Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

My Way Overdue Dragon*Con Report (LONG)

7 views
Skip to first unread message

Ray Radlein

unread,
Jul 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/10/97
to

So there I was, whipping out an incredibly detailed, *minute-by-minute*
con report ("8:58 PM - Went into the bathroom. No toilet paper in this
stall, either. Damn."), when Gary threw down his gauntlet. What to do? A
quandary! Should I press forward with my memoirs, or pound out a quick
overview? To tell the truth, I had become almost mesmerized by the sight
of my hands flying across the keyboard, to and fro, spilling forth an
apparently endless stream of verbiage. The movements were lush and
hypnotic; a rich, Brownian motion, one might say.

Ahem.

Once again, I should mention that I am pretty much guaranteed to have a
good time at Dragon*Con -- my sister and her husband run "Collector's
Cards," and buy floor space in the Dealer Room every year at D*C. These
days, it is usually the only time during the year that I get to see
them. In addition, my mom and Angie's mom are usually along for the ride
as well, making D*C our largest annual family get-together -- bigger
than Thanksgiving or Christmas. As always, then, our D*C experience
starts with set-up and STARS, and ends with break-down and loading,
after the con is over.

As I have said before, in my brief preview, this year's D*C was not the
best con (not even the best Dragon*Con) ever, but neither was it the
worst. The most obvious problem was the dispersed layout -- as nearly
everyone has already commented. The Inforum is a gorgeous place for a
Dealer Room and all, but I really *missed* being so close to the heart's
blood of the con. At previous D*C's, if you had a bit of a wait in
between panel events, or were tired of the Dealer Room, or whatever, you
could always just mosey on up (or down) to the lobby and mingle, or
people-watch. In fact, I think that's Angie's mother's favorite thing to
do at Dragon*Con. Hopefully, next year will find things a bit more
concentrated. On the other hand, parking at the Inforum was marvelous
(if a bit pricey). We were consistently able to find parking right by
the elevators, which then dropped us off right outside the Dealer Room
(or registration). One minute from car to Dealer Room door is hard to
beat.

In addition, having D*C back at the Inforum next year would be nice for
one other reason: The view from the west wall of the Dealer Room (or the
cafeteria) of Centennial Olympic Park. At the moment, the park is in the
midst of being completely made over and renovated (after all, there's no
point having a big Swatch pavilion or Media Center there any more), so
the north end of the park -- the end across the street from the Inforum
-- is one big Georgia red clay wasteland. It looks like the site of the
Centennial Olympic Strip Mine Pit. Aside from the odd bulldozer, the
only thing breaking the lifeless monotony of the park is the bomb
memorial. But by next year, it will be a park again, with trees and
green space and flowers and a small Olympic Museum. It'd make a nice
view from the Dealer Room. Not nice enough to compensate for spreading
the con out over another block, but nice nonetheless.

As for the Dealer Room, it was, to my mind, much better than last
year's. Combined with the Art Show, it was almost a square city block in
size, so there was plenty of room for all kinds of stuff, with aisles
that were still wide enough to rarely get congested (except around the
GWAR booth, which was one aisle behind us -- those outfits and their
accessories take up quite a lot of room). There were also more Obscure
Book People this year than last, although I was still unable to find the
books that I was looking for (which, I noticed while reviewing last
year's con report, were the same books I was looking for *last* year --
*sigh*). The one sad absence from this year's Dealer Room was, of
course, Nancy and her buttons. :-(

Overall, I found the Art Show to be better this year than last as well.
While not quite up to 1995's (NASFiC) standards, it was nicely laid out
(not nearly as cramped as the last couple of years), had almost all of
the art I was hoping to see there, and, miraculously, *almost* opened on
time (and there wasn't a rain delay this year!). Having people get a
bidder number (as opposed to using their membership number) was a bit
confusing, but since ours was "3," which I thought was pretty cool, I'm
not complaining. On the other hand, the whole bid-to-auction process was
much more confusing than last year. I kind of understand the purpose in
having a separate auction for all of the really impressive stuff (with
lots of bids or very large bids), but it meant that, unless you were in
the Art Show *when* bidding closed, you had no clear idea *which*
auction the pieces you bid on were going to. And while I like the idea
of putting the Art Show and bidding process on the internet, it would
have been nice if *someone* -- either at the Art Show itself, or on
D*C's web site -- had actually posted the appropriate address somewhere.
If they intend to do this in the future, it would also be nice to list
all of the items which are going to auction, and which auction they are
going to (and, perhaps, which bidder number has the high bid, and what
that bid is), so people can more easily plan their auction strategy (an
example: I went to the Sunday morning auction, missing some other stuff
I wanted to do, and sat through half of the auction before I discovered
that the piece I was waiting to bid on had already been auctioned off
the night before).

