flooding back. Memories of long (and pretty creepy) night spent in the Hollows. That thrill of leveling up to a point you'd never achieved before. Getting that new power you've been dying to try out. Dealing with that complete idiot who joins up with your team, has no idea what he's doing, and just runs around messing things up and getting you all killed. That long, long run back to the mission you were on after you die and end up back at the hospital, while your whole team sits and waits for you. Getting into an epic, massive fight with your team, feeling like there's just no way to win, and somehow coming out alive on the other side - and that victory gathering when you all teleport back outside (and at this point it's like 3am because the mission was so much longer than any of you had thought it would be), talking about what happened and all the close calls, and that parting when people say it's time for them to go level up...or just go to bed! That is a strangely fulfilling night's sleep when you've won that big battle and leveled up as your reward before signing off. You sleep the sleep of the victorious hero.

But the memories that DIDN'T come back? They were ones like...how to play the game!!! Oh, my God, was I lost. I didn't even want to do anything, really, just jump around Atlas Park a little. And I couldn't remember any of the controls! They used to be second nature to me. I used to have all the cool emotes all dialed in (the ones that let you dance, flex your muscles, salute, sit down, read a newspaper, etc). Now? I can't figure out how to even DO them anymore. And since I've been gone, they've added SO MUCH to the game! There's stuff on screen now where I don't even know what it means! What the hell is "salvage"? There was never "salvage" before! I was just lost. Talk about a reminder of what limited (mental) hard drive space I have. I used to be a master (in MY mind, at least) of this game. Now not only can I not find my way around without a map...I can't remember how to find the map!!

I really no time in my life to mess with the CoH right now, but it was a lot of fun stepping back in, just for a few minutes. I know a couple of people still playing. Most have moved on to World of Warcraft addiction, or to EQ2 or one of the other new ones. But I know at least two guys still getting it done, and I know they've both achieved that magical 50th level (the highest you can reach in CoH. At least is used to be. Who knows anymore?) with their long-time characters, and there's still enough of a closet hero in me to applaud that victory and appreciate all they went through to get there (I don't think I ever even hit level 20 with a character. 16 might have been tops for me). I've been on the battlefield enough myself. As Dr. Redstar. As Doc Killarney. As Heatspell. As Doctor Jackal. As Knightmare. As Mr. Moonrock (name aside, he was one of the coolest-looking characters I ever created). As Helix. As Nightsable. And as a handful of others...some, only for one night (as much fun as I had annoying other players with my character "Retarded Ninja", he just wasn't built to last), some for a few runs (my robot pirate - "Aye Robot" - was badASS).

So, maybe one of these nights (or weekends), I might have to dust off one of my old heroes, get in touch with my CoH guys, and see if they're willing to pal around with an amnesiac newbie like myself and go lay down a little justice together. See if the old magic is still there. See if I still have the touch.

See if I can even figure out how to punch a bad guy when he's standing right in front of me...

I'm a Famous Geek, Eh?

2007-10-28T00:46:00.000-07:00

I was just talking my friend A.T. about Alpha Flight, for some reason, and I remembered my little claim to comic came in the early 1980s. Back was I was president (I'm trying hard not to brag) of the Sacramento Marvelite Association, I wrote a letter, on behalf of our group, to Marvel Comics to express our feelings on the first issue of John Byrne's Alpha Flight. Well, turns out they got so many letters that, in issue #4, they just posted the names of some of the people that had written instead of actually showing letters. Unfortunately for the S.M.A., they didn't list our organization's name...they just took mine off the signature. Oops! So, to the displeasure of the others in the group, my name got into a Marvel Comic in 1983, and theirs did not. Sorry guys.

I wonder if John Byrne still remembers me from that? I'll try to bump into him next Comic-Con and ask....

Pirate Corp$ Cover Art

2007-10-28T00:13:00.001-07:00

As detailed in the previous post, I just loved Evan Dorkin's "Pirate Corp$". This are the covers to the original Eternity Comics issues, but the book got picked up later by Slave Labor, and the name of the series got changed to "Hectic Planet", and that's when Dorkin's work on this really hit its stride. All of the issues--original and later--are collected in three different Hectic Planet trade paperbacks (and there's one additional one--"The Bummer Trilogy"--that collects three Hectic Planet short stories Dorkin did in Dark Horse Presents), and they're all available for sale at the Slave Labor site. If you're looking for something fun and different--a little space, a little ska, a lot of angst--I highly advise trying them out.

Me and Comics (Part 3 - The College Years)

2007-10-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I’d left comics behind for a while and decided to get drunk have fun and get bad grades instead. But high school was over, and I was starting community college (still called “junior college” back then), and there’s no way to be popular at one of those anyway, so my concerns shifted slightly. Not enough to start comics back up, right away, but I did get into role-playing games. I got into this Champions game that this guy K.C. was running. Champions, being a super-hero role-playing game, does tend to attract the comic book fans. K.C. was one, and so were the other players involved. Some of those other players became quick friends of mine, and we started hanging out. One of those guys was Kevin, and Kevin was definitely a comic fan.

So as the weeks and months passed, and I started hanging out more and more at Kevin’s place, he started talking about what I’d been missing in comics. He was mostly a D.C. guy. I’d been out of the comic game for a while, and he was shocked to find out that I had no idea about this “Watchmen” series that was going on. He, with great enthusiasm, explained the whole thing to me—as much as one CAN explain Watchmen to someone. DC was putting out the book, but it wasn’t DC characters. It involved these sort-of original characters—but ones based on the Charlton characters that DC now owned (but were now being used in DC continuity after Crisis, so the actual ones could not be used in Watchmen. He basically gave up trying to explain it and just gave me the existing issues to read. Nine of them were out at the time, nine of the series of twelve. I can’t properly express how stunned I was after reading them. I had grown up on super-hero comics, but I never understood properly what could be done with the medium. Alan Moore, the writer of Watchmen, was not writing a comic book—he was writing a novel. A complex and compelling one, one with themes and symbols and unimaginably (for comics) rich and living characters. It was a complete deconstruction of the super-hero genre, and the chapters (issues) had to be read several times over to get all the detail (and I mean that in a good way). Now completely engrossed and addicted, I was back at the comic store for the next three months, just to get the remaining chapters of Watchman, and the anticipation of the final issue was shared by the whole of the comic community, one of those frozen moments in time that you’ll just never see again, where all of one body of fandom held its collective breath. Once it was complete, it was collected in a trade paperback, as one volume, and it defined what we now know to be the graphic novel. It was studied. It was debated. It was reviewed in Rolling Stone. And to give you an example of its long-lasting appeal and quality? In 2005, Time Magazine put out a list of the top 100 English-language novels from 1923 to present. Watchmen made that list. And to give you an idea of just how complex a thing Watchmen is, they’ve been trying for twenty years to make it into a film, and it’s gone through so many different directors and studios and writers, I’ve lost track—and each new attempt has ended in collapse. But now, FINALLY, it’s in the process of being made, and was handed to “300” director Zack Snyder (and that’s a film made from a Frank Miller graphic novel, in case you didn’t know), and I think we all finally have some hope that it’ll be done KIND of right. There’s no way to capture Watchmen properly in a two-hour film. Can’t be done. I’ve been lobbying all along for an HBO mini-series. But I think Zack will do it as much justice as can be done, so I’m looking forward to it.

While I still wasn’t a regular comic buyer, I had seen evidence of what the industry was becoming, and what it could be, and it was very exciting. Right around that same time, Kevin also introduced me to Frank Miller’s “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns”, another groundbreaking series that came out in individual issues but gained its biggest appeal as a bound graphic novel after the fact. It, too, not only redefined comics and super-heroes, but also dazzled the mainstream press (the same ones that always made us roll our eyes when, every couple of years or so, they’d put out a story with a title like, “Biff, Socko, Pow! Comics Aren’t Just for Kids Anymore!”). Miller jumped the Batman character 20 years into the future, a dark future in a world whose heroes had left them behind. The book was another deconstruction, but not just of super-heroes. Miller set his sights on modern western (American) civilization, culture and politics, and created something so cinematic that it at once begged to be made into a film, but also made you want to stop anyone from every trying, lest they spoil its perfection (very much like Watchmen). Though this series did bring the Batman character and franchise back into popularity and led, I think directly, to the creation of Tim Burton’s Batman film. This series, along with Watchman, launched a whole new era of “realistic” and serious works of comics, leading to the things like DC’s art-minded Vertigo line and to obsessions over new works by Miller and Moore, and also newcomers like Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan. Like me, comics had grown up.

Kevin got me reading other things, too, that I would either bum off him or read right there in his attic bedroom. Denny O’Neil’s “The Question” was one, and it, too, was a work I never could have imagined back in my X-Men and Avengers days. I also checked out “Batman: The Killing Joke”, a famous work of the period written by Alan Moore (art by Brian Bolland) that explored the relationship between Batman and the Joker, and particularly explored the psyche of the Joker in ways no other comic had. It was shockingly dark, a point made obvious by the Joker shooting and permanently paralyzing Barbara Gordon (Batgirl)…and taking nude photos of her bleeding body to taunt her father, the Commissioner, with. That’s one Kevin probably shouldn’t have loaned me, though. I had way too much to drink one night and threw up on it. No worries…I bought him a new one. There’s a good object lesson for you there. Don’t drink (Southern Comfort) and read comics. Most of the good happening with comics seemed to be happening in DC at that time, as Frank Miller continued his rebuilding of the Batman legend with “Batman: Year One” and other works. Marvel, unfortunately, from what I could tell, was on more of a downward spiral, just clinging to their X-Men line (that was already spawning into several more series) and creating sillier and lower-quality works. But, hey, the kids kept buying them, so they didn’t care much about high art at Marvel. Capitalism. What can you do?

I really wasn’t buying much as the 80s bled into the 90s—particularly since Kevin went into the Marines and wasn’t around to loan me things anymore or turn me on to what to buy. There was a time when I tried to jump back into the comic shop, once when I had some extra money to throw around. I decided to try something new, and I bought a bunch of independent comics. This was a pretty new concept at the time. Your choices had pretty much always been Marvel or DC. Now this new upstart company, Dark Horse, was making a go, and a couple of others, too. I ended up buying and really digging their series “The American”. Unfortunately, most of the other indies I bought were forgettable crap, but hey…somebody has to start the process. Those early crap works by struggling wannabes plowed the field for the bigger independent market to come. Though in there, I did discover Grimjack This was a really whacked kind-of-sci fi book created by John Ostrander and Tim Truman, and published by First Comics. REALLY loved this book. I just noticed that it’s made a return in the past couple of years, but past experiences I’ve had with old creators bringing back their famed characters don’t leave me with a lot of hope of lightning striking again. One of my coolest memories of the Grimjack was finding out that a buddy of mine, Ron Edwards, used to run a Champions game in Chicago that included John Ostrander and his wife as players. In one of the Grimjack issues, there’s a map of Cynosure (the main city of the book), and one of the places mentioned is “Rod Eduardo’s Pizza” – a little homage to Ron from John. I thought that was cool.

I mainly found out what was happening with comics, and tried the occasional new thing, when going to the San Diego Comic-Con. This started in 1990 for me and became an annual tradition, one that involved meeting up there was buddies of mine to have a good time. I’d go to panels and check out the company tables and see what big things were going on. And I’d usually buy a handful of things each year to try. One big score was when my pal Aaron got me to pick up “Pirate Corp$”, an indie originally put out by Eternity Comics but later picked up by Slave Labor. This ridiculously original book was the creation of then-young artist Evan Dorkin, who wrote and drew (and later lettered, when he couldn’t afford a letterer anymore) the creator-owned work, which Aaron had described to me a space opera “ska” comic. I had to know. And I fell in love with it!!! This is the same Dorkin who would later be better known for his “Milk & Cheese” comics and his regular (snicker) series called “Dork”, but this was him at the start of his comics career, back when his love of the space genre (and ska music…and hockey…) was evident. It was set in the future and involved a main character that obviously WAS Dorkin on a ship’s crew with a diverse and great collection of alien types. That sentence isn’t doing those characters any justice at all, but I’m going to talk more about the Corp$ in a later blog. Things started off pretty sci-fi-like in the first issues. But what was really fascinating was watching as the book (particularly when it got a name-change to “Hectic Planet”) evolved as his life did. It quickly just became a character book instead of being in any way plot-focused, and started dealing with themes of love (and losing it), loss, lack of dough, the club scene… The sad news is that he just eventually stopped doing it and focused his once-every-couple-of-years publishing on Dork (not that I’m complaining…that’s consistently one of the most wrongly funny things you’ll ever read. Nobody does more painfully dead-on brilliant social commentary than Dorkin), but Slave Labor did collect ‘em all up in trade paperbacks, and I’m happy to own them all. They stood out for me as an example of someone who just had his own creation, his own vision, and just got out there and did it and didn’t care what anyone thought. And the result (even if it didn’t make him loads of dough) was something unique and oddly wonderful. Good for you, Dorkin. And thanks.

