Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 22:52:57 CDT
Sender: COMICS Discussion List <[COMICS L] at [UNLVM.UNL.EDU]>
From: Bill Hayes <[IANR 012] at [UNLVM.UNL.EDU]>
Subject: Volume 4 Issue 16 Part 3
May 4, 1994 The Comics List Weekly Vol. 4 No. 16 Pt. 3
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: Tue, 3 May 94 12:02:23 PDT
From: [j r d] at [frame.com] (James Drew)
Subject: CON: Wonder-Con 8 (long)
CON REPORT
Wonder-Con #8
April 22-24, 1994
There *will* be spoilers in here for all sorts of things, most of
them minor. Consider yourself forewarned.
You may find an imbalance of concern or interest in this report on
gay, lesbian, and otherwise queer themes. Live with it; consider it a growth
experience. There is nothing obscene in here, but neither will I whitewash
anything. However, the mention of a person, even in an extensive role, should
not be taken as an indication of his or her orientation, unless specifically
stated.
Wonder-Con is usually termed the first major convention of the
season. It is not, however, the first major convention of the year, being
preceded by ConFurence (southern California) in January, a Great Eastern
Convention (New York) in February, and the Motor City Convention (Detroit) in
March. Still, this is definitely one of the major shows, with an expected
attendance of some 10,000 people and most of the significant publishers
present.
I had intended to have Ciao! v2#2 published in time for Wonder-Con.
No such luck. v2#1 has gone back to press, though, and Wilde Oaks #5 is due
in late May; I hope to have v2#2 out in time for A.P.E. in early June.
I registered for the convention at 1:05 pm on Friday. One of the
advantages of working as a paid editorial cartoonist for a local newspaper is
that it provides a professional credit for registering as a guest at these
conventions. (This sometimes gets you into special functions and certainly
saves you the cost of admission. I did not try to parlay it into attending
Pro/Con during the preceding days; newspaper editorial cartooning is at best
tangential to the greater comics industry.) Immediately after I registered,
along came Sharon Cho (Star*Reach), Rob Tokar (Marvel artist), and Denys
Cowan (Milestone).
I largely hung out with Tony Shenton at the NBM booth, filling in for
him when he needed a break during the day, but I also spent significant time
chatting with Steve Howearth (Comics Against AIDS), Brad Rader (The Mark,
storyboard on Biker Mice from Mars), Sharon Cho, Donna Barr (Desert Peach),
and Roberta Gregory (Naughty Bits).
I saw the net's "zombie" walking by in a Squid shirt and did the
point-You-Come Here routine (much the same as how I first met Andy Mangels at
San Diego three years ago, but in reverse). There was a brief look of terror
("Who, me? What did I do?") on his face, I think.
Dinner on Friday was at a nice Chinese place with Brad and Tony.
Among our topics of discussion at dinner was "Which Marvel superhero(ine)
would you like to do as queer, and how would you do him or her? Or how
would you created a new queer character in the 'mighty Marvel tradition'?"
We also discussed a revamped Vartox -- now an alien leatherman with his
sights set on Jimmy Olsen. And then there's Andy Mangels' upcoming work
on Liefeld's Bludwulf (or are there actually some "o"'s in the name?), which
we all agreed was probably going to be overwritten if everything Andy has
told us gets into the comic. (An overwritten Image comic? That might be
refreshing!) And as to the character's name, we decided that "Bloodclot"
has just the right ring.
Friday night was Sharon Cho's "No Comics Party" (yeah, sure) with
Brent Anderson, Matt Healy (Ghost), Donna Barr, Barb Rausch (Barbie), and a
few other folks I don't know. It was also the night of the DC party which,
by most reports, went better than most such tend to. According to Donna
Barr, fanboys (and girls) were a major topic of discussion, including (but
not limited to) filkers and MU Press' Skunk comic book.
Brent has been working on a project for several years called the
Spacing Dutchman. He got one publisher interested in it, they bought the
rights, and then went under. Once Brent was able to get the rights back, he
pushed it at DC. They bought the rights and then decided that the market had
changed to much to make it profitable. So it sits at DC, with Brent unable
to even self-publish it without repaying the advance. He says he has learned
a valuable lesson out of this.
Donna regaled us with some tidbits on the differences between German
and Yiddish. For example, the German word for "jewels" is the Yiddish word
for "family jewels" (aka "balls"). "Yiddish" itself is just a slight
corruption of "Ju:ddisch" (I think) -- "Jewish". And the German word for
"speaking with a Jewish accent" is evidently "maus<something>" -- I wonder if
Art Spiegelman is aware of this?
Saturday, of course, was the big day of the convention. I didn't get
there until 3:00, though, due to dance practice in San Francisco. Such is
life.