I also had some problems with the credit card surcharge the Art Show
folks were tacking on at time of purchase -- it was decidedly *more*
than the processing fee charged by the credit card service providers
themselves. Also, I am not certain, but I *think* that the Art Show
folks were charging too much sales tax on purchases (the sales tax in
Fulton County was scheduled to go up on July 1, two days *after*
Dragon*Con ended). It only cost me an extra buck or so, but it was still
annoying.

Dispersed layout aside, the major bummer of the con was the spate of
cancellations. D*C seemed plagued by them this year, although it is
possible that they had an entirely normal number of cancellations which
just happened to fall disproportionately into the "Very Visible" and
"Important to *Me*" categories. Aside from the cancellation of Charlton
Heston and the internal exile of Mercedes Lackey (both of which have
been hashed over elsewhere), Stephen Furst had to cancel due to
professional commitments (always a danger with media guests, of course),
as did Lloyd Kaufman and Brad Strickland (BTW, people have commented on
John Rhys-Davies' efforts in doing the con with busted ribs, but Michael
O'Hare was also clearly not feeling at all well, at least at the start
of the con). The lit-SF crew seemed unusually hard-hit, with George Alec
Effinger and Barbara Hambly canceling, as well as Jane Fancher, Lynne
Abbey, and C. J. Cherryh. In addition, Bernie Wrightson canceled, and
Ben Edlund, while present, never *did* show up at his "Artist's Alley"
table -- his lonely name placard stood silent witness until Sunday, when
someone finally removed it. Also, one of the two primary representatives
of core fandom, Julius Schwartz, was forced to cancel due to ill health.
One result of all the writer cancellations was, in my opinion, a much
weaker overall lit-SF track and set of guests than in previous years.

Personally, I'd love it if Dragon*Con took aggressive steps to improve
its literary SF track and guests next year (by way of compensation, if
nothing else). I thought last year's "theme" of cyberpunk was pretty
cool (although it's like, *so* fifteen minutes ago), even if they didn't
have several of the major authors, such as Vernor Vinge, William Gibson,
etc. I wouldn't mind seeing a good "theme" for next year, like "Hard SF"
(Niven, Clement, Hogan, etc.) or "Military SF" (Weber, Drake, Bujold, et
al.) or even "Literary SF" (Morrow, Banks, Wolfe, Bishop, etc.) -- hey,
a guy can dream, can't he?

I'd also like a better Science track, although I have absolutely no
right to complain, since, in the wake of last year's con report, the
person in charge of the Science track e-mailed me and solicited my input
on this year's track. Needless to say, I promptly lost the e-mail; and
my wife, to whom I had forwarded it, changed jobs, sending all *her*
e-mail into darkest limbo. Oh well. Maybe *this* year I can work up some
nice ideas for *next* year (a functional Sojourner model and
demonstration would be kind of cool... and so would a levitating frog,
come to think of it).

While I'm blithely making suggestions, I'd like to suggest some possible
comics and media guests as well: From the world of comics, I'd really
like to see some subset of Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, Alan Moore, Paul
Chadwick, Shannon Wheeler, John Ney Rieber, and Dave McKean added to the
lineup; and I'd love to see the media side expand its B5 offerings (JMS?
Jason Carter? Billy Mummy? Andreas Katsulas? Claudia Christian?
Ardwright Chamberlain? Et cetera, et cetera), and to add some Xena
programming (perhaps as part of a "strong women" track -- along with
"Buffy, The Vampire Slayer" and, say, Michelle Yeoh?). In fact, I'd
*love* to see a full-fledged Xena track. There is a burgeoning Xena
fandom out there, and at the moment they are "served" exclusively by
Creation. Anything which could be done to break through to them would be
good. Even if Lucy or Renee were unavailable (will they be back filming
by September?), perhaps Liz Friedman could be pried loose from
Production duties, or one of the semi-regular actors, such as Robert
Trebor, Hudson Leick, or Cory Everson (as long as Ted Raimi isn't the
only guest -- Joxer is not particularly liked by large segments of the
Xena community) could be had.