But aside from the Comic-Con stuff, comics were really gone for me once more. College was soon over (that means I decided to drop out before graduating, by the way), and I suddenly found myself with a woman in my life. For those of with stories of how comics and women DO mix in your life? Screw you! Uh, I mean, congratulations. For me, didn’t work out that way, and that was fine, because I was pretty sure I’d said good-bye to the funny books. I was still going to Comic-Con every summer, but that was really just to hang out with the guys. But not buying any comics. Soon I had moved to Arizona, hadn’t bought a comic in forever, and didn’t even know where a comic shop was in the Phoenix area.

But comics do tend to sneak back up on you. And sometimes in unexpected ways. Like, with a chance to actually write one of them….

(STAY TUNED!)

Historical Flashback

2007-10-27T16:27:00.001-07:00

After discussing this in the last entry, thought I'd track down some art reminding us of what a big moment this was in comics at the time. Here, in "X-Men & Teen Titans" in 1982, the two ultra-popular teams from two different comic companies meet for the first time. Great art by Walt Simonson (with inks by Terry Austin), though I remember being miffed at the time that Perez hadn't done the art for this thing.

This was a cool story and all (written by Claremont, so you can tell whose book was selling better), but I also recall feeling kind of ripped off by them just pretending the X-Men and Titans existed in the same universe (and just hadn't run into each other until now). When you're as big a continuity cop as I was (and am), this just ticks you off and kind of negates the whole story. It wasn't until the JLA/Avengers crossover a couple of decades later that the two companies finally got it right (and that was WAS drawn by Perez). If you're about to remind me about "Marvel vs. DC", I said JLA/Avengers was when they got it RIGHT. Ugh.

Another interesting historical fact. This oversized issue had really crap binding. It was about three times as long as a regular comic, with a thicker cover, but I guess they figured a couple of standard staples would do the trick. It didn't. Your cover would keep coming loose. Being a collector, I think I had to buy it about three times. Finally got one properly stapled and didn't open it (that's what immediately started the cover problem) and sealed it greedily in a mylar comic bag. Hey, those were selling for up to $20 each not long after it came out!

Great geek moments here for me included Wolverine fighting Deathstroke the Terminator, Starfire hearing Colossus speaking Russian and laying a big kiss on him to absorb the language (like she was able to) and Kitty getting miffed about it and referring to her as a "hussy" (hey, Kitty was the one sitting there thinking Gar Logan was cute, so she had no high-ground to get mad at Pete!), and the first post-death return of Phoenix, even though it was an imaginary story. And she was brought back to team up with Darkseid, no less! We would later get the real return of Jean (for a while), but this was a pretty dramatic moment.

Me and Comics (Part 2)

2007-10-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

So there I was, a card-carrying (as discussed previously, that’s a literal statement) high school comic book nerd, anxiously grabbing up just about every new thing the Marvel Universe could throw at me. There were some pretty exciting (to us) new things happening during those days, too. Get this—the popular X-Men series was popular enough to create a spinoff series! I know, isn’t it unfathomable? The New Mutants was big news for us…and, little did we know, a major harbinger for things to come. Something else Marvel introduced during the early/mid-80s was another harbinger concept—the massive crossover. We went nuts when Contest of Champions came out in 1983, and not only did we get to see all our favorite Marvel heroes together—but we got to see them fight each other! This was just a mini-series (three issues), but Marvel took the idea and (marketing-minded gurus that they were) took it to an unprecedented level with 1984’s Secret Wars, a 12-issues “maxi-series” that used over 20 popular Marvel heroes and a whole bunch of villains. Speaking of marketing—it turns out the whole Secret Wars came to be because Mattel wanted to put out a Marvel line of toys, and wanted it to tie in with a big publishing event. Even the title was Mattel’s idea. They found out from focus group research that kids responded well to the word “secret” (I’m not making this up), and hence, Secret Wars came to be…to sell toys. But it also sold a lot of comics, and it started what would become an industry standard from then on.

In the midst of my “Marvel zombie” period—obsessed like everyone else in comics with all things X-Men—I found out that a big Marvel/DC crossover was to happen involving the X-Men, one that would team them with DC’s new phenomenon, the New Teen Titans. As I said elsewhere, I really didn’t have much interest in DC. My loyalty was to Marvel, and DC, in my mind, was for kids…you know, unlike Marvel (oh, sweet hindsight irony!). I knew DC characters form cartoons and toys, things of my young days, not my much-more-mature high school comic-reading period. But hearing of this forthcoming crossover issue, I got curious about these Titans everyone was gaga over. I decided to pick one up off the rack and take a look. And what a surprise! The art was done by George Perez, whom I was a huge fan of from his Avengers days. And it was written by Marv Wolfman, who I’d known as an editor at Marvel. Well, no WONDER it was so popular! It was being done by a couple of Marvel guys! With my interest piqued more than ever, and feeling I should get to know these characters so I’d enjoy the team-up story more, I grabbed two or three issues to check the Titans out.

And I was soon grabbing up every back issue I could (luckily for me, I’d come in only a couple of years into the book’s run), and had found one of my favorite comics of all time. Titans was DC’s answer to the X-Men craze, and there were many parallels—the ages of the characters, the focus on characterization, multi-part stories that occasionally went cosmic, and villains with complexity. It was amazing. Along with the X-Men, it was my monthly couldn’t-miss at the comic shop. It was also my beginning intro to the DC universe. In it, I learned of such teams as the Doom Patrol, which until that time I’d never heard of. And it was because of my love for the Titans that I ended up grabbing my REAL gateway to the DCU. It was DC’s answer to Marvel’s Secret Wars (though many argue it had been planned for so long, Marvel had really ended up just beating DC to the punch)—a 12-part series called Crisis on Infinite Earths.

DC took the crossover maxi-series idea to the next level…and beyond. This story set out with a bold concept—it was really designed to “reboot” DC continuity and clean up all the continuity problems the company had created over the years. And not just its own self-contained story, Crisis introduced the idea of the “tie-in”…all the other titles in the DCU, during the year of Crisis, had “Crisis tie-in” stories that made you feel you HAD to buy them or you wouldn’t have the whole story. This would become both a staple of Marvel and DC’s future (pretty much annual) events, and would become a much-maligned practice due to the way it was handled down the road (Secret Wars II was a great example, where “tie-ins” barely paid lip service the story in same cases, making readers feel like they’d been scammed into buying them).

While I didn’t go crazy enough to buy the tie-ins, the series itself was a must-buy for me because it was being done by the Titanic team of Wolfman and Perez (the undeniable golden boys of DC in the first part of the 80s). There were some big differences between this one and Secret Wars. Where Secret Wars involved a lot of characters thrown together in one situation, this epic (understatement) tale involved pretty much EVERY DC character—every corner of the DC Universe, and every era of the company’s comic history. It was a tale that was cosmic, spanning time and multiple realities. It truly was my guidebook to DC. I got to know, even in brief, the whole history of DC and all its characters, and got to see them all done by Perez, so they ALL looked cool and sparked my imagination. And major stuff happened! Major characters actually died! Supergirl went down! They killed the Flash! They ripped their own universe apart and rebuilt it in a new image, letting us newer readers get in on the ground floor. I read each issue multiple times (and I’ve never been much of a re-reader)…I almost had to, as so much was happening in both story and art (it’s unbelievable how much Perez can squeeze onto one page).

Actually, I just remembered my personal timeline on discovering it. I hadn’t actually learned about it until a couple of issues in. I saw it on a rack up on the counter, and I remember asking the guy there, “Hey, is this any good?” I clearly remember him looking at me and blinking. “Any good?” he asked me, both disbelieving and kind of a little pissed-off. “It’s only the best #@$%& comic every MADE.” His sales pitch, such as it was, worked (he almost scared me into buying it). I suddenly had to have it (NOW I remember…that’s when I discovered Wolfram and Perez were doing it). And he was very right. It was the greatest comic story I had ever read. And it officially broke me of my Marvel-only loyalty. Crisis still stands as a milestone in comic history, and it not only raised the bar for storytelling in comics, but also, along with Titans, FINALLY put DC back on the map (after getting their asses pretty much kicked by Marvel for about 20 years).

So I spent much of my high school years loving and devouring comics. But something happened partway into my senior year. I discovered something called a social life. All of a sudden, something happened that could only happen at a small school, I’m sure. I was part of the in-crowd. I was actually kind of in the inner circle, to tell the truth. My evenings and weekends were now filled with parties—and with partying—and comic reading and collecting took a back seat to going to midnight movies, hitting the pool party at the popular girl’s house, and getting into the kinds of trouble that I really should have been avoiding. Hey, I did have a great and memorable time, and it was nice, instead of sitting home reading X-Men adventures, to have people coming up to me in the halls at school to find out the plan for the coming weekend, and what we were going to do. It’s not often someone who was once the president of the Sacramento Marvelite Association gets to become cool. This required a sacrifice (or at least of lack of interest) of my long-time hobby, but it seemed like a fair trade-off for a time. Senior year ended up being a gas, and the world of mutants and titans rolled along without me.

For a time. As I came to find over the years, comics never really left my life completely. There were breaks, but my heroes were always there patiently waiting for my return.

(CONTINUED!)

Me and Comics (Part 1)

2007-10-14T19:28:00.001-07:00

I've been reading comics, off and on, for a lot of years. My first memory of comics was probably when I was about six years old, living in San Jose, California, before my folks divorced. I can recall asking my father to read me one. Where it came from, I don't know, as I clearly wasn't buying them then (and he certainly wasn't). I remember it was a Batman one. I was a Batman fan from watching the Adam West Batman series on TV in the afternoons (anyone else old enough to remember watching it as a kid and having no idea it was meant to be camp?). I just remember the tale in the comic had either Batman or Robin getting rather violently knocked out and kidnapped. And then there was an automated motorcycle involved, with a recording, I think, that told either Batman or Robin that they had to get on it and let it take them to wherever it was the mysterious bad guy wanted them to go. I also remember my father getting uncomfortable and stopping and feeling the story was a little too dark and violent for me. I think it might have been some kind of anthology book, because I think he switched over to a Plastic Man story instead.

I don't think it was until about second and/or third grade that I started getting comics again. By this time I was living in Auburn, California. My folks had split, and we were living with what I would come to know as stepfather #1. And we were poor. REAL poor. Not sure where Mom came up with the change for my sister and I to occasionally buy comics, but when I got some of that cash, that's what I wanted. There was a little super-hero stuff in there. I recall some Fantastic Four now and again. And I remember having a couple of issues of the Invaders, that cool WWII comic with Captain America and his patriotic pals (this was the first place I really heard about Nazis, apparently, because I remember reading these and thinking it was pronounced "Nazzy"...as in Cap saying "Get back, "Nazzy" rat!" By the way, wasn't that an Elton John song?). But my interests were more aligned with the happenings at Riverdale High, and the lives of Archie and his pals. With them, but, more importantly, with Richie Rich.

See, being dirt poor and living a pretty stressful childhood, having an outlet to escape to a world where a kid could live in a big mansion with a butler and have a $100,000 a week allowance was exactly what I needed. I grabbed new Richie Rich issues whenever I could, either at the supermarket carousel or at the stand at the pharmacy across the street from the laundromat we used (sometimes I'd get lucky enough to find enough dropped change under the machines to run over and buy one). When reading those, I didn't have to be some poor kid struggling through the Jimmy Carter economy and living off food stamps, and living IN a small trailer (or, for one summer, the back seat of a yellow Ford Galaxy 500 parked next to the trailer). That Poor Little Rich Kid (tm) with his really big head was my way, at least in my daydreams, out of that. And there were a lot of his adventures to choose from. I just did a quick bit of web search and found out that at one point during the 70s (which would have been when I was reading), Richie Rich was starring in 32 different titles every two months. Man, no wonder I never ran out of new ones to buy.

But as time went by (and we got less poor), my fancy turned to super-heroes. During the 5th and 6th grades I'd moved to Sacramento, and my trips to the local 7-11 near our duplex to get comics became hunts for Iron Man, Avengers, Shogun Warriors and Micronauts issues. I was a Marvel boy all the way. Never bought any D.C. And though I met Tim in the 5th grade at the small school I would end up attending until high school graduation, we didn't become friends until the 6th, and when we did, we discovered our shared love of comics. And many of the same comics, too. He was an even bigger fan of Iron Man than I was, and he introduced me to other comics like Moon Knight.

During this time I made an unimaginable discovery. That is, my sister did. One day she came back from a trip to our local mall, Birdcage Walk, with my mother, and she came in the door and told me she'd found a store--a whole store--that sold nothing but comics. I was stunned, and, frankly, didn't really believe her. How could such a thing be possible outside my nerdy imagination? Comics were things shoved in a corner in a spinning rack. You couldn't have a whole STORE that sold just comics. It just didn't match up with reality as I knew it.

