AFTERCONGLOW

This is absolutely the last entry I will write about this year's San Diego Comic Con International. Some of us are still not over it, the aura is still lingering and people still can't stop talking about it as evident as last night's coffee meet at the Sherman Oaks Border's. I was supposed to meet Mas last night and hand over his share of copies of the new book- but since he didn't show, I got to hang out with David Seidman, Deni Loubert, Tone Rodriguez, David Yurkovich (one to be in the presence of greatness- Threshold and Death is Chocolate is one of my favorite all time unheard of independent comic books ), Nat Gertler, and others whose business cards I'm too lazy to glance down right at this moment. But we all have lives to get back to and I have to catch to this blog's regularly schedules shenanigans like HALF ASS and HATEFUEL

Yeah, I have to admit, it was a emotional and draining show- one to really, really feel good about until when the next one rolls around. But there remains some gripes straggling from a mind of a exhibitor that I jotted down in my little 'idea book'. Nothing more obvious than some acute observations here and there:

*Gandalf for president buttons -

Now c'mon, haven't we learned already that to vote for a third or alternative party only

means that it's a vote for Bush? This is how we got in the mess the last time when Nader came and fucked things around. And he's at it again!! Besides what political platform would a candidate from Middle Earth serve? What's Gandalf view on abortion or stem cell research?

* Those exhibitors with carrying around slightly big bulging pouches, please when you go around my table, be careful not to knock my sign off the table. I had bought a plastic holder big enough to contain a color reproduction of the cover to the next book and had it displayed on the table close to the edge- but not protruding - right next to the two latest Deposit Man and the Last Great Gate of Mortality Acts One and Two, and sure enough, some fat belly inching it's way through the space between mine and my neighbor 's was always getting knocked over and then I have to bend down to pick it, becasue their bellies prevented them from doing so.

* Fat fucking mindless fanboys do the most grotesque things:

I witnessed something that would even give Clive Barker or Stephen King the willies: a fat slob whom I would guess to be some acquaintances of my neighbor to the left of me, because he showed his chubby bearded face a few times over the course of the show actually took someone's abandoned half eaten Ms. Field's chocolate chip cookies and started to eat it - I mean, never mind that it could have been contaminated with the Rhino virus or the West Nile- it just the sheer shuttering grotesqueness of shoveling some stranger's slivia drenched morsel of food into your body and shrug it off to everyone who just advertily try to avoid noticing what you were just doing simply by saying 'that it was protected by the little paper wrapper.

C'mon- What the fuck? Not that I'm skinny myself, mind you (but I'm not fat either - I'm just right)- but let's behave like civilized being here. If you've got a food fetish - you gotta know when to say when. Besides this has always mystified me - and noticing particularily on this enormous individual: How the fuck do fat slobs reach around to wipe their ass if their arms are too short and skinny to accommodate? There's gotta be a method (and no offense to Tone if he ever reads this)

Speaking of buttocks- I was having a few pipe problems of my own off and on during the show:

9-10 hours a day sitting on one's ass is not good- especially when one gets gassy build up - but the thought of picking up and going to the one of the worst unsantized men's room south of the Venice Beach boardwalk and maybe perhaps missing a sale or an inquiry was playing havoc on my mind.

* There were moments of terrifying anixety of whether or not you would walk away with a sale on that day or not- because there were moments or a lapse in between sales when people would simply walk by you and not even acknowledge your existence. The misgivings weren't apparent on Sunday - when I was so constantly busy that I couldn't wait until the five o'clock whistle blew to pack it all in.

Well - this weekend's mantra is sit back this weekend and kick back and watch DVDs - Still working on my 67 Spidey collection, Batman Animated Series Season set and Challenge of the Superfriends. Hellboy is around somewhere. AND this would be a good opportunity to catch up on some flicks- Catwoman I'll talk about next week- it's actually not as bad as people are saying- I'll point out what I liked about it and what I didn't like about it. The Bourne Sepremancy is one I need to catch up on from last week and King Arthur is another. But a plethora of movies are out from here to the end of August. This week is the much ballyhooed Mancurian Candidate, that M. Night's The Village, and Ben Kingsley hamming it up in the Thunderbirds. Shark crotch snapping action lives on in Open Water and Tom Cruise as a hitman in Michael Mann's Collateral and the show just never ends....

~

Coat

CERTAINLY NOT YOUR MOMMY AND DADDY'S NEVER NEVERLAND

Saturday at the con was a tremendous test of will power...from not cracking up laughing at the new Star Wars movie title which accentuates on the verge of absurdity, by the look of the throes of lemmings hoarding their exasperating battlecry as they swathe a path towards the official Lucaswhores merchandising booth to pick up their first editions of the REVENGE OF THE SITHS t-shirts.

Wha?

At first, when someone told me, I could've sworn he had said REVENGE OF THE SHITS. And I gather from the way Anakin Skywalker had behaved like a impertinent
brat in the last two laugh out loud titles - I'd figure the reason why Darth Vader was so fucking irritable in the next trilogy was because he didn't have time to empty his bowels before they grafted that plastic legoland suit onto him.

Well, I'll probably be waiting on line on opening day just like everyone else, I suppose. It's been a long unsolved unfilled mystery since I was thirteen years old about how chafing that suit became to be and I'll finally be around to see how it is all revealed.