I've kind of decided to break out some of the more notable bits of my
con report into little (?) vignettes, a la Dave Romm's "Minicon
Moments"; but a brief synopsis of some of the high points follows:

(1) - The Trilogy Tour. Jeff Smith, Charles Vess, and Linda Medley, and
a really *cool* set-up. Jeff Smith always had substantial lines, from
Thursday morning to Sunday afternoon sometime. Fortunately, I had filled
out my Bone collection Wednesday night, during set-up and STARS, as well
as taking the opportunity to pick up a pass to the Trilogy Tour Party
(more on that elsewhere). In addition to providing a bit of chat time,
Wednesday night was an excellent illustration of a point about...


(2) ...my mom. As far as I know, my mother has never read a single SF
book of any kind. She doesn't watch SF TV shows, or go to SF movies. If
she ever read a comic book, it was probably some time before World War
Two. But it seems like everyone knows *her*. For instance, I was feeling
pretty good about getting the two Bone hardbacks I was missing. Angie,
who had little or no experience with Bone, was intrigued, and I bought
her some Bone playing cards. Mom thought those were pretty neat, and I
walked back over to the Trilogy booth with her so she could buy some.
"Oh, hi!" said my mom to Jeff Smith. "I remember you from the Diamond
Preview Show back in 1991!" And Jeff remembered her, and they chatted
for a bit. Or there was the time she introduced Peter David to David
Cherry, or the time I was informed that she had adopted Larry Elmore as
her newest son ("He may now be my older brother, but I still have more
time in grade than he does"). She's good at that Mom Thing, I guess.


(3) - Listening to Bob Burden read his Death Threat Letter. Well, his
and Dave Sim's Death Threat Letter, I suppose, although I don't know if
Dave ever got a copy of his own.


(4) - This year's Civil War T-shirt from Wayne Vansant. Last year's
shirt had an Olympic theme: "Atlanta's Original Torchbearer," it said,
showing a picture of General Sherman holding aloft a flaming torch, with
the charred ruins of Atlanta behind him. This year's T-shirt made fun of
the Yankees, instead, and was so funny that I *had* to buy it, despite
the fact that it had Nathan Bedford Forrest, perhaps my least favorite
Civil War soldier (even Angie, who went to a High School named after the
man who drafted the Articles of Secession, hissed when I mentioned his
name to her), as one of the figures on the front. If he'd had more of
the shirts, I would have bought more, probably; I got the last XL for
myself, and my mother bought the last Large for my brother (uh, not
Larry Elmore -- my *real* brother). Amazingly, Wayne Vansant had *not*
ever met my mother at any previous convention.


(5) - The masquerade, with Peter David as Master of Ceremonies. Dressed
as Moses, he began by reading off the Ten Commandments, which included
"...Thou shalt not make fun of Ed Kramer [audience boos] ...for that is
the MC's job! [audience cheers]"


(6) - There is no number 6.


(7) - The Xena Doll Incident. Well, it wasn't much of an *incident*, but
then again, it's also not a "doll," is it? I mean, anything that ships
with a sword and armor is an "Action Figure," right? Anyway, it all
began when my sister sent my mom over to get John Byrne to autograph a
ToyBiz 10" She-Hulk Action Figure (okay, so there's no sword or armor
shipped with She-Hulk. Bite me). Before she left, she had overheard me
mention to Robin and Bob that the 10" She-Hulk was simply the ToyBiz 10"
Xena action figure repainted. She relayed this tidbit of information to
Mr. Byrne, who mentioned, in reply, that he had never seen a 10" Xena
action figure. I brought ours in the next day, and we showed it to him.

After that, I decided put Xena back in the car. Angie and I walked out
of the Dealer Room, where we sat down for a moment while we tried to
coordinate our schedules for the rest of the afternoon. While we sat
there, we noticed that almost everyone walking into (or even past) the
Dealer Room was staring at the Xena action figure. We overheard several
people excitedly whispering "Look! They have Xena dolls in the Dealer
Room!" to each other; and a couple of folks even asked us outright if we
had gotten the Xena figure in the Dealer Room (I did later find *one*
10" Xena figure for sale in the Dealer Room -- for $40!). I hated to
disappoint them, and so, to avoid giving even *more* people false hopes,
I hurried to the elevators to go down to the car. This lead to...


