Category: Uncategorized

My buddy Tom posted his version of yesterday’s events at the Con. I forgot to mention, while we were at the CBLDF booth yesterday, we looked over at the XBox booth next door, which had a number of comics-related games that people could play.

Charles Brownstein, the CBLDF director, was looking over our shoulders at the booth, agog. He said, “The Hulk is beating a cow to death.”

We turned around. A youngish kid was playing a Hulk video game and was, in fact, beating a cow to death, smacking it against a cliff, picking up a boulder to throw at it, etc.

Tom & I were both thankful that we’re not kids nowadays, as we’d never get out of the house.

Got in late-ish last night and didn’t feel up to writin’. Another three G&Ts may have contributed to that vibe, but what’s it to you?

Anyway, the official VM fiancee and I had fun at the Comic-Con yesterday. It was chilly in the exhibit hall, so she got a little goose-bumped, but at least that prepared her for the thrills and chills of seeing so many comic-book, science fiction and gaming stereotypes brought to life.

For some reason, I was incredibly slow on the draw with the camera, so the only shot I took was this one. I hope to take a bunch more photos today, even though we’ll only be spending a couple of hours down at the show.

A lot of people dress in costumes for the Con, which is really one of its main attractions. I mean, sure, it’s nice to meet some cartoonists whose work you’ve adored, or make new friends or connections discussing your favorite topics, but it’s a blast to gawk at a fat chick dressed in her Princess-Leia-as-a-slave-girl costume.

So we checked in yesterday, and I picked up my press pass. I walked into a bathroom and saw a pile of clothes on the floor. Around the corner of the bathroom, a man was putting the finishing touches on his Jedi Knight costume, checking himself out in the mirror as he worked on his “press-on ponytail”. Evidently, he would’ve felt self-conscious walking through San Diego in this get-up, so he brought it all in his backpack.

Once inside the show, the OVMF & I walked through the first 37 aisles of displays till we got to home base: the Fantagraphics booth. Fantagaphics is the best “alternative” comics publisher in the field, home to cartoonists such as Dan Clowes, Pete Bagge and Los Bros. Hernandez. After introductions, we dropped my bag of show materials at the booth, met up with my buddy Tom, and began walking the show.

And it’s here that I made a mistake I’ll rue for all of blog-time. Just as we were getting ready to start out, the OVMF said to me, “Isn’t that the guy from The State?”

I looked over at the Top Shelf Comix booth and said, “Yeah, that’s Ben Garant. Oh, and that’s Tom Lennon with him. MAN, are they small.”

Now, I was a huge fan of the MTV comedy show The State, back in 1993-1995 or thereabouts. Tom & Ben, both members of The State, went on to do several other shows, including Viva Variety and Reno 911! (but not, fortunately, Stella). They marked the third and fourth members of the troupe whom I’ve bumped into (my Michael Showalter and Joe Lo Truglio stories aren’t any better than this one. Actually, the Joe story is; I’ll tell that one sometime).

Anyway, it was early in the show, and I was still a bit hungover from Wednesday night, and I managed to convince myself that I shouldn’t go over and take their picture. I kicked myself for that decision immediately after they were out of range, as they would’ve been a great addition to this chronicle. Especially if the picture consisted of Tom, who’s 6’2″ and about 335 lbs., picking both of them up and holding them under his arms.

We crossed their paths later in the afternoon, but I didn’t notice. So life is filled with regrets. I suck. If I see them today, I’ll try to get them to stop for a photo. I promise.

We walked the show after that, and Tom made conversation with a number of exhibitors and artists, to get a feel for this year’s edition. We hung close by and listened in, even while the OVMF shivered from the cold. I told her I’d buy her a Green Lantern hoodie over by the apparel booths, but she declined the offer. I don’t know why.

I knew a few of the artists, but not many, and it made me realize how much I’ve drifted out of this scene. My comics-knowledge really sorta peters out around 1998 or 1999, and I’ve convinced myself that if these younger guys were really good, I’d have found out about them already. I just don’t have the time/energy to devote to the new comics scene, to find out if anyone’s making good stuff on a par with the aforementioned Clowes/Bagge/Hernandez axis.

