Well, I'm off to the latest Mid-Ohio-Con this weekend, October 3-4, in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. I'll be doing a panel on Saturday on the origin of Wolverine with co-creator Herb Trimpe and another panel on Sunday on the origins of Swamp Thing with co-creator Bernie Wrightson. So if there's still anything you don't know about how these two strips got started, be sure to drop and listen in. I'll have a table at the Con where I'll be doing signings for most of the rest of the weekend. Now is definitely the chance for all seven of you left in the world who don't have their copies of Incredible Hulk #181 and Swamp Thing #1 signed by me and my co-conspirators to get that little mistake fixed. I'm bound and determined that every single copy of both titles will be signed before I go to my ultimate reward, so don't let me down.
Heck, even if you've got nothing to be signed, stop on by and say howdy. You know how lonely these cons can get.
If I'm not at my table, check out the local Mongolian BBQ to find me. My good buddy Mark Evanier is determined to drag me there before the con is over.
See you in Columbus.
Showing posts with label Conventions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conventions. Show all posts
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Where I'll Be
Having just come back from a wonderful convention in Memphis, it occurs to me that it might be wise to mention where I'll be heading over the next several months so that any of you who might chance to be in whatever given area I happen to be at the time can stop on by to get autographs or just chat. And isn't that the most convoluted sentence of recent memory? It's frankly amazing to me that a person who purports to earn his living through his command of the English language could actually write a sentence like that.
But I digress.
Anyway, next Thursday I'll be winging my way back east to attend the annual New York City Comic-Con over the weekend of April 18-20. I know I'm on a Steve Gerber Memorial Panel Saturday at 11AM with my good friends Mark Evanier and Gail Simone among others, so you can catch me there for sure. Beyond that, my NYC convention plans are really rather vague, but I do expect to be around the con floor for most of the weekend, so do try to track me down and say hi.
The Monday right after the con, April 21st, at 8PM, I'll be in NYC downtown at the Barrow Street Theater doing that thing I think I enjoy most of all: appearing as a panelist once again on my beloved What's My Line? - Live on Stage. The incredibly talented Mssrs. J. Keith van Straaten and Jim Newman have brought the show east for six weeks this spring, having started on Monday March 24th and running through Monday April 28th. And what amazes me most is that they've somehow managed to transport many of the regular panel members east with them. So far LA regular panelists Barry Saltzman, Frank DeCaro, Paul Doherty and Kitty Felde have all made appearances on the NYC show, with Cynthia Szigeti, Andy Zax, Mink Stole and your humble blogger all still to come. NYC mystery guests to date have included Cheers' own George Wendt (currently starring on Broadway in Hairspray), music legend Moby, and Woody Allen repertory regular Tony Roberts (currently lighting up the Great White Way in Xanadu). You can check out how to get tickets by clicking here and I hope to see all of my New York friends in the audience in two weeks. I've blogged about this show frequently and it has lost none of its energy or humor or charm in the cross-country move. Honestly, you will hate yourself if you miss it.
Over the July 4th weekend, from July 3-6 to be specific, your humble blogger, in the fine company of Marv Wolfman, Bernie Wrightson and the aforementioned Mark Evanier, among many others, will be up in Minneapolis for the 10th Annual CONvergence. Marv and I attended CONvergence 7 and had one of the best times ever, so with this new con being a day longer, we expect to have at least 25% more fun. If you'd like to learn more about attending this fine show, you can click here for all the necessary info.
A few weeks after that, from July 23-27 to be exact, I will once again be attending the 39th Annual San Diego Comic-Con, along with roughly the entire population of Norman, Oklahoma. This year I've been invited to be a Special Guest of the Con, so I imagine I'll have a number of scheduled panels and autograph sessions, more about which I'll let you know as we get closer to the actual event. As I've mentioned here before, I've been fortunate enough to be nominated for an Eisner Award this year in the category of Hall of Fame, so I can pretty much guarantee I'll be at the Awards ceremony, if nowhere else.
And lastly, at least for the moment, I've just been invited to be a guest the weekend of October 3-5 at the 28th Annual Mid-Ohio-Con to be held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, so you can look for me there. Again, I'll give you all more details as I get them.
So, I suppose the biggest question left me at the moment is, with all of this cockamamie traveling on my agenda for the year, how the heck am I supposed to get any work done?
See you all on the road, I hope.
But I digress.
Anyway, next Thursday I'll be winging my way back east to attend the annual New York City Comic-Con over the weekend of April 18-20. I know I'm on a Steve Gerber Memorial Panel Saturday at 11AM with my good friends Mark Evanier and Gail Simone among others, so you can catch me there for sure. Beyond that, my NYC convention plans are really rather vague, but I do expect to be around the con floor for most of the weekend, so do try to track me down and say hi.