(8) ...one of the main egoboo moments of the con for me. I was dressed
in black, with a long black coat on, when this female B5 fan on the
elevator said "Look! It's Marcus!" This comment was good for a *lot* of
Debate Coup Points with Angie, who thinks Jason Carter is the finest
thing this side of Pierce Brosnan, and who sometimes gripes about my
hair, despite the fact that it's essentially the same length and style
as Marcus' is (same beard, too, more or less). Maybe it's all in the
accent. Without the public school accent, Angie thinks I look more like
Christ ("What, did you get a look at His driver's license photo?").
Although, come to think of it, Christ probably didn't have a midwestern
American accent, either. Or a nifty telescoping quarterstaff -- except
for the 10" Jesus Action Figure with Turbo Power Miracle Healing Action.


(9) - George Johnsen's B5 Presentations. One nice feature of being in
Atlanta, just as TNT was making its announcement about a fifth season
for B5, is that when someone in the audience asked George when the
episodes would be aired, and he didn't know, there was a person from TNT
in the back of the room who *did* know. Since George had been teaching
the entire audience how to suck up to TNT ("...whom we LOVE!"), this was
a nice touch.


(10) - Running into Forrest Ackerman. Literally, almost, and repeatedly.
I almost plowed into him in the cafeteria, and then he sat at the next
table over from my mother-in-law and me; later, I almost ran into him in
the Dealer Room while walking with my mom, and again later while walking
with Angie. And how does one *explain* Forry to the uninitiated? I got
three chances in a row to run through his curriculum vitae, to explain
to my mother-in-law, my mother, and my wife, just exactly who that man I
nearly ran over *was*.


(11) - Meeting Jane Spaulding. After having talked with her on the phone
a couple of times, ironing out some minor registration problems before
the con, it was nice to finally meet her in person, even if the entire
conversation was little more than "Oh, Hi! So you're..." et cetera, et
cetera.


(12) - *Almost* meeting Dirk Loedding and Mike Dillson. I *saw* both of
them, at least. I was in line at Registration one afternoon, trying to
get a minor change made to my badge, when Mike blew past, just quickly
enough for me to read his badge and not catch him; and on Sunday, I
joined my wife for portions of the B5 programming, and George Johnsen
pointed Dirk out to the crowd. Unfortunately, he wasn't around after the
program, when I wanted to catch him and say hello. Oh, and Ed Kramer had
to cancel his autograph session due to con business (from the timing, I
suspect it was the Charlton Heston thing), so I never even got to *see*
him. I guess that means I'm not an actual Crony yet. Although I did
physically meet Jane, and even exchanged a couple of sentences with her,
so maybe I'm a Psheep. Who knows.


(13) - All the nice folks from the Dealer Room and Art Show. Some of
them, like Monster Mike and the Elmore clan and Clyde Caldwell, are
constant presences on the con circuit, so they see Robin and Bob and mom
all the time; others, like the wonderful lady from Sigil (whom we are
definitely going to contact once we have a house in which to put windows
for her to etch), are locals, and don't do all that many cons.
Regardless, the only time *we* get to see most of them is at Dragon*Con,
and they are always a welcome sight. Heck, one of the best things about
the Dealer Room is simply making the rounds, chatting, comparing notes
(con's a bit slow for this one; that one's having a great weekend,
etc.), and visiting. As always, the best part of any con is the people.


(14) - Our pleasant new Art Show discovery for this year. Tina Thomas is
her name, from far-flung North Dakota, and her stuff is simply
marvelous. Normally, I'm not much for fairy damsels riding horses, and
the like, but she has a series of prints which are quite excellent; and
the elaborate matting and framing job her husband does improves the
overall effect even more (and this from someone who tends toward the
"framing should be unobtrusive" school). Every year we swear we are
going to spend less on artwork, and every year we spend more (but on
fewer, bigger things); the trend held this year, and it's entirely her
fault. :-)

We had been debating on which of her works to buy, and how many, all
weekend; and when we finally made our way over to her booth late Sunday
afternoon to make our purchases, who did we run into but Robin and Bob.
They were, in fact, buying one of the same prints that we bought, only
without the fancy framing.


