From: [m--el--y] at [happy.helios.nd.edu] (michael kelly) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc Subject: CHICAGOCON: Friday Update Date: 5 Jul 1994 00:47:03 GMT I'll be summarizeing the events of the ChicagoCon by day, because otherwise my endless digressions would make for one *very* long post. On with the show.... Friday, 1 July 1994 8 am finds me moving the last of my gear from my townhouse in Mishawaka to a house in South Bend. I have to return the moving van, pick up some food, clean out my old place and get it inspected by 10 am 10:30 am: I'm on the Indianna toll road. Somewhere between South Bend and Gary I get the idea for another poem in my (as of yet, unwritten) collection. The title will be something like "Conversational Scrabble" 11:40 pm: Mild traffic before the tristate tollway (294) 12:45 pm: I arrive at the Sofitel, despite Glenn's directions. In all fairness, Glenn's directions were completely accurate until I got past the part of 294 that I was familiar with. I check in at the Sofitel, even though the wacky faux-French staff are unable to confirm that I *really* am staying with a Bertram, Galloway or any of the rest of our zany crowd. I let them take my bags and my car. 1:00 pm I slip into the Con without paying, by going through the cafeteria. Somehow I find my way through the dealers alley to the small press/artists alley. I run into Matt Feazall, Scott McCloud, Phil Foglio, Jeff Grubb. Matt is still doing wild stuff. He tells me that there are still copies of the "CynicalMan" TPB available from the publisher. Scott is hawking Understanding Comics, and it isn't clear that he will ever do Zot! again, even though he says he wants to. Phil was busy doing sketches, and we ended up blowing each other off. Jeff Grubb started my "dirty limerick" collection. Small press artist Pam Bliss gave me a sketch. I bought a pen and ink drawing from Larry Blake, but he tried to steal my change. (the rat bastard!) Wayne Wong eventually pointed out to me that I was missing the Babylon 5 presentation. 2:00 pm: I get to the Bab5 panel late. I've missed the outtakes and the first 5 minutes of the new episode. (so I missed the name!) We will get to see alien genitalia in this episode. Ah, my guide says that it was "Quality of Mercy". 3:00 pm: Peter David interviews Harlan Ellison. Harlan rants and raves, but Peter never gets him to cry. HE was extremely rough and ready during this event, but I think he was just a little uncomfortable on the first day. This was the first interview I saw with HE, and I actually came away with a little more respect for him than I had before. My impression of his personality was this: He's a cold prickly, and he knows it. If he has no reason to like you he will treat you cold and prickly. If you take offense at this, he will only treat you worse. If you piss him off, he *will* let you know. He clearly prizes loyalty very highly. All in all, I found him to be more good than bad, with perhaps his greatest fault being that he doesn't care what other people think of him (as far as I can tell) but that he takes offense when people reactly badly to his (initial) gruff behaviour. 4:00 pm: Horror Comics panel Hosted by Jon Ostrander, with Bernie Wrightson, Mike MIgnola and Tim Bradstreet. They spent the hour blabbing about how they were all former Roman Catholics and what their favorite horror movies and novels are. They all remarked how they thought pointless gore was *not* horror. I then asked what was their opinion of Garth Ennis' Hellblazer. Ostrander got *very* irritated and switched his story to "everybody's got a different opinion of horror." He did mention that he didn't like all the talking/bar scenes (!) Bradstreet had a little twinkle in his eye as I asked this, but the other two didn't seem to have an opinion. Someone up front tried to make the point that the Hellblazer characters were so well developed that we really felt for them when they were butchered (!) The panel mumbled their agreement. This was really surreal.... The horror panel started to realize that they were in a tailspin when they started talking about how important it was to show just how inhuman a butcher like Jack the Ripper could be. Mignola said how he would never do a Ripper story without including images copied from the photograph of the Ripper's last victim. Someone else in the audience pointed out that simply showing a picture of a Ripper victim was not making the audience associate with the victim, only showing gore. The panel looked really stumped (except for Bernie who understood how confused they were.) 5:00 pm: Scott McCloud and Kurt Busiek talk about each other. Ivy McCloud (who has known them both for 16 years) moderated. It was really clear that they are great friends (having known each other for 20+ years) who admire each other. I didn't get anything out of this except an appreciation for their friendship. 6:00 pm: Iain and I quickly nip back to the room to drop off our goods. We hustle back to the Rosemont Convention center to meet the r.a.c.ers for dinner. 6:30 pm: We get to Giordano's (just past the sleeping Elder God) and find that we have no reservation (there are almost 30 of us.) Eventually the dynamic duo of Glenn and tyg used their singular powers of mental befuddlement to trick the manager into seating us. We were split up, so I didn't get to blather with everyone. At my table, we discussed a variety of silly things. This was not helped by Mike Chary showing up in his "Kid Quantum" oufit, complete with a 1970's afro. 8:00ish pm: The lot of us get hopelessly separated. Elmo, Chris, Mike and I end up wandering back to the hotel. That we might have done this doesn't occur to our rat-bastard next door neighbors who go back to the hotel and leave us there while they go out drinking. 10:00ish. Elmo, Chris and I enjoy the rooftop pool. Plans are made to pitch a new series to DC highlighting the greatest battles between Krypto and Super Gorilla Grodd. While Chris and Greg head back to the room, I nip down to the lobby and type up my own proposal: "Chimp City: A Bitch to Bark for." I find Frank Miller and Mike Richardson in the hotel bar and sell my idea to Dark Horse. 11:25 pm: By the time I get back to room 805, I realize I missed the free bus to see "Oblivion", the latest PAD movie. Cursing my greed, I resign myself to sleep. It is in the middle of the night when I begin to suspect that my roommates may not be of this Earth. More of that later, in part two..... -- + Mike Kelly, Notre Dame Department of Physics [m--el--y] at [doc.helios.nd.edu] + + + + Oh, and never mind the words, just hum along and keep on going. + + - Ian Anderson +