Month: July 2002

So it turns out that Raven, the WWE wrestler, is a big fan of “Captain Marvel” and he offered me tickets for the next time they were in town. Being a firm believer in the notion that you should try anything once that won’t cause you or someone else to be harmed, Monday night found Ariel, Kathleen, a co-worker of Kathleen’s named Chris, and myself out at the Meadowlands Arena at the live broadcast of Monday night Wrestling on TNT.

It was loud. Reeeeeal loud. And Raven lost, which bummed out Ariel no end. But the showmanship of the whole thing was pretty amazing. I had no idea what to expect, not being a wrestling fan, and was unaware of the whole storyline aspect. No wonder so many wrestlers are comic book fans; it’s like actually living in an actual comic book. Your life is scripted soap opera twists and punctuated by choreographed physical conflict.

We were there from 8 to 10 (they also taped “Heat”) and by that point we’d had enough…particularly when we considered that the parking lot was going to be filled with several thousand people, all of whom had been drinking beers for three hours or more. So we lit out in relative privacy.

PAD

Through strange and bizarre circumstances (and the recommendation of the host) last night I found myself back in 1937, at a place known as the Adventurer’s Club.

As the Club President, Miss Pamelia Perkins, greeted me by name (I believe the name used was “psychotic loner”) I told her that I bore greetings from up north, from Peter and Kathleen.

“Peter and Kathleen? Oh, how marvelous! Are they still together?”

I answered in the affirmative, indeed they were.

“Drat. I had fifty dollars riding on that bet.”

Ah, the high tech world of computers, where we can now be disappointed on scales we never once thought possible.

I found out belatedly about the cast of “The Simpsons” doing a live reading of an episode (followed by a Q&A with Matt Groening) as part of the comedy fair in Montreal. I tried to get tickets so I could take my teen daughter, Gwen. Sold out. Gwen suggested I check on E-bay. Sure enough, someone was selling two tickets. I put a pretty high bid on them and had them locked up until an hour or so before the end of the auction…which I wasn’t home for because I was out with my youngest daughter, Ariel. And someone swooped in at the last minute and grabbed them. Entertained one daughter, let down another.

I know all’s fair and everything, but since Gwen isn’t coming with me to San Diego, this was going to be our big dad-and-daughter outing.

Anyone have two tickets they don’t need?

PAD

Just returned from “Shore Leave,” a fan-run Trek convention in Maryland at which I’m pretty much a regular.

Now Shore Leave has had any number of big name stars in attendance over the years, but I have *never* seen anything as what I experienced with the advent of James Marsters, “Spike” on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” It was the equivalent of a rock star having arrived. Hundreds of fans who had never set foot at a convention turned up carrying with them an aura of pure teenybopperism. They just wanted to touch him, or were barely able to get a word out upon coming face to face with him, or reduced to inarticulate sobbing. It was astounding to watch.

On the other hand, they all seemed ready, willing and able to learn about other facets of fandom. Many of them arrived in the main speaker’s room first thing in the morning so as to have seats for Marster’s talk at 3 PM. But it wasn’t as if they spent five hours pounding the floor shouting, “Bring On Spike!” Instead they listened to all the speakers and were eager and willing participants in just about everything. And fandom is desperately in need of (no pun intended) new blood. Yes, the crowds were tough to bear at times, but if thirty, forty percent of the people who came this year show up next year, that’s all to the good and worth a bit of inconvenience for a year.

As for Marsters himself, the fans found him everything they could have hoped for. Patient, attentive, signing for HOURS at a time, and really obviously enjoying interacting with the fans. My understanding is that Whedon has been mounting a major Emmy push for Marsters. Considering the abysmal track record and inattention historically accorded any fantasy/horror or SF series (how the HÊLL could Andreas Katsulas never have been nominated for G’Kar?) I’m not holding out much hope, but it’d be nice to be surprised.

PAD

“The Woad to Wuin,” the sequel to “Sir Apropos of Nothing,” will be out in August, but it’s already been reviewed in “Publisher’s Weekly.” It received a starred (as in, “pay special attention to this one”) review, making it the third fantasy novel of mine in a row to get that kind of high-profile reception from the Bible of the publishing world. First the original “Apropos,” then the reissue of “Knight Life,” and now this one.

It’s a nice notion to shove in the face of publishers who believed I couldn’t write anything aside from “Trek” novels and media tie-ins.

PAD

Over on Comicon.com/Splash, CrossGen head Mark Alessi did a nice job of getting himself some ink and challenging the corporate thinking that’s dictated some of Marvel’s greatest faults as a publisher, which is a good thing. He talked about how the industry needs to be saved, which is also a good thing. I was with him all the way up to this:

“Alessi ended with hints of big announcements in the coming month.

Am I alone in disliking the whole notion of slabbing?

I feel as if owning comics should be a fully tactile sensation. That you take it out of the mylar snug and carefully open the pages and read the story, smell the must of the paper, feel it between your fingers. As opposed to being preserved in amber, untouchable unless you care to kill the value.

I find myself hoping that ten years from now slabbed books are looked upon as some sort of collecting oddity that people use as coasters.

PAD