But soon, I made the trip myself and found out that she hadn't been cruelly pulling my leg. I found Comics & Comix, my first comic book store. Approaching the store told the truth--in its display window were lines of comics, big cardboard stand-ups of super-heroes, and even super-hero tee shirts. I walked (in a daze) inside. If the place still existed today, and if I were to go back there, I'm sure I'd think it was quite small. But to me, then, it was huge. And there were aisles (if you call "aisles" just segmented rows of long racks) of comics. New comics, old comics. Comics I'd never heard of. And there were people in there shopping. Not just kids. Teenagers. Adults. All buying comic books! What alternate universe had I fallen into?!

I'll always remember that first day there, and what I bought--Iron Man #138, and Avengers #200. I specifically remember the Avengers issue because I had gotten #199 on the 7-11 rack, and then it skipped right to #201 next time I went back. I hadn't gotten to read #200, and it turns out it was because it was an oversized issue that apparently was too much trouble to have in the rack. And in looking around, I found that this place sold BACK ISSUES. Up until then, I thought that if you missed an issue at the store, it was gone forever. Not long after that I scraped together a whole $1.50 and bought Shogun Warriors #1. I remember the price so well because the geniuses at Comics & Comix made their pricing simple by opening the comic up and writing the back issue price, in pencil, on the first page, upper-right-hand corner. Guess this was right before the collectible craze really kicked in, as not too long after, anyone who knew anything about comics knew you could be shot for doing such a thing to a back issue.

I definitely became a regular at Comics & Comix from then on. And they had this great new idea, too, called the "comic saver". You could actually tell them which comics you wanted each month, and they'd pull them for you and keep them behind the counter until you came to get them. That way, if you couldn't talk your mom into driving you there again for a while, your precious Captain America & The Falcon issues wouldn't sell out on you. And all my stuff was Marvel throughout junior high and into high school. That DC stuff? No interest. Marvel was COOL. And it got much, much cooler when, after discovering them in a Rom: Spaceknight crossover story, I decided to check out these interesting-looking X-Men. I turns out I jumped in right about the time when everyone else did. I fell in love with Marvel's mutants, just as John Byrne left the book and Dave Cockrum returned, and Chris Claremont's writing drew me and so many thousands of others in. It was the beginning of the age of the X. This was a time when, on Wednesday mornings (the day new comics arrived), people would literally be lined up outside waiting for the store to open, just to get that latest X-Men issue the day it came out. This was also back when there was only ONE X-Men book (imagine such a thing!), but that was not to last for long.

My collection started to grow. As did Tim's. And we also found other friends in school into comics as well. We even formed something, our freshman year (shoot me now) called the Sacramento Marvelite Association. We each had cards (yes, I was a card-carrying loser...) with a drawing (by Tim) of our favorite Marvel character (Hawkeye, from the Avengers, was on mine) and our name. We collected dues from the whopping six of us involved. And we used that to buy ourselves an Overstreet Comic Buyers Guide, the big book that came out at regular intervals (this being an age way before the internet) that told you how much your comics were worth. So we all had our collections, and knew how much each of our books was worth. But more importantly, we had a hobby in common, and a small group of friends with which to share our feelings about our favorite comic characters and their tales. Our favorite MARVEL characters, of course. I still recall when Marvel released the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, a 12-issue series (and I think #13 was added as the "Book of the Dead", if I'm remembering right) that, in alphabetical order, gave us comic fans bio write-ups of every single hero and villain in the Marvel Universe. We knew that thing inside and out by the end. We were Marvel scholars. No longer having to debate such matters, we now KNEW who the strongest character in the Marvel Universe was (as the M.U. write-ups told you, among many other things, how much each character could lift). And knowing so much about Marvel, we of course wanted to keep up with everything going on in Marvel, so we managed to buy just about everything new that the company put out. Most every series, every mini-series (no matter how bad), every one-shot. "Make Mine Marvel"? You bet your ASS.

But as I said, my very first comic book memory involved a D.C. comic. And history does have a way of coming back around on you. D.C.'s second chance at me was coming, and coming soon. And all because of a guy named George Perez.

(TO BE CONTINUED, TRUE BELIEVER!)

Comic-Con 2007: Day Four (and Final)

2007-09-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Inevitably, Sunday comes sneaking up on your Con, and you know that it's all just about over. Sunday at the Con means less in the way of panels, and the big stuff is mostly over with. You tend to see a lot of the frenzied Sunday-only-pass people running around, trying to squeeze everything they can into just a handful of hours, only to find that most of the big celebs are back in L.A. and much of the cool stuff has already been sold. For your reference, if you're reading this and plan to go to Comic-Con one day, you can still see a lot on Sunday, but you're cheating yourself if that's all you do. The stuff's there, but the excitement's gone. It's kind of hard to describe, but everyone who's been there since the start already has their brain halfway out the door. Artists you might meet are probably tired of answering the same questions from fans all week, and almost definitely aren't doing any more commissions (they may, in fact, be rushing to finish the last of their commissions on Sunday)...if the artist hasn't already left until next year. You're also forced to look through your schedule book and see all the cool stuff you missed the past three days. It's kind of like showing up with your family at Disneyland just a couple of hours before closing. Everyone else there is on their way out, tired yet filled with magical memories of the day, and the Friendliest Staff on Earth are already thinking ahead to getting everyone out of the park so they can go and out party (hopefully wearing the Goofy and Mickey suits when they do), and there you are, running around in a panic, checking your watch, trying to fit a couple of rides in and snap your photos and buy some swag while everything's closing down. In short, don't be that guy. If you're going to go to this thing, at least make it for the whole weekend. If you have a chance to make all four days, that's definitely the way to go to get the whole experience. There's just too, too much to see.

The good news for people with kids, at least, is that Sunday has become "Kids Day" at the Con. There's more stuff for kids, panels geared to them, free giveaway stuff, etc. Just be sure to cover your kids' eyes when you're having to walk them past the Erotic Comics booth on your way to the Sponge Bob panel... The Sunday's great for that because most people's kids don't want to be in any one place for hours on end, so you can take 'em around for a couple of hours, let 'em see some neat stuff, get 'em some freebies, and then take off when they start to get bored or cranky. And it's a hell of a lot cheaper than taking them to Seaworld and having the same thing happen.

Anyway, as for our group, our final Con day began with breaking off from Tony (for the moment) due to his son Christopher's birthday. A.T., Russ and I were heading out the door to the convention center as Tony and Wendy were getting the kids ready to head to Chuck E. Cheese for the birthday party (part one of it). Tony would meet us down there later, though, to bring the kids down for Kids Day. So while there was no panel stuff happening--for me, at least--it was going to be a good chance to roam the aisles and look for stuff that I'd missed. And I had another goal in mind, too. Every year I think about checking out the celebrity autograph area upstairs. There's a section up there (both a big indoor one and now an outdoor one) for celebs, big and small, to do their autograph thing. Usually, it's small. You will see some of the bigger names come out to this area after a panel. But for the most part, the area's populated by B- and often C-level (sometimes D...) celebs, often ones forgotten by history but still loved by a few. I usually see this area when I'm on my way back from or going to a panel. Sometimes you just shake your head and go oh, that's just sad. That's when you get, like, your Anson Williams-level celeb sitting alone behind a table, trying to sell autographed pics at $25 a pop when no one's coming by (except to shout "Sit on it, Potsie!" and snicker and run off or something). But there are some still-hot celebs showing up, the ones that get the longer lines. And sometimes there are some surprises...like a celebrity that may not mean a lot to many people but that means a lot to you. I've had a few of those moments, rolling on by the area, spotting someone I'd like to meet. But I'm always either in a rush to get somewhere or just dealing with my usual feelings about autographs and talking to celebrities. As a general rule...I just don't do it. Just has never made me feel good, being "that guy", going up to someone I don't even know and saying the same things hundreds of others have already said ("I'm a big fan! I loved you in (fill in the blank)". This is, of course, something in my own head. Other people do it just fine, and they walk away with a collection of celebrity stories. Most of my celeb stories end up being about being next to a celeb and having the courtesy to not talk to them. That is, what my brain tells me is courtesy, at least.

But I thought this year I might check it out up there and maybe talk to someone at one of the tables. So my goal was to do that. A.T. had a panel to go to (was this the animation voice-over thing? Can't recall), but he would head up with me beforehand. So the three of us were walking toward the convention center and past Petco Park, and Russ heard noise inside and noticed the gates were open. Giant Padres fan he is, he knew very well that there was no game going on. Suddenly, he remembered! That was the Sunday that Tony Gwynn was being inducted into the Hall of Fame! Russ quickly told us he'd catch up with us later and ran into the park, and ended up being able to be there for the San Diego ceremony that was happening. Very cool.

A.T. and I meandered upstairs and were just kind of talking and looking around the autograph area, when one of us spotted the sign up for Jane Wiedlin (can't remember which one of us). Now me, I'm a fan of Jane. A.T.? Uh...bigger fan of Jane. He was speechless, seeing her just sitting there by herself under a canopy, at her table, eating a sandwich. Let me go ahead and explain, in case you're not in the know, who Jane Wiedlin is, as I've had to do many times since returning from the Con. She's the bass player for the Go-Gos. She also played Joan of Arc in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. And she's had some recent new fame by being on VH-1's The Surreal Life. Based on all this, I just assumed people would know who she was. Very few people do. So, if you're one of those, now you know.

So A.T. was actually pretty nervous, and wondering if he should go over there. I told him he ought to go for it (which is advice I should probably give to myself in situations like that one, too). So he started walking over. I was just going to hang out and wait for him, but then I realized he might want a picture, so I went ahead and followed him. Give it up for A.T., folks. This was a big personal celeb moment for him, and he managed to come off totally calm and professional. As I said, Jane was having a sandwich at the time, and no one else was in line, so we got to just hang out and rap with her. Oh, and A.T. got to give laundry advice when she spilled mustard on herself, too. She talked about what was going on with her, and the fact that the Go-Gos would be touring next year. But A.T. (score) also happened to mention the Nice Guy to her, which interested her. We talked about that, and what we were doing with it (A.T. being our marketing director and all...well, he was THAT day, at least...). In the end, Jane Wiedlin ended up with her own copy of "The Nice Guy: Pilot". I KNEW I was carrying a few copies around for a reason. Better yet, she traded us for it with an autographed picture of herself, and we used that opportunity to get her to make it out to Lynn, A.T.'s wife, who's a huge fan of Jane's. Very cool. She was just as cool as I figured she'd be. We said our good-byes, finally, and as soon as we got around the corner and out of her line of vision, A.T. dropped his cool and jumped up and down like a little girl. Told you he was a big fan. What we didn't do was get a photo with her, I'm afraid, but doing so just didn't fit the mood of the almost-peer-like conversation we were having with her, so no loss.

A.T. then left to go do his panel, and I had some solo time to kill, so I figured I'd check some of the other celeb tables and see if there was anyone interesting. I spotted the aforementioned (if you've been reading all these reports) Richard Hatch at his table, with just a couple of people lined up to talk to him. I realized I'd seen him in a few panels the past three or four years, but had yet to actually meet him. And I also realized I was needing to get some goodies for my buddy Martin, and he's a huge Hatch fan. So this seemed like a good idea. So I got in line and got to meet Mr. Hatch. I mentioned the Nice Guy, and he had all kinds of questions about it, and had a few pieces of web page marketing advice for me as well. In the end, Mr. Hatch got himself a free copy of "Pilot", too (way cool). And I decided, since he offered, that I'd get my picture taken with him, so I've got that going for me. I also took the chance to buy a hardcover Battlestar novel he'd co-written and get that autographed for Marin. There was a funny moment after that. I was packing up my bag when he stepped away from his table and walked over to talk to Jane. I had to pass them as I was exiting, and I said, "You know, Richard, I don't mean to brag, but even JANE WIEDLIN has her own copy of the Nice Guy..." He turned to her and said, "Ah, but the question is, has she read it yet?" To which Jane explained to him that she'd just gotten it, so no, not yet. Kind of a surreal moment. I sitting there goofing with Apollo and the Go-Gos bass player. Which I could send a note back in time to myself in high school and tell myself THAT story.

I headed inside and checked the other tables. There was some people I knew, but that didn't interest me quite enough. Tim Thomerson, for one, who's been in many movies you've seen (I tend to remember him best, for some reason, as the CIA agent in "Volunteers" with Tom Hanks who named his knife "Mike"). Patricia Tallman of B5 fame (also from the Dawn of the Dead remake), who I considered. Oddly enough, Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days? Um...I was kidding earlier about that Potsie thing) was there. Cindy Morgan was there, too. She's probably best known in geek circles from her role in "Tron", but males from my generation all remember her way too fondly as Lacey Underall from "Caddyshack". She's still looking great, and I thought about getting an autograph from her for my buddy Justin at work, who still regularly talks about Caddyshack AND her.

But I spotted David Lo Pan first.