It’s not as if I don’t like the artform anymore; just as I don’t spend a lot of time watching art flicks anymore, my priorities seem to have shifted a bunch in recent years. It’s probably the same reason I stopped being a book publisher.

When I stopped by the Drawn & Quarterly booth later, I saw a new hardcover collection of Frank King’s comic-strips from 1921-22. Back at the Fanta booth, there was a massive hardcover collection of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat strips. I said to the gentleman running the booth, “I’m glad that my professional development has followed the same progression as your companies’ ambitious projects.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Just that when you guys started coming out with high-end, expensive, but fantastic collections, I reached a stage in my career where I can comfortably afford to buy them.”

“Gotcha. That Frank King collection is not to be missed.”

I’m holding out on that one, though. It’s not like King’s around to autograph the thing, so I’ll likely pick it up on Amazon (and get a third off).

During our promenade, we stopped by the booth of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which helps defend comic-store owners and publlishers in first-amendment-related cases. The director of the fund chatted with us a while, and told embarrassing stories about cartoonists and other industry figures. The CBLDF was having a fund-raising party that night in our hotel, so we promised to stop in. There are a lot of messed-up legal cases that the fund gets involved in, and which don’t get much coverage in the mainstream press. But if they involved prose books instead of comics, you can be sure you’d hear a lot more about them. What I’m saying is, go to the fund’s site and contribute a little cash, if you wanna help defend some freedom of speech in this country.

Eventually, the OVMF was too cold to keep moving, so we headed out for lunch (Thai, as is my wont), returned to the show briefly, where I spent too much money buying a page of original art from one of my favorite cartoonists, Eddie Campbell. We took a break from the show, returning to the hotel, rearranging wardrobes, and otherwise reducing the sensory stimuli that the Con can inflict on a person.

Late in the afternoon, we went back, saw Tom on a panel on “blogging about comics,” and walked out in the middle of it when we couldn’t take anymore of the fanboy atmosphere and comics writer Peter David’s idiocy. Later, Tom told us that he wanted to join us when we got up and left.

We decided to hit the Padres game after the show ended, since we were in a baseball town with a new stadium and this was the only night we’d be free. I’m not a huge baseball fan, but I do enjoy going to games. That said, this game was boring as shit, and we left after the sixth so we could hit some parties. The only fun part was the girl sitting in the row in front of us, who pulled the double faux-pas of showing off extreme butt-cleavage AND a tanline-of-demarcation. The OVMF says that the girl’s pink underwear makes this a triple faux-pas, but I think that it falls within the “crack kills” aspect of her low-risers.

Anyway, the new stadium was nice, but not fantastic. Tom concluded that it didn’t mess anything up, but wasn’t as inspired as, say, Camden Yards. We concurred.

From the game, we walked up to the Horton Plaza for a party hosted by Scholastic, which is publishing several cartoonists. The guest of honor was Jeff Smith, who wrote and drew Bone, a 1400-page comic book that I’m currently making my way through. We drank several rounds and Tom said, “Remember: Harry Potter is paying for our drinks.”

I said, “Yeah, I hear at the stroke of midnight tomorrow, the Scholastic execs will actually start shooting $100 bills straight outta their asses.”

We drank, and bantered, and a young man who was in the audience at Tom’s blog-panel came over to talk with us. Evidently, after we left the session, he asked a question that Tom just jumped down his throat over. But he didn’t have any hard feelings about it.

We split for the CBLDF party, where we had some nice conversation with cartoonists Zander Cannon and Shad Petosky. We’ll stop by their booth today to see their stuff.

The day ended there. We did plenty of walking, a lot of talking, and tons of gawking. I’m really sorry I didn’t bust out the camera more yesterday, but I’ll try to make up for it when we stop in today to see Los Bros. Hernandez (and maybe buy some of Xaime’s sketches) and a few other cartoonists. I’m also sorry to offer more prosaic chronicling than wacky commentary, but I’m a little tired and the sheer volume of material is pretty overwhelming (but also esoteric, requiring lots of background commentary).

