A Semi-Urgent Call For Your Help

Hey, all. As many of you already know, for the past few decades, I've been Captain of the Pro team at the Pro/Fan Trivia Challenge that is held annually at the San Diego Comic-Con. I'll post my rather-busy schedule (since I'm a Special Guest this year) later this week once it's firmly settled, but in the meantime, I give to you the following plea from the Captain of the Fan team, the knowledgeable Tom Galloway, who wrote:

This year's San Diego Pro/Fan Trivia will have Len Wein, Mark Waid, Robert Skir, and an exciting mystery player yet to be named going up against Tom Galloway, Terence Chua, David Oakes, and John Sardegna, with the questions being asked by Peter David. We're still looking for questions for it, with this year's theme being "Young Heroes". Specifically, we're looking for questions about characters college-aged or below, from stories published from 1956-1986 (essentially the Silver Age and Pre-Crisis). For example, Superboy, Supergirl, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Robin, Teen Titans, Spider-Man, Human Torch, the original X-Men and Kitty Pryde, Rick Jones, etc.. For each Legion question you send, we request that you also send in at least one non-Legion question, as we don't want an excessively Legion dominated set of questions.

There are two types of questions in the match, toss-ups and bonuses. You should mark your questions with what type you think they are. Toss-ups can only be answered by individuals, while the full team can consult on the latter. The latter can thus (and should) be both harder and perhaps a bit more complex in terms of a correct answer. In general, questions requiring more than one answer ("Name seven of the villains who appeared in the story about Reed and Sue's wedding") should be bonuses, not toss-ups.

Ideally, I think 90% of toss-ups should be answered correctly, while around 50-70% of bonuses should.

Questions should not ask for issue numbers (they can be included in the question, but try for more descriptive set-ups than just "Who was the villain in Forbush-Man #3?") or creators. We're interested in story content. Also, unless it was fairly memorable, please don't write questions on the order of "In Superboy #158, Lex Luthor revealed a particular fondness for what Martian dessert?" where this was never mentioned again outside of that one panel.

For a record of 2003's match, including all questions and whether and who answered them correctly, see:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm
=bfira3%24nqt%241%40panix2.panix.com

I'll just note that ones I think were probably too easy were Tossup #10, Bonus #11, and Bonus #13. Ones I think were probably too hard were Tossups 2, 8, and 20.

Finally, if possible, try to add a bit of style to the questions, so they're not of very basic forms like "What's the Top's real name?" "Who fought Forbush-Man in Forbush-Man #1?", etc. I like Tossups 3 and 14 from the 2003 match in this regard.

Questions should be sent to hal_sdcc@yahoo.com

The match'll be Sunday the 27th, 2:30, in Room 4.

And if you understood all of that, you should probably be on the team instead of me, Still, if there's any way for any of you Gentle Readers out there to lend us a hand, 'twould be more than appreciated, 'twould be a downright blessing.

Thanks in advance for being as geeky as we are.

Heartbreak Hotel

Well, today was that day again, the day when 100,000 desperate comic book fans, in anticipation of this coming July's Comic-Con International, all attempt to book the 17 available San Diego hotel rooms at precisely the same time, which is not unlike trying to stuff 100,000 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound sack. It is, I think I can safely say without fear of contradiction, the worst annual experience of my life. Trust me, those poor people waiting for the starting gun all those long years ago to begin the Oklahoma Land Rush had it easier than we do. At 9 AM Pacific Time, the floodgates open, and the TravelPlanners, Inc. website is instantly overwhelmed.

I logged on precisely at 9, waited forever for the site to load, and started trying to book a hotel room, all while constantly dialing and redialing the site's phone number in hopes of speaking to an actual person. All I got for two-and-a-half hours was a busy signal on the phone. On the website, I fared little better. Every time I would click on a hotel I wanted and begin the registering process, at some point along the way, the site would hiccup and throw me back to the beginning. When I would go back to the hotel I had attempted to book only a moment before, it would now read as full, so I would go on to my second choice, the site would hiccup, I'd lose the booking, go to my third choice, hiccup, hiccup, ad infinitum, ad most assuredly naseum. This went on for over two hours, until I finally managed to book one of the few hotel rooms still remaining. This was far from my first choice, far from my fiftieth choice. Let me put it this way. San Diego is 200 miles south of Los Angeles and, as near as I can figure it, I'm currently booked into a hotel room about six blocks away from my house.

Rumor has it that next year there will be a whole lot more rooms available, since several new hotels will have finished construction and there will be fewer competing conventions in town. Let's hope so.

Frankly, this sort of stress makes me want to take up stamp collecting.

On The Road Again

Well, another few hours and I'm off again to the San Diego Comic-Con (and, considering the size of the crowds there these days, there are those who'd say you have to be off to actually want to attend). If you're anybody in the comic book biz (or want to meet anyone in the biz), this is the place to be for the next five days.

I've been going to San Diego since, I think, the fourth convention and have watched it evolve over the years from a small friendly relaxacon to the biggest trade show in the business. Truth to tell, I kind of prefer those early days, but time marches relentlessly onward.

Anyway, if you're gonna be in San Diego and can find me in the mob, please be sure to say "hi" and mention this blog. I'm still trying to figure out how many of you actually read this thing.

Catch you on the other side.