The Monday right after the con, April 21st, at 8PM, I'll be in NYC downtown at the Barrow Street Theater doing that thing I think I enjoy most of all: appearing as a panelist once again on my beloved What's My Line? - Live on Stage. The incredibly talented Mssrs. J. Keith van Straaten and Jim Newman have brought the show east for six weeks this spring, having started on Monday March 24th and running through Monday April 28th. And what amazes me most is that they've somehow managed to transport many of the regular panel members east with them. So far LA regular panelists Barry Saltzman, Frank DeCaro, Paul Doherty and Kitty Felde have all made appearances on the NYC show, with Cynthia Szigeti, Andy Zax, Mink Stole and your humble blogger all still to come. NYC mystery guests to date have included Cheers' own George Wendt (currently starring on Broadway in Hairspray), music legend Moby, and Woody Allen repertory regular Tony Roberts (currently lighting up the Great White Way in Xanadu). You can check out how to get tickets by clicking here and I hope to see all of my New York friends in the audience in two weeks. I've blogged about this show frequently and it has lost none of its energy or humor or charm in the cross-country move. Honestly, you will hate yourself if you miss it.
Over the July 4th weekend, from July 3-6 to be specific, your humble blogger, in the fine company of Marv Wolfman, Bernie Wrightson and the aforementioned Mark Evanier, among many others, will be up in Minneapolis for the 10th Annual CONvergence. Marv and I attended CONvergence 7 and had one of the best times ever, so with this new con being a day longer, we expect to have at least 25% more fun. If you'd like to learn more about attending this fine show, you can click here for all the necessary info.
A few weeks after that, from July 23-27 to be exact, I will once again be attending the 39th Annual San Diego Comic-Con, along with roughly the entire population of Norman, Oklahoma. This year I've been invited to be a Special Guest of the Con, so I imagine I'll have a number of scheduled panels and autograph sessions, more about which I'll let you know as we get closer to the actual event. As I've mentioned here before, I've been fortunate enough to be nominated for an Eisner Award this year in the category of Hall of Fame, so I can pretty much guarantee I'll be at the Awards ceremony, if nowhere else.
And lastly, at least for the moment, I've just been invited to be a guest the weekend of October 3-5 at the 28th Annual Mid-Ohio-Con to be held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, so you can look for me there. Again, I'll give you all more details as I get them.
So, I suppose the biggest question left me at the moment is, with all of this cockamamie traveling on my agenda for the year, how the heck am I supposed to get any work done?
See you all on the road, I hope.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
No Room at the Holiday Inn
Well, rooms for the 38th Annual San Diego Comic Con officially went on sale at 9 AM Pacific Time this morning and it took less than a half hour for every hotel room in Southern California to be completely filled. I tried constantly phoning and rephoning the housing number for reservations even as I went to the website to try for rooms that way, but I never got anything other than a busy signal on the phone and every time it looked like I'd managed to book something through the website, it would kick me off when I hit confirm, and by the time I got back in again, whatever room I thought I had was long gone. It was, frankly, one of the most frustrating and infuriating mornings of my life. By the third or fourth time I was kicked out of the system, I found myself screaming and pounding on my desk in a blind rage.
At the end of the hour, when I realized the closest rooms I would be able to find at the con rates would be at my own house a good two hour drive from San Diego, I decided to change tactics and I started going to the hotels' own websites to look for reservations instead. I managed to find what I was later told was the last remaining room at one of the major hotels for a rate that was slightly more than DOUBLE what I would have paid through the con. After the reservation was confirmed, I called the hotel and spoke to a very helpful clerk who managed to knock a hundred bucks off the room rates for each of my first two nights. The remaining two nights remain the same. Since I've got five months between now and the con, I intend to call the hotel periodically to see if I can keep whittling away at the thousand dollar difference between the cheaper rate and what I'm paying now. I'll let you know if I wind up being able to afford anything to eat at the con, or if you'll all need to bring me sandwiches.
Every year the con gets bigger and the available room space gets smaller. To paraphrase a Dolly Parton quote I've used on this blog before, it's like trying to stuff every potato in the state of Idaho into a ten pound bag. Some serious rethinking needs to be done on the part of the Con Committee and it needs to be done soon. Otherwise, I envision the San Diego Convention Center eventually starting to look like Hong Kong harbor, with thousands of people living on the water nearby in makeshift boats.
Still, there was one positive aspect of this morning's madness. At least now we know why Joseph and Mary ended up sleeping in that stable on that fateful night. Apparently, there was a Comic Con going on in Bethlehem that weekend.
