Author: Glenn Hauman

Yes, I was there. (You probably didn’t recognize me.) My general feeling is that this was the best Knights of Columbus show I ever attended.

If you’re of a certain age, you probably went to a convention like this a few times when you were young. Lots of fans, lots of comic book dealers, lots of pros and a few celebrities, and no big publishers. No movie companies. None of the corporate hard sell. Just enthusiastic people as far as the eye could see.

I found myself really having a good time there. Picked up a few trades at fire sale prices (which may be the new normal pricing– good if you’re buying, bad if you’re selling, dangerous if you’re producing), got to spend twenty minutes talking with Carol Cleveland about Monty Python and other work she’s done, shared some gossip with Rich Johnston (with each of us knowing we had juicy stories we weren’t going to tell each other), talked shop with the folks down Artist Alley making each other feel old (your daughter’s in college now? you’re forty now? I remember when you were a kid…) and did the comic book equivalent of walking into a Ferrari dealership, thumbing through Albert Moy’s original art for sale (holy cow, John Buscema pencils and Neal Adams inks? Original Watchmen pages? The cover to the first Superman/Spider-Man team-up?) The new location was a bit off the beaten path, but spacious and well filled.

I really had a much more enjoyable time than I expected. Which is why the concept of next year’s show being scheduled for the same time as New York Comic-Con is really ticking me off.

It feels like a dick move, a move done out of spite, a move that signals a war of attrition to see who goes bankrupt first. And we’re already seeing casualties: since the news of the show dates was anounced on Friday, I had a chance to ask a number of dealers which show they would attend. Many of them said they wouldn’t attend either show if they were both held the same weekend.

That’s a recipe for twin disasters. If neither Reed Expo nor Wizard World can fill their floor spaces, they’re both going to get clocked.

More wrap-up from Rich and Heidi.

Emma Caulfield (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Robot Chicken), Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, comic
book artist/writer David W. Mack and others weigh in on comics with spandex. Ever wonder what
comics out there aren’t about super-heroes? Hosted by Alan Kistler and
Jose Ramos!

Jon Sable returns in his latest adventure, Ashes of Eden. Sable is hired to deliver a diamond
and a girl safely to New York; a simple enough job if the rock wasn’t
the size of a bomb and the girl wasn’t Bashira– who, of course, is as
unbelievably gorgeous as she is completely spoiled rotten. Mike Grell writes and does the art, with John Workman lettering and yours truly coloring, assisted by Shannon Weaver and Matt Webb.

Published by ComicMix and IDW and available at finer comic shops everywhere– with the really good ones having a variant pencil sketch cover available as well.

MediaBistro reports that starting in less then an hour, Neil Gaiman and a thousand Twitter followers will write an audiobook script together on Twitter–an epic test to see if the Twittersphere can actually cooperate on a story.

The whole project starts on this Twitter page
at 12 noon EST. Gaiman will tweet the first line of a
story, and the Twittersphere will add the next sentences, continuing
the story in a round-robin style. To be included, your
addition to the story must be tagged #bbcawdio and be sent to the
correct Twitter page, like this:

<

p style=”text-align: center;”>@BBCAA Your Tweet Here #bbcawdio

Here’s more from BBC Audiobooks America:
“When roughly 1000 Tweets are logged, we’ll edit the contributions and
compile a script, then head into the studio to record and produce the
audiobook. The final audiobook will be downloadable free on our website
and also available as a digital download at iTunes and other audiobook
retailers.”

Doing the math, that should be about 130,000 characters, probably around 21,000 words, which is in the ballpark of an audiobook script.

Neil’s twitter feed, in case you don’t have it, is @neilhimself.

A little Sunday morning blasphemy for y’all:

First, we have this painting by Jon McNaughton featuring Jesus Christ, creator of the heavens and earth and bearer of the US Constitution, flanked by, among others, Thomas Jefferson (a deist who actually rewrote his own version of the Bible to take out all the miracles and mysticism and just leave the philosophy), Ronald Reagan, and Christa McAuliffe. At his feet on his right you have the good guys– the farmer, the
Christian minister, the US Marine, the handicapped child, the mother, the black
college student, the schoolteacher who vaguely resembles Sarah Palin.

On the other side– Jesus’ left side, wink wink– is a professor holding a copy of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, a politician, a lawyer counting his money, a liberal news reporter, Mr. Hollywood, and a Supreme Court Justice weeping over Roe v. Wade, and of course, SATAN!

And yes, there’s a full listing explaining exactly what each person and position is supposed to represent. Click through to see what they all are (and order your own print, of course). You gotta admire the dedication to detail– it immediately reminded me of the political cartoon Dave Gibbons parodied in the back of Watchmen #8, with the same amount of over detail and overenthusiasm.

This desperately needed to be parodied, and David Willis at Shortpacked beat us to it.

Congratulations, Mister President.

(No, before you ask, this is a mock up cover. Marvel is not going back to press with another variant cover. Yet.)

After a small hiatus, the geek talk series is back with a vengeance!

This week, hosts Alan Kistler and Carrie Wright talk with Halloween director Rob Zombie, Battlestar Galactica and Blade Runner actor Edward James Olmos and novelist David Mack, talking about remakes, reboots and sequels:

And if you want to see what else is in store for the series, check our cool trailer!

Every week, “Crazy Sexy Geeks: The Series” will discuss topics such as super-hero fashion, the best time travel stories, movie monsters, mythology in comics, gay characters in media, and what makes a good adaptation. You can find new episodes right here and on the YouTube channel “CrazySexyGeeksSeries.”