Author: Mike Gold

Introducing… The New Guy!

  • News
  • October 20, 2015

Today we’d like to welcome Joe Carallo, our newest weekly columnist here at ComicMix. Like all of our columnists, Joe will be speaking his mind as he sees fit, limited only by the bounds of sanity. And, like all of our columnists, Joe will be speaking from his own perspective and experiences, shedding much-needed light on issues critical to our medium. His bio lurks at the bottom of his column, along with a really cute photo. And, yes, his involvement in the [insertgeekhere] website involves their EIC Molly Jackson; the fact that Molly’s our now-second newest columnist is a pure coincidence. Well, maybe not.

Of course, this is not to say Joe won’t be goofing around from time to time. That, along with our bizarre lunch meetings, is a ComicMix tradition. I’ve known him for several years now, having been introduced to Joe by also-columnist Martha Thomases at one of her famous Chanukah donut parties. Martha maintains the salon movement on this annual basis, and I’ve met many an interesting person at these occasions. Why it didn’t dawn on me to ask Joe about writing for us as a columnist just goes to show how non-smart I’m can be.

Please feel free to comment. We’re going to have a good time here… starting… now!

Mike Gold: Friendship

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Yeah, yeah. Another major convention, a huge mother called the “New York Comic Con.” Emily wrote about some of it yesterday and Martha will be talking about it on Friday and maybe Marc will do the same on Saturday – yep, Marc actually went to New York City while the Chicago Cubs were working their way towards the pennant. He’s a southsider, so I’ll give him a pass. Not sure John Ostrander will.

Ergo, there is no need for me to write about the show. All those folks, as well as ComicMix Utility Infielder Glenn Hauman and columnists Ed Catto, Molly Jackson and Bob Ingersoll, were there and I think all or most were actually on the Javits Center floor more than I was. Besides, if you’ve read my deathless prose long enough you could probably write my review yourself. All I’ll say is, the major difference between the New York Comic Con and the Black Hole of Calcutta is that the latter has free parking.

So, instead, I want to talk about friendship.

Missing from the floor was my friend Jamie Graham. He’s the guy who lent his name to the Graham Crackers chain of comic book shops, which is one of the larger chains around. I’ve known the guy since, roughly, the Year Gimmel. In addition to comics and our common antiquity, Jamie and I have a lot in common – we’re both Chicagoans, we’re both hockey fans, and we’re both mindlessly acerbic.

You’re probably thinking by the end of this column, Jamie is going to wind up dead. This is not the case, and that is not a spoiler alert.

Last Thursday, my daughter and fellow ComicMix staffer Adriane Nash received a call from Jamie saying he had a personal emergency and he would not be accompanying his crew to the New York show. Well, that sucks but, honestly, I saw him two weeks before at the Baltimore Comic Con and about two weeks before that at Chicago Wizard World, so missing him in New York wasn’t a catastrophe. I haven’t had the chance to connect with him since the show ended – after each four-day convention comes about three solid weeks of catch-up. Four, if you count catching up on your sleep.

I mentioned Jamie and I are hockey fans, as is Adriane. This is true, but Jamie’s dedication to the sport exceeds mine, and perhaps exceeds reason as well. If his enthusiasm was akin to Stumbo the Giant, then I, as a hockey fan, am at best the mayor of Tinytown. As such, my friend had tickets to the New York Islanders/Chicago Blackhawks game held last Friday night. The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last year, and the Islanders were having their home opener in their new home, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. That means tickets were almost as hard to acquire as fresh air was at the New York Comic Con.

So I get a call from Adriane. She says Jamie has a present for us and he’s Fed-Exing it overnight for receipt Friday morning. OK, we both figured out what it probably was… as did you. While I was in Manhattan Friday hobnobbing with the elite, Adriane called to confirm our suspicions. She had the valued tickets in hand.