I was a huge Big Trouble in Little China fan back in the late 80s. Can't tell you how many times I saw it. If you remember the film, you remember the film's main bad guy, the evil, otherwordly David Lo Pan, played by veteran actor James Hong. James Hong was also in Blade Runner, and it turns out there was some Blade Runner stuff going on at the Con to celebrate the release of the Blade Runner "final cut" on DVD. And I noticed there were three tables together, with people lined up to talk to all three actors there. The first was Joanna Cassidy. Another was Joe Turkel. And third in line was James Hong. This was big for me. I'd actually run into him a couple of days before, waiting for the elevator with the guys. James is in a wheelchair now, and was with his people, and they were waiting behind us. I almost said something to him then, despite my usual rule about that, but they got tired of waiting and took off to find another elevator. And now here was a second chance! Figured I'd better not blow it again. So I got in line, totally ignoring Joanna Cassidy and Joe, and got to James. He had a number of color 8x10s
from his different films, but it was the big David Lo Pan shot that drew me in...and I knew exactly who I needed to get that for. My friend Jon and I were obsessed with this movie in college, and watched it together and quoted it at each other all the time. I would call him a bigger fan than me, so I knew he'd appreciate the autograph. So I got to meet James and request the photo for Jon, which he signed not only in English, but then took out a gold pen and signed it in Chinese characters as well (which was good, because I had to wait around an extra couple of minutes for it to dry, per his request). I also loved the fact that in the English part he signed it "To Jon - I love Miao Yin's blood" (see the movie if you don't get the reference). Great guy. I did have to get a couple of pics with him, and he had his people get out his camera and get a shot of us, too. Like I said...while that wouldn't have meant a lot to some people, to me it was a big moment, and that's the fun of the autograph area. I'll have to make more of a habit of that. I've now found the secret to doing so without feeling like too much of an annoying fan--get autographs, but get them for OTHER people. And while I was talking with James, I'm afraid Cindy Morgan got up and left. Sorry, Justin. And I was going to have her autograph the shot to him with "To Justin - You want to tie me up with some of your ties?". Funny if you've seen Caddyshack as many times as I (and Justin) have.

So Russ showed up, back from his sports geek happiness, and joined up with me and A.T. We did a final prowl around the aisles downstairs, where I got a chance to drop in and say hi to my bud Dan Cooney, a fellow Sacramento comic creator, and the creator of "Valentine". Got to see Brian from A-1 Comics, too, the #1 supporter of the Nice Guy (who bugged me again about getting a second issue out. He's going to keep on us, and we need that...). We met up with Tony and his kids, and soon it was time to leave the Con behind again. We headed back to the cars and then back to Tony's place for a night of barbecue and birthday fun for Christopher, who got to open up all his presents, while Emily entertained us with singing and the two-year old Catherine learned, from her dad, how to say "iPhone!" that night. Had a great final night with Tony and the family, and luckily, it didn't have to be too early of a night, since all three of us were flying out in the early evening on Monday. That Monday we all went out to lunch at Rubios (so Russ, now transplanted to Idaho, could get his fish taco fix), and then our traveling trio said good-bye to Tony and headed back to the airport to return our rental car and get ready to fly. We had some cocktails downstairs first, then said our so-longs. Russ headed for Boise, A.T. and I headed for Sacramento, sadly heading back to the nightmare of the auto claims business (both of us trying not to think about how many voice mails had probably piled up while we were gone), but armed with great memories, and creative inspiration, from another winner of a Comic-Con week in San Diego. Next summer? Of COURSE we'll be back again! Have you been reading? All that for either $25, or for free if I pre-reg in time? Very few chances in life to get THAT much for your entertainment dollar. We'll be back. And hopefully, we'll see YOU there!

And if you'd like to check out all my photos from this year's trip, feel free to do so at:

http://theniceguycomic.com/photos12.htm

Comic-Con 2007: Day Three

2007-09-02T18:17:00.001-07:00

Saturday! As stated, this is the big mother day of the Con every year. This is, obviously, when most people show up. Most folks aren't nerd enough to be taking 4 days off work to attend a comic convention, and prefer to buy the 1-day Saturday pass (or maybe the 2-day to fit Sunday in) and try to cram in all the shopping and sights and events they can. As the Con organizers know this, they put all the big stuff on Saturday so the majority of attendees can check them out. So while you've just spent two days thinking how crowded the convention center and the panels and the city streets are, you get there Saturday and realize you hain't seen nothing yet. I think I just invented the word...the past tense of "ain't". Think I'll see any money from that?

If you're a 4-day person attending, though, you get all your shopping and sight-seeing done on Thursday and Friday, because, unlike the old days, you know that you'll be spending all of Saturday either standing in lines or parking your ass in either Hall H or Room 20 to sit through all the big stuff...or just to be sure you have a seat for your chosen event that comes later. So we showed up...um...not as early as we'd planned, but in time for Russ and I to get into Room 20 early, getting in the much, MUCH shorter wheelchair line to get in. Our target was what was arguably THE can't miss-event of the show--the panel for NBC's huge new hit "Heroes". To do this, we got into the TV Guide Preview panel in Room 20 at 11:30. Heroes would be at 12:45, Battlestar Galactica at 2:15, Futurama (which held no interest for me, as I'm not a watcher of that) at 3:30 and our other couldn't-miss one--the Joss Whedon panel (he IS my master now, after all...)--at 4:45. With the Futurama thing not being that important, I figured that'd be the time to break out, try to grab a snack (no time for lunch on Saturday, Dr. Jones), and kick it a bit before going back in for Joss, since it looked like the wheelchair thing was going to take away our leaving-and-not-getting-back-in fears.

Tony and A.T. didn't make it in with us, but did their own things, and would be meeting us back there for the Whedon thing (which they were going to get in line for, since I could only get one person in with me with the wheelchair excuse). This was a tough choice, doing the Room 20 thing, by the way. As I said, lots of big stuff was happening all day, which led to some painful decisions, such as missing the Hulk/Iron Man movies panel in Hall H. This was a big target of mine when I was planning for the trip, since Jon Favreau, of whom I'm a huge fan, signed on to direct Iron Man. The panel was going to show footage from the in-progress film, and have appearances by both Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. Plus, the Hulk part of the panel, featuring the all-new "let's pretend the first one never happened" Hulk film's stars--Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth and William Hurt, was going to be pretty sweet, too. But, as a testament to my love for Joss (and my hatred of Hall H), I had to choose Joss over that. Also missed a chance to see the pilot for the upcoming Sarah Conner Chronicles (which we've all decided is going to fail because 1) it's on Fox, and 2) it's too hard to pronounce the show's name. Try it five times. See if you don't find yourself calling it the Sarah Chronner Connicles. I'm just calling the show "Chronic", I've decided...). And other stuff, but hey...the price you pay for having too much cool crap to see.

The TV Guide "Hot List" panel turned out to be pretty damned cool. They were covering several shows, and for most, they had a combo of producer/star up there to represent. For example, we got ourselves a little Heroes pre-game fun with creator Tim Kring there with Masi Oka, who plays everyone's favorite Hero "Hiro" on the show (to say the crowd went wild for him was a good understatement). Other shows covered included Kyle XY (that whole "ooh, look, I don't have a belly button!" show), and its star Matt Dallas was there (yeah, I'm sure that's his real name...). Skeet Ulrich was there talking about Jericho, which has been big news this summer after its cancellation and rebirth (thanks to a very unusual save-our-show internet campaign that led to tons of nuts being sent to CBS (it's a Jericho thing. You'd get the gag if you watched it. I only know it myself because my friend Tim is totally obsessed with the show and was part of the campaign)). While he wasn't listed as being there, I got a big pleasant surprise when one of my favorite cult actors, Jeffrey Combs, showed up to represent the 4400 (a show I've yet to try but have heard very good things about). I think I most enjoyed the Bionic Woman stuff, though. In case you haven't heard, they're bringing the old classic back, but doing so in a way that's...well, in short, badASS. Looks to be dark and intriguing, and based on the stuff they showed us (and based on listening to the lovely star Michelle Ryan talking it up), I'm pretty psyched for it.

Ah, but like I said...Heroes was to be the big thing. And it was. Not only were producers Tim Kring and Jeph Loeb (whose comic writing I've loved for years) there, but the whole damn cast showed up! You talk about a crowd reaction and a whole lot of standing O's. Wow. With each one of their introductions, the actors were greeted with Beatle-esque cheers and adulation as they took the stage. And they were LOVING it. You can tell none of these folks knew what to expect from Comic-Con, as it was their first time there. They were having so damn much fun, and it showed. And for a 14-member panel, that took a while, and was worth every minute. We had Masi Oka again (Hiro Nakamura), James Kyson Lee (Ando Masahashi), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli (vote for him!)), Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet (save her, save the world!)), Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Noah Gray-Cabey (Micah Sanders), Ali Larter (Niki Sanders), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder Suresh), and Zachary Quinto (the magnificently evil Sylar (whom, they announced in a separate panel at the Con, has been cast as the young Spock in the upcoming J.J. Abrams-produced Trek movie). Also appearing was newcomer Dania Ramirez, who will be joining the cast in season two as a new "hero" named Maya.

They were just high on the excitement of it all. Joking around, high-fiving each other, working the crowd. A couple of the guys wore tee shirts under their other shirts. Masi wore one that said "Hayden is my Hero", while Greg wore one that said "Milo is my Hero". Though I think my favorite tee shirt was Jack Coleman's, reading "I'm just a paper salesman" (if you're hip to the show, you get that). It's amazing to see what a difference a year can make in someone's life. At last summer's Con, they were just showing a preview for the show, and no one had any idea who most of these people were. Now? Mega stars! I couldn't be happier for them, really. Because everyone behind this show deserves success, because they actually put out a great show. Not just a show that has fans because it's about super-heroes and nerds feel they have to watch it no matter how good or bad it is (there's probably still an internet campaign going to bring "Birds of Prey" back...). Give it up for Lost for raising the bar for television. Now everyone wants to do highly episodic, character-driven, mystery-fueled cliffhangers shows and seem to actually be hiring, in most cases, GOOD WRITERS to work on them. Heroes was a product of this movement, and, in my opinion, the best example.

Lots of highlights at the panel, many of which I can't now recall. A personal favorite moment was when one of the mics went out and Masi actually crawled under the table, up to the front of the stage (on hands and knees), fixed it, then crawled back. There was a moment when Greg took off one of the two tee shirts he was wearing to give to an audience member to give to his wife. Lots of laughs, lots of cheer-inducing moments. But the big moment was the special surprise guest. They took some time to talk about this new mini-series coming up in the spring, something called "Heroes: Origins". I believe the idea is to introduce six new heroes into the Heroes universe, and then viewers will get to vote on which one gets to join the regular show. Anyway, they're having different well-known creator-types come in to write and direct them. And they said they already had the first one picked, and he was backstage. The cast themselves didn't even know about this, or who this was supposed to be, so we got to see them all lean back and crane their necks and try to see who it was before he came out. And we got to see their reactions and hear things from them like "no way!" when he started coming out. And out walks Kevin Smith. Yeah, big crowd reaction. Good stuff. He sat down for just a minute to talk about the offer and what he was doing, without giving anything away. And, of course, he did it in his usual Kevin Smith style. He talked about how they first called him up and offered him a chance to do a Heroes episode, and he told them, "Yeah, great. Can I do an episode about the two gay guys? (The what?) You know, the gay couple? The Japanese guys?" Lots of laughs at Hiro and Ando's expense there. He talked about his wife giving him crap for watching Heroes when it first started, and then she got all into it, and he'd said, "See? Who's the fag now, huh?" You had to be there. It was funny. But he got out of the way quick and let the focus be where it should, on the Heroes themselves. Great panel that got us all very hyped for the upcoming season. And they had a little giveaway going, too, a free handout of a Comic-Con exclusive DVD cover that, I guess, you would replace your actual DVD cover for the season 1 DVD set with when it came out (which it since has). I wanted to get some goodies for my pal Martin, who couldn't make the Con, and he'd asked for something Heroes-related, so there it was. Sadly, I couldn't find where people were getting the "Vote Petrelli" buttons I kept seeing.

After that things got Galactic, and the Battlestar panel began. Producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick were there (love those guys...), and this time, female cast appearances only. They brought on Mary McDonnell (President Roslin), Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck...who's also going to be a Bionic nemesis on the new Bionic Woman show, by the way) and Tricia Helfer (Number Six). And a surprise, as Lucy Lawless showed up, too. To surprise us by saying she'd be back for the next (and final) season. The good news out of this panel was that while we have to wait until January for the final season to start, we've got a mini-series coming out in the fall to tide us over, one we got to see clips from that looks pretty damned cool. So...we got SOME info. But frankly, just wasn't that great of a panel. You would think that having all the hotties...uh, ladies...from the show there would be a good thing, but it really just broke down into a lot of just them giggling and being unable to talk much during the fits. They were cracking each other up just fine, but the rest of us were kind of left out. So since I'd been sitting in Room 20 WAY too long, it just seemed like a good time for Russ and I to head out, before that one ended, and hook up with the others before the Joss thing happened.