At the end of the hour, when I realized the closest rooms I would be able to find at the con rates would be at my own house a good two hour drive from San Diego, I decided to change tactics and I started going to the hotels' own websites to look for reservations instead. I managed to find what I was later told was the last remaining room at one of the major hotels for a rate that was slightly more than DOUBLE what I would have paid through the con. After the reservation was confirmed, I called the hotel and spoke to a very helpful clerk who managed to knock a hundred bucks off the room rates for each of my first two nights. The remaining two nights remain the same. Since I've got five months between now and the con, I intend to call the hotel periodically to see if I can keep whittling away at the thousand dollar difference between the cheaper rate and what I'm paying now. I'll let you know if I wind up being able to afford anything to eat at the con, or if you'll all need to bring me sandwiches.
Every year the con gets bigger and the available room space gets smaller. To paraphrase a Dolly Parton quote I've used on this blog before, it's like trying to stuff every potato in the state of Idaho into a ten pound bag. Some serious rethinking needs to be done on the part of the Con Committee and it needs to be done soon. Otherwise, I envision the San Diego Convention Center eventually starting to look like Hong Kong harbor, with thousands of people living on the water nearby in makeshift boats.
Still, there was one positive aspect of this morning's madness. At least now we know why Joseph and Mary ended up sleeping in that stable on that fateful night. Apparently, there was a Comic Con going on in Bethlehem that weekend.
A Little Con-fusion
In response to my recent review of my trip to Phoenix, Arizona for Cactus Comicon, curious reader Rick asks:
I go to conventions because that's where I belong, that's where I came from.
Back in 1964, just weeks out of my mother's womb, I helped organize the very first comic book convention alongside fellow fans Ron Fradkin and Bernie Bubnis. I am in fact, he humbly states, the guy who coined the word ComiCon.
The convention was held in downtown New York City, at (I think) the Workman's Circle Center, a building long since carried away piece by piece by the cockroaches who overran the place. The first membership was sold to my old friend and now bestselling fantasy author George R.R. Martin. The invited guests included Lone Ranger newspaper strip artist Tom Gill, Stan Lee's personal secretary, Fabulous Flo Steinberg, and some artist guy named Steve Ditko. For reasons I honestly no longer even remember, I was excluded from the committee a few weeks before the con, though I showed up and elbowed my way in anyway. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing what my efforts had wrought. The entire convention was one day long, but it was clearly an idea whose time had come.
The following year, the con was organized by Dave Kaler, then John Benson, then the late Phil Seuling chaired it for a number of years. I have been to Lord alone knows how many other comic book conventions around the country since. I went to every NY convention while I lived there, and I haven't missed a San Diego Comic Con since the third or fourth. I just love the excitement, the energy, and the overwhelming sense of community I get at conventions.
I go to conventions because they're fun, Rick, and because it's always nice to come home again.
I'm not a con-goer, so can I ask a silly question? Why do you go? Do they pay you? Do you have something to sell at your table? I understand that con sketches can be lucrative for illustrators, but I'm not sure why the writers give up their weekends. ("C'mon, please? Just a little character sketch? Y'know, just 300 words?" "Oh, all right. 'Robin held his breath as he gaped at the mysterious costumed figure. It reminded him of the first time he had encountered...'")Actually, there are a lot of reasons I go to conventions. As a rule, I only go when my expenses, travel, hotel, and the like, are being paid for by the con. When they give me a table to sit behind between panels, I usually bring along copies of some of my old scripts to sell for pocket money. Autographs I do for free. Unless, of course, as has sometimes been the case, somebody comes up with literally hundreds of my books they expect me to sign. At that point, after a certain number of free autographs, I charge for the rest. But I really don't go to conventions to make money. I go to connect with my audience, to get feedback from the folks who actually buy my books, to get a feel for what's going on out there in Comic Book Reader Land.
I go to conventions because that's where I belong, that's where I came from.
Back in 1964, just weeks out of my mother's womb, I helped organize the very first comic book convention alongside fellow fans Ron Fradkin and Bernie Bubnis. I am in fact, he humbly states, the guy who coined the word ComiCon.
The convention was held in downtown New York City, at (I think) the Workman's Circle Center, a building long since carried away piece by piece by the cockroaches who overran the place. The first membership was sold to my old friend and now bestselling fantasy author George R.R. Martin. The invited guests included Lone Ranger newspaper strip artist Tom Gill, Stan Lee's personal secretary, Fabulous Flo Steinberg, and some artist guy named Steve Ditko. For reasons I honestly no longer even remember, I was excluded from the committee a few weeks before the con, though I showed up and elbowed my way in anyway. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing what my efforts had wrought. The entire convention was one day long, but it was clearly an idea whose time had come.
The following year, the con was organized by Dave Kaler, then John Benson, then the late Phil Seuling chaired it for a number of years. I have been to Lord alone knows how many other comic book conventions around the country since. I went to every NY convention while I lived there, and I haven't missed a San Diego Comic Con since the third or fourth. I just love the excitement, the energy, and the overwhelming sense of community I get at conventions.
I go to conventions because they're fun, Rick, and because it's always nice to come home again.
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