She was in Connecticut so she jumped into her car – named Brak, by the way – and I waddled out of my friend’s apartment in the city. Shortly thereafter, both of us were hit with a cloudburst of biblical proportions. We weren’t happy, but we would swim to the Barclays if we had to. For me, the arena was only a 25 minute subway ride away and, because subways run in a hole in the ground (as the song goes), the massive rain delayed me and about a billion other people waiting for the Lexington Avenue express. I got there, sweating profusely due to the heat of compressed humanity, an hour later. Hell, if I wanted to sweat I would have spent that time at NYCC.

The new arena is elegant with great sight lines but lousy bathroom placement (again; I could have stayed at NYCC for that). The game was great and the Islanders were sharp in their new home debut. I’m a Blackhawks fan, so you’ll forgive me if I point out that my team won – in overtime.

Jamie could have, please forgive the pun, hawked those tickets, probably for serious money. Nope. He sent them, at some expense, to Adriane and me. That, folks, is friendship.

I’ve said before that the best part of being in the comic book donut shop is that the folks in the adjoining seats are wonderful people. I have been blessed with a great, great many fine friendships, many quite enduring.

Like my friendship with Jamie Graham.

I love you, man. And I thank you.

Mike Gold: Scott Allie and the Temple of Doom

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This may come as a surprise to some of you who know me, but I honestly believe that people can redeem themselves. I believe in second chances, and I try to reserve my interpersonal cynicism for, oh, say, Republican presidential candidates. More important, I also believe that every man, woman and child on the planet engages in great acts of assholedom from time to time. Ain’t nobody walking on water, and all our houses have their glass wings.

I also understand why most people who have been subjected to great acts of assholedom might not feel so charitable at that time. We’re hurt, angry and abused and we feel in our guts that we’re entitled to some relief – even if such relief is merely howling with the wolves. Such is human nature. Dogs and cats generally handle it better, and we’d all do well to remember that.

You may be familiar with the incident involving Dark Horse executive editor Scott Allie. Full disclosure: whereas it’s been a while since I’ve seen him, I’ve always liked Scott and I admire his work. As far as I’m concerned, he’s an okay guy.

But, then again… I do not drink alcohol and therefore I do not hang out at convention bars. I used to debate politics and the Cubs at various Chicago taverns back in the day, but all of those joints have been consumed by ferns. Now that I’m a bona fide alter cocker, I tend to slither around back alleys with a joint and a friend. But I do know that bars are great places to get drunk, and some people who drink too much in these environs tend to temporarily join the aforementioned forces of assholedom.

According to published reports, Scott groped writer Joe Harris at a San Diego party, and Joe, understandably, took umbrage. That seems like an appropriate response. Joe didn’t take out a gun and blow Scott’s hands off. Graphic Policy’s Janelle Asselin wrote a piece discussing Scott’s behavior, detailing how this was not a one-off event and this behavior has been common knowledge in Dark Horse circles for a long time. Okay, we’re still cool: this is what happens when you act like an asshole in public.

Then Janelle wrote “the truth is that Allie is a symptom of the problems in our industry,” and I’m not certain that’s fair. I’ve been in this industry for 40 years now, and, yes, I could come up with a list of people I believe have had serious substance abuse problems. However, I’ve been laboring in media and in social services for even longer and I was media and education director for a major substance abuse prevention program in Chicago, and I can say this: If you think the industry has a substance abuse problem, get out in the real world for a bit. Our substance abuse problem in the comics donut shop is overwhelmingly dwarfed by what is routine and, quite often, accepted in the rest of the world.

This observation neither forgives nor diminishes anybody’s behavior. Being drunk or high or tired does not forgive the violating events. Absolutely not. But most perpetrators under these circumstances can redeem themselves by no longer getting drunk or high or tired to the point where they act out in public, or in private for that matter.

Yes, it takes a lot of effort and it usually takes a lot of help. Sometimes, it takes a great deal of help. But people who want to can improve. That doesn’t mitigate their actions in the past, but we live in the future so let’s fix what we can.