We went back out to the "sweet spot" and I made a cell call. My old pal Mike Taylor was to be showing up for Saturday, and we hadn't got to see each other yet with all my paneling. Mike's a guy that I lost track of almost 20 years ago, and we by sheer chance happened to bump into each other at LAST year's Galactica panel. We've been in touch and emailing ever since. He'd emailed me his schedule, so I knew this was a good time to track him down, so I buzzed him and he was on his way up to where we were. It was right then that Russ pointed out that Seth Rogen was walking by across the way. You have to understand that I've been ranting to people about Seth Rogen (and Judd Apatow) for like the past month before the Con, just because I've been watching my DVDs for Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, and I went out and saw Knocked Up in the theater. Judd and Seth are like my two biggest creative heroes right now. So there was Seth walking by, obviously coming from a "Superbad" panel (I hadn't even realized there was one) since he was with costar Jonah Hill. They seemed to be walking over to the latest addition to the upstairs of the Convention Center, a new bigger tarped outdoor autograph area. I could have gone and talked to Seth and Judd both. Damn. And I thought maybe I MIGHT try it after a while, but, as it turns out, I didn't. That's cool. I'd be busy with celebrity meetings the day after (foreshadowing...).

So Mike showed up and we got to catch up for a while and hang out up there overlooking the bay and yet another perfect San Diego day. By the way, you know what's hilARious fun? Ever sit between two people with just polar opposite views on things? There was Russ, there was Mike. Russ was talking about Watchmen, and Zach Snyder directing it, and what an amazing job he'd done with 300. Mike had to point out that he HATED 300. You could see Russ twitch. That discussion led to Frank Miller, and the Dark Knight Returns came up. Mike hated that, too. Russ...huge B5 fan that thought the spinoff series "Crusade" was a horrible piece of crap. Mike? Thought Crusade was a great show, and a much stronger show than B5 ever was. Like I said...comedy.

So got some hang-time with Mike, but soon it was time go get ready for the Joss thing, so we said out good-byes. And I'm sure we'll be seeing each other at next year's Con, too, which is actually right on schedule with how often (and where) I end up seeing a lot of my other friends, too. Once a year in San Diego. Hey, including friends like...Joss Whedon (see what I did there?). A.T. and Tony did their line thing, Russ and I went and did our own line (which seemed to go much faster than their line...hmmm...), and we all made it in for a meeting with...the master. I mentioned Scott McCloud before? If I can get both him and Whedon in each year, it's a great thing, but I have to get some panel time with at least one of them each Con, just to get me creatively inspired enough to make it through the year to come. So Joss was back, but, sadly, not really for any new project. Which was cool by me...I'd rather have a panel with Joss just talking about writing and creating and the business and all that. Which is pretty much what we got. He talked on a lot of different subjects. And, of course, he had to deal with some wacky audience questions. Why is it at every panel there's someone who wants to get the celeb to either sing or dance? And the celebs never do it (because, I'm sorry, they're celebs, not your personal whores), so it's a waste of everyone's time and pretty annoying. Some chick tried to get Joss to do some dance, which, of course, he didn't. Wonder if it was the same chick who tried to get Boreanaz to sing at a Bones panel I was at a couple years back? Anyway, Joss was Joss, entertaining and enlightening as ever, and I really enjoyed the apology he made...stating that he was sorry that it had been so long since he'd made any stories for us, and that he planned to turn his life toward fixing that, now. The big announcement--big for me, at least--was that the long-discussed "Ripper" series he had planned to make with the BBC, starring the Giles character from Buffy, looks like it's finally going to happen. Not as a series, though, but as a film, but I'll take that. I've been looking forward to that for a long time. Great to see Joss, as ever, and I plan to keep doing it, year after year, as long as he keeps showing up.

That ended our Con day, and we ended up going out to dinner by Tony's place at one of our old favorite haunts...Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Company (which Russ still insists on calling "Stuft", since that was its old name (it was "Stuft", right, not "Stuffed"?) before they had some radio contest to rename it for some reason a few years back). Tony's pal (whose name I still can't remember) joined us, and we had great chow and lots of pitchers. And we had a waitress who we're all probably going to remember for the rest of our lives. Just one of the most perfect faces I've ever seen. And we all soon realized we were so enthralled because she looked like the younger sister of Morena Baccarin (whom Firefly/Serenity fans may recall as the most beautiful space ho to ever boldly go...well, you know...). Classic Tony moment here. Someone had mentioned to her the actress similarity, and she didn't know who it was. So when she came back with some more pitchers, Tony whips out the iPhone, pulls up IMDB on the internet, and says here, this is the actress they were talking about. And Apple employee Tony got exactly the reaction he was aiming for. "Oh, wow, is that one of those iPhones?" Always on the job, that guy. No wonder they pay him the big bucks. Or we assume they do, based on his house...

Speaking of his house, we all headed back there to end up our night with cigars and more beverages on the back patio, while Wendy (wife o' Tony) was readying things for the next day's birthday festivities for their son, Christopher. This was the chance for both Tony and pal (both of Apple) to pass the iPhones around to us all. Wow. I had idea just how totally badass those things were. If it wasn't for the price point that I just can't justify meeting right now, I would totally have one. People talking smack about them are just doing so for the sake of smack-talk. They don't know what they're talking about. These are the real thing, and the future of what we're all going to be carrying. Get yours today. And now I'll wait for Tony to send me my check...

And for all our good times had thus far, there was still one more day of Con adventure coming!
One with shocking celebrity moments! Stay tuned!

Comic-Con 2007: Day Two

2007-09-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

You know what the problem is with putting off writing one of these things until over a month after the event? The memory does tend to fade. Especially at my age... Which, I should point out, is younger than Russ. It's not pertinent to the point, but it just makes me feel better.

So, I'll try to recall Friday as best I can, but there may be some discrepancies. We got ourselves downtown again (I remember that much...), and I believe we all split up a bit. This being Friday, the bigger celeb stuff was starting, but really, with the big crowds, I was less and less interested in hitting Hall H. It's a funny experience...you look through your schedule, you circle all these things that you just HAVE to see and can't POSSIBLY miss...and then you get there and realize you just feel like roaming around and doing some shopping or something. Maybe that's just with people who've been to this thing enough years to have kind of seen it all, like myself. I clearly remember my first year, the 1990 Con. So young, so naive, so star-struck nerdy. The "celebrities" back then didn't include, like, movie stars. These were celebs only comic nerds knew. Guys like X-Men writer Chris Claremont, the biggest comic super-star of his day. And X-Men/Fantastic Four/Alpha Flight/You Name It artist John Byrne. And a host of smaller names. But they were big to me. That was my first! I'd never been to anything like Comic-Con (and compared to what Comic-Con has become, that one might as well have been the Flint, Michigan Comic-Con and Knife Show. But I, and my other traveling pals who were experiencing it for the first time, didn't want to miss a moment. We went to every panel, every workshop, even went to the Saturday night annual Masquerade (the costume contest that I haven't been to in many years). Quick very embarrassing story? I was part of a Champions APA back then (you're thinking that's enough of an embarrassing story right there, aren't you?), and I wanted to make a videotape for all those who were members of the APA who couldn't make it. And I, and my friend Joel (I'm taking him down with me) went around and thought it'd be a SWELL idea to stick our video camera in the faces of comic celebs and ask them to say "Hi" to the members of the Clobberin' Times. Dear...God. I was young, okay? That tape still exists, as do such "Hi to the Clobberin' Times" moments from Erik "Savage Dragon" Larson, Phil Foglio, Evan Dorkin, Joshua Quagmire, Mike Leeke, and even Chris Claremont himself...a very obviously annoyed Chris Claremont, who paused long enough to just say "This is Chris Claremont, saying Hi" and give us that look that said asking such a thing of him was not a good idea. Yeah? Well...I'm glad Jim Lee forced you out, then...ya...jerk. While we deserved no graciousness from any of them, thumbs up to those who were gracious anyway (for those of you Dorkin fans out there? Don't be disappointed....Dorkin was not gracious either. I know, you were worried there for a minute).

But now, there are the actual must-see panels, there are the hey-I'd-maybe-like-to-see panels, and there are the I'll-see-it-if-I'm-not-hungry-and-others-are-going panels. Good news is that there's something of some type going on in the panel rooms all day, so you can pick something (if it's not so popular that you should have gotten in line three hours beforehand) that sounds good at the moment and drop in and follow your fancy. I had considered doing the Hall H thing for the Warner Bros. presentation, but decided on something else (that I can't recall right now...I think this may have just been my solo wander time, something that's a must to pencil in for yourself during the four days somewhere. Yes, you go there to hang with your buddies, but you and your buddies all have different interests, too, and someone may want to be digging through back-issue stacks looking for old comics while someone else may be wanting to get an autographed paperback from that favorite author at one of the book publisher tables. You need at least a couple of hours to fly solo in there somewhere). But Russ made it in. Quite an impressive panel, too, with the likes of Joel Silver, Edward Burns, Kate Beckinsale (meow) and suddenly-all-the-rage director Zack "300" Snyder there. Russ was only there for the Snyder, because at this part in the panel he was there to talk about his in-progress project, the 20-years-overdue Watchmen film. For those not in the know, Watchmen is one of the most influential graphic novels in comic history. The Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons masterpiece was, I believe, the first graphic novel to be reviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine. It, along with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight returns, caused a major shift in the industry, and nothing's been the same since. And the task of making it into a movie has been talked about (and then fallen apart) many, many times in the two decades since. Though there are fans, like myself most times I consider it, who think it probably SHOULDN'T be made into a movie. How can you fit a 12-part opus like Watchmen into a two-hour film? I've been afraid of seeing it destroyed. However....now Zack's directing. I've been a fan of his since his remake of Dawn of the Dead came out (fast zombies rock!), and then became an even bigger fan when I sat through the 300 panel at the Con...and then letter sat stunned in the theater with everyone else when the film came out. Zack proved what he can do adapting graphic stories to film by translating Miller's tale into something so amazing. If he's on Watchmen, I'll give it a shot. And from everything Russ told me from the panel, I don't think we're going to be disappointed.

Other things I missed on Friday: Might have liked to have seen Clive Owen talking about the new film Shoot 'Em Up, which looks like a lot of fun, or have seen director Frank Darabont (hey, I'm directing another Stephen King film!) and star Thomas Jane giving us a sneak-preview of the upcoming film The Mist. Would also, if I had more of my SG:1 peeps there with me, liked to have seen the "SG:1, The Movie" panel, with some of the stars there pushing the upcoming straight-to-DVD movie spun off the series. And would like to have seen Scott McCloud (and family), my biggest inspiration in comics creation, the guy who I try to see every year to get that big boost of creative whammy from. But other stuff got in the way of those. But hey...I've seen panels with the SG folks before, and I've seen Scott a number of times. And I'm sure both those groups will be back again.

After my roaming and Russ's Zacking, Russ and I took off for lunch in the Gaslamp. We tried to get our buddy Andy to hook up with us (mentioned before? Husband of Jo?), but he was wrapped up, and I think this is when A.T. was doing his animation voicing contest thing. Can't remember what Tony was doing. So Russ and I hit Trophies for food and beverages. At this point, our only panel plans for the rest of the day were to see J. Michael Straczynski's panel on Babylon 5: The Lost Tales...the upcoming (as in coming out a couple days after the Con) straight-to-DVD B5 film. Russ and Aaron were the guys who were big B5 fans back in the day, and I came into the game late. I had just moved to San Diego with Aaron, and medical thing knocked me out of work and kept me on the couch, mostly, for a couple of months, when TNT picked up B5 and was just started to show the reruns from the beginning. So Aaron would come home from work and we'd kick it and watch a B5 every day. So I got to check it out from the very start, and watch it all the way through, and it was, in fact, a hell of a ride. We even had a get-together over at Russ's place when the final B5 episode aired. Between myself, Russ and Aaron, I won't say which one of us got teary-eyed at the end...but I can tell you it wasn't me or Russ. Just sayin'... It was a great show for four seasons, pretty weak for its fifth season (long story, but it wasn't actually supposed to HAVE a fifth season, so that was understandable), and ended with a great finale. It then followed with a couple of...um...questionable attempts at spinoff series (depends on who you ask. If you ask me, they were HORRIBLE!!!), and I kind of figured that was the end of it. But our man J.M.S. was apparently trying again, and testing the straight-to-DVD waters with something new for us. So, being the fans we were, we couldn't very well miss out on that. Even if it meant me missing Scott McCloud.

But first it was back to the Con to kill time before the late B5 panel, so we headed to our usual "sweet spot" for cigar smoking. Have I mentioned this spot yet? I think I did but didn't go into detail of why it's so "sweet". Aside from Hall H (downstairs), all the other big stuff happens upstairs...the bigger celeb stuff, as they have bigger panel rooms up there (including Room 20, which is the next best thing to Hall H). There's a spot there where security walks the celebs around to get them to their panel rooms. So, knowing the spot, we kick it there, enjoy the sun, and watch famous (and semi-famous) people go by us. And sometimes even say hi. Maybe it's the cigar-smoking that makes it feel more casual, but there's none of that "Ooh, look, it's so-and-so!" fanboy vibe happening. We're just chillin'. A celeb will walk by. For example, a couple or three years back, we were smoking, and security was walking the cast of "Invasion" by, which included Brent Spiner (you know, Mr. Data? If you're reading a blog called The Geek Side, you had BETTER know that). So Russ looks over and says, through the cigar in his teeth, "Hey, it's Spiner". Just casual. Spiner hears this, looks over as he walks by, smiles and says "How are you?". To which all us smokers just nodded and said "Doing good" or some such. Like, you know, we were just celebrities like him. Yeah, it's got to be the cigars...