(15) - Finally, of course, all of the other folks we met at the con. We
are all looking forward to a more compact con next year, so that we can
meet that many more of them; but the ones we did meet were as friendly
and entertaining as always.

See y'all next year!


- Ray R.


--
*********************************************************************
"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to RULE THE SEVAGRAM!"

Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
*********************************************************************


David G. Bell

unread,
Jul 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/10/97
to

In article <33C47D...@learnlink.emory.edu>
r...@learnlink.emory.edu "Ray Radlein" writes:

> (8) ...one of the main egoboo moments of the con for me. I was dressed
> in black, with a long black coat on, when this female B5 fan on the
> elevator said "Look! It's Marcus!" This comment was good for a *lot* of
> Debate Coup Points with Angie, who thinks Jason Carter is the finest
> thing this side of Pierce Brosnan, and who sometimes gripes about my
> hair, despite the fact that it's essentially the same length and style
> as Marcus' is (same beard, too, more or less). Maybe it's all in the
> accent. Without the public school accent, Angie thinks I look more like
> Christ ("What, did you get a look at His driver's license photo?").
> Although, come to think of it, Christ probably didn't have a midwestern
> American accent, either. Or a nifty telescoping quarterstaff -- except
> for the 10" Jesus Action Figure with Turbo Power Miracle Healing Action.

British actors tend to be quite flexible in their accents, but Jason
Carter is a local guy -- Gainsborough -- and there are definite traces
of that accent when he's on B5. Not quite like mine -- he's Trent
Valley and I'm a mix of Cliff, Humber Bank, and Ancholme Valley.

--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..


Ray Radlein

unread,
Jul 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/11/97
to

I had forgotten just what the Inforum was like on the inside. The last
time I had been there was for COMDEX many years before (which should
tell you something right there about how big Dragon*Con is). We arrived
a little while after 8:00 PM on Wednesday night; badge pickup was
already in full swing. There was a *huge* mass of people waiting in a
very long line that we realized, after careful study, was only for
people who had pre-registered through TicketMaster.

We hunted around for someone with a Clue. Finally, we were pointed in
the right direction, towards a cluster of registration booths on the
other side of the elevators. There was a sign there, of course, plainly
visible if you knew exactly where to look, which we now did. There were
three lines, leading to widely separated registration desks: One for
people (like Angie) whose last names fall in the "A-H" range; one for
"I-Q," and one for "R-Z." The "A-H" line was enormous. The "R-Z" line,
on the other hand, was one person chatting with the volunteer. I walked
right up and got my badge while Angie glared at me.

By the time she got her badge and packet, a little more than 30 minutes
later, the TicketMaster line still looked just as long.


Note to Ed: Perhaps next year you can convince them to change their name
to the much more Fannishly-Correct "MembershipMaster." :-)

Ray Radlein

unread,
Jul 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/15/97
to

The fashion panic hit just after noon: "Oh, no," I realized. "I'm
dressed like a fanboy!"

I really *had* forgotten about the Trilogy Tour Party when I was getting
dressed that morning. But there I was, going to a party thrown by Jeff
Smith, Linda Medley, and Charles Vess, wearing a Sandman t-shirt drawn
by -- you got it -- Charles Vess.

I suppose I could have bought another t-shirt somewhere and changed, but
it really wasn't *that* important, was it? Anyway, 6:00 PM finally
rolled around, I put my stuff in the car, bade Angie good hunting at the
Art Auction, and walked over to the Hyatt, where the VIP Suite awaited.

Waitaminnit. *The* VIP Suite? The Hyatt is the grand old crown jewel of
downtown Atlanta hotels. When it was first built, people used to drive
in from all over the region to gawk at the John Portman-designed lobby
(soaring, towering lobbies with glass elevators on the inside may be
common now, but they sure as heck weren't back *then*). What on earth
made the Trilogy folks think there'd be only *one* "VIP Suite"? I went
immediately to the Concierge desk; surely they'd know *which* "VIP
Suite" Trilogy was using.

Well, no, actually, they didn't. They had been sending folks who asked
up to Room 1710; but, just as I walked up, they discovered that Room
1710 was, in reality, hosting a birthday party. Phone calls were made.
Meanwhile, two vaguely familiar-looking guys walked past, flanking a
*very* attractive woman in a multi-layered diaphanous purple skirt, with
purple gems adorning her face. I contemplated the image of folks like
that crashing some unsuspecting birthday party.