Scott said in a statement to CBR “I’m deeply sorry about my behavior at San Diego Comic Con 2015 and I apologize to everyone I’ve hurt. I’m completely embarrassed by my actions and how my behavior reflects on Dark Horse Comics, my friends and family. My personal approach and decisions for managing stress were bad. Dark Horse and I have taken the matter very seriously and since this incident, we have taken steps to correct and to avoid any behavior like this in the future. Although apologies can’t undo what has happened, I’ve tried to apologize to everyone impacted by my behavior. To my family, friends, co-workers, and to the industry – please know that I am truly, truly sorry.” I’m not sure what more we can ask for here; the guy screwed up, probably a bunch of times, but he gets it and he’s trying to redeem himself.

Let’s see if that works, and let’s see if we need to come up with some sort of industry-wide program to help both those with such issues and those victimized by such behavior.

Until then, remember, you’re paying property taxes on a glass house.

Mike Gold: Re-Union

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You probably read Emily’s column yesterday. It was all about the Baltimore Comic-Con. You’ll probably read Martha’s column Friday. It is all about the Baltimore Comic-Con. And, damn, I wouldn’t be surprised if John’s Sunday column is all about the Baltimore Comic-Con as well. This is because ComicMix invaded the place.

Emily, Martha, John and I were joined by fellow ComicMixers Glenn Hauman, Ed Catto, Bob Ingersoll, Robert Greenberger and Evelyn Kriete, all in a combined effort to make Adriane Nash feel bad that she missed a big one. I believe Nelson Muntz said it best: Ha-ha!

But I’m not here today to talk about the Baltimore Comic-Con. I’m here to talk about something that happened at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Something that Hilarie Staton captured in the photograph that (hopefully) appears above. Something that Baltimore Comic-Con’s official photog, Bruce Guthrie, also captured but, since he took so many photos last weekend even Carl Barks couldn’t come up with the right-sounding number, I don’t have them as of deadline-time. Bruce is quite the artistic guy and I look forward to seeing his… well, his pictures of me and my buddies.

Let’s identify the folks in Hilarie’s picture, from left to right, physically but not politically.

Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley, Mike Grell, some pudgy asshole, Joe Staton, John Ostrander, and Timothy Truman.

Yep, that’s a reunion. The First Comics class of 1984, sans Howard Chaykin, Lenin del Sol, Hilary Barta, and Rick Obadiah. Rick had a pretty good excuse for missing the party.

It was about 34 years ago when Rick Obadiah and I were, literally, lying on the floor of an office in the mighty Video Action Magazine complex with our sketches and notes, detailing what was soon to become First Comics. The act of creation takes on many forms and an enormous amount of time, and Rick and I further developed the company through a wonderful series of elaborate restaurant meals that would provoke a vegetarian to a massive seizure. I know that it worked – actually, I’ve finally accepted that it worked – because dozens and dozens of people still stop me at comics conventions such as the Baltimore Comic-Con to tell me how much they enjoyed our work.

Yes, and more than a handful of fans whose introductory sentences started with “I discovered my dad’s comic book stash and…” Sigh.

The above-pictured people were responsible for Mars, Jon Sable Freelance, Starslayer, E-Man, and GrimJack. Our work either remains in print in trade paperback form or, as in the case with Starslayer, about to be so memorialized.

That’s really cool and sort of life-affirming.

I am not alone in saying that the Baltimore show is my favorite, and that it is my favorite because it’s by and for comic book fans. There aren’t many faded teevee stars there eking out a living; it’s all four-color, all the time. A celebration of what makes comics and comics fandom great. It’s also the home of the Harvey Awards – John and I were presenters this year – and as Martha will tell you Friday, the Harveys is all about family.

The combined age of all those guys up above is about 400 years old. Please note: all of us are still working, and still turning out great stuff. In many cases, better stuff. And signing all those comic books (sometimes in front of a CGC witness!) and chatting with you-all remains completely… what’s the word you kids say?… oh, yeah. Awesome.

For that, I thank you.