Tony and A.T. joined us out there, along with Tony's pal...damnit, I forgot Tony's pal's name. Or was that the following day? Garrrr! Memory loss be evil! This is why I need to take more photos like I used to. That used to help me remember the details and help me set a timeline. I'm lucky if I remember to pull out the camera these days. Ah, well. But we kicked it and smoked. A couple celeb sightings. I mentioned that Stargate SG:1 thing. I got to see Amanda Tapping (mmmm) from that show on the way to that panel. That's always nice. She's purty. But eventually we did make our way to the B5 panel, which was a lot of fun. B5 stars Bruce Boxleitner, Tracy Scoggins and Peter Woodward were up there with them, and we got to see a preview of the "film". It's actually more like two episodes of a series. "The Lost Tales" will hopefully be a series of "films" (depending on the sales on this one), and stories will focus on individual B5 characters. In this first one, there are tales with Sheridan and Lochley). The only thing that made me doubt that we're going to get a series is when (I think it was) the moderator started things out by asking the audience "So, how many of you have already pre-ordered yours on Amazon?". It was one of those questions asked with an expectation of a certain response. Hey, it was a room filled with B5 fans, right? You'd expect thunderous applause all around. Uh...not so much. I was pretty shocked at the lack of applause there. Hey, maybe it was the marketing. I'll be honest...I knew nothing about this until the Con (actually, Russ had emailed us about it a couple of months before, but I had somehow completely blocked that out....). I got online right when I got home and ordered mine. And watched it. It was...okay. I liked it. The Sheridan one was better. The only dismaying thing is that they're having to do this on a SERIOUS shoestring budget. It's the only way they could get it done. And it shows. They don't have the old sets anymore. I think they just have one greenscreen room, from the look of things. And apparently they couldn't afford extras, either, because it looked like this 5-mile long space station had about four people living on it. But you work with what you got, and that's what J. Mikey did, and did a pretty good job with what he had, I think. We'll see what happens with it.

At this point (If I'm not getting my nights confused) we headed back to La Jolla to grab some dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery, where we did get to hook up with Andy this time. Fun and feast and liquid nirvana was had. Mmm. Rock Bottom. Titan Toothpicks GOOD. I do like to hit that place whenever I'm back in the old Diego. We had a good time, but not TOO good of a time, because the BIGGEST day of the Con was coming. Saturday. Not only the biggest panels with the biggest names, but the most populated day at the convention center. NIGHTmare crowds! Adventure awaited after a few hours of sleep...

Comic-Con 2007: (The Actual) Day One

2007-08-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so where were we? Ah, yes. The actual first day of the Con. Thursday. Seeing as how we were up so late the night before, getting up too early wasn't that big of a consideration. However, Russ and Tony did want to make it to panel where Battlestar Galactica veteran Richard Hatch would be speaking. Richard Hatch became kind of a Con regular thing for us a few years ago. Before this new BG series started on Sci-Fi, there was a big battle going on with two camps trying to bring it back. One was headed by Richard Hatch (whom you may remember, if you're old enough and a bit of a nerd, as Apollo from the original show). The other was series creator Glen Larson. Apparently there was some big legal battle over this, the details of which I can't quite remember. But we ended up going to a Richard Hatch panel a few years back. Richard is one highly motivated SOB. And he was really, really into bringing the show back. He'd gotten together a group of other Galactica people, and some other creative folks he knew, and was moving forward with his vision. He (and these folks) had even made a trailer for a new Galactica series. He got effects people to work on it and everything. His vision picked up quite a few years after the first series left off, and what he filmed wasn't the actual new show, but just something to show others (and networks) what it could be like. He showed this trailer, one that had already been making news on the internet, at this first panel. People went out of their minds. There were seriously like a 5-minute standing "O". And Hatch talking about...man. I should add that he's also a motivational speaker. You could see why. We became converts....and then it became a standard thing every year for us to go to whatever panel Hatch was it. We started using the phrase "What Would Richard Hatch Do?" amongst ourselves the rest of the year. Anyway, as it turns out, someone ELSE got the Galatica rights and did the show a different way...which turned out to be one of the best shows on TV in years. So Richard didn't get to do it himself, but was a gracious "loser" and accepted a recurring role on the show.

So Tony and Russ wanted to hear him again, but A.T. and I had to get in line for badges ourselves, so we wouldn't be going. We took two cars from Tony's place down to the convention center, as A.T. and I would have to split off from them later in the evening (more on that in a bit), and since we learned a long time ago not to bother trying to park anywhere near the center, we took our usual parking spots at a lot across from the baseball stadium (Petco Park, baby! Home of the Padres!) and walked over...which isn't that far of a walk. As I expected, thousands and thousands of people on the streets on foot, making their way to the big event. We got to the door and found out where the pro-reg area would be. As we were talking to the security guy at the door to get directions, someone comes running up to him. And who should it be? Richard Hatch himself. He ran up in a panic asking "Where's 6-A? Where's 6-A? Just tell me, where's 6-A?" "6-A" is one of the panel rooms, obviously where he was headed for the panel that Russ and Tony were headed to...and he was obviously running late. The security guy seemed kind of stumped, but luckily Russ, being in the know, was able to give Mr. Hatch directions. So began our 2007 celeb stories. There's always a number every year, and this year was to be no exception.

So A.T. and I got into line with the pros. Pretty big line. Some years someone spots the wheelchair and comes up and tells me I can just come up to the front, but that's never something I actually ask for (it's something I feel kind of bad about, actually, when it happens), but not this year, so we waited. As we got close to the front, A.T. turned around for something, and he physically bumped into Lou Ferrigno (you might remember him as the Hulk from the TV show). Luckily, A.T. did not make him angry (we wouldn't have liked that...), and he was quite gracious about it.

We got our badges, and finally, we were able to go in. Just before we did, we got a cell call from Russ. He and Tony had finished their panel (we were in line quite a while) and were getting ready to head into the Gaslamp for lunch. We really wanted to get inside, so we bowed out of that and headed in. Immediately, the familiar sights brought back all the memories and made it feel like home. As I might have mentioned, the San Diego Convention Center is HUGE. For you trivia-minded folks, there's over 525,000 square feet of space on the lower floor (where all the booths and tables and such are), and this convention uses ALL of it. Thursday is typically the "slow" day, but even so, it was wall-to-wall people. The bigger companies (bigger comic companies like D.C. and Marvel, video game companies, TV networks, movie studios) all have these really elaborate booths with all kinds of cool displays, and people are moving in out of them all day. There are banners of comic art a couple stories tall. There's giant video screens showing promo stuff. Some of the booths are two levels, and on one I passed, there was a guy up there with a mic rapping (okay...). The Marvel booth had a display of the actual life-sized Mark I Iron Man armor for next summer's big Iron Man movie. There were dazzling sights all over, and I found myself feeling envious of those folks experiencing it all for the first time (me, being a regular for 17 years, I'm just not as blown away anymore) and dealing with the sensory overload. There were vendors selling thousands of tee shirts and posters, companies selling software at their tables, sword and armor dealers, art dealers, toy dealers, memorabilia dealers, comic companies, book publishers, anything you can imagine. Anything you could want as a pop culture fan of any kind.

The most important thing you can arm yourself with is the program schedule. Aside from telling you when and where panels are happening (almost all of them upstairs...there are two floors of panel rooms up there, but the biggest venue is "Hall H" downstairs, where all the really big celeb things happen), there's a map and a guide to tell you where everything is, so you can find the company or dealer or whatever you're looking for downstairs. There SO much to see, and it's so easy to get lost, that this is a necessity. This is actually available online before the Con ever starts, but I generally don't get around to looking until we actually get there and get the program book in hand, which they hand you when you get your badge. Maybe I just like the tradition. This used to be part of the experience in the early days. We'd all fly in on Wednesday night, go to pre-reg, get our books, and then go back to someone's hotel room and start highlighting and underlining to plan our week. But, this year, didn't have it until right when I went in. The map shows you who's where on the main floor, and also shows that there are certain special areas. One of them is the Small Press area, where small comic creators who generally publish their own stuff get to have their tables. This is where Tim and I were stationed with our Nice Guy table a couple (or was it three?) years back, but I still like to go over there, even if I don't have a table, and check out the other indy guys and be sure to buy something from as many as possible.

Another of the segmented areas is called Artist's Alley (or Artists' Alley, I guess...), a place with rows of tables just for comic artists. The artists range from popular names in the business to lesser-known guys just there to get themselves known and do commissions for people. This is always a big area for me, as I love getting original comic art, and I generally come in with a agenda for some character art I want for one of the web pages I do. There are a couple of regulars I hit, but the list of artists tends to change from year to year, so I like to roam around and see who else is kicking it that I might hit up. As artists doing commissions tend to fill up their art lists quickly, I like to hit the Alley first, so A.T. and I headed over there. I'd come with some art references to hand out, so I wanted to see who might be available for work.

I had two big scores here. First off, veteran Marvel artist Bob Hall was there, something no one else around seemed to be noticing or caring about. But me, I'm an old fan of his. He used to do comics back when I was in high school (I remember him best from West Coasts Avengers). He's now 75 years old and still working it. So I had to introduce myself and chat with him for a bit. Had a great conversation about Ireland, as he'd lived there for a couple of years (whereas I had only spent a week there, back in '03, on a trip with Russ). And I ended up getting some art ordered from him, too. I was heading down another row and spotted an artist named Josh Howard. I first discovered his work about three years before when I picked up a comic he does called "Dead @ 17". I totally loved his art, and have been trying to track him down to do some for me ever since, but he'd never been in the Alley. Now, there he was, and doing commissions cheap, no less! So I got to meet him and put in an order, and he did a couple of really amazing pieces for me. I love not only his art, but his storytelling style, so much that I definitely have plans to work with him one of these days. I'm planning to write a script that really matches his style and pitch it to him down the road. We'll see.

I also ran into a great artist named Otis Frampton (who does a wonderful book called "Oddly Normal") who did some commission work via eBay for me a while back, so it was great to be able to meet him in person. Also tracked down an eBay artist named Marc Wolfe, who actually owed me some art from a commission, and was supposed to be bringing it along. I found him, and he had to apologize, but he'd forgotten to pack it. So he offered to do an additional piece for me on the house for my patience. Excellent. I was supposed to have emailed him about that when I got back, something I just now remembered. Oops. We'll see if I can remember that tonight. I also tracked down Jeff Moy, who I hit up for a piece every year. If you're a comic person, you may know his work from Legion of Super-Heroes. Great guy and amazing artist, and once again, he came through for me this year. Great piece. Finally, I spotted Marvel artist Terry Shoemaker, and got one ordered up from him as well. The way these things work is that you order the commission, pay your money, and then, depending on how many people are on the artist's list ahead of you, you're given a rough idea of when to come back to pick up your art. This is why I like to order my art on Thursday, since I'm there for all four days each year, so I can tell the artists there's no rush and they can take their time with my stuff (and move someone ahead of me if that person is only there for, say, one or two days). I just check back in about once a day and see how it's going. By Sunday, I had it all. So my annual art hunt turned out really well.

A.T. and I had to grab some food, so we took part in another annual Con tradition...which is going upstairs to the Mezzanine level and paying way too much for overpriced on-site Con food. They mainly have sandwiches and pizza up there, and it costs way too much, but it does save you from having to take the walk across the street to the Gaslamp. We were in line for food when Russ called, and he had just had lunch with our old friend Jo, who recently moved back to San Diego from L.A. and was living downtown. She had never done the Con thing, so while Tony was at her place doing something on her computer (I can't recall what...), he loaned her his badge and she came back with Russ. They met up with us and we got a table and chatted while A.T. and I scarfed. It's always fun hanging out with someone who's experiencing it for the first time...particularly someone as wonderfully sarcastic and snarky as Jo. Had a great time catching up with her, but soon, she was off to get back to the real world.

Let's see...I think at this point Russ and I went outside to one of our favorite spots to have a couple of cigars, while A.T. headed off to check out another panel. It was the Lion's Gate studio panel, and it was in the big Hall H, so I wasn't convinced he was going to get in. Well, turns out he did, and he got to see folks at the panel like Jessica Alba (d'oh!), Dane Cook, Peter Fonda and Clive Barker. Me and Russ, we were waiting for Tony to return, as we wanted to check out the panel for Lost, which is always a popular thing. As I recall, it was during this sit that Russ pointed out to me that Nick Frost (co-star of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) was standing right nearby having a cigarette. We wandered over there, and he was talking with someone. I'm really not much of a guy for approaching celebs, generally, and I'm really not into autographs, so most of my celeb stories at these things end up standing next to someone famous or riding the elevator with them or something. But I thought since my friend Ken back home was such a fan, I'd maybe get a picture of me and Nick. ALMOST did, but some other guy walked up and did so while I was digging for my camera, and Nick went in right after that. Ah, well. Still three days left for that sort of thing...

