From: John Holbrook <[j b h] at [ix.netcom.com]> Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,rec.arts.comics.info Subject: PROPHET'S MOTOR CITY COMIC CON REPORT Date: Thu, 28 Mar 96 03:16:20 GMT Motor City Comic Con Report By: John B. Holbrook, II Given that I didn’t know that I was going to the con (because it was really close to my son’s due date - hard to plan these things) I didn’t order a ticket. So, I drove over to Novi (Only a couple of hours from where I live in Grand Rapids, MI) Saturday morning in hopes of buying a ticket at the door. To avoid standing in line, I purposefully left late, and arrived about 11:30. Though I avoided lines, I missed out on descent parking, and had to park at the Bob Evans across the street - right in front of a sign that said “CUSTOMER PARKING ONLY - VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED.” I like to live dangerously, you see. I walked over to the con, bought my ticket and went in. I immediately noticed the tight budgets this year - practically no freebies were to be had anywhere. Not even at the larger publisher booths. My first stop was at the DC booth, as I saw Mark Waid, and James Robinson behind the table. I quickly jumped in line thinking I’d kill two birds with one stone (I brought books that both men write to be signed, you see). By the time my turn came in line, James Robinson was nowhere to be found, but I still got to chat with Waid, and thumbed through the sneak preview of Kingdom Come - nice art, but nothing we haven’t seen in the fan press. My next stop was to the Friends of Lulu booth to find Elayne Chaput and Johanna Draper and was informed that they were both off at a panel that had just started. I headed toward the panel discussion rooms, but made a few stops along the way. First, I found Steve Lieber and said hello. Steve and I have been trying to meet each other since last years Chicago Comic Con, so it was nice to finally face up. Steve is one of those rare people who is nice both off and on-line. Heck of a nice guy. He even gave me a very sharp sketch of Hawkman, which he drew faster than I could draw a 5 line stick figure. I’m planning on staying overnight at the Chicago Con this year, to which Steve has said he will attend as well. I’m hoping we can do dinner and maybe hang out a bit. I finally made it to the panel room where Elayne and Johanna were - it was a billed as a discussion on Writing about Comics with representatives from WIZARD, CBG, and HERO ONLINE. When I came in they were concentrating on Internet journalism - Elayne was also sitting on the panel and holding her own. Now, I’ve never met Johanna before, but there was only one other woman sitting in the room, so I figured it was a safe bet that she was the one and only Johanna Draper. I sat behind her for a good 20 minutes just dreaming up all sorts of deviltry I could play upon my advantage over her at this point - “Uh, are you Johanna Draper? Could I have your autograph?!?!” “You wouldn’t happen to be Johanna Draper would you? I’m supposed to tell you that your car is being towed.” However, I thought that might be getting off on the wrong foot - I usually get to know someone for minutes before playing a practical joke on them. As the panel was ending, I got Johanna’s attention and introduced myself. Johanna’s a charming young lady with just a hint of North Carolina accent in her voice. Quite endearing. We headed back to the Friends of Lulu booth where I was introduced to Elayne, who have me a big hug. Mike Chary showed up as well, with Sidne, and both were helping work the Atlas Comics dealer booth. We could have had an online reviewers convention right there. I showed off a couple of baby pictures, and we made some 2:00 lunch plans, which gave me about an hour to tour the show some more I next found J. Torres and Tim Levins, the creative geniuses behind THE COPYBOOK TALES (the first issue of which is due out soon from SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS - look for online announcements soon!). I got to seem some preview pages from the first issue. The photocopies were a little smudged, but it looked even better than the mini comics many of us on RAC have come to love. Tim and J. deserve the very best, and we’re all hoping TCT turns out to be a huge success. I’m also hoping to hang with these guys a bit more in Chicago come June. If you see them in Chicago this year, be sure and pick up TCT mini comics - they are destined to be collectable classics after the ongoing series comes out! I did a little shopping at this point - filled some holes in my AVENGERS run, picked up a copy of DRAMA, and window shopped - don’t you love when you take the time to print out a want list for a con and forget to bring it with you? Shortly before 2:00, I headed back to the FOL booth, and discovered that directly behind the FOL booth was one Monique Gabrielle. An interesting (one might even say ironic) pairing of booths. Ms. Gabrielle is billed as a “super model and movie star.” Um, yea. It’s kind of tough to consider yourself a model if your not WEARING ANYTHING in the pictures taken of you, don’t you think? As for the “movie star” part of her billing, I don’t think Ms. Gabrielle has had any outstanding roles....probably not even any