Eventually, they got it all figured out, and directed me to the correct
VIP Suite. The party was just underway; aside from the hosts, there were
only a handful of other people in attendance. The purple woman and her
companions had found their way there. So had the pizza. A whole lot of
pizza. There were also soft drinks; and, next to the drinks, a *large*
blank white posterboard sitting on an easel.

I hadn't really eaten that day, so I found a seat on a couch, and made
up for lost time with the pizza. I answered a couple of questions about
Collector's Cards, but for the most part my conversational gambits bore
an eerie resemblance to chewing sounds. Not that they don't normally, of
course. After I had put away a couple of slices, I was chatting with a
woman whom I believe was with Trilogy. She asked what types of comics I
liked, and added, "Of course, you obviously like Charles Vess..."

Well, yes, I do, but I was baffled by her comment, until I noticed that
she was looking at my chest. I glanced down. A dour Lord Morpheus, drawn
in Vess' distinctive style, stood hovering over William Shakespeare's
shoulder. They looked back at me. I had a sneaking suspicion that
Shakespeare was smirking.

Fanboy shirt strikes again! Aiiieeee!

Shortly thereafter, Charles Vess picked up a sharpie, went to the
posterboard, and began drawing one of those gnarled, knotted,
full-of-character trees of his. He handed the pen to the nearest
bystander -- a retailer, I think -- who added a mother bird, baby bird,
and nest in the tree. Another artist -- Joe Quesada, perhaps? -- added
an almost Gahan Wilson-esque monster lurking among the roots of the
tree, at the lower right corner of the posterboard. Bob Burden, having
some difficulty drawing on an unsupported vertical surface, added a
female face, all alone on the left-hand side of the poster. Jeff Smith
tossed in Smiley Bone in the Mystery Cow outfit, in the bottom center.
There was a brief lull, while the hosts tried to get more volunteers
from the audience. Finally, the purple woman rose to the challenge. It
turns out that the guys who were with her looked so familiar because
they were with the Todd McFarlane contingent; the purple woman was their
Designated Angela.

Angela, it seems, has many skills; in addition to wielding a mean lance
and slaying Spawn left and right, she can draw a pretty fair unicorn. A
couple of other small lower foreground figures were the end of the
retailer contributions; by that time, more pros had arrived to take up
the banner. Patty Leidy drew a woman drifting away, holding on to a
balloon; William Tucci gave the poster its only splash of color, with
red lips (and eyeliner) on a female face. Mike Allred carefully added a
Madman, his lines crowding right up to Billy Tucci's aforementioned
face. Peter Bagge added a large, goofy figure with "Komiks Fan" written
on it, holding two comics: "Bone by Walt Kelly" and "Milk and Cheese."
Everybody's favorite dairy products were simplified to their utmost,
appearing as a square and a triangle on the small cover.

Linda Medley drew some figures which, while retaining her characteristic
clarity of line, looked more like characters from "The Dark Crystal"
than from "Castle Waiting." Meanwhile, a pair of artists (penciler and
inker) drew Humongous Man in the upper right hand corner, borrowing my
.3mm steel point pen for the detail work. Sarah Dyer added a small
Action Girl, Stephanie Gladden added a cool Simpsons-esque lumberjack,
and Evan Dorkin started in on Milk and Cheese.

About that time, Jeff Smith added a large word balloon to the top of the
posterboard, explaining that there would be a drawing, and the winner
would have his store's name emblazoned across the posterboard, the
better to attract customers. This left me in a bit of a quandary, should
I win, as Robin & Bob don't really *have* a storefront, save that which
they make for themselves at cons. On the other hand, the poster *was*
incredibly cool. He then announced that the prize drawing would begin.
The first two prizes drawn were signed firsts of Linda Medley's "Castle
Waiting" and Charles Vess' "Book of Ballads and Sagas." I already had
both (although, IIRC, the Vess was signed by all contributors, whereas
mine just had the signatures of Charles Vess and Neil Gaiman), so I
wasn't too disappointed at not winning them. The next prize, though, was
something that I didn't have (although I knew Robin and Bob did): a
signed first of "Bone."

