Year: 2005

Did a phone interview for Marvel yesterday for Spider-Man: The Other. I thought it was going to be Joe, Reggie and I, and it turned out to my shock to be me, some Marvel editors, and a battery of fan reporters and retailers. So that was kind of surprising. I hope I didn’t sound like an idiot.

Stayed in the room last night while Kath, a former Atlanta resident, renewed old friendships and acquaintances on the party circuit. Woke up this morning, showered and am ready for the day. Should be interesting. I have a 3 PM reading in the Williams room that appears nowhere on any schedule, and a 7 PM focus-on-me panel (God help me.) Kath has stuff in the artshow, including a muppet of Scorpius.

Also, the CBLDF is having a raffle to win breakfast with Jewel Staite and myself Sunday morning. So if you’re interested, be sure to check that out.

PAD

Just thought I’d mention that, according to Chris Ryall, “Spike: Old Times” has sold out both from Diamond and the publisher (their initial order plus everything they’d overprinted for reorders.)

The guys at Fourth World Comics in Smithtown, NY, where I buy my books (best comic shop in Long Island, folks) have likewise sold out. The canny retailers put copies of the book in the pull file of everyone who had ordered the “Angel” comic as an FYI, and every single person bought it without hesitation.

So that’s nice.

I’ve no idea if there’s plans to go back to press.

PAD

If I hadn’t been down to Crescent Con down in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, then I would simply feel badly for the folks down in the Big Easy and keep my fingers crossed for them.

But instead, for me, the Big Breezy has a very personal aspect to it now. I met hundreds of great folks down there, and now I’m worried about all of them. I find myself wondering which of them got out in plenty of time…which ones were sitting there stuck in the unmoving mass of traffic. I remember the chatty cab driver who jovially pointed out the Superdome as the place where the Saints go to lose every weekend (if I got the team wrong, cut me some slack, I’m not Mr. Football), and now I wonder if the cabbie was one of those who couldn’t afford to get out and is now huddling in that same structure for which he showed such disdain. There’s a shop in the French Quarter that sells toy soldiers that Harlan loves, and I didn’t get a chance to swing by there and buy him something while I was down there; now I wonder if it’ll still be there by morning.

Katrina has been downgraded from a category 5 to category 4 which, according to a spokesman for the National Weather Service, is like being downgraded from being hit by an 18 wheeler to being hit by a freight train.

If any of the great folks I met down there are able to, chime in here and let us know how you’re doing.

PAD

I haven’t seen copies of the second issue of the Abomination limited series, but from what I’m hearing, an entire page worth of dialogue was dropped out for no discernible reason.

Basically there’s an entire page of fight scene between the Abomination and the Hulk, and there’s no dialogue. No caption. No nothing. The major problem is that there’s now no segue between the dialogue as it ends on the previous page and as it starts on the following page. So…here’s the missing dialogue, along with the page description so you can see how it flows:

PANEL A: The Abomination barely manages to roll out of the way as the Hulk crashes down where he’d just been.

CAPTION 1: “I’ll tell you this, Blonsky. Say what you will about the Hulk…and over the years, I’ve said plenty.…

PANEL B: The Abomination, now on his feet, manages to fling his arms wide and shatter the girder that was wrapped around his arms.

CAPTION 2: “He may be many things: The world’s most destructive force, a walking A-Bomb, a tragic figure…

CAPTION 3: “…the whipping boy of the gods…

CAPTION 4: “…whatever.

CAPTION 5: “But you know what he’s not?”

PANEL C: The Abomination throws chunks of debris at the Hulk, who brings up his arms to shield his face from the barrage.

CAPTION 6: “He’s not a hypocrite. He doesn’t change his tune or try to present himself as anything other than he is…

CAPTION 7: “A frustrated beast who just wants to be left alone.”

And the dialogue on the next page continues, with Blonsky, saying, “And yet you don’t,” to which Ross concedes, “And yet we don’t.”

That’s how it’s supposed to read. I’ve no explanation for why the dialogue isn’t there.

PAD

Back home after visiting with my folks down in Pennsylvania to celebrate their respective birthdays. And I came home to discover that, hey, Spike: Old Times really IS out this week. So whad’ja think?

PAD

Bush, in describing Cindy Sheehan, stated, “She expressed her opinion. I disagree with it.”

This puts Cindy Sheehan in the company of military experts who told Bush things he didn’t want to hear prior to the attack on Iraq. Experts who turned out to be correct.

PAD

Kath and I just came back from seeing “The Aristrocrats,” a documentary about a legendary dirty joke that’s been around for ages and–until now–has been purely a comedian-to-comedian thing.

The premise is simple. A guy walks into a talent agency and says to the talent agent, “My family has the most amazing act you’ve ever seen.” From that moment on, it’s pure improv as the comedian proceeds to describe the most hideously profane act he can think of, replete with fornication, bodily secretions and excretion, incest…whatever. At the end, the stunned agent says, “That’s quite an act. What do you call it?” And the guy says proudly, “The Aristocrats!”

No one makes any attempt to say that the joke, in and of itself, is funny. It’s not. But it’s the telling of it, the total insanity of the contrast between the grossness of the act and the sophistication of the name, that’s the killer.

High points include a specially done “South Park” version with Cartman telling it to an increasingly horrified Stan, Kyle and Kenny; a magician who seamlessly melds the joke with a card trick presentation; Gilbert Gottfried absolutely killing with a version told during the Comedy Central roast of Hugh Hefner…and, my personal favorite, Tommy Smothers telling the joke to Ðìçk Smothers, who has never heard it and hasn’t a clue why anyone would remotely consider it funny. It occurs to me that–with no comment on the gentlemen’s mental capacities, but rather simply on their “stage” personas–that if Joe Quesada told the Aristrocrats to Paul Levitz, they would be exactly like Tom and Ðìçk Smothers.

PAD