Waiding into the Future

On his blog, Kneon brought up an interesting kerfuffle that went down during the recent Baltimore Comic-Con. Boom!'s Mark Waid got considerable flak for making some comments about how comics creators need to accommodate themselves to the file-sharing of comics material over the Internet. For my own part, I am surprised that comics companies haven't made more of a move towards creating a digital file service that will allow readers to access old materials for a nominal fee. Those entities holding the rights to comics that are no longer published, such as Harvey Comics, also ought to consider digitizing their holdings for the benefit of potential readers who can't afford high back-issue prices. Small-press independents will almost surely switch from print to electronic distribution in the very near future to avoid distribution hassles and make it easier to target their audiences. "Piracy" would no doubt still exist, but publishers could sweeten their offerings by providing "extras" that the cyber-equivalents of "guys going into movie theaters with cameras" simply could not. Proaction, rather than complaining, seems the best remedy in this case.

Baltimore Comic-Con Report

After 19 years of contact, I finally got to meet Mark Lungo when he came to stay at our house this past weekend for the Baltimore Comic-Con. Another old friend, Chuck Munson, arrived on Saturday and also spent the night at our place. We were sorry other "regulars" weren't able to make it, but "real life" has that annoying habit of sometimes intervening.

The Con was, as ever, a refreshing reminder of the ways comic-cons used to be. No hoo-hah about upcoming blockbuster films or cult TV shows -- just a plain ol' dealer's room and a slate of panels devoted, first and foremost, to comics and comics creators. Publishers were well represented, with the shocking exceptions of DC and Marvel (which, to be fair, did spoon out some "dish" at panels dedicated to the companies' upcoming projects). Boom!'s personnel were friendly and helpful and smiled "stay tuned" in response to our questions about future DISNEY CLASSICS hardback editions and additional titles based on Disney Afternoon series. As things turned out, there was some late-breaking news on the latter front that will surely have made a certain segment of DAFTies "nuts" by now. More below...

Saturday's itinerary included a side trip to Geppi's Entertainment Museum, which
was offering half-price admission to all Con-goers who brought their ticket stubs
with them. It didn't take long for me to notice that some of the artwork that had been on hand when GEM opened had disappeared. Half of the display cases in the 19th-century exhibit were empty for reasons of "renovation" (which, in Baltimore parlance, usually means that you've got a long wait ahead of you before things get fixed). But it was nice to see "all that cool stuff" again, and the gift shop is extremely well appointed, with a nice selection of books, plushies, and chatchkas.

From Geppi's, we met Nicky and proceeded to M&T Bank Stadium to watch the preseason game between the Ravens and the Giants. Nicky was able to get cheap tix via StubHub, and, trio of Con-going fanboys though we were, we weren't going to pass up the chance to see an NFL game, albeit a meaningless one. Unfortunately, we got stuck right in front of an obnoxious, drunken loudmouth fan who divided his time between yelling inane comments about how "great" preseason was and flirting with a girl in the row in front of us. (The girl's boyfriend was present, and we learned after we left that there had been a fight in our premises after halftime... Coincidence??) We were planning to leave early in any event, but the noisy nuisance and his neighboring enablers made it easier to depart. By the time we got home, we were pretty much pooped...

...On second thought, scratch the "pretty much."

Sunday morning saw Chuck take off to visit his mom in New Jersey and Mark and I essay another run at the Con. We saw a good panel, a "Spotlight on Sergio Aragones" in which the MAD cartoonist and creator of Groo dispensed with the usual interlocutors and worked the room while wielding a handheld microphone. He's funny, but not quite as wacky as I would have imagined him being. The ingenuous, "Spanglish"-speaking naif who occasionally pops up as "Sergio" in Aragones' works is evidently a fanciful creation. Aragones dropped the interesting news that he is working on another GROO miniseries that will feature Groo vs. ... Conan! So what do you do when two such towering titans meet? Doesn't one of them have to lose? All I'll say here is that Sergio appears to have come up with a good solution to that particular dilemma. Earlier in the Con, we also saw the tail end of a panel spotlighting Denis Kitchen (who's apparently preparing a biography of Al Capp -- no surprise there, given Kitchen Sink Press' series of LI'L ABNER reprints) and a panel starring Mike Allred, creator of MADMAN. Attendance could have been better at all three events, but no one was trying to "spin" anything, create "synergy," or establish "buzz"... just impart some interesting "inside infor" about comics.