Saturday at the Con was also a day to renew old acquaintances that I haven't seen in a million plus years. Carlos Saldana, cartoonist creator of Burrito, Jack-of-all-Trades was certainly one of them. I haven't seen good ol' Carlos for four or five years right after I got involved with Death Comics. Carlos was my very first collaborator on a comic strip featuring his Burrito burro for something that was rejected from one of the comic con souvenir books. When I brought it up to him as I was kicking back a few Coronas with him at the Hyatt, it appeared that he had no recollection of the strip whatsover. I don't know if it was the Coronas talking,though- but I'll have to dig into my storage boxes to see if I could find it and refresh his memory. It's good to have Carlos coming back to the fold- he's soon to retire from his career as a postal worker in Glendale, Ca and go back to painting and cartooning full time, now that he has a cover coming out soon for Online Magazine. The ambiance at the Hyatt was nothing more lavishing at the new bar that they opened in the new building over than what it used to be on the 42nd floor of the old building- but Carlos told me that now they closed it to make room for this one.That's too bad- because that's the closest I'll ever get getting into a Sky or a Ghost bar anywhere on this planet. The outside splendor of the bar set up in the courtyard in the back would have been more splendiferous if they had more than one bar and a added few more qualified bartenders to their martini shaking arsenal. Long lines in between drinks makes one not intoxicated enough. One of the few drink up days I'm allowed all year, and I make it back to my motel room barely unscathed. That's a pitiful shame.

Other notable people who visited the Landescape Productions table that day were Bill Walko from toonzone.net, Steven Grant, my new future cover artist for The Deposit Man/Playgod arc - Kori Anderson, Sam Humphries the Sex Fro guy I used to spar with from the now self destructed Ska8e Jesus delphiforums, and a cast of already forgotten others- although not as rich and famous as the celebs who came to visit me on Sunday.

Each salesday seemed to improve over the last and final Sunday. It was downright psychic that Heidi MacDonald came by to visit with an omen: Sunday is usually the day when people go shopping.

And boy, was her prediction ever right.

Because right after she left, I began selling at least six or seven entire sets of all four Deposit Man issues. So my total take in at the end of the day (and I even sold a few books at the last minute as I was closing up) was at least 50 plus dollars. More than all three days combined!

Michael Davis, who's probably whored himself to everybody in the entertainment and media biz at some point and with whom he shares some of the co-creating credit to the WB's Static Shock along with Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan came by to chill with me. Michael's another local LA cat I used to bullshit around with in the mid-ninties. I got involved with local libaries in help putting on the bi-annual Teen Age Comic Book Festival along with Eugene Mandelcorn. It was because of him and his selfless dedication in getting under-privileged involved in the comic book creative process that got the ball rolling.

Jim Shooter was caught flipping through my book- but I wouldn't know what to say to him. You hear nice things about the guy and someone in the industry will turn around and say something to you that isn't so nice. So it was probably better that I kept my mouth shut about certain taboo subjects- But he wrote interesting comics- I'll give him that.

And so later like a frolicking little boy (oops, sorry), I took time from my booth to wander at least some of the dealer's room floor. Practically everything in STAR WARS pavillion area was now geared towards the REVENGE OF THE SHITS,..... oops, sorry I slipped again, I meant SITHS now that the announcement was made. NEW LINE had a impressive in the round glass display of various LORD OF THE RINGS costumes and had drooling DVD fans in frantic anticipation of the RETURN OF THE KLINGON, shit- I meant KING - sorry ,that one accidently slipped- EXPANDED EDITION. an extra 50 plus minutes tacked on is going to make it a heck of a 4 hour plus viewing evening, that 's for sure. SCI-FI channel was touting their new STARGATE ATLANTIS series, of which I've yet to see an episode of- I was more alluded to the new FARSCAPE mini-series which I know will lure hard core fans back in droves (I finally have the final Season 4 collection in front of me- 25 bucks at Best Buy vs the '35 dollar show special' (glad I wasn't thinking with my wallet that day). And I'm sure there were plenty more that I'd missed.

The only thing I spent any money and gushed over was getting a print signed by Yes album cover artist Roger Dean (certainly a pitter patter of a highlight if there ever was one) and a couple of bummer t-shirts of 2003's Wonder Con for some of my favorite gals back home. I was stupefied beyond belief that the entire show was sold out of this year's souvenir t-shirt featuring a so-so rendition of Jim Lee's Superman- but shit, even though, it's a break in tradition. I've been buying a shirt every year whether I liked the design or not and it just bums the shit out of me that they sold out since Saturday morning. I already misplaced Alex Ross' Justice League model and I found out that was sold out too. So I had to resort to buying a standard Jim Lee Batman at the Graphitti booth next door and a child size Batgirl shirt for Olivia.

So when relief hit at 5, I proceeded to pack up and exit with the rest of the exhausted convention goers in a very placid manner to the trolley stations- but rather recite another version of a crushed sardine singing barbershop quartet in a trolley car- I lingered around the station for a while, pausing to smoke a few cigarettes until the pandemonium was at a manageable level.

I had a date later that evening with a local girl that I've known out here for a long number of years and that reunion didn't go as well as I expected. Another moteless whoppee doo in the annals of my experience with the opposite sex.

But I won't bore anyone with the stupid details.

Relaxing train ride back and I'm looking forward to another weekend at home with my only one true love.....My girlfriend, the DVD player.

~

Coat

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