A LITTLE TOO MANY WHISKEY SOURS FOR YOU, PAM.
 
  Looks like I'm back from the Amtrak train ride from Comic Con International limbo. In case no one's noticed, I've been gone for a while- my first ever paid for week vacation that I've had in my entire life (plus counting Monday- a personal day). I got paid in advance - just in case I ran out of money while I was displaying my Deposit Man products at the Landescape Productions table at R 12  for those on my mailing list who still forgot where I was after sending a mass 300 member mailing telling where I would be. Fat fucking chance that anyone remembered- because I had no time to spend any money at all thanks to a couple of people who said that they would come down to relieve me for a pee break. They both fucking flaked- as I surely expected they would. In addition to retaining water for ten hours a day thanks to my secret prop stiltsuit from David Lynch's Dune in which a tube is inserted into my testicles and through up to my mouth in which I could replenish myself with my own urine, I really had no time whatsoever in seeing what the hell went down at the con. The sheer ambiance to me was strangely reminiscent of Reagan's death day in Bel Air,  where I was just a zombie wandering aimlessly around while being obliviously unaware of the media copters in the sky and queue of rushing paramedics. I'm at the scene when news breaks- but it doesn't reach my sense of perception and comprehension until a few days later. And San Diego was no exception. I had to get all my news about San Diego from Heidi MacDonald's Blog: http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/ 
 
So, for today and the next entry I'm going to do my best in trying to remember what my personal highlights for the show were- even though I hardly saw any of it. 
 
The only unforgivable thing which I have to drum into peoples' heads (such as my co-workers at the major motion picture studio) is that like a Catholic who swoons towards Christmas every year or a Jewish person in a potato pancake mouth watering anticipation for a Hannukah hard on - this is the atheist equivalent of a national holiday for me. Yes, even a atheist such as myself does have a faith in something and that faith would be to survive and maintain one's cerebral health, hoping to survive when next year rolls around. For the past nineteen years, I've lived for nothing but this convention. When it's two or three months ahead of the convention dates, I drop everything that is going on and divert all my energies into making hotel and travel reservations, shitting bricks on whether or not I've been accepted for a table this year,
run up the charge cards, and wonder whose pretty poundcakes I'm going to bake my batter for on closing night. 

 On Monday and Tuesday of last week I went on a massive shopping spree- buying all kinds of outer wear on Venice Beach- my traditional baggie style spandex like beach pants, 5 dollar bundles of socks and a new pair of swimming trunks. (Note to self- I no longer fit into medium size shorts- my waist line is a size at least 34 or 35- so for dockers that would be still be a medium - but anything else is just good old fashioned wishful thinking. I went over to the Disney and the WB lots looking for cool threads to buy for fifty percent off, and then I went to the moderate priced malls stores such as Robinson's May to get the dressy suit type of menswear so I could at least look presentable at the Eisner Awards on Friday night. Broke in my new Bank One Disney Card for the special occasion.

Late Wednesday morning, my former roommate Becky and her daughter, Olivia (age 7) picked me up to drive me to the train station. Olivia was being a little pouty because I was cutting on her time to see Cinderella Story that her mom promised to take her to earlier in the morning - so to make up for her precious time been lost (after all she took off summer camp to hang out with her mom- she's a very busy outgoing girl) I promised to bring back a bag of goodies for her. On the way down the Amtrak Pacificcoastliner, I entertained myself going through some sample listening of the promos that Insideout Music gave to me to give out at the show, These titles included the new California Guitar Trio, "Whitewater" produced by Tony Levin, which should be out next month on the 16th, Jerry Gaskill (of King's X notoriety) "Come Somewhere", Evergrey, "The Inner Circle" and TOC, "Loss Angeles " the last two being heavy metal acts educated from Sweden. They also included stickers, posters, and postcard to give away in addition to what Marillion's management sent out to me.

  Upon Arrival at the Santa Fe Depot, I quickly grabbed a taxi and checked in my Old Town room- got the bags and the stock of books up. I took with me a small amount of product and scooted over to the trolley to get down to the convention center. 
 
   Exhibitor badges went by without a hassle. It was one step, show your valid seller's permit, fill out this form (even though you already filled out the same on three months previously- THEY WANTED DONE IN DUPLICATE and MAYBE THEN IN TRIPLICATE) and BAM! pick up your badge at the printer.
 
  However, picking up the Industry badge was not so drive thru as the exhibitor station was- there was a long queue that was way worse than waiting to trying to get your way into the Luxor buffet. It took at least an hour and a few T-mobile roaming minutes to get everything settled. I wouldn't have had to wait in line so long if my favorite little Charo look-a-like didn't pester me for a pass. BUT did I see her anywhere on the convention floor? Not very likely.  
 
  Something was going down on the dealer's floor. The doors were supposed to open for Preview night at 5:30, but they didn't. No one has bothered to solve the mystery to this very day. So I guess when 6:30 rolled around and everything was settled, they were just letting people in. Went to my table - set up about twenty-five copies of each of my four books in piles....and no one bought any of them. Didn't much give a shit because I was pretty much fucking exhausted from packing until three o'clock the previous morning anyway- plus nearly all my plastic display racks cracked en route to the convention. I would have to go to Office Depot to pick up new crap so I could look purdy for the first full length day. 8:30 finally rolled around - I stampeded back to my motel room and immediately sacked out.
 
 Thursday I was late getting to the dealer's floor due to a couple of pitstops at the Office Depot buying new plasticware to replace the cracked ones- and I needed some fluorescent notepad paper for making tiny price tag signs. Then saundered on to the post office to send a next day package out to Charo before going to Jamba Juice for their new lime line of smoothies. Jamba Juice was the only fortifying source of good nutrition for me on the convention trek- everything else that was I consumed was of the junk food persuasion. And then it was on to cook with gas.
 
