For the first part of this story, click here. For the second part of this story, click here. If you're up to speed, proceed to the next paragraph — and I warn you: I'm not going to finish this time.
It was 2002 and the big Comic-Con International was soon to occur in San Diego. I had been drafted into service as the wholly unnecessary moderator of a panel with Ray Bradbury and his first agent, Julius Schwartz. This was obviously a fine idea for a panel in and of itself but the reason it was arranged was because Julie, God love him, was looking for a way to convince the convention organizers that they should agree to pay to bring him out to the convention. And agree they did.
So two weeks before the con (he says, subtly shifting tenses), I get a call from one of those organizers. I'm not certain which one but I'm thinking it was Gary Sassaman. That con has a lot of organizers. Whoever it was, he reminds me that Al Feldstein is a Guest of Honor that year, which I know because I'm already hosting two or more panels on which Al is appearing —
— and really looking forward to them. I have a lot of heroes in comics and Al Feldstein is high on the list. He'd be up there just for his stewardship of MAD magazine for 29 years. Those included the year I discovered it and it had a profound impact, wholly for the better, on this sense of humor that I've somehow been able to parlay into not just a career but an approach to life. That Feldstein also wrote and edited some of the best comics ever for EC has always been kind of a bonus reason for me to admire the guy.
"Al called," the person who may have been Gary Sassaman says. "He never met Ray Bradbury and was wondering if he could crash the panel you're hosting with Ray and Julie."
The first-ever meeting between Bradbury and the man who adapted his work for EC Comics? Sounds like a great idea to me but it doesn't sound like one to Julie when I run it by him. "This is a panel about Ray and me," he says. "Not Ray and Al Feldstein. If you want to do a panel about them, talk to Ray and see if he'll do a separate panel with Al." But of course when he says this, Julie knows full well that Bradbury will only do one program event each year…and the following year, Al Feldstein won't be a Guest of Honor at the con.
I can make the case for Julie's viewpoint: He did arrange this event and he arranged it as the two of them. Julie's role in Ray's early career has gone somewhat unheralded and I assume (correctly, I later learn) that one of Ray's reasons for doing the joint appearance is that he wants to shine some light on his friend that way. It's also going to be the biggest event Julie has ever done at the con. Ordinarily, he's on panels where the audience is in the hundreds. This time because of Ray, the crowd will be in the thousands. When Julie starts lobbying the con to make him a Guest in 2003, which he will do, it won't hurt to point out that he was half of one of the most important, well-attended panels of '02. Add Feldstein into it and Julie could easily become an extra at an event in which he was supposed to co-star.
But I also think this: Ray Bradbury and Al Feldstein finally meeting is a historic moment…and it will happen. It will happen at that convention, somewhere. If it's not on a panel in front of an audience, I will drag Al over and introduce him to Ray in the dealer's room or in the professional lounge or at adjacent urinals in the men's room or somewhere. It would be nice if I wasn't the only witness to this event and if it wasn't in the men's room.
The next thing that happens is that I speak with Al. In his account of the panel which I will quote here before we're done, he recalls that I phoned him and said, "I'm hosting the panel." I recall him calling me and saying, "I hear you're hosting the panel." Whatever the sequence of events, I tell him to come to the panel and sit in the front row or as close as he can get. I will find an opening to bring him up on stage no matter what Julie wants. I then coordinate with the con's Programming Director — who at the time was, I'm sure, Gary Sassaman — and the schedule is slightly rearranged. Al Feldstein has a panel of his own that day showing off the fine work he's been doing in retirement as a painter and it was opposite the Bradbury-Schwartz coffee klatsch. It is moved to later in the day so as to not conflict.
So now it's Saturday, August 3, fifteen minutes or so before the panel. Julie comes up to me and suggests that we start the panel with just him and me on stage. The idea is that I will introduce him first since Ray is, as Julie readily agrees, the bigger celebrity. That's the way to do it but Julie wants Ray to then make an entrance and this I am against. Ray is walking poorly, being wheelchaired around the con, and there is no wheelchair lift for the stage. Instead, there are stairs he will have to ascend using a walker. Since there's no curtain there, he's going to have to do that in full view of the audience with people assisting him. Better to have that sad awkwardness before the panel starts when the audience won't be paying as much attention…and applauding.
Julie says, "If he doesn't make an entrance, he won't get a standing ovation. Ray deserves a standing ovation."
I say, "I absolutely agree he deserves a standing ovation. He will get a standing ovation."
Julie says, "Not if he's already on stage. He needs to make an entrance for that to happen."
I assure Julie — nay, I promise him — that even though the panel will start with Ray Bradbury already seated on stage, he will receive a standing ovation when I introduce him.
Someone wheels Ray to the edge of the stage and he climbs the stairs holding onto bannisters on either side and then uses a walker to get to his chair. It takes a while and I'm glad we are not trying to do this after the panel starts and all eyes are on him. A minute or two before the start time, Ray is comfortably seated between Julie and me. That's when Julie comes over and whispers, "This was a mistake. The audience is not going to give him a standing ovation now."
I offer to bet Julie $25,000 that the audience will give Ray Bradbury a standing ovation. Julie mutters something about how he hopes I know what I'm doing and returns to his seat.
The panel begins with me introducing myself as quickly as I can. I then introduce Julie and take a few moments to recount his immense contributions to the worlds of comic books and science-fiction. He receives a very nice round of applause from somewhere between 4000 and 5000 people who have come to this event.
Then I yell out — and I did this in actual italicized capital letters — "AND WOULD YOU SHOW YOUR LOVE FOR THE BEST DAMN WRITER OF SCIENCE-FICTION AND FANTASY THE BUSINESS HAS EVER SEEN, MR. RAY BRADBURY!" Before I even get near the "MR.", those four to five thousand people are on their feet, cheering and clapping and stomping and just plain loving Mr. Ray Bradbury. The ovation is so thunderous that videogame companies exhibiting in the hall downstairs call to complain about the noise.
You want to know why I host so many panels at conventions, folks? It's so that every so often, I can feel like I made something like that happen. They would have leaped up for him anyway but I got to feel like I'd given Ray a little gift. It's a real thrill and as an added attraction, I can look over at Julie with a stare in my direction for which he should have paid royalties to the Jack Benny Estate. It's one of those "Okay, so I was wrong" looks that us writers love to get from editors.
As the applause is dying out and the crowd is settling back down into its seats, I look out and see Al Feldstein in the third row, sitting down in unison with everyone else. And I think, "Y'know, if I ever have something called a 'blog' and I ever tell this story on it, this would be a good time to leave everyone with a cliffhanger and tell them they'll have to come back tomorrow to read the conclusion."