Saturday was more of the same as Friday for me. Wonder-Con does not
tend to be a panel-going con for me (San Diego tends more toward that). Not
to mention that I can get the latest greatest publisher news here on the net
and I rarely want to spend an hour listening to Jim Shooter expound on
whatever.
According to Cat Yronwode, this was the first convention she has been
to since 1981 where she didn't have a table to stay behind (since the
collapse of Eclipse).
Saturday night was the annual Friends of Suicide Squid dinner -- Len
Wein even showed up briefly, hoping to find Tom Galloway with a shirt for him
(but no!). Six of us (me, Mark Schlatter and his wife, Byron Go, and, uh, I
can't remember their names) went out to the Pacific Pub and Brewery (so much
for the tradition of Asian food at Wonder-Con and Fast Food of All Nations
for San Diego!): three root beers, two pints of Double Diamond Ale (and a
toast to Erica, of course), and one pint of Amethyst Ale (how about a trade
paperback of the series, DC?) were consumed, as was food, of course.
Following dinner, I ran into Tony Shenton and drove him into the City
and had dessert while he ate dinner (at Pizza Love; not especially
recommended). We then headed over to the Lone Star, where we ran into two of
his friends (Jeff and Jeff) from New York who had just moved out to San
Francisco; one of them is a fan of The Maxx and the Legion. Tony and I later
headed to the Eagle and I bunked in his hotel room that night rather than
driving 45 minutes home at 2 am.
Sunday was a short day, mostly shopping the 25 and 50 cent bins (and
making some wonderful finds -- see below). I ended up getting invited to
Roberta Gregory's birthday party, since I'll be in Seattle that day. The buy
of the con -- and I seem to be getting in the habit of making a $40 purchase
shortly before leaving -- was an original horse-and-rider piece from Donna
Barr (it will only be the fifth piece of Donna's work on my walls, once I get
them all hung -- I am not a fanboy, I am not a fanboy, I am not a fanboy B-).
She was making deals so as to not have to cart the pieces home. I suspect
the other pieces (a couple from the "Hader and the Colonel" universe) were
donated to the Cartoon Museum of Art.
I did hit one panel -- "The Sunday Funnies: Humor in Comics" -- which
was supposed to feature fan-favorite Peter David and the Family (well, *Don*
Simpson, *Don* Rosa, and *Donna* Barr), but turned into Peter and Mark
Evanier. In and among all the usual oft-repeated stories about Hulk and
Groo, we became privy to a couple tidbits. The Hulk will be spending a
couple issues in Asgard in coming months; look for him to fight a pair of
Frost Giants using a Three Stooges' routine (no, I won't tell you which one).
According to Peter, Rick Jones *knows* he is in a comic book, as does Miguel
O'Hara, but Peter doesn't want to do Fourth Wall stuff a la Byrne. Peter
also claims that it was *not* him performing the wedding -- it was just
someone who happened to look like Peter David; peter says his script just
called for an incredibly handsome fellow playing that part. In return for
sticking him in there, Gary Frank gets to be passed out behind a potted palm
in #419, which has a fill-in artist. No word as to whether Aquaman will
continue to look constipated on the covers of his new series.
After making my goodbyes, I headed back to San Francisco for the
Bears of San Francisco "bear bust" at the Hole in the Wall Saloon -- wearing
my Bears Mailing List t-shirt, of course, and forgetting to remove my con
badge (oh, the embarrassment!). But that is a tale for another day (and not
this newsgroup/mailing list).
People encountered (who aren't mentioned above): Paul Mavrides (artist,
Cartoon Museum of Art), Steve Leialoha (Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy), Jeff Smith (Bone), Edd Vick (MU Press), Phil Foglio (Buck
Godot), Batton Lash (Archie Meets the Punisher), Bob Kahan (DC),
Randy Emberlin (inker), Ken Meyer, Jr. (Negative Burn), Don Simpson
(Bizarre Heroes), Mart Nodell (Golden Age Green Lantern), Sheldon
Moldoff (Golden Age Batman), Dan Fraga (Image artist), Monika
Livingstone (furry artist), James Owen (Starchild), Scott McCloud
(Understanding Comics), Mike Sagara (Tank Vixens), Matt High
(Antarctic), Max Fellwalker (painter), Mark Schlatter (the net),
zombie (the net), Tom DeFalco (Fantastic Four), Berni Wrightson
(Frankenstein), Julia Lacquement-Kerr (colorist on Shaman's Tears),
Charlie Wise (Blue Moon), Kaja Murphy (pronunciation note: "kigh-uh";
Palliard Press), Al Gordon (Wildstar), Mike Friedrich (Star*Reach),
Abby Janifer (Star*Reach), Dan Clowes (Eightball), Adrian Tomine
(Optic Nerve), Fred Rhoades (Sad Sack), Don Rosa (Life of Uncle
Scrooge), Aaron Lopresti (Sludge), Maggie Thompson (Comics Buyer's
Guide), Ron Lim (Silver Surfer), Dwayne McDuffie (Milestone), Craig
Flessel (Golden Age artist), Art Adams (Monkeyman & O'Brien)
Quotes:
* "Why would you want to avoid Image?"
