Author: Elayne Riggs

Mark Wheatley informs us that the film Hero Tomorrow, playing at the Cleveland Film Society, features "many of the Insight Studios comic books — with Radical Dreamer and Frankenstein Mobster being front and center.  In fact Frankie comic book collecting is a plot point!  And the love scene in the comic book store takes place in front of a Radical Dreamer stained glass style window.  Really a very nice film, pro quality and a lot of heart." 

Hero Tomorrow is described as "a tragically hip look at the Cleveland comic scene as viewed through the lens of local indie filmmaker Ted Sikora. David is a young man with Rasta dreadlocks and nothing on his mind but Apama, his comic book creation. Unable to sell his stuff, David has to resort to mowing lawns. His relationship with gothically fashionable Robyn, an aspiring designer with a real job — working at the comic store — is on the skids. When even his friend Greg, off whom he’s been sponging for awhile, kicks him out, David reaches his darkest hour.  It’s then that his character Apama takes over, avenging the helpless and weak of Cleveland’s suburban jungles."

The film is set to premiere March 17 and 18  at the festival.

ComicMix caught up with Neal Adams this afternoon to talk Batman, and received a couple nice surprises.

Adams is indeed collaborating with Frank Miller on a long-anticipated Batman miniseries entitled Batman: Odyssey, and originally slated for six issues but he believes the story will warrant enough material for eight.  Adams has created and will be plotting and pencilling the story, with Miller supplying the dialogue.  Adams will also be inking the first two issues — and NYCC attendees can see the entire #1 (beautifully detailed art, all of which you can see as there’s no lettering on the booth copy) — but expressed an interest in having other long-time (and as yet unnamed) inkers work over his pencils for future issues. 

Until the book is finally scheduled by DC, the place to see the preview will be Booth A317 in Artists Alley.

Mike Raub’s interview with Neal Adams will be on our Podcast this Tuesday.

To quote Dr. Seuss, "We are here, we are here, we are here!"

Pictured above, from left to right: Standing, we have Brian Alvey, Mike Gold, Mike Raub and Glenn Hauman.  Seated are Martha Thomases and me, Elayne Riggs, as the Beav — oh no wait, people might think that’s something other than a reference to SCTV, never mind.

Anyway, we’re here at the New York Comic Con all weekend, through today’s trade hours of 10 AM through 4 PM then the open-to-public show itself (4 to 9 tonight, 10 to 8 tomorrow, 10 to 5 Sunday), getting news and views and definitely some schmooze. We have our cameras and recorders and other digital goodies to get the full story from anyone who flags us down or veesy-versey, so please look for us and give us feedback.  We look forward to seeing all of our friends not just from NY but from all over the world.  "San Diego East" has begun!

We know New York can be a scary place for out-of-towners, many of whom are using today as a travel day to come in for the New York Comic Con starting tomorrow.  That’s one reason why some local comics folks will have all kinds of fun stuff for visitors to their booths during the weekend. 

For example, Kyle Baker will be drawing complimentary caricatures for children at Booth #953, where his 8-year-old daughter Lillian debut her book "The Dumb People Convention", as well as a few other funny mini-comics.  And Marion Vitus announces that she, hubby John Green, Raina Telgemeier and her hubby Dave Roman have given themselves the collective name The Comics Bakery (Dave’s idea), and will "be serving up minis, graphic novels, and T-Shirts among other delectable delights" in Artists Alley table A206 in the Galleria. 

Knowing the time these folks have put into staffing the Friends of Lulu booths in the past, we wouldn’t be surprised if some variation on the FoL booths’ ubiquitous Hershey’s Kisses winds up on the menu.

Someone gave the Garfield statue near downtown Marion, IN’s Riverwalk a little too much love.

Seems 23-year-old Joseph P. Savarino didn’t know his own strength.  Savarino said he panicked when the cartoon character’s head came off when he hugged it, so he made off with it and left it alongside a road where it later was found.  Perfectly understandable, we all do silly things when we panic upon squeezing off a comic strip character’s statuesque head.

The cops noticed the head was missing last December 15. On the 18th an employee with the Army Corps of Engineers found the fiberglass head and retrieved it from the side of a road near the Mississinewa Reservoir. The statue’s base has since been moved to the Grant County Parks and Recreation maintenance building to protect it from further overly-enthusiastic fans who just can’t get enough of Mark Evanier ‘s television cartoons.  No word on whether base and head have since been reunited, but we like to think they joined again sometime around Valentine’s Day and went out for a nice lasagna dinner.