Mike Gold: Jack Larson, Jimmy Olsen, and My Generation

jack-larson-2746367I’m guessing it was 60 years ago. I was a mere tyke; five years old. My sister was eleven. We lived in an apartment on Chicago’s mid-northwest side, and we had a television set. There were “only” five VHF stations and one of them was educational – a betrayal of my sensibilities. I hated school, even if it was merely kindergarten, and the idea that someone would waste one of those few precious teevee channels on school was simply beyond my ken.

At that time I was only interested in cartoons and in Jack Benny. Yeah, I’ve been a Jack Benny fan since the light from the cathode ray tube first shined in our living room. And I wanted to watch Bugs Bunny. Being six and one-half years older, my sister had more sophisticated taste. She wanted to watch Superman. And, being six and one-half years older, my sister usually got her way. So I watched Superman with her, as though I had a choice.

The show wormed its way into my heart, not so much because of Superman or Lois, although Perry White and Inspector Henderson were pretty cool. No, the character that appealed to me most was Jimmy Olsen, as portrayed by Jack Larson.

Jimmy was, indeed, Superman’s pal and who wouldn’t want to be that? He was a bit of a doofus, but in a very endearing way. He was one of those guys who could fail upwards and turn a crisis into a victory. He was swell enough to enjoy Superman’s confidence (but not his secret identity) and to help Clark and Lois in their work – and share their danger. Even though I didn’t want to be him as I knew Superman didn’t really exist, I sure as hell wanted to live next door to him.

Just like every other baby boomer. Jack Larson helped raise my generation.

I first met him in 1977, give or take a year, in Neal Adams’ studio. There were about a dozen of us, and Jack was polite, funny, informative and charming – even more so than his alter-ego. This was before he became convinced that George (Superman) Reeves committed suicide, and his analysis of the various conspiracy theories was fascinating.

I’d seen him at conventions and various DC functions since then and became aware of his career as a producer and a writer, often working with his life-partner James Bridges. But it was his previous lover, Montgomery Clift, who told him he was hopelessly typecast as Jimmy Olsen and he should move behind the camera, where he was quite successful.

Due to Jack Larson, Jimmy Olsen became even more successful. Roughly mid-way through the television run, DC came out with their first Superman spin-off book, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. It ran for 163 issues, with subsequent revivals.

When DC was forced to abandon the Superman series due to the death of its star, they asked Jack if he would be interested in starring in his own Jimmy Olsen series. By then, John (Perry White) Hamilton had died, so they could take the show in just about any direction. Understandably, Jack declined.

Jack Larson had a major impact on an entire generation – and that was a damn large generation. He was the first television actor to make bow-ties cool.

We mourn for Jack, who died last Sunday at the age of 87. Thanks to him, Jimmy Olsen lives on.

Mike Gold: Four Comics Things That Piss Me Off

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Number One: Bitch Planet

Bitch Planet ran only five issues. I know it’s coming back in a new mini-series story arc thingy, but nobody – not even Valentina De Landro and Kelly Sue DeConnick – have any business producing such a compelling series and not publish it every damn month for the rest of their lives. And I’m counting string theory afterlife dimensions.

I mean, look folks, characters like Batman, the X-Men and My Little Pony are being published weekly under a variety of titles. Marvel’s pumping out so much Deadpool that even Emily S. Whitten has a hard time following them all. So is it so much to ask that we get Bitch Planet at least once each month? These are two incredibly talented cartoonists. I’m sure they have lives and loved ones and such, but I don’t care. October will come and go without an issue of Bitch Planet, and that is wrong.

Number Two: Roots of Evil?

SvengoolieLast week, the courageous and gifted Svengoolie ran the movie Monster On The Campus on his Saturday night Me-TV show (a great channel, usually on one of those digital side channels the broadcast stations use to fill out their bit of the broadband spectrum). It’s about a not-mad scientist – although at times he’s rather testy – named Doctor Donald Blake who imports a honking big fish that’s been frozen for over one million years. Blake gets pricked by one of the fish’s humongous teeth. It turns out the fish was preserved with Gamma rays for some reason that kind of made sense when they said it. Donald Blake temporarily gets transformed into a gigantic hairy monster who is violently cantankerous.