I also had to make a phone call around this time. Our friends Ben and Kaye, who live in Orange County and usually drive down for the Saturday of the Con only, were making use of Ben's family's timeshare in La Jolla and were going to be in town for Wednesday and Thursday nights only. They'd wanted to do a barbecue, and A.T. and I had arranged to hook up with them for that Thursday night. I hadn't heard from them, and it suddenly occurred to me that that might not have still had my cell number. Turns out I was right! They were just leaving the convention and heading to La Jolla, and I got directions from them and let them know we'd hook up with them after our panel (and after fighting the traffic out of downtown).

So Tony and Russ and I got lucky with the wheelchair thing getting into the Lost panel, a room which, no surprise, filled up quite nicely. Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse showed up for this one, but without any cast members like the year before. They showed some cool promo stuff, but then when right into questions from the audience. This is actually my least favorite parts of panels...people asking dumb questions and guys like these producers having to give very vague answers (as not to lay out any spoilers). So after a few minutes of this, I told Russ and Tony I'd be taking off so I could get out to La Jolla early. Turns out I missed a special guest on stage that gives away something from this upcoming season, but I won't tell you about that, because it's LOST, man! No spoilers allowed! At least not from me...

I hooked up with A.T. and we made our way to our car and headed to La Jolla. And we had a great evening hanging out and chatting with our old pals Ben and Kaye! We so rarely get to see them. It's usually just one a year, at the Con, and then it's only for a few minutes between panels and such. There's really no time to have a real conversation. So, while their two boys ran about and talked a lot of Harry Potter, we got to have some great chow out there on the patio, overlooking the ocean, and catch up on old times, talk about TV shows and books and all manner of stuff, and find out what's been up with their family. Hell of a treat. I miss those guys!! Hope we get a chance to try that method again next year, depending on their schedule.

So we finally wrapped things up there (didn't want to make it TOO late, as their family had to hit the road early and head home the next day), and A.T. and I headed back to Casa Del Tony to hook up with the boys and try for some shut-eye before preparing for the first of the two BIG days of the Con. Friday. New adventures and experiences awaited!

Comic-Con 2007: (The Day Before) Day One

2007-08-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

I go to Comic-Con International in San Diego every summer. The reasons are pretty simple. 1) I'm a comic writer; 2) it's in San Diego; 3) I'd be stupid not to.

I've been going to this thing since 1990, since before I actually got into the comics biz. It started off as a place to meet up with other members of the Clobberin' Times, the Champions APA I was part of. It was our excuse to get together, but, all being comic fans, we went for the event itself as well. It was a lot different at the start (and had it different name...it used to just be the San Diego Comic-Con before it turned into Comic-Con International, the biggest comic convention in the world). It was smaller. It used to take place in the old convention center in San Diego. Over the years, it's switched over to the new Center, and it's grown, like crazy, every year. It used to be sort of a secret...kind of the best kept secret in entertainment. When the average person heard "Comic-Con", they just thought comic books. What they didn't realize was that, for a really low price for all you get out of it, you could hang out with known celebrities as well. The thing may have started out as a comic thing only, decades ago, but it evolved into the biggest "popular culture" convention in the world, inclusive of comics, film, television, videogames, you name it. I've got endless stories from over the years. Back then, you could just walk in to one of the many panels offered, take a seat amongst the not-full-house, and listen to director John Carpenter talk for an hour. Which I did. It was badass. These days, you've got to get in a very long line to get into panels like that, and often can't get in before they fill up.

What it's evolved into is a monster event packed with really huge celebs. All the major (and minor) TV networks and film studios use it to promote upcoming shows and movies, and with that comes a lot more stars. Big ones. I think the year Halle Berry showed up was the breaking point. That's when folks like Entertainment Tonight and "E" finally took notice of what was happening. After that, the celebs kept pouring in, as did the attendees, and suddenly, there were over 100,000 people attending this thing each year over the four days it's held. It became a madhouse, jammed to the walls of a very, very big building. Not as intimate as it used to be, but still the biggest spectacle of its kind on Earth, and always a good time.

I usually meet up with quite a few friends down there for the event, but this year was to be a small year. Not a lot of my peeps, for various reasons, could make it. And not only could my Nice Guy co-creator and artist, Tim, not make it, but we didn't have our second book done yet, so we had no way to justify getting a table there to push our product. But I still needed to be there to do a little selling and schmoozing, and I always count on the trip to give me a load of creative inspiration to last me until the next summer, so I was there. It was just going to be me and my pal A.T. going from Sacramento, and we'd be meeting up with our friend Russ (a former San Diego resident, like myself, who moved away and now had to fly in (from Boise, in his case) to attend) and staying with our pal Tony (the last resident from our old San Diego gang still there) and his family, skipping the hotel route this year. Which was important, because I think every hotel room within five miles of downtown filled up months before the event. I'm not kidding. They really did.

I took a week off work, wanting a day before the flight to get myself together and packed, so I spent my Tuesday doing that (after spending a late night on Monday at the office to get my desk ready for me being gone). Then Wednesday came around, and it was time for A.T. and I to get out of Dodge (or Sac, in this case). He still had to work on Wednesday, but only a half day, so he finished up his work and family stuff and came and grabbed me, and it was off to the airport we went, ready to leave our nightmarish insurance jobs behind for a few days and get a much needed mental break. Russ would already be there when we arrived, as he flew in that morning, so we planned to meet up with him and Tony after getting out of the airport. They, themselves, would be picking up their pre-registered Con badges at the Convention Center and attending what's called "Preview Night". If you're pre-reg'd, you get to go in the night before everyone else and check out the place. There aren't any panels or events going on, but all the companies and vendors have their stuff all set up, and people can come through and start buying any of the ENDLESS items available for purchase (comics, tee shirts, DVDs, swords, collectibles of EVERY kind). They essentially added an extra half-day to the Con. Not needed for me or A.T. First of all, due to A.T.'s schedule, we weren't able to fly in in time for it. Second? We...uh...didn't actually have badges yet. This would be my bad, and this was a potential disaster that was still hanging over our heads, even as we drove to the airport to fly off to America's Finest City.

There are the regular badges, you see, and there are "pro badges" for industry professionals. Since I technically am one, this allows me to get a badge for free, and allows me one guest for free as well. Which is cool, since other folks are still paying $25 per day for their badges (and I can't imagine this low price is going to last much longer). But to get the free badge, pros have to pre-register. Well, life got busy, and I didn't. It's happened before, and it's usually not an issue. That only meant, in the past, that you would have to wait until Thursday morning, stand in line for a while, and then buy your page on-site, which would cost you (and your guest) $25 for all four days. Not as good as free, but still 1/4 of the price others are paying. So I've done that a couple of times.

This year, there was a potentially big problem. You see, this year, for the first time ever, the Con started selling out. There was an announcement that went up about a week before the Con that all 4-day badges were now sold out. This was unprecedented. Believe me, I know, as I've been doing this for 17 years. They were encouraging people to get online and pre-register asap, as there were still 3-day passes and single day passes available. But, as a pro, I didn't have this option, as I found out when I called the pro hotline at the Con and got a recording. You have two choices as a pro--you make the May 1st pre-reg deadline, or you're out of luck and you have to buy at the door. Well, that was fine, but did that mean that I now wouldn't be able to get a 4-day pass...me or A.T.? I couldn't find out, because no one ever answered to pro-line. Just the recording. And there was no help on the web site, either. All they told you was just to buy at the door, but didn't state anywhere if the sell-out applied to us pro-types. I even emailed them, and never got a response. So it seemed it was too late to do anything about it. So as I waited that final week, news then hit that Saturday passes were totally sold out. Holy crap! Saturday's the biggest day, with all the big events. Missing that would suck, big time. So it looked like there was a chance A.T. and I wouldn't be able to be there for one of those days. As it turned out, in the end, all the other days sold out as well.

But, as luck would have it, Russ went to the pro people while he was getting his badge and asked the question for us, and called me, just before we got on the plane, and said that all was well...the sell-out didn't apply to pros. Whew! So that took a big load off, and got us relaxed and excited about the trip. We landed in San Diego (which I always love doing, as I still consider that city home and treasure every chance I get to get back there) and went to go take care of our rental car. In years past with me and my friends, there were always numerous vehicles available for the attending gang...there was Tony's car, and Russ had his when he lived there, and I had my van back before I made the move back north. Now, we'd be down to just Tony's car, and as Tony has kids and family matters to deal with, we didn't want him being stuck having to taxi us around if he suddenly had to take off. So, A.T. and I both being in insurance, we've got connections with Enterprise. A.T. used his and got us set up with the good rate, and set us up for an Economy-sized vehicle. This had started to worry me as we got closer, the more I thought about it. If we did have the situation with Tony happen and A.T., Russ and I needed to all use the car, we wouldn't be able to fit three of us plus my wheelchair in there. So I figured we should rethink that once we got to the rental car place.

IF we got to the rental car place...

We waited for the Enterprise shuttle outside the airport (the Enterprise location is off-site), and the one that showed up didn't have a wheelchair ramp. But the driver said a workable one would be by in about 15 minutes. Okay, we could wait. Well, that didn't happen. As it turned out, two of Enterprise's shuttles were down...including the one with the lift. An Enterprise guy showed up and let us know this, and that they'd actually called us a cab. Oookay. Whatever got the job done. Our cab showed, a mini-van with a lift, and our driver was a Russian cabbie named Boris (I'm not making that up), who informed us (not quite buying this) that his cab is one of two in all of San Diego that has a wheelchair lift. Boris came complete with the accent, and at one point, I almost leaned forward and asked him to say "moose and squirrel" for me, but self-control got the better of me.

Boris got us there, and then it was time to get hooked up on our car. I asked the helpful guy who'd be setting us up if we still had the option to get a bigger vehicle, and he said sure, we could just see what was available in the lot. I was thinking we needed a standard-sized vehicle (their sizes go: Economy, Compact, Intermediate, Standard...then move up to Full-Size, Luxury, and so on). He showed us to a Taurus. He started writing it up for us, and we even got our luggage in the trunk, and that's when A.T. let us know that he insisted on having the extra insurance, and he had budgeted his portion of the rental based on that, so he really wanted to look at an Economy. Okay, so our guy showed us what Economy ones he had, and A.T. even unloaded the Taurus. I looked at it, and its lame excuse for a trunk that wouldn't fit the wheelchair, and realized that even if we didn't need to put the chair in the back seat, Russ is too tall to fit in that back seat with any kind of comfort. It just wasn't going to work. We looked at the next size up, but while our guy was walking back from inside with some adjusted figures, another couple of people stepped up and got the last Compact. In the end, A.T. worked his mojo, and managed to talk the guy into giving us the Taurus for the Compact price. Problem solved, and we got a great deal on the car for the trip. And we could now finally get on the road, since it was now after 10pm and Russ and Tony were waiting for us downtown at a bar.

We took the (what would have been) short drive toward the Gaslamp area downtown to track down the Yard House where Tony and Russ were waiting. We were preparing to make a left turn that would get us into the Gaslamp when we hit a red light. As we waited, a train started coming (we'd have to cross the tracks to make our turn). Well, okay, that happens. So we waited. And waited. This was like a mile-long freight train. And as more of it passed us, it started slowing down. Way down. Pretty soon, it stopped. And then, to our further frustration, it even started backing up, slowly. So this train had managed to get far enough into our area to completely block any street would let us get to where Russ and Tony were. This was frustrating me even more because I hadn't had a meal all day and I knew the kitchen would be closing soon. I managed to call Russ and asked him to at least order me some kind of appetizer before that happened (which would be less than 10 minutes from that time).

As it looked like the train wasn't going anywhere anytime soon (you should have seen the line of traffic behind us), A.T. got in the job. As his visual memory is apparently MUCH better than mine, he remembered back to a previous trip when Russ had driven us through a back way to the Gaslamp...and A.T. also thought he remembered a spot up ahead where a bridge would take us over the train. Keep in mind that I lived there for seven years and even *I* didn't know that. So. A.T. hit the gas, and soon, we found the route he remembered. We got past the train (woo hoo!) and found our way to the Gaslamp. And we managed to find a parking spot just a couple of blocks away from our destination, thanks to my disabled parking pass that I'd thankfully remembered to bring.

So we hit the Yard House and found the boys (already pretty toasted), and it turned out that Russ had gone ahead and ordered me a burger (time for another 'woo hoo!'). So, now relaxed and in better mood, I was able to get some food in me and order a Guinness before last call. So the four of us toasted the trip to come, got caught up, since we hadn't seen each other in a while, and enjoyed some quality hang-out time downtown.