-- teenage boy
"Because we're grown-ups."
-- Mark Schlatter's wife
* "Free posters!"
-- the Extreme booth, across from the MU/Palliard booth
"Leave me alone. I'm looking at Xxxenophile!"
-- me
* "Defiant Comics -- I really thought they'd go before Nixon."
-- Mark Evanier
* "The Flintstones [movie]: my one word review -- Ishtarpit."
-- Mark Evanier
Neat things bought or acquired: other than a little bit of new issue buying
(Bluebeard #1, True Swamp #1, Girl Hero #1, Greenhouse Warriors #3-4
[which are awful expensive at $3.95 each]) and a couple NBM purchases
[Forever War I, Hungarian Rhapsody], most of my purchases were
limited to the 25/50 cent bins. They held real treasures this year,
though: Captain Canuck, Jazz Age Chronicles, lots of Micronauts vol.1
and Alien Legion vol.1, Angel Love, Albedo Anthropomorphics vol.1,
nightlife, Stig's Inferno, Heckler, Boris the Bear, Redfox, Katy
Keene Special, Yummy Fur, and Neil the Horse. (Notice that most of
these are fairly well-regarded books and that you can't reliably find
*any* of them in anyone's back stock!) I also picked up a Madman
Adventures foil ashcan (for 50 cents), probably from Hero or Wizard;
given that Mike Allred has now joined the Legend crew, value just may
go up on this. (Incidentally, *anything* of Mike's related to Madman
had its price boosted -- such as Grafik Musik and Creatures from the
Id [very rare, that one; I saw it priced at $15 -- a year ago, you
couldn't give it away at 50 cents]. Nobody had copies of Graphique
Musique, much less the very rare Dead Air or the Citizen Nocturne
collection -- my favorite work by Mike.) (Hmm, now where is that
page of original art from Allred's Dead Air that Mike gave me for
free back in 1989...) Marvel has a nifty poster for the new Conan
book and Donna Barr gave me another copy of the Desert Peach
musical's poster (I've already got one framed on the wall) which I'll
put to use at A.P.E. and San Diego (see below).
News and such:
* Here's the text of DC's "Zero Hour" promo flyer:
[page 1] Imagine: the world you have known all your life suddenly
begins to change. [big number 4]
[page 2] The changes are almost imperceptible at first. But soon
everything comes crashing around you. Past and present contradict
each other. History is no longer immutable. Those long gone are
no longer dead. Dinosaurs and other extinct animals roam in your
neighborhood. Worst of all, your friends and loved ones are
vanishing... or changing. [big number 3]
[page 3] The very fabric of reality surrounding the DC Universe is
unravelling. In Smallville, Jor-El and Lara have returned to take
Superman back to an unexploded Krypton. In Metropolis, Superman is
faced with a *multitude* of Batmen. Meanwhile, Batman, Nightwing,
Robin, and Barbara Gordon are shocked to meet another, *different*
Batgirl. Elsewhere, the legendary Justice Society of America
[editorial comment: so what's wrong with that?] answers the call to
action. The timestream, made fragile by countless twists and
myriad travellers, is now spinning out of control. Time is running
out... *quickly*. Only the greatest heroes of every era and
reality [editorial comment: Captain Carrot, too?] can stop this
*Crisis*in*Time*. And stop it they must or the DC Universe will
cease to exist -- perhaps never to have existed at all. [big
number 2]
[page 4] With little warning, the end draws near. Anomalies in the
DC Universe threaten its future... and its past. The 25th and 30th
centuries have been swallowed into oblivion. [editorial comment:
which explains that big sucking sound going on recently, no?] All
that remains of all that once was is the 20th century [editorial
comment: see, it's even affecting our dialogue!], now isolated in
nothingness and threatened by destructive forces blindly chipping
away at this lone pocket of time. As heroes battle to prevent the
end of time, momentous events occur. New heroes are born, while
others are lost, and as time itself is extinguished, two beings
take part in a final showdown with nothing to lose -- because
*nothing* is left. [big number 1]
[page 5] A void. Empty of sound, light, even life. Reality -- the
DC Universe -- is no more. But then there is a glimmer of hope,
the glint of a new beginning. [editorial comment: a white event]
A new reality emerges, a reality born from nothingness. It is a
chance to start anew. From that moment, the DC universe faces a
new existence. Some heroes are newly discovered, rising from the
void; others are renewed, experiencing vague hints that something
has gone before. All of them are focused on what lies ahead. Zero
Hour represents a stronger, cohesive, more vital DC Universe where,
like its heroes, readers can start anew. Newcomers need no prior
introduction; loyal DC fans can savor the breadth to which the rich
DC history has grown. [editorial comment: oh, bite me.]
