From: Glans Glennis <[lf 7 z] at [midway.uchicago.edu]> Date: Thu, 3 Aug 95 16:09:37 CDT Subject: SDCC (Was Re: Kitchen Sink signs a deal with Capital???) - -Poster: Glans Glennis <[lf 7 z] at [midway.uchicago.edu]> > -Poster: CH <[C W H 93001] at [UConnVM.UConn.Edu]> > > The Capital exclusive may have something to do with Ocean Capital, > the investment group which bought KSP out. Can anyone find out the > terms of KSP's deal with Capital? Is it a brokerage deal, like the > recent Diamond exclusives, or not? Is KSP seeking a controlling > interest in Capital? What's going on? Nope, it was purely Denis' idea as I understand it. Out of all the people at the Cap City conf in Chicago, he's the only one who followed through. Sad, eh? Well, I think so, anyway. :-) Seriously, the game talked by just a whole a lot of people was they were going with Capital, but they were all waiting on Image and Dark Horse to go first. And nobody expected the left turn... On the other hand, lots of small guys said they were going to stay non-exclusive in San Diego after the bombs dropped. Image and Dark Horse shocked me because I just don't understand why they'd trust Diamond with that much power over the market. I know I sure as hell don't. >B^) I have no idea whether KSP is seeking a controlling interest in Capital or not, but I kinda doubt it. Well, haven't seen much here in the way of reports on San Diego, so what the Hell. I posted this to one of the newsgroups, and I know lots of my comix@ buddies don't do news. Plus Marvel was in the subject line and mebbe you killed it. >B^) It's really long and rambly and has lots of schmoozing bits, so delete now if your threshold is low for that sort of thing. To paraphrase M.Chary, this is not a report. :-) (and apologies to jrd, sorry I missed seein' ya, guy). - ---------- In article <[D C nB 3 t 5 Gv] at [festival.ed.ac.uk]>, Paul O'Brien <[p--b] at [festival.ed.ac.uk]> wrote: >THIS IS WHAT WE MEANT BY ABUSE OF POWER. >Do you get the point now? > >My current feelings on Marvel are really not easy to describe past >"fuck the lot of them." Almost as good as good as the shirts the Boneyard Press guys, dawg love 'em, were wearing at SDCC, which said in words that could be read from opposite ends of Soldier Field: "Marvel Can Suck My Cock". But what I want is a shirt that says "I Survived The Motown Party." Absolutely amazing. I showed up to a ridiculously long line for the elevator, as one was out of order, the other only working intermittently, and the stairs couldn't be opened from the stairwell. These were great -- no knob, no keyhole, nothing. The elevator came once in the half-hour we waited and we just missed getting on. Thank God -- this is important later. So finally, someone from Motown convinces them to let us walk the stairs with a security gaurd armed with walkie-talkie. Only nine flights since the "party" was on the top floor. :-) We finally arrive topside, get that door open, and only 20 minutes later succeed in getting a drink, when Michael Davis launches into Diamond Appreciation Day. Lemme 'splain. Apparently only three people in history have won this Motown Appreciation thingie: Barry Gordy, Stevie Wonder and Stevie Gieppi. Yup. So they awarded that with much pomp and under pretty horrid circumstance. Well, the only reason I had attended this was to hook back up with the crew I'd left in Tijuana earlier -- being Kurt and Eric of Chicago Comics, Terry LaBan and Jill Thompson, and Pete Coogan and fiance Debbie, in order to rescue my partner Wes from the closing Convention Center. And I couldn't find the gallery with Mary Fleener's opening a little earlier so it was this "party" or nuttin'. Fortunately, the former four showed up at this point (we still dunno what happened to Pete and Debbie or how we managed to miss each other >B^), and I said hello-goodbye (they were going off the Film Threat anyway), downed my screwdriver, headed off in search of the chimerical freight elevator with Joe "Silly Daddy" Chiapetti and his mini-crew, and got the Hell Out Of Helliah. Finally reaching the street I couldn't help but notice the several fire trucks blocking my parked car. It seems the group that I watched get on the elevator were only just now getting extricated from it. :-/ So I drove Wes up to LA, slept a few hours at his sister's place, drove back to SD the next morning, fully re-charged! >B^) But, ahem, the name of this hotel was Bristol Court, and if ever you are silly enough to stay at this place, tell them I hope they burn to ground having first forgotten to pay the insurance premium. >B^) Well I'm here now, and I'll never get around to doing a *real* report, so here're some rambly random highlights. Arrived late Sunday night to LAX, eventually drove down to SD and found Wes's cousin's place around 3 am or so (a resident who works at UCSD Med Center so we barely saw him, lives in Mission Bay mere blocks from Pacific