standing roles.....What her connection to the comics world is, I have no idea. I didn’t get close enough to her booth to find out (understand that coming within ten paces of this woman meant placing yourself in danger of being knocked over by her enormous breasts. I’ve got a family to think about so I didn’t risk it. However, I could see that she was selling autographed nudie pictures of herself. Nice, wholesome entertainment these comic book conventions are.... In any event we all met up for lunch at 2:00. Chary suggested we trek over to Olive Garden. I (and the others with us, I suspect) would have been just as happy with Big Boys, given that it was closer. But Chary seemed determined to go for the Garden, so we risked life and limb climbing snow banks and crossing traffic to get to the Olive Garden. I mention this because, after a 20 minute wait to be seated, Mike proceeded to order...a glass of water. I looked at him and said “A glass of water???? You dragged over here and your ordering a glass of water???” Looking quite incensed he said “Oh, Jesus Christ, “ and changed his order...and was told that they were probably out of the particular dish he ordered. So he _still_ got away with just having water. Johanna and I both had Calamari and stuffed shrimp, which was very good. We topped it off by splitting a divine piece of chocolate cheesecake - I use the term “split” rather liberally, as I ate a good 80% of the pie slice. My wife and I, being recovering chocoholics, eat chocolate deserts like someone is going to take it away from us. Johanna just couldn’t keep up her end on this joint venture however. Her loss. ;) Back to the con we went (I was quite relieved that coming and going we walked past my car in Bob Evans parking lot - and it was still there). Johanna and Elayne had to finish their shift at the FOL booth, so I caught another panel. Speaking of panels, this years panels were rather lack-luster. I remember last year’s panel’s really being much more interesting. The panel I went to was the MARVEL panel entitled UNFINISHED BUSINESS with Mark Waid, Bill Loebs, and Paul Ryan, and was moderated by Paul Grant. Not much was disseminated that we haven’t heard in the fan press regarding Onslaught and the fate of the MARVEL universe, and the transition of several MARVEL characters to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee. Waid left the impression that the reason for that was because there are a lot of details about this project that needed to be worked out...at least with how the actual story was going to work. At one point a fan raised his hand and asked, “who is Onslaught?” Waid looked toward the ceiling, in a contemplative sense, not exactly sure how to answer the questions and said, “Onslaught is...well he is kind of like,....well, really Onslaught is...” At which point I blurted out “TOM DEFALCO!!!!” That got a few laughs from both Waid and the audience. He did indicate that Onslaught was not a new character, and that older readers would be able to identify him. Later during the session, Paul Ryan talked briefly about his upcoming projects, which includes, among other notable projects, a HOW TO DRAW THE X-MEN BOOK THE MARVEL WAY book. When he opened things up for questions, I asked him “Mr. Ryan?” “Please call me Paul” he interrupted. “Paul, you mentioned among your upcoming projects a sort of “How to Draw Comics” book? “Oh, Yes.” he replied. “Well, would it be too much trouble for you to send a copy of that book to Rob Liefeld?....at least the chapter on feet?” That one brought the house down as well. One interesting thing that was easily picked up from the panelists was their collective bitterness toward MARVEL - including Waid for them having taken CAPTAIN AMERICA from him. I wonder how much longer he’ll be doing X-MEN. After the panel, I hooked back up with the RAC crew, and Johanna decided it was time to do some more shopping. Chary came along, as did Sidne, which gave me the opportunity to get know her better. Very outgoing, that one. One might even say, flirtatious? Naw...did I say that? :) Johanna ended up finding some older WONDER WOMAN and SUPERMAN’S GIRLFRIEND, LOIS LANE issues she was looking for. I picked up a darn nice copy of UNCANNY #130 which Mike found for me, and upon Johanna’s recommendation picked up AKIKO ON THE PLANET SMOO #1. We had a lot of fun window shopping, and joking around. After we concluded shopping, it was about 6:30 and I was beginning to get worried about my car, so I said my good-byes and drove back to Grand Rapids. All in all, this was a very enjoyable con for me, and I had a blast during the time spent with the folks from RAC. I’m hoping all will show up in Chicago in June, so we can all hang again...and maybe even party! I’ll be glad to teach Johanna and Sidne how to dance...:) I know I met a few other folks from the net Saturday, but I really am horrible with names, so don’t take your exclusion from this report as any sort of a slight. For those of you who were hoping to read about some juicy fights in this report, sorry to disapoint you. Everyone I met was very pleasant in person. They all probobly thought I was an unfunny, overbearing, pie-hoging, breast obsessed pig, but they hide it well...:) CYA in Chi-Town! John