Bad weather kept us from leaving Newark Airport for quite a while yesterday, so our first day of vacation was spent largely doing crossword puzzles, reading (thought I’d read Huck Finn again), listening to our iPods, and doing more crossword puzzles. We got in around 9pm local time (midnight by my standards, after getting to Newark 12 hours earlier).

Our suitcase was the last one to show up in baggage claim, prompting a 25-minute wait by the carousel. Then my buddy Ian (whose One True keeps a blog) picked us up and got us to our fantastic-ish hotel. The three of us met up with my buddy Tom, who’s in town for the Comic-Con. I knocked down 3 G&Ts in pretty short order, and then got back to the hotel and thought, “All told, it’s not a bad start to a vacation.”

On to the Con!

So I didn’t go on Oprah’s show and jump up and down on a sofa to profess my love for the official VM fiancee.

I did, however, buy her a ring (made by Little King Jewelry):

We’re heading off to San Diego this afternoon, to visit friends, drop in on the geek-fest known as Comic-Con, meet up with a few vacationing members of the OVMF’s family and, of course, go running with the bulls in Tijuana.

Okay, we’ll probably skip TJ, but we’re definitely getting the ol’ In-N-Out, if you know what I mean.

I’ll try to get some good pix from the Con, especially of wheelchair-bound attendees dressed up as Klingons.

In the UK Observer, Nick Cohen wrote a good piece about the left’s response to the London bombing:

I feel the appeal, believe me. You are exasperated with the manifold faults of Tony Blair and George W Bush. Fighting your government is what you know how to do and what you want to do, and when you are confronted with totalitarian forces which are far worse than your government, the easy solution is to blame your government for them.

But it’s a parochial line of reasoning to suppose that all bad, or all good, comes from the West – and a racist one to boot. The unavoidable consequence is that you must refuse to support democrats, liberals, feminists and socialists in the Arab world and Iran who are the victims of Islamism in its Sunni and Shia guises because you are too compromised to condemn their persecutors.

Of course, the fact that the writer is named Cohen means that someone will contend that he’s a traitor to the left and “an agent of Israel” or somesuch.

You oughtta read the whole shebang.

The U.S. State Department flew the Union Jack at half staff.

I’m wearing the Arsenal FC jersey I picked up in Heathrow last year.

I don’t really know what I can write about the London bombings. I’ll need to reread Orwell’s England Your England essay to see if it says anything that sheds light on how I feel right now. I’ll probably stop by the UK consulate tomorrow, like I did with the Spanish one after the Madrid bombing.

I know Christopher Hitchens wrote pretty well about it.

I know that Ken Livingstone spoke pretty well about it, even if he did sound like he was excusing such violence if it targets are ” presidents or prime ministers.”

I know that George Galloway remains an idiot.

I know a lot of people in my life don’t agree about how to deal with what’s happening to the world and to us. Let’s keep talking.

Dad’s doing better now. Here’s the update.

Dad’s back in the hospital. He’s been (dry) coughing pretty badly ever we got him home after his heart surgery at the end of April. He’s also had some alternating fevers in the last month-to-six weeks. We took him for CAT scan on Thursday, which revealed an abscess in his lung. He also has this weird tennis-ball-sized lump of hard tissue at the top of his thigh, right where the scar begins from where they took one of the veins for his bypasses.

His surgeon took one look at it Friday and admitted him back into the hospital. Looks like he’s been fighting an infection ever since surgery. Being a tough guy, he kept ignoring his worsening condition, but his girlfriend noticed that he was burning up last week, and got the ball rolling for this current round of treatment. Saving his life for the nth time.

So he’s going into surgery later today, where they’ll drain the lump in his thigh. They’ll get him on a serious load of antibiotics so that the abscess in the lung will get zapped before it spreads to his heart. Everyone (except Dad) sounds pretty optimistic about this. Dad’ll be in the hospital until Tuesday (7/5) at a minimum. I’ll write more on the dadblog as the situation warrants.