As parking is just ridiculous during Con time, particularly on preview night (which begins right around rush hour traffic time), Tony had parked his car at a trolley station elsewhere and taken light rail down to meet up with Russ. So thanks to us having the Taurus, we were able to give them a ride back to that station to get Tony's wheels. We all hit the freeway and headed to Tony's place, where, as I said, Tony and his wife, Wendy, and their three (count 'em!) kids were letting us crash. We got unloaded, and I got my stuff into the room I always get to use when I'm staying with Tony (he puts a rollaway bed in his home office for me, which is awesome because the office also opens right into the downstairs bathroom), and we got to catch up with Wendy a bit (who was miraculously still up at that time). Eventually we all managed to get off to bed. I think it was near 3:30 or 4:00am when I finally got to sleep. Which would, certainly, be making for a very long first day (Thursday) at the Con...

Geek Test #3

2007-07-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

If you're the guy who created this pic and put it on the internet?

You just won the Geek of the Year award. Congratulations. Collect your Jason of Star Command anniversary collector's plate at the door.

And pay for the hooker. Right now.

Geek Test #2

2007-07-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

If you want or have this guy's autograph?

You might be a geek.

Geek Test

2007-07-16T22:04:00.003-07:00

If you get this joke?

You might be a geek.

Comics for nothing, anatomically impossible chicks for free

2007-07-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a comic reader. Not as much as I once was, but still, I like to look in if I hear from someone I know that there's something particularly cool out there. I used to have a comic saver at my local comic shop, one owned by a great guy who's a big supporter of the comic I write. But more and more, I just didn't have time, with my work schedule, to get to the comic store during business hours (as I was regularly at the office until 8pm), and when I did finally get there and pick up the big stack of comics that had built up, I found I didn't have time to read them. And when I did, I was getting more and more bothered by the fact that all these comics that I'd never read again (I'm not a re-reader, nor am I a collector) were stacking up in my closet after I was done with them. I just didn't have the room. I finally just quit my saver and quit comics.

However, for the occasional curious comic reader like myself, there's an answer to all these problems. Unfortunately, it's one that I'm philosophically opposed to, especially as a comic creator myself. It's called downloading.

Yes, just like with MP3 files, you can now download whole comics. There's a new file format called .CBR (Comic Book Reader) that's read by specific comic reading software, such as the CDisplay viewer. Scanning and sharing comics isn't exactly new, but up until the .cbr thing, people were making .pdf files out of them, which was kind of clunky and kind of a pain in the ass. With CDisplay, it's nice and simple. There's no interface to deal with, no menus. The comic page fills up your whole screen (which really helps you focus on it with other stuff distracting your eyes), and you're viewing about half a page at any given time. You simply scroll down as you read your way down the page, and as you get to the end, you either keep scrolling with your mouse wheel or use your keyboard's Page Down key to go to the next page.

This is just the perfect solution for me. This keeps me from having to find time to get to the comic store. This also solves the "stacking up" problem for me. Which solves another problem of not having to hide them when I have a girl over, frankly. Like I said, I'm no longer a collector, like I was in high school. I have no desire to bag and board the issue after I've read it and file it away to later sell for enormous profit (yeah, that happens...). I just want to read the story. And I'm one of those people who CAN read the story on my computer screen. Some people don't like to. I still know people who print out articles and sit down and read them rather than have to read through it all on the monitor. Me, I'm very used to it, and I like it. I'll read articles, fiction, anything on the screen. And comics, too. For some comic readers, though, this wouldn't work for them because of ritual. Some fans can't enjoy comics if they don't have them in their hands, if they can't turn the pages themselves and have that tactile experience, if they can't curl up in their favorite comic reading chair and pour through the week's purchases. I can understand that. But I don't have the same needs. I've got a pretty big monitor, and reading comics on it is just fine with me.

This is becoming a big thing, both in the Bit Torrent world and on newsgroups. People are buying, and then taking apart, comics, and then scanning them page by page to create a .cbr file of the whole issue. And it's not just new comics. People are scanning up old classics...whole runs of some books from back to the 60s. They're suddenly everywhere. There's a good chance that if there's a certain issue you're looking for, you're going to find it online.

The problem I'm having is? You're not paying for it.

It was the same conundrum with me and MP3 music for a long time. Say, for example, I just wanted to hear one particular song. I didn't want to buy the whole CD. And if I did, I didn't want to go all the way to the music store (if you knew how long it took me to get in and out of my van, you'd understand this aversion to driving to stores). Not when I could just sit right at my computer and download the thing right then and there. But aside from the chance of being sued by Metallica, I had guilt with that. I think people who create things deserve to get paid for it. There's a big part of society out there in this internet age who doesn't feel that way. They feel they should be able to get everything for free. Or, more often, it's not a conscious choice on the matter, but just a question of convenience. During the peak of the MP3 debate, I heard someone on TV put it rather nicely when addressing the ethics of downloading music. He said, "If you had a faucet in your house that dispensed Pepsi, would you really be all that motivated to go to the store and buy a twelve-pack?"

But I'm someone who's putting out a comic, and I know how I'd feel if after all my hard work, people didn't buy it from me, but just downloaded it instead. So just like I used to think about MP3 files, I want someone to give me the option of buying them online. I am totally willing to pay for comics that I download. No problems with that at all, no issues with not having something physical in my hand to show for the money. But just like online music in the days before iTunes came along (which I now use exclusively and wonderfully guilt-free), no one's giving me that choice. At least not that I've seen. I'm thinking downloadable comics are going to have to experience the same learning curve as the MP3 revolution. Enough people are going to have to start doing it that the companies realize they have to deal with the shift and offer that as an alternative. I can't gauge this .cbr thing well enough yet to know if it's going to reach that point. That is, if there's enough folks out there like me that like their comics served up digital. Comic folks DO so love the fill up those longboxes, after all. To many, the collectible part is inseparable from the reading part. It's all part of the hobby as a whole. As is that weekly trip to the comic store to browse the New Releases rack, or going to local comic-cons and scrounging through the quarter bins looking for gems (dude, I finally found a Rom: Spaceknight #4!). Will demand for this kind of thing ever reach a level that calls for a reexamination of the industry paradigm?

Things are starting that way. There are signs. Marvel has started releasing their "40 Years Of..." DVD-ROM collections, for example, which, everyone realizes, allows you to go back and experience all those early Hulk issues without having to spend a ridiculous amount of cash and time tracking down all the back issues. I bought the Avengers set at Comic-Con last year, myself. That's cool and all, but you're still dealing with the old .pdf method, which means lots of zooming and scrolling and readjusting, all of which takes you away from the flow of reading. I like the .cbr format. And, unfortunately, I can get the format I want AND all the same Avengers issues right now by simply hitting a newsgroup and using Newsrover. And for free. Not a lot of incentive for digital comics fans to do that right thing. Me, I want that incentive. I want to get money to the comic companies so that 1) they know I'm reading that particular title and it won't get canceled, and 2) they make enough profit to keep putting it out.

If things continue, it's going to come down to a choice for the comic industry. Give the people what they want (assuming more people than just me do), or they'll use the other means to get it. Though there's been a lessening of concern about this, for a while TV networks were getting pushed out of shape about people downloading TV show episodes. I was a show downloader. If it was a recently-shown episode, and I missed it (or, as was usually the case for me, my TiVo screwed up and didn't record it), I didn't see any problem downloading and watching it. Most networks have come to terms with this and starting putting recent episodes up on their web site. Cool. If it's an older show that's not on anymore? My feeling is this. If you don't put it out on DVD, then I've got no problem downloading the whole series. If you do (and you don't do something lame like not renewing the rights to the original music in it and filling the void with generic studio crap), great. I'll buy it. I like the extras, I like the quality, and, unlike comics, I like displaying them on the shelf in my living room.

But I want my comics digital. And right now, if I get them that way, I'm stealing. I'd like to keep it legal and get things the way I want them. I hope the iTunes mentality reaches the comic industry and makes this possible. That way everybody's happy. Except comic shops, that is. I hope the introduction of this option wouldn't make comic stores go the way of Tower Records. Knowing people that own them, I know they aren't exactly making Starbucks money (and they have to deal with some of the scarier customers in the retail business, too). I like the think that there's room for everyone. That guys like me can download and read, and guys like friends of mine who want to turn those pages by hand and bag, board and archive can keep rushing to the comic shop on Wednesdays to get their fix. It'll be interesting to see where it all goes. But I personally think it's just a matter of time before the issue can't be avoided anymore, and something's going to have to give.

Note to Metallica: Please note that I did not admit to having downloaded any comics. My attorneys advised me that was best. Take that, Lars.

If you only knew the POWER of the Geek Side...

2007-07-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm a geek.

Yeah. I like comics. I spent a lot of years playing role-playing games like Champions. I'm the editor of an online Champions fanzine. I write super-hero fiction on the internet. I like sci-fi and fantasy. I play the occasional computer or console game. I read Star Wars novels and other such works that you can't--if you have the least inkling of self-respect--read on an airplane. All these things are true.

And not EVERYone knows this side of me.

Hence, the reason why I have two blogs.

When I first established my web site, michaeloconnell.com, I wanted it to be all about me and my life, and about the things I enjoy, and I wanted to be able to share it with the world. Unfortunately, I realized that, leading this double-life that I do, that I couldn't share ALL of it if everyone I knew (and people I didn't know) were going to be seeing it. It's a choice. Some people might say this is being dishonest and lying about who are are. Those people are probably married already. Me, I'm single, and have learned, like many guys, how having to deal with this kind of lifestyle is regarded by the ladies. We all, of the geek variety, had to learn this truth in high school. And then you move on and you get into a relationship, and you have things happen like happened to me with my ex. Once I finally got around to telling her the truth about my role-playing past, she let me know, bluntly, that if she'd known about that when we first met, we probably never would have gotten together. Wish I could say she was the rare exception. I've seen it many times. I remember a girl I worked with telling me how she came into the living room and found her husband watching BATMAN (imagine!). And she proudly told me how she told him, "Fine. You can either stay in here and watch BATMAN (you had to be there to really appreciate the level of disgust in her voice at the word), or you can come to bed with me. Your choice."

It's a fact we live with. There's no quicker way to get someone to build an immediate negative impression about you than to reveal your geekness. If you're going to tell someone you like to read comics, you might as well tell them you worship Satan and have confused sexual feelings about goats. NOT always, of course. And a lot of guys will speak up at this point and say that they're very "out there" about their interests and don't care what people think, and they've had a good experience with the whole thing. Good for them. Thumbs-up for the self-confidence. Though I do generally find that these guys are either 1) not too aware of what people say behind their back, 2) are already in a long-term relationship or 3) are really good looking so they can get away with it. Me? I'm already starting off with a wheelchair in the equation, so really...why jack the odds up even further?

There are people you share your geek side with and people you don't. You share it with people who...well, frankly, have imaginations. The more mainstream folks in your life? You're taking your chances. The more intuitive geeks know this. The ones who actually bathe and are able to function in regular society, in other words. Certain others just truly don't care, and wear their hobbies on their sleeves, even without being the smelly, Members-Only-jacket-wearing variety. Again, that's awesome for them. Those guys, though, can be a problem for others they know who aren't so "out". Classic example. My roommate at the time, someone who I gamed with, had a date over at our apartment. I was chatting with them, trying to make him look good, hooking a brother up. As we sat out on our patio, I spotted another friend of ours, an artist, walking up with his art folio. Oh, God. All my internal alarms went off, because I knew what was coming. He was involved with our role-playing game and was doing some character art for us. He was also 1) married, and 2) a rugged individualist who had no qualms speaking out about his nerd side. Danger, Will Robinson.

I tried to head him off and answered the front door, but he enthusiastically blew right past me and headed out to the patio, portfolio in hand. He got introduced to the lady in question, and then, with little to no pause, whipped out the art to show my roommate, and politely explained to the girl (as not to leave her in the dark) that we all played a super-hero role-playing game. My roommate was pretty much in stunned silence. I was squirming in sympathetic horror for him. And if memory serves, there was no second date with this girl.

It's just a fact of life when you're single and you live in the world that we do and you're a fan of the fantastical. You want to get along with the "normal" world, you've got to keep your geek side on the low-low. Sad, but true. I've been around long enough to understand this. If you want to just be who you are and deal with the consequences, I respect the choice. You're a braver man than I. Me, I prefer to keep my two lives separate. Even though most people already know I'm a comic writer, which gives me a little extra edge. It's still not quite edge enough. There's a hell of a valley between "writes a comic strip about modern relationships" and "sits around a table with a bunch of guys and pretends to be a super-hero".

So, when I started a blog off my web page, I also realized that didn't allow me an outlet to talk about the nerdier stuff if everyone I knew was going to be reading. So I decided to start up this one to address that, one that I would share with a few, but not all. Here, I'll talk about comics and gaming and the like. There? The other stuff. The general audiences stuff. This blog, conversely, will be rated "G"...for "Geek".

And so the geeking begins. Welcome to it. Klingon costumes are optional.