The Geek Side

The Finding of Fray

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:33:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 09:14:00 +0000

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

You Belong to the City (Of Heroes)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:35:00 +0000

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?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:46:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:13:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:58:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:27:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:43:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 02:28:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:35:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:17:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Michael O.) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 06:45:00 +0000

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...