Beach and looks like Brad Pitt. I hate him. :-) A highlight that has zero to do with the Con was listening to "Dr. Pitt"'s roommate (who's from Egypt), argue with his new girlfriend (who's from Lebanon), over whose dialect was correct and superior to the other. Since I've worked in both Egypt and Syria (very similar to Lebanon dialect... uh, they sound a lot alike) I got to be arbiter. I never had so much fun! Yalla habeebi! Ah, young love... Monday am checked in at the Expo, which went real smooth -- the Con organization throughout was superb. So we did the Internet panel at 10:30am to a surprisingly full room, considering the Expo floor didn't open 'til Tuesday. That was with Janet Tait (who did the SDCC web pages and is on the Con staff) and Mimi Rosenheim of BankAmerica, and it went well. After that, there really wasn't much to do since the Expo floor wasn't open yet, and looking through the program, the panels were all pretty much aimed at retailers. So we skipped out until Wednesday, and did San Diego things 'til then. Fish tacos, micro-brews, lots of beach time, stuff like that. Wednesday was great for going around the booths, seeing stuff, meeting people and rapping, 'cuz there weren't very many people there yet, mostly just people in the biz. But that was also when I hooked up with various and sundry Chicago and net.cronies. My vote for Coolest People I Met @ SDCC '95 goes to Ziggy of Kitchen Sink and Martha Thomases of DC, both of whom I'd love to have a beer with sometime. (If you get the impression I only go to these things to find old and new drinking buddies; no doubt. ;-) And everybody should buy Stuck Rubber Baby, they had the whole thing there and IMO you won't regret it. 'Nuff said. Feeling beach withdrawal again, we took the world's coolest bridge over to Coronado Island with Wes, Kurt and Eric, and vegged for a while, then had a great dinner at a local pub. I'm convinced that the cure for con-center-itis is some serious beach time. >B^) I think Wednesday was also the Diamond Gala and all the distributor high weirdness. But that wasn't nearly so weird as the world's worst Jimmy Buffet cover band nor all the begging of red tickets (which enabled one to escape the ridiculously high prices of the cash bar) from various DC folk milling around with them in their pockets. It was sad, really. >B^) >B^) Still, it was a huge turnout, and it was fun rapping with new and old friends, whilst drinking heavily to forget distribution weirdness, not to mention avoiding Tom Fassbender's big mama cigars on the smoking porch. (jes' kidding, Tom :-) Also where I saw a lot of net.ters, amongst them Tom Galloway, David Goldfarb, Troy McNemar, Pete and Debbie, Steve Lieber, Sidne, Johanna (who actually liked the band, but we love her anyway ;-). Probably others I'm forgetting. Thursday I spent much of the day walking through artist's alley, rapping with everyone. Also I think Joyce's Activists! panel was that day, and I finally got to meet Tim Stroup of the Grand Comics Database. Back to Coronado Island 'cuz Ziggy clued us in on great fruit drinks and sunsets at the Coronado Del Mar, a gorgeous hotel where lots of films were made (like Some Like It Hot, the Stunt Man, and tons of others) and L. Frank wrote like six of the Oz novels. After that we went to James Owen's pizza party for a little while (thanks James!) where we hooked up with Minneapolis folks from Dreamhaven and Comic Book College, and then on to a wonderfully bizarre film called "The City of Lost Children" (in Glenn's butchered French I guess that's something like "le cite des enfants perdus", won something at Cannes, by the director of "Delicatessen" only lots better, starred Ron Perelman, out here at Christmas), that was courtesy of the great folks at Kitchen Sink also. Already talked about Friday, so when I got back to San Diego (which took forever due to construction and heavy traffic) on Saturday, finally found a cheap hotel, and made it back to the Con it was already kind of late. But I had nice chats with lots of people I'd been wanting to meet. Missed Scott Gilbert at Einstein (caught up to him later), however I did talk to Teri Wood and the Strange Attractors guys and several others. Unfortunately, Eddie Campbell was busy talking to Neil Gaiman, so I never did get to meet him, dagnabbit. Missed Andrew Vachss, too. :-( Bought a Pirate Corp$ page for way too little money, talked briefly to Matt Wagner, talked to Harvey for a while when I couldn't find Joyce once again.:-) And Sam Henderson and Stephen Blue, lots in the small press booths, some others at the big booths. Back in the alley at day's end to meet up with Joe Chiapetti for dinner, and there was Scott, which was great 'cuz I was going to be really unhappy if I missed him altogether after years on the comix list and gutters list and the like. Scott's new book "It's All True" (collection of "True Artist Tales") is just