Purchases? Yes, we made some purchases. I got about a dozen RICHIE RICH comics from the 1960s, continuing my tortuous crawl towards the glittering goal of a complete RICHIE collection... a goal I'm certainly never going to achieve. Chuck got Don Rosa (who originally wasn't on the list of attendees... but c'mon, those piles of Golden Age and Silver Age cover parodies aren't going to sell themselves!) to sign a print of Scrooge, Magica, and Glomgold for Chuck's daughter Kathryn. Mark got a 60s BUGS BUNNY comic "introducing" a female bunny character that I'm sure even the hardiest of die-hard Warner Bros. fans have forgotten about. The best news from the Con, however, was (as the ads have it) ABSOLUTELY FREE...

... Boom! will publish a CHIP AND DALE'S RESCUE RANGERS title starting in December. No doubt we have the surprising success of the DARKWING DUCK title to thank for this; I seriously doubt that the DuckTales material running in UNCLE $CROOGE had much to do with it. Boom!'s confidence is reflected by the fact that it's giving the Rangers a continuing title right off the bat, with no intervening mini-series to test the waters. Ian Brill, the writer of the DARKWING title, will also handle the writing chores for the Rangers, with Leonel Castellani doing the artwork. Nothing against Brill's involvement, but I'm kind of nervous about these original DAFT creations being assigned to a single writer; I'd feel a bit better if Boom! tried to find a C&DRR "specialist" at some point. The stakes are somewhat higher for a RANGERS book, as well; the well-organized and vocal C&DRR fandom, with its fond memories of Disney Comics' impressive RANGERS effort, will no doubt be a tougher crowd to please than the fans of Darkwing who'd never seen DW in a continuing title with original material (the four issues published by Disney in 1991-92 were simply an adaptation of "Darkly Dawns the Duck"). Give Boom! credit, though, for seeing an opening and attempting to "run to daylight."

Charm City Con, take VI, and more

My sixth visit to the Baltimore Comic-Con was easily the most prosaic. With Gemstone not troubling itself to reserve a table, there was no natural "nexus" to which to repair. Sorry, but Don Rosa's personal niche doesn't count. (Not that I wasn't happy to see Keno Don after his recent eye surgery; he seemed to have little difficulty sketching and signing pics for the fans who dropped by to say hi. Of course, doing the detail work required for another story is on another level of difficulty entirely.) Joe Torcivia, David Gerstein, and Jonathan Gray were staying at David's apartment in York, so it took them a while to get down to the Inner Harbor on Saturday and Sunday -- especially on Saturday, when rain lashed the area. As a result, I was on my own a great deal of the time. I picked up a comic here and there, concentrating mostly on nabbing back issues of WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES featuring SCAMP stories by Al Hubbard. That being said, I was most pleased to find an inexpensive copy of Dell LUDWIG VON DRAKE #4, in which Scamp appeared in an APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE back-up story drawn by Tony Strobl. Why, you ask? Well, (1) Strobl didn't draw Scamp that often, and (2) Scamp normally exists in a world of humans, so this appearance has a definite "Elseworlds" flavor to it.


I also registered something of a "protest" by purchasing DVD collections of Disney TV's Kim Possible and Wuzzles, "unauthorized" though they were. I am getting fed up with Disney DVD's reluctance to release the remaining volumes of episodes of the WDTVA "Golden Age" series and figured, why not give the laggard unit a poke in the ribs of sorts?

On Saturday, Joe, David, Jonathan, and I had a nice dinner at Burke's, still a favorite downtown restaurant of mine after all these years. Everyone seems to be doing well, and David reported that Gemstone is hauling tail to catch up in its release schedule. The July issues were released last week, with Gemstone shuffling the pre-announced contents to take the publishing delays into account. Reviews will appear in this space anon.

UPDATE (8/16/14):  Sadly, Burke's closed on January 1, 2011.

Boner! (...huh-huh, huh-huh-m-huh-huh-huh...)

Not much comics news to post about of late, but I wanted to take special note of the 100th anniversary of one of baseball's most notorious controversies... the fabled "Merkle's Boner" play in a game between the Giants and the Cubs at the height of the 1908 pennant race. The CHICAGO TRIBUNE had an article about Fred Merkle's notorious gaffe (if gaffe it truly was -- opinions differ to this day) on its Web site this morning, and many other outlets are doubtless making mention of the centennial, especially in light of the fact that the Cubs have a legit shot at winning the World Series for the first time since that fateful season. The "Boner" has been a focal point of some notable literary works, including one of my favorite baseball books -- G.H. Fleming's THE UNFORGETTABLE SEASON -- and a more recent one called CRAZY '08 that I've been meaning to read but have not yet gotten around to perusing.

The Baltimore Comic-Con takes place this weekend. I hope to have some pics & news for you soon afterward.