Seeing as how this is a website named “ComicMix,” three facts probably leap out at you. First, the dude’s name is Doctor Donald Blake. Second, the major plot point is that he transforms into something mighty. And, finally… Gamma rays, huh?

This movie was made in 1958. The Incredible Hulk got his dose of Gamma rays in 1962. Doctor Donald Blake first transformed into The Mighty Thor that same year. My question: is this an incredibly amazing series of coincidences (Ian Fleming would have called it “enemy action”), or did Stan Lee happen to see it and those elements impregnated his imagination? Or did he simply borrow the material, never thinking (logically) anybody would ever see that movie again? Probably not; Stan always had a lousy memory.

Sven did mention both Donald Blake and Bruce Banner during his always-brilliantly-silly studio segments.

Number Three: Color Everywhere

Boris The BearNow that small print runs of color comics are economically feasible (well, feasibler) we seem to have a drought of black and white comics. That’s annoying. The so-called independent comics movement started out in black and white – Elfquest, Cerebus; even Dark Horse’s first title was in black and white. By and large, the Warren magazines (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, and particularly Blazing Combat) featured some of the best artwork by many of the best cartoonists ever, all in glorious black and white. Whereas they weren’t quite up to Warren’s level, the Marvel Comics magazines were pretty damn good and I think Conan in particular looked great in that medium.

Number Four: What’s Black and White and Dead All Over?

And let’s take this one step further. Many of the few surviving newspapers, perhaps most, have been coloring their daily comic strips for several years now. This is also true of the newspaper strip websites GoComics.com and ComicsKingdom.com. Here’s a news flash: guys, you’re not helping. By and large – there are notable exceptions – the coloring is dreadful. Comics are not coloring books where everything is cool if you just stay in the lines. Color is a storytelling device. That’s why the great color artists deserve the big bucks.

Note I did not say “the great color artists are getting the big bucks.”

That’s four. There will always be more. Get off my lawn!Bloom County

 

Mike Gold: Feige Island and the Sharks of Doom

Le Pétomane

Last week, Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool wrote one of his typically brilliant pieces about how Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige aced out Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter and put to death the Marvel Creative Committee – Alan Fine, Brian Michael Bendis, Dan Buckley, Joe Quesada and others from time to time such as  Jeph Loeb and Axel Alonso.

That last bit makes my head hurt. Consciously turning your back on such a gifted, knowledgeable and successful group of people because you think you know how to do it better is not the act of a good businessperson, it’s the act of a megalomaniac.

Rich asks the question “how did Feige manage to strong-arm Disney into this decision?” That’s a fascinating question, as historical inquiries go. I’d like to toss out some comments about the future of Feige Island (Rich’s term; I only steal from the best). To paraphrase the most over-paraphrased phrase in comics, “with great power comes great exposure.”

This is not a prediction, it’s an analysis. Lots of shit will come down the pike. However, this is one of those rare occasions where logic is useful. Sooner or later, Marvel Studios is going to drop a turd. No slight against Marvel; it’s the second law of thermodynamics, although I phrased it somewhat differently. It’s going to happen sooner or later.

The highest dictum of business is “cover your ass.” Once again I shall quote the great Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, where he played Governor William J. Le Petomane at his conference table. “We’ve got to protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen!”

This is the principle by which business, government, and Hollywood lives and is bound to live. So, when Marvel Studios finally lays that egg, who is going to get the blame? If the buck stops at Kevin Feige’s wallet, who else is there to blame? Ike Perlmutter? Nope; he’s been banished from Feige Island. If Kevin doesn’t get himself a fall guy… then he is the fall guy.

Why the hell would a creative manager void himself of input from the likes of Bendis, Buckley, Quesada, Loeb, Fine and Alonso? Did Feige actually see any of the Marvel Studios product?

How about the balance sheets?

