Broken Frontier

Part 2 - Gaining my Sea Legs

Friday, July 15, 2005 - 7:20am (continued)

Met a lot of people who agreed to interviews, though I couldn’t find either Shane Mccarthy or Jim Ottaviani. When I came home last night, I found it by accident, after I sent Jim an email. Allan Gross and Jerry Carr, the team behind Cryptozoo Crew are interested. I remember Allan Gross’ writing on the bizarre conspiracy tale Doctor Cyborg, and he said I was one of five people who’d ever figured out the secret behind Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley’s art in that series. Well, it wasn’t much of a secret to me, but now it feels like a secret, so I ain’t sharin’.

I was totally struck by this girl running around in a Princess Leia slave-girl outfit. She was being paused and posed by people with cameras almost non-stop, but she kept smiling. Anyway, pretty girl with a killer smile in a sexy outfit, of course people are going to gawk. Even jaded old yours truly took a snapshot.

Went to the Adventures in Digital Comics panel and found it strangely controversial, and surprisingly exciting. An old buddy of mine, Robert Nichols, was moderating and it centered around the documentary he was producing about online comics. The film and the panel both look to be an exploration of the post-Reinventing Comics world of internet strips. It was striking to me that the creators saw their medium, as much as they tried to squelch their own metaphors, as a living organism. It started when Patrick Farley was quoted as describing web-comics as protoplasm. He tried to elucidate, and in my mind it made sense. To use an X-men reference: Comics Superior to the old print life-forms like Comics Stripus and Comics Bookus. There’s an evolution going on, and all these creators are driving the medium, each like a single-celled life form, into something newer and larger. I left with many questions.

Then I went to my DJ gig at the Firehouse. The Golden Hill Ramblers are one of San Diego’s hidden treasures. Had a great time even though I was ready to fall over most of the night. Left early, and will spend some time at the Massage Booth along the far east wall of the Convention Center.

Then later, another buddy of mine, “Sailor” Mike Mizgalski, and his writing partner, Charles Mitri, are having their abduction parody Rendezvous premiere in the film festival. This is Mike’s first time to Con, and as much as I tried to brace him for it, I’m sure he’ll find it overwhelming. All of our attending friends will try to show up in support, at least that’s the plan.

Have a lot of things to read, before interviews later. The only things I’m looking for today are those two issues of Fallen Angel, and hopefully Kenny found them last night.

Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 6:30am

The hall didn’t open ‘til nearly 10:30am yesterday. One fan tried to start a “let us in!” chant to no avail. When the door opened, there was a huge crush and the security seemed to think it made sense to get people to file in. Kenny hadn’t found the Fallen Angel issues at home, but he was able to tell me of another dealer. I had my complete shopping list within 5 minutes of entering the hall. Yesterday was much mellower for me.

Spent most of the day wandering the hall, filling my sketchbook. I feel bad that I have no budget to pay the artists for their troubles. There’s some pretty nice stuff in there, though. It’s an interesting human interaction, meeting someone and persuading them to draw for you, especially when asked to draw in theme. Some artists appreciate the challenge, and others find the work a chore.

Sketchbook highlights from Friday:

• Kevin Cannon etched a gorgeously cross-hatched portrait of a character called Armitage Shanks, Arctic Pirate. The pirate is dancing on a gangplank tied to him above a roiling ocean.
• Michel Gagne penned a struggling, and shivering octopus-like creature. Dancing clearly wasn’t a strong suit. He also autographed a copy of his book Parables, for Jo from Nucleus. She was ecstatic.
• The only artwork I paid for was a clever little Invisible Woman number by Franco Aureliani. He and his partner Art Baltazar made me laugh so much that I felt compelled to pay a dollar for Sue Storm scribbled on a backing board in white crayon. Those guys are crazy funny! Franco also put this Bamfing scribble of Nightcrawler in my book.

Went to the Bill Liebowitz tribute, which was a loving remembrance of one of Comics’ pioneer retailers. Everyone had great stories to tell about the guy, whose life encompassed the worlds of the Los Angeles Rock ‘n’ Roll scene, glamour models, and Comic Books. He passed away more than a year ago, I think. I didn’t really know what to say about the guy, but some of my first interviews were held in his Golden Apple superstore in Hollywood a decade back.

Rendezvous went over pretty well. A bunch of our buddies showed up in support, and a good round of questions came from the crowd. Charles handled the mic expertly. I was jealous of Jessica, Mike’s ex-girfriend, who got one of the V for Vendetta masks that I’d been seeing around the Convention floor. I’m not picking up nearly enough cool promo items. Mike was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more activity at the film festival. Most of the people attending don’t even know that it happens.

Nick Brendon is signing up in the Autograph section, and he’s one of the last five I need for my Once More with Feeling poster from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After him, all I’ll need are the tougher ones: James Marsters (don’t get me started on the two autographs I have that aren’t on the poster), Tony Head (because he lives in England) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (because she rarely goes to events), and Hinton Battle (because where are you going to see that guy?). Yeah, slowly but surely, I’ll get to the end of this poster!

Tonight, the Caballeros are meeting up for margaritas at Lime. Rumor has it that Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris may show up. Tremendous, I may have to miss the Masquerade.
Time for breakfast. Today’s the most crowded day of the Con.

End Part 2