New York 2008 Comic Con Report, Part 2

I concluded my tour of the New York Comic Con Saturday, where I picked up the spoils of Friday's hard work--my sketches!

I made my way to the tables of Rich Buckler, Joe Staton, and Patrick Gleason, respectively, and each time I was thrilled with what I got--Aquaman, Aquaman, and more Aquaman! They will, of course, all show up here soon.

I saw that Peter David was at his table, and I wanted to stop by and thank him for doing an AquaShrine interview (which, like the sketches, will show up here soon). As I waited in line, I realized I should start a page in the sketchbook for the writers, too, so I decided to ask Peter to be the first:

..um, there will be more.

Anyway, the biggest difference between yesterday and today were the crowds. Today, the Javitz Center was packed, with some aisles impossible to pass through.

...I don't know if I'm partly claustrophobic or something, but something about crowds this big makes me a tad uneasy, so I decided I wasn't going to hang around forever. It all just feels too stressful.

I found my way over to longtime artist Frank McLaughlin's table. He was extremely friendly, and I told him, after like a billion issues together on JLA, the names "Dillin & McLaughlin" was like "Lennon & McCartney" to me. He worked on an Aquaman sketch as we talked, and not only did he do a fine job, but he agreed to do an interview with me for my JLA Satellite blog. What a pal!

Just a few tables down was Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. And while I ruled out asking for a sketch, I did consider asking him for an autograph--in this case, I brought along a F.O.A.M. certificate, which I thought would be cool, since it has his work on it. But I also wondered how the hell I was going to explain what I was asking him to sign.

But before I could figure that out, another bullish fan stepped forth, and dropped what looked like a longbox full of comics on his table, "asking" him to sign. Jose, even more of a gentleman than I could've imagined, signed them all, even about ten copies of the same book. Criminy, did this guy have no shame?

The answer was "no", because he kept grabbing the books out from under JLGL and then fwapping down another one. I felt like Jose was a bit signed out at the moment, so I decided to wander off and come back later.

I then called my pal Paul Kupperberg, who I knew would be at the show. I met him and his son, honorary F.O.A.M. member Max, a few aisles away. As good as I thought my sketchbook was, Max's is truly a wonder to behold--a tiny, notebook-sized pad, with headshots by Adams, Byrne, Kubert, Staton, Adams again, and about a dozen more comics legends. Something about being eleven and his Dad having worked with all these guys helped Max secure a wondrous group of artists. Gee, my Dad sold insurance.

Anyway, Paul and I talked for a bit, and I decided I would make one more visit to Jose and then split. (Paul told me Neal Adams avoids the Obnoxious Signer problem by charging for the second autograph onwards, which seems like an eminently reasonable solution to the problem)

So I make my way to Jose's table and...you guessed it. He was gone. I sighed, decided to take one more tour around and come back. In the meantime, amid the few dozen women dressed in clothes enough for three of them, I met the original Green Lantern!:

Now that's dedication to a costume! Had I wanted to be a smartass, I would've lobbed a pencil at him, Lantern being unable to stop it.

One of the coolest surprises was when I was walking by and spotted this--comedic actor Scot Adsit, who is a regular on 30 Rock (which I love) and was a regular on the late, great HBO series Mr. Show. I normally don't bug famous people, even if I'm a fan, but I couldn't pass this up.

I introduced myself and told him I was a fan of his dating back to Mr. Show, my favorite sketch he was in being a brilliantly insane one about how "Monster Party Songs" are actually real. He played a psychiatrist who gets a little too into his work, and Scott said of the sketch "Yeah, I had no idea they were going to make me masturbate in that." Feeling there was no way to top that, I shook his hand again and moved on. Wow, cool!

I then went and visited my friends Ed and John at their All Things Fun booth, as well as stopping by the Abrams Publishing one to shake hands with Mark Evanier to thank him for all the help he's given me with these blogs(Mark was the first interview I did for TreasuryComics.com, and his promotion of the site really helped put it on the map).

I tried Jose one last time, but he was still gone. Ah, it seems like every year there's one pro I get so close to talking to/getting a sketch from but it somehow slips through my fingers. Let's hope Jose is there next year--I'm heading there first.

(Strangely, Craig Hamilton never showed--I hope nothing's wrong. I very much wanted to meet Craig in person and thank him for all he's done for me and the Shrine)

As I walked back to the Port Authority, on a wonderfully sunny day, I came across this row of billboards:

...A Spirit movie and an IronMan movie?

It's a comic book world, and we're just living in it.