(For a swell time, Google Mel Brooks’ muse Le Pétomane, the stage name of the French flatulist Joseph Pujol. Seriously. You’ll be amazed and delighted… and, probably, a bit disgusted.)

Mike Gold: Who Needs Superhero Comics?

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Nope. This is not an old guy rant about how you-all young’uns are ignoring comic books because you’re too busy enjoying the movies and teevee shows being made out of those same comic books. I’m beginning to think that if you lust for heroic fantasy, maybe the plethora of such fare in our theaters and our sundry home electronics will serve your needs.

Back when I was doing public relations for DC Comics, which was so long ago it was well before my pal Martha Thomases was doing public relations for DC Comics, I was fond of telling the press that we had it all over movies because we weren’t restricted by reasonable special effects budgets. We only were restricted by the imaginations of our writers and artists, and that posed no problem at all. We had, and we continue to have, lots of people with wonderful ideas along with the ability to get those visions inside the reader’s brainpan. We could blow up a planet on page one, resurrect that planet on page two, populate it on page three and then blow up the new place on page four.

Today… well… we’ve got computers and brilliant people who never see the light of day to put all that in a movie at a reasonable price and at reasonable speed. And then a bunch of other moloids add music and sound effects and maybe some 3-D crap. Movies – and, now, television – can boldly go where comic books always have been… and get there first.

Better still, the consumer’s cost per minute is far lower in these new venues. Movies and cable bills are expensive, but two hours worth of comic books can run you maybe forty bucks.

This is not to suggest I no longer enjoy comics. To paraphrase a famous ape-fighting gun nut, they’ll have to rip that comic book out of my cold dead hands. And I hope it’s a goddamned expensive one. But this does offer me the opportunity for praise my fellow American publishers that are not owned by mammoth movie studios for moving well beyond traditional superhero fare. Today we can tell virtually any type of story, even true ones, and if that story is well-told and well-marketed we’ve got a pretty good shot at not losing the rent on it.

Maybe we haven’t quite reached the level of selling comics to, say, bored grandmothers who pine for their days of child-rearing. There are very specific comics in other countries, particularly Japan and Belgium, that cater to audiences we rarely think of in the American quadrasphere. But we’re almost there.

Today I am more interested in the new Marvel Netflix series than I am in the post-Battleworld Marvel comics. I am much more interested in the next season of Flash and Arrow than I am in DC’s next reboot – or their previous dozen reboots. That’s where the superhero mojo lives these days.

I see coming up with superhero comics that are more involving than other superhero media as a challenge to our comics creators. Having worked with at least four generations of such talent, I know this will be a wonderful thing to behold. However, right now I’m in the middle of producing at least a half-dozen original graphic novels (editors get to multitask, which is another word for “short attention span”). Some sort of fall into the category of heroic fantasy, maybe, but most do not.

As far as I’m concerned, happy days are here again.

Mike Gold: Sweet Home Comicon

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Last week, I reported in this space I was about to leave for Wizard World – Chicago, well-known to readers as my home town and the first love of my life. I got back late yesterday, when I wrote (or will write, depending upon your concept of consensual reality) these fabled words, a heartbeat before deadline.

We ComicMixers (Glenn, Brandy, Marc and me) had a swell time, some of it actually at the convention. We met all kinds of people who were interested in ComicMix Pro Services, which gives me hope, and I got a chance to catch up with a whole lot of friends. Unbelievably awesome meals with; Wednesday, Alex Ross, Hilary Barta, Monte Beauchamp and Jim Wiznewski; Thursday, Dean Haspiel, Danny Fingeroth, J.J. Sedelmaier and Rivet Radio’s Charlie Meyerson; Friday, Ty Templeton and KT Smith; Saturday, if I told you I’d have to kill you; Sunday, The Unshavens. Nothing makes me happier with my clothes on than fine conversation, and I was truly lucky to break bread with all these folks. Including the people I can’t tell you about. Yet.