Imaginary drum roll noise rolled through my subconscious, a hand was
dipped into the bowl, and the business card was drawn forth:
"Collector's Cards," the voice called out. Kewl! I was pumped. *Really*
pumped. I never did ask Jeff if it was a *first* first, or the reprint
first he did for those trade shows way back when... which doesn't matter
to me, but which did seem to matter to the Overpriced Street Guide when
I looked it up later. It's a keeper either way, so I'm not going to
worry much about it. It also relieved me of the worry about what to do
if I should win the jam drawing. A moment later, the Grand Prize winner
was drawn: "Big Entertainment."

The muttering around me started almost immediately. "They don't even
*have* a store!" the woman I had been chatting with complained.

When another bystander looked confused, I explained. "They have several
mall kiosks." I turned back to the woman. "The kiosk at North Point Mall
might be big enough to house this poster," I offered.

She moved on to complaint number two. "They're the folks responsible for
those awful Tekno Comix."

"Somebody oughta screw up the drawing," someone suggested, helpfully.

"You've got to mess up the drawing," the woman told Evan Dorkin, who had
just borrowed my pen to do his detail work. He obviously hadn't heard
the commotion.

"They're the guys who do those Tekno Comix," she elaborated.

"That's it!" said Evan. "I'm drawing cocks all over the place, then."

He didn't, of course. He was a good citizen, and the folks at Big
Entertainment should show their proper appreciation of how he resisted
temptation, and order lot and *lots* of copies of "Milk and Cheese."

Actually, the guy who won the poster was pretty cool; indeed, all of the
folks at the various Big Entertainment kiosks around here are pretty
nice people. Keeping that in mind, we were all able to offer
more-or-less heartfelt congratulations to the winner, when he came back
down to earth enough to collect his prize. And none of us actually beat
him up even a little to steal his new prized possession.

All told, the party was incredibly cool. The artists were entertaining,
the other guests were mostly pretty nice, and the food was both hot and
edible. The best part (aside from winning the Bone #1, of course) was
watching all of the artists at work, one right after the other. It was
interesting to note the different ways they worked. Jeff Smith, for
instance, was able to grab a sharpie and whip out his drawing faster
than you could say "cow race." Evan Dorkin, on the other hand, was much
more careful, rough-penciling his drawing before inking it. Mike Allred
didn't pencil, but drew each perfect line very slowly and deliberately.
Charles Vess' tree seemed to grow organically as he drew it. Linda
Medley's drawing seemed at times like an unfinished connect-the-dots
while she was working on it: a line would appear, and then another
couple of lines, and you couldn't figure out what they were going to be,
and then another mysterious line would appear, and another, and then
suddenly one more line would appear and *aha!* a face would emerge, as
if by sudden transmutation.

Eventually, not long after the prize drawings, some official person
called "time," saying that the hotel had to recycle the room for the
next party. We grudgingly collected our goodies, took a last wistful
look at the jam drawing, and left. Walking out the door, I ran into Jim
Steranko, who was just showing up. "Now that you're here," I told him,
"we're all leaving." This not being usenet, he was immediately able to
tell that I was joking, fortunately, even without the use of emoticons
(just as well -- I would have felt funny turning my head sideways before
smiling).

The woman I had been talking with had decided that this other guy who
had been hanging around her seemed a bit too *interested* for her
comfort, and asked me to walk with her back to the Inforum (which is
where I was headed anyway, to meet my wife at the Masquerade Contest).
Indeed, it seemed quite hard for her -- for us -- to politely ditch him;
but eventually, when we exited the Hyatt and headed west on Harris
Street, there was no sight of him behind (or beside) us.

We ran into someone she knew as soon as we got to the Inforum, and I
took my leave, dropping my new treasures off in the car before returning
to try to find Angie at the Masquerade Contest. Little did I know that
every step I took was taking me one step closer to the Stairway to Hell,
which lurked, unseen, just over the horizon of my near future.

But, not surprisingly, that's *another* story.


- Ray R.


PS - I believe that there is at least one pro artist whom I either left
out or misidentified, although I can't imagine who it might be. Sorry; I
wasn't taking notes or anything, and no one I know thought to get a
picture of the drawing. Although if the very nice person from Big
Entertainment is reading this, I would love it if, in recognition of the
fact that we didn't all beat him up and steal his drawing, he could take
a picture of his prize... I'd be happy to come out to the mall --
whichever mall -- to look at it. Heck -- when I talked with them the
next day, it seemed like the Trilogy folks would have liked a picture of
it, too.

0 new messages