[fold-out] Extant [I presume] menaces the heroes: Batman (Bruce
Wayne), Robin (Tim Drake), Superman, Guy Gardner: Warrior, Green
Lantern (Alan Scott), Geo-Force, Darkstar (Donna Troy), Green
Lantern (Kyle Rayner?), Green Dragon (Ultra Boy/Jo Nah), Waverider,
Batgirl, Superboy (current one), Atom (current one), some big
purple thing with a mist-enshrouded head (Metamorpho?), Green Arrow
(current one), Flash (Wally West), Flash (Jay Garrick). The new
heroes float in the background: a guy with purple glasses
(Starman?), a guy in white with *big*red*shoulderpads*
(Xenobrood?), an unshaven guy with an ankh tattooed on his right
eye (Fate?), and the members of what must be Primal Force
(including Red Tornado).
[back page lists the shipping order and dates (editorial comment:
we'll see) and the Zero Month #0 issues]
* According to Barb Rausch, Barbie is selling about 30K on the newsstand and
10K in comics shops. This means it may well be outselling perhaps
20% of Marvel's line.
* Donna Barr has been invited to be art guest of honor at ConFurence 6;
writing guest of honor is slated to be Larry Niven. Donna has an
avowed dislike of much of furry fandom (like it or not, Donna, a
significant amount of your output *is* attractive to furry fans; you
just seem to have run afoul of some of the worst facets of the
fandom). Donna said she'd only do it if the rest of the Skunk
artists were invited, too. Roberta Gregory and Colin Upton said they
were available... that leaves Chuck Melville, Tom Verre', and whoever
did the back cover.
* Donna is going back to press for another run of tapes of the Desert Peach
musical soundtrack. If she gets enough orders soon, she'll even do a
run of CD's. Order the two cassettes for $25 (includes postage) from
Donna Barr, 1318 North Montgomery, Bremerton, WA, 98312. It's a
wonderful soundtrack; I fully recommend it. (Tell her I sent you.)
* Edd Vick continues to claim that he is receiving mostly favorable reactions
to Skunk (which has a lot of furry fandom on the net up in arms).
His sales in general were way low at the con, though.
* Bill Sienkiewicz has done a nifty poster for Milestone.
* Mark Evanier confirms that the references in Crossfire #3 to the horror
actor's dead partner were early references to AIDS in Hollywood
(circa 1984). I'm evidently the first person to ask him about the
references.
* Expect a Ghost series out of Dark Horse's Comics Greatest World in comic
months.
* Mike Allred (Madman) is now apparently an official part of the Legend crew.
* Barb Rausch has done the cover for the Marvel/Disney Beauty and the Beast
comic.
* A fellow was going around doing some promotional work with publishers,
getting their interest up for a biography/sketchbook on Craig
Russell.
* Steve Howearth said everything is a go for a Comics Against AIDS booth at
San Diego. The San Diego con will be donating booth space. Marvel
found their conscience and will be donating funds; look for a blurb
in the letters page of Hulk #420, too (with luck). All funds raised
will be split between three AIDS charities. Expect to be able to buy
con sketches from a number of artists at San Diego for $20 bucks a
piece; Steve is getting all sorts of support from the creative
community. There will also be more significant pieces up for
auction; nothing is guaranteed, but Howearth is hoping for a piece
from Bill Watterson.
* Speaking of San Diego, when it comes to Sunday at the con, be afraid, be
very afraid. There is supposed to be an appearance by the Might
Morphin' Power Rangers. According to Steve Howearth, a recent
appearance at the Anaheim Convention Center utterly swamped the
place. Remember the mob scene when Image tossed comics at a
convention last year? I hope the MMPR's will be on the far side of
the con from me.
* I stopped by the Creative Interests Agency table to pick up their
submission guidelines and scan there current client list -- nobody
you would recognize. And writers, don't bother. They're not
accepting writing submissions "at this time". Feh.
Next Report:
Alternative Press Expo (A.P.E.), San Jose, June 4.
Ciao! Publications plans to have a table at both this and at the San
Diego Comic-Con!
------------------------------
| "Wow," I said, scanning the absent sykline.
Jim Drew | "San Francisco, 1877. This is incredible!"
[j r d] at [frame.com] | "This is impossible," said Suzanne.
(Furry: Randy Puritan) | - Marc Lynx, "Haight in the Time of Cholera"
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End part 3, parts 1 and 2 will arrive shortly! Honest!