I was on two panels – a ComicMix Pro Services Tells You How To Get Press For Your Comic Book panel where we got to meet even more talented indy writers and artists, and the Chicago Comics History Panel with Danny and J.J., Larry Charet, Ron Massingill, and the completely wonderful Maggie Thompson. It dawned on me that I’ve been going to conventions since 1968 and Maggie has been going to them… well, longer, but this is the first time we were on a panel together. That simply defies the odds. I’d crawl over a mile of broken glass to do a panel with Maggie.

That latter panel provided the opportunity to do a nice and extremely well-deserved tribute to my former partner, First Comics Co-Creator Rick Obadiah. That was very cathartic, and Rick would have enjoyed it. He wouldn’t have believed it, but he would have enjoyed it nonetheless.

I haven’t done too many shows this year, far fewer than usual. That was fine, but it was great to see fans and old friends and about twelve thousand cosplayers dressed as Deadpool. Next show: the Baltimore Comic-Con, in Baltimore (hey, Wizard World – Chicago was in Rosemont) September 25 through 27. I love that show.

One more thing. Shortly before Wizard World closed on Sunday, I was handed the opportunity to take the above picture with Boba Hawk. As a lifetime Chicago Blackhawks fan, that was… well, you can see for yourself in the photo. No, Svengoolie wasn’t there, but I wore his t-shirt anyway. It glows in the dark, and at a comics convention, one can never tell.

Mike Gold’s Off To See The Wizard

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I haven’t done as many comics conventions this year as I usually do. By the end of 2015, I think I will have been to maybe five. That’s less than half of what I did a decade ago.

It’s not that I don’t like comics conventions; in fact, I love them. Most of the larger shows really aren’t about comics. They are pop culture shows, much like ComicMix is a pop culture website. We differ in that ComicMix is a pop culture website for comic book enthusiasts and the comics medium is our focus. ReedPop, to note but one, runs clusterfuck shows in New York, Chicago, Seattle, India (several; it’s a big place), Singapore, Sydney, Paris, Indonesia, Vienna, and probably Mongo. These shows have little to do with comics, the ReedPop staff acts like they wouldn’t know a comic book if it bit them on the ass and probably wouldn’t get my Mongo reference without Googling, and they seem as though they couldn’t care less. If you’re real nice to them and try to explain to them a different point of view, they might actually patronize you. And among comics pros, mine is not a minority opinion.

Yeah. I know. There goes my chance at scoring pro invites to Mumbai. I’ve been to their shows; I’ll live.

So it’s probably a bit surprising that this weekend (Thursday though Sunday) I’ll be at Wizard World Chicago, which is really in Rosemont but next to O’Hare International. Yes, Wizard World is a pop culture convention. I’m going for any number of reasons: Chicago is my home town so it’s an excuse to see my many buddies in the midwest comics field, it is an outgrowth of the old Chicago Comicon which I co-founded and worked on for ten years, it really has a massive comics focus and one of the best Artists Alleys around… and because my pal and Wizard World consultant Danny Fingeroth asked.

For the record, ComicMix is at table #1024 at the show, and I’ll be on two panels: the How To Get News Coverage panel on Saturday at 12:30 that ComicMix is running , and the Chicago Comics History panel on Sunday at 12:30. Check the con schedule; these things have a way of changing. I’ll be sharing the stage with a great number of close friends.

And the food. Damn, I need an Italian beef sammich.

This is not the only big show I enjoy. For example, I love the Baltimore Comic Con and I love Heroes Con in Charlotte North Carolina. I also really enjoy the smaller cons that are oriented to independent comics creators such as MoCCA in New York City. These shows are full of people who couldn’t care less who’s drawing next week’s Spider-Man but love the medium every bit as much as… well, as I do. By and large they’re young and full of enthusiasm and they put their money where their mouths are. Over the years we’ve hired a decent amount of talent at these shows.

If you happen to be at Wizard World Chicago, or you happen to be in or near Chicago this weekend, drop by and say hello. We look at portfolios when we can, we’re usually polite and we only bite when we’re hungry.

Or when the moon is full.

 

 

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