 Set up an hour later after the doors had already opened, arranged everything nice and neat and waited around for my jackpot of sales to arrive to embrace me. Not too impressive on opening day- and I was beginning to realize, that, aw shit, I forgot to ask Oliver to make me a new assertion form for the new e-mail addys. I had to use a make shift notebook to collect them all. It's been widely reputated that industry insiders call the opening day of the convention Groundhog Day - to determine how well your sales goes on opening day is the way the entire rest of the convention would go for you.
 
 By the looks of things, My pants was severely supressing a urge to shit out anvils - being that it initially did not look good for me. But I put it past me to go over to my favorite Italian eatery in Old Town and get a halfway decent meal of salad and ravolli.
 
  Friday was slightly better. I was late, and I don't remember why. Probably another smoothie pitstop. But I went in, opened up. Someone came up to me and asked me what the Deposit Man was all about. To think of it, no one really asked me that question yesterday and the day before, and before I could panic not realizing that I didn't pack my salespitch to memorize- I kind of blurted out - " he's just happens to be the landlord of the afterlife."
 
  And then:
 
  " What?  That's a pretty nifty concept - which one is your first issue?"

   " That one with the real heavy black & white cardboard stock thing where the no-face guy in the fedora hat and trenchcoat is trying to stuff an entire universe into a postal mail box - it's on sale for a dollar!"
 
    Once again, in slo-mo: 
 
    'What's the Deposit Man about?'
 
     'He's the landlord of the afterlife!'
 
     Bling!
 
     And basically that's how it went for approximately 32 sales for the rest of the convention 
 
     If people bought the entire set of four books- I threw a promo CD in the mix,  so that was a additional seven or eight sales. No one would buy the new books without reading the two one-shots, even though they are not as professional printed as my new mini-series is.

    People are more attracted to shit product for some reason rather than cough up the extra buck and a half for improved quality. 

     The sales tally for the entire convention was:

    The Deposit Man Kaleidoscopic Medicine Freak Show (Feb 2001) 23

    The Deposit Man Survival Guide to the Afterlife (Dec 2001) 23

     The Deposit Man & The Last Great Gate of Mortality Act One (Nov 2003) 10

     The Deposit Man & The Last Great Gate of Mortality Act Two (July 2004) 11

    A total of 67 products were sold.
 
   The Eisners that capped off the evening (again- I was late, so I missed Michael Chabon's speech - and once again, I had to rely on Heidi and her Beat agents to get the gist of the story) but I think I walked in when Mimi Cruz was getting the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award for her promoting comic book reading awareness in schools and public libaries out in Utah.
 
   Another outstanding award recipient was old Batman artist and co-creator of Robin and the Joker, Jerry Robinson. During his acceptance speech to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Jerry told this off-kilter story of how much he hated to draw the Lassie comic book for Dell. He hated the dog so much that he tried to avoid drawing the entire dog in barn fire rescue scenes that he would only show the bitch's tail manuevering in corn stalks and paws scratching on screen doors (hmmm, I wonder if this is a supressed influence on the Deposit Man's major nemesis, the Closet Freak?) in order to warn Timmy and family to the get the out of the farm house for the umpteenth time. Robinseon alluded to the theory that maybe that damn dog was the one setting all the fires.  
  
    After a few Coronas under my belt- I went schmoozing for a little bit- I commented to Heidi about her recent appearance on Biography of Catwoman on the A & E network (of which I was lucky to catch before zonking out in front of the hotel tube Wednesday night), Jesse McCann and his new wife Nancy -who runs the Comics Unlimited chain of stores somewhere in LA, Jeff (Bone) Smith, current Batman editor Bob Shreck and his ex-wife, Dark Horse editor of Michael Chabon's the Escapist series Diana Schutz.
 
   And then there was Pam - of whom I won't mention her last name- but I've always held her in the highest regard to be the Beyonce of the book and literary world. I ran into her at the Eisners as soon as I arrived. She was looking fine and coherent to me while the awards were being given out - but just as I was leaving, I saw her cavorting outside the hall of Ballroom 20 with DC Comics head mambo Paul Levitz. And as I was walking by- I was saying good night and then Pam grabs me by the arm and introduces me to Paul as Cory Coatney, writer of Deposit Man. I appropriately corrected her, saying that it's Cary and not Cory. Then, in a wild frenzied outburst of belligerence, Pam shouts out at me- 'Whatever! Cory, Cary- what difference does it make? I've already had three whiskey sours tonight! DO YOU SEE MY BADGE THAT SAYS FUCK YOU? DO YOU REALLY WANNA TO SEE MY FUCK YOU BADGE??!!
 
   Paul even politely had asked her to ease up. Then to change the subject I was wondering why Pam was wearing a badge holder that said Homicide on it? Pam proudly declared that Homicide: Life on the Street was the best TV cop show ever made and nothing has been able to top it.

   Well, I'm afraid something else has, Pam- even though I was a little inebriated myself, it was on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't spit it out because I can't believe you bawled me out in front of one of Time-Warner's main powerplayers- y'know he's probably one of those indirectedly responsible for my paycheck week after week for the past few years. 
  
   That doesn't paint me in a good light.
 
   But that mantle of best cop show ever done has now been bethroned by The Shield.
 
   So Stick that in your drink umbrella, PAM.
 
    Nyah, Nyah, Nyah.
 
    TO BE CONTINUED