out with the help of a Xeric grant, and it's a damn fine book, so pick it up, slackers! While waiting for Joyce, I had a fascinating time listening to Harvey talk to Scott about various things for a bit while the con people tried to get us out of there. :-) Scott's also doing some AS with Harvey I think. [ahem, feel free to jump in here Scott :-) ] So then Joe, Scott and I went off for Indian food with Arielle Bordeaux (who had a new Deep Girl she self-published) and her friend Lisa Onamoto(sp?). Lisa does some pretty nice minis, which I unfortunately didn't make it home with. But the address was the Berkeley Comic Relief, where she works. Somehow I lost Scott when we left his hotel, terribly ironic since the restaurant was just up the street and we just didn't realize it. :-( (I'm good at this -- just ask Mike Chary :-) I got money at that Horton Plaza mall thingie and now I know why they call it Escher Plaza. They should shoot the architect. ;-) Joe went off to a bonfire at Ocean Beach with several of the mini guys, Scott had gone to the Roger Corman party, and Arielle, Lisa and I went to the Fantagraphics party. Well I guess it was FBI, Hypno Magazine and Last Gasp, and the gate went to the CBLDF. This was probably the most fun for me, it was at this sort of combo bar and driving range club close to the harbor. There were three bands, lots of friends, and just a really fun atmostphere. 'Course Jeff Mason thought it was lame, but what does he know. >B^) We found Scott G. again, and Pete and Debbie were there, and I met Jeff (who talks just as fast as Mark Nevins, or close anyway... >B^). We were going to head over to the Dark Horse party, but that got aborted. And just as well too, because as things slowly wound down, it was a good place to be. Award for Best Person To Sit On Astroturf and Drink Flat Icehouse With definitely goes to Marc Arsenault of Wow Cool, I had a fine time rapping about nothing in particular with him. So we ended up sitting in various circles on the astroturf, smokin' (well I was anyway :-), drinkin', rappin', and jammin' on James Brown. In our circle was me and Marc, Tom Fassbender, Nick from DC, Paul Pope, (the guy from Dreamhaven and I'll be damned if I can remember his name. :-( Really nice guy though.) and it was a good end to the Con. Paul made a comment on how thoroughly sick he was of getting asked what he was working on, and I had to laugh knowing I'd asked easily dozens of people this very thing who were probably just as thoroughly sick of answering it. :-) Like I say, you gotta hit the beach a bit. :-) Back to LA the next day to turn in the car and argue bumper scratches, convince Southwest that I did indeed switch my flight from Saturday to Sunday and they damn well were going to let me on the plane, and finally back to horridly humid Chicago. What did I buy... Never did make it to the dealers' section (not that I had any money...) so mostly I came home with ashcans and minis and things like that. Well I bought the kids decopagued frogs in Tiajuana, but besides that I mean. :-) These were way cool, they play different instruments, and Terry LaBan and I got a deal by getting 5 altogether. He got the best one which plays violin. ;-) What little I did come home with was good though. Picked up Matt Feazell's Ert!, Magic Whistle #8 by Sam Henderson, Hutch Owen's Working Hard by Tom Hart, the aforementioned True Artist Tales by Scott Gilbert. All that stuff is highly recommended. Also got Charles Vess' Book of Ballads and Sagas ashcan and that looks really promising, and Stephen Blue's Red River which I liked, and a Larry Marder Beanworld ashcan which features the return of the Big Fish (among other things). Plus a Beanworld action figure, natch. :-) TOTB will be back in a big way with a 64pp. standalone tentatively called "The Float Factor". Lessee, sketches from Teri Wood and Drew Hayes, a Too Much Coffee Man mouse pad that rocks, bunches of pins for the kids, a Vess print from the Expo. And this guy at Einstein's had a great idea. He reduced 18pp. down on a single piece of 11"x17" that you could fold over. A nice chunk of preview that didn't cost him so much. :-) Anyway, the book is called Ehlissa, the creator is Angus MacLeod, and his press is Highland Graphics. It's an interesting tale if you're into fantasy, and it's well-drawn. He also has a web page which is... http://www.taisbean.com/commercial/Ehlissa/home.htm/ (but I'm suspicious of the last slash... :-) Well eleven days to the Chicago I.C.E. Spirits stop and counting, huh? ;-) Pax ex machina, Glenn ...................................................................... "Read my lips: I don't need no wah-wah" --- George "I don't mind company, because company's alright with me every once in a while, yes it is." --- Aretha [g carnagey] at [uchicago.edu], if you must